Category: Weblog
מורה הצדק and Qumran Hermeneutics
In working through some bibliography recently for a conference paper proposal about מורה הצדק (the teacher of righteousness), I came across the following: Der Lehrer [der Gerechtigkeit] ist von Gott autorisiert, die Geheimnisse der Prophetenworte zu enträtseln, denn die Worte der Propheten sind Geheimnisse (רזים [pHab] 7,5), die man ohne Auslegung des Lehrers nicht verstehen…
Hermeneutics and “the Near”
Concerning interpreters’ obligation to look beyond themselves, Hans-Georg Gadamer observes the following: We are always affected, in hope and fear, by what is nearest to us, and hence we approach the testimony of the past under its influence. Thus it is constantly necessary to guard against overhastily assimilating the past to our own expectations of…
Paradigms and Communities
In Thomas Kuhn’s analysis, new paradigms attract adherents from older alternatives by producing sufficiently unprecedented achievements, but these new paradigms still leave work to be done because of the new problems that they create or the new issues they suggest (Kuhn 10, 17–18, 80). Yet, the community that accepts a given paradigm implicitly judges the…
Supporting Sheffield’s Students
Biblical Studies students at the University of Sheffield have a new website with a list of ways that others can show support for the Biblical Studies Department there as it faces the possibility of closure. HT: Mark Goodacre, Jim West
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, Volume 32
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD), volume 32, has two codices. According to Oxford University Press: Description DJD XXXII presents the first full critical edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) and the Hebrew University Isaiah Scroll (1QIsab) in the style of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series. That is, whereas the photographs and…
Kuhn and Popper
Thomas Kuhn acknowledges that Sir Karl Popper’s work earlier in the twentieth century somewhat anticipated his own view of science (Kuhn, Essential Tension 267). Nevertheless, Kuhn also identifies two meaningful distinctions that his work has vis-à-vis Popper’s (Worrall 66–71). First, Kuhn perceives favorably deep commitments to normal scientific traditions because these traditions (1) encourage substantive…