فهرست مطالب :
Title Page\nCopyright Page\nContents\nList of Contributors\nTable of Abbreviations\n Explanation of Talmudic Abbreviations\n List of Journal Abbreviations\nEditor Biographies\nHow to Use this Book\nMedia Studies and Biblical Studies: An Introduction\n Important Factors in Understanding Ancient Media\n The Social Contexts of Ancient Media\n The Study of the Bible as/in Ancient Media\n Bibliography\nA\n Abecedaries An abecedary is a text that consists of, or contains, the letters of an alphabet (cf. English ‘A-B-Cs’) written in a conventional order. An alphabetic writing system is one in which the written characters are understood to represent sounds, so\n Actual Past The term actual past is used in discussions of collective/social memory to differentiate ‘what happened’ from its subsequent recollection and commemoration. The actual past consists of events, situations, individuals, and places that existed i\n Alexandria, Library of The great Library of Alexandria was founded in the early third century BCE by scholar and autocrat Demetrios of Phaleron under the patronage of Ptolemy I Soter. Celebrated as the world’s first attempt at a global collection of human\n Amarna Letters Since 1887, approximately 400 cuneiform tablets from an ancient archive have been found in the city of Amarna. Tell el-Amarna was the newly founded capital of Egypt during the reign of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (fourteenth century CE) and his\n Answerability Answerability (sometimes translated ‘responsibility’) is an element of Russian literary theorist M. M. Bakhtin’s theoretical model that builds on the same dialogic sense of reality that permeates all of his thought and writing. Most succinct\n Apocalypses, early Christian Early Christian apocalypses are those documents written in the apocalyptic genre by Christian authors in the first four centuries CE. Understood as a literary genre, apocalypse – broadly speaking – refers to works containing a\n Apocalypses, Early Jewish An apocalypse, from the Greek apocalypsis, ‘unveiling’, is a revelation or uncovering of secrets. As a literary genre, apocalyptic texts purport to reveal or disclose divine secrets, including information regarding forces of natu\n Archives and Libraries Broadly speaking, in the ancient world libraries and archives were places where people collected written texts. In general, a library housed literary texts, while an archive preserved records, technical, documentary, legal, or other\n Assmann, Jan Jan Assmann (b. 1938) is professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg and an honorary professor at the University of Konstanz. Primarily an Egyptologist, Assmann’s publications have broadly addressed the cultures of the an\n Audience Address Audience address is a central dynamic of storytelling performance in which both the storyteller and the audience enter into the roles of characters in the story. For example, in oral performances of episodes or speeches from the Gospels,\n Authorship See Publication (in Antiquity).\nB\n Bakhtin, Mikhail (M. M.) Mikhail Mihailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975) was a Russian Orthodox thinker, philosopher, anthropologist, historian of Hellenistic literature, literary theorist, and specialist in the works of Rabelais and Dostoevsky. Though his histor\n Banquet/Meals A banquet is a formal gathering centred around a festive, communal meal. Modern banquets typically involve special invitations, appetizers, and cocktails prior to the main course, and in some cases assigned seating – features that distinguis\n Baptism (Christian) Baptism was the ceremony of admission into the early Christian community. In the first four centuries it was normally administered by immersion in water (Mt. 3.6, 16; Acts 8.38-39) and accompanied by a confession of faith.\n Bauman, Richard Richard Bauman has had a long, distinguished, and varied academic career at the interstices between folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, semiotics, and speech communication, contributing to the development of both theory and metho\n Bible in Ancient and Modern Media Research Unit (Society of Biblical Literature) The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media Section (BAMM) is a collaborative research unit founded in the Society of Biblical Literature in 1983 to promote media-critical study of\n Blessings and Curses Blessings and curses are pronouncements of boon and doom enforced by divine or supernatural power. The content of blessings and curses is strongly related to the social function and settings in which they are pronounced. In the biblic\n Biosphere (oral) In media criticism, the term biosphere refers to the total physical, human, and social context in which an oral utterance (of any length) is delivered and received. The biosphere model highlights the impact of the physical presence of the\n Bultmann, Rudolf Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) was a German NT scholar who ranks among the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. His historical-critical biblical work has profoundly shaped NT scholarship. In addition to his impact on bibl\nC\n Canon/Scripture The word canon (Greek κανών) originally meant a device that kept other things straight, a measuring stick, or a norm or rule (Gal. 6.16), but it could also denote a normative list or a catalogue. When the early church applied the term to t\n Catechism See Early Christian Catechism.