Research Outputs (Biblical and Ancient studies)
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Item Plague as discourse in John of Ephesus` account of the Justinianic plague (ca. 542-544 CE)(2022-08-18) De Wet, Chris LItem The spelling eye and the listening ear: oral poetics and New Testament writings(2018-05) Botha, Pieter J.J.Concepts such as orality, media criticism, manuscript culture, oral reading and performance have been introduced to New Testament scholarship since the 1980s, but their impact on and contribution to mainstream research are still in question. A resurgent interest in these socio-cultural notions is raising fundamental questions about approaches to and conclusions about early Christian texts. Some of the implications and possibilities of these developments are reviewed and briefly illustrated. Rather than emphasising another method or 'criticism' that could be 'added' to the repertoire of biblical scholarship, it is proposed that a multifaceted conceptualising of ' speaking-hearing-remembering' , an ' oral poetics' , inform NT scholarship.Item The Battle Against Hazor and Jael’s Deadly Hospitality (Judges 4–5)(Unisa Press, 2018-10-24) Le Roux, MagdelThe story of the fourth judge (Judges 4–5) is full of surprises, just like the previous stories (Judges 1–3). In the dominant body ideology related to good order, an Israelite man without any blemish was the epitome of a pure, ideal, or whole body. Contrary to the “expected literary depiction”, it is again the “unwhole, different-functioning bodies” which are depicted as “producing survival for the corporate body” (Van der Merwe and Coetzee 2009). Deborah, an Israelite lawgiver and prophetess, and Jael, a Kenite woman, are used in an unexpected way. The juxtaposition of different-functioning bodies serves as a counterculture rhetoric in the form of a hidden polemic. Much attention has been paid to the roles of Deborah and Barak in the battle against Hazor, but Jael’s role has elicited limited reflection by scholars and has been overshadowed by her “questionable” hospitality. A socio-rhetorical approach will make it possible to identify rhetorical techniques that the writer uses to highlight social relations, regulations and ideologies in the text (Van der Merwe and Coetzee 2009, 678). Archaeological excavations at Hazor from the last 25 years provide valuable background information to this battle.Item The spelling eye versus the listening ear: oral poetics and New Testament writings(Scriptura Publishers, 2018-05) Botha, Pieter J.J.Concepts such as orality, media criticism, manuscript culture, oral reading and performance have been introduced to New Testament scholarship since the 1980s, but their impact on and contribution to mainstream research are still in question. A resurgent interest in these socio-cultural notions is raising fundamental questions about approaches to and conclusions about early Christian texts. Some of the implications and possibilities of these developments are reviewed and briefly illustrated. Rather than emphasising another method or 'criticism' that could be 'added' to the repertoire of biblical scholarship, it is proposed that a multifaceted conceptualising of ' speaking-hearing-remembering' , an ' oral poetics' , inform NT scholarship.