Stones, Tablets, and Scrolls: Periods of the Formation of the Bible

A constant re-evaluation of the new archaeological and textual material unearthed and edited in recent decades is a recurrent duty of ancient and modern scholars. Since the overwhelming amount of available data and the complexity of new methodologies can be competently handled only by specialized scholars, such a re-evaluation is no longer possible for a single scholar. For this reason, archaeologists, cuneiform and biblical scholars as well as classicists joined forces at an international conference in Rome in May 2017 to share their accumulated knowledge. The results of the proceedings are presented here in the oral stage along with the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greco-Roman periods. Survey of contents Peter Dubovský: Introduction Part 1: Write My Commands on the Tablet of Your Heart (Oral and Written Tradition in Israel) Diana Edelman: The Text-Dating Conundrum: Viewing Genesis and Kings from an Achaemenid Framework – Jean Louis Ska: The Tablet of the Heart and the Tablets of Stone: Orality and Jurisprudence in Ancient Israel Part 2: The Saviors of Israel (Early Neo-Assyrian Period) Peter Dubovský: The Birth of Israelite Historiography: A Comparative Study of 2 Kings 13‒14 and Ninth‒Eighth-Century BCE Levantine Historiographies – Israel Finkelstein: Northern Royal Traditions in the Bible and the Ideology of a »United Monarchy« Ruled from Samaria – Thomas Römer: Jeroboam II and the Invention of Northern Sanctuaries and Foundation Stories Part 3: Royal Carrot and Stick (Late Neo-Assyrian Period) Alice M. W. Hunt: Materiality and Ideology: Negotiating Identity across the Neo-Assyrian Imperial Landscape – Eckart Frahm: Texts, Stories, History: The Neo-Assyrian Period and the Bible – Peter Machinist: Manasseh of Judah: A Case Study in Biblical Historiography Part 4: Singing the Lord's Song in a Foreign Land (Neo-Babylonian Period) Jeffrey R. Zorn: The View from Mizpah: Tell en-Naṣbeh, Judah, the Sixth Century BCE, and the Formation of the Biblical Text – Michael Jursa/Céline Debourse: Late Babylonian Priestly Literature from Babylon – Erhard Blum: The Diachrony of Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch: The Cases of Deuteronomy 1–3 and the Prophetic Tent of Meeting Tradition – Hermann-Josef Stipp: The Redactions of the Book of Jeremiah and the Exile Part 5: Rising from the Ashes (Persian Period) Pierfrancesco Callieri: Ideological Aspects of Persian Art and Architecture as Seen from Persepolis, in a Historical Perspective – Agustinus Gianto: Some Notes on Bilingualism and Diglossia in Judah during the Achaemenid Period – Federico Giuntoli: Revising the Pentateuch: The Emergence of a National Identity under Persian Hegemony – Eric M. Meyers: The Rise of Scripture in a Minimalist Demographic Context Part 6: Coping with Western Culture (Greco-Roman Period) Katell Berthelot: The Formation of the Hebrew Bible in a Greco-Roman Context in Light of the Evidence from Qumran – Barbara Schmitz: The Book of Judith and Tyrannicide: How the Book of Judith Takes Up a Greek-Hellenistic Discourse – Emanuel Tov: The Use of Scripture Texts in Different Communities in Ancient Israel in Light of the Judean Desert Texts – Marcello Fidanzio: Biblical Scrolls in Their Depositional Contexts: Psalms as a Case Study – Henryk Drawnel: The Reception of Genesis 6:1–4 in 1 Enoch 6–7