\n Chirograph A chirograph is a handwritten document. Like its Latin equivalent manuscript (manus/‘hand’ + scriptus/‘writing’), chirograph is loanword to English from the Greek adjective cheirographos (cheir/‘hand’ + graphos/‘writing’). Broadly speaking, chi\n Chronotope The term chronotope was borrowed from Einsteinian physics by Russian literary theorist M. M. Bakhtin to call attention to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships artistically expressed in literature. In Bakhtin’s theor\n Circumcision Male circumcision (from the Latin circumcidere, ‘to cut around’) refers to the removal of the foreskin, or prepuce, from the penis, as instructed in the biblical priestly sources (Gen. 17.1-21; Exod. 12.44, 48; Lev. 12.3) for newborn males ag\n Codeswitching Codeswitching is generally defined as the intentional alternate use of language codes (two or more languages, dialects, or varieties) in the same utterance or conversation (Lee 2012: 335–41; cf. Bullock and Toribio 2009: 2–5). Codeswitching\n Codex The codex (Latin cōdex; also caudex, ĭcis, m.) as a form of literate media derived from tablets that Romans used to record official documents such as contracts, edicts, and legal proceedings or formal (yet relatively impermanent) household accounts\n Cognitive/Personal Memory The term cognitive or personal memory refers to the capacity of individuals to recall and describe events, individuals, and experiences from the past, either the personal past or the collective past of a larger group, the latter\n Coins Coins were one of the most prolific tools of mass communication, ideology, and propaganda in the ancient Mediterranean world, and as such represent an important primary source for studying the historical background and sociocultural dynamics of bibl\n Cold Memory/Hot Memory The terms cold memory and hot memory were developed by Werner Kelber to identify the two complementary functions of recollections of the past in a group’s collective memory. Social memory theorists argue that memory works both ‘to r\n Collective Memory/Social Memory Collective memory is a broad rubric under which are often gathered a number of aspects of memory considered as a social and cultural phenomenon (see cultural memory). Properly understood and defined, these aspects cast ligh\n Colon A colon (kōlon; plural, cola) is the basic unit of Greek prose, measured by the length of a breath (Demetrius Elocution 1). A colon is incomplete; the Greek word connotes a member, a component of a larger whole (Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.9.7; Demetrius,\n Commemorative Narrative See Master Commemorative Narrative.\n Communicative Economy The term communicative economy was coined by John Miles Foley both to denote a metaphorical economy of communication and also to describe the economical communication of oral performance and oral-traditional works. In the first sense\n Communicative Memory The expression communicative memory was introduced by the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann and initially denoted a subcategory of Maurice Halbwachs’ collective memory. It refers to the recent past and delineates a vivid, communicated,\n Conversation Analysis Conversation analysis is the study of talk-in-interaction in naturally occurring situations and, as such, resists using data collected from experiments. Conversation analysis has its beginnings in the work of sociologist Harvey Sacks\n Countermemory Countermemory is best understood in opposition to, or as a form of and/or subset within, a group’s collective memory. Whereas collective memory denotes the social frameworks within which an individual locates and interprets his or her memori\n Culley, Robert Charles Robert Charles Culley (1932–2013) was professor of Hebrew Bible/OT at McGill University and Presbyterian College from 1967 to 1997. He is the author of several monographs on oral-formulaic language and patterns in biblical literatu\n Cultural Memory The term cultural memory was introduced by the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann as a subcategory of Maurice Halbwachs’ collective memory. The term refers broadly to a community’s canonized memory of the remote past, as such memory normativ\n Cylinder Seals Cylinder seals represent an ancient technology of mark-making whereby a spool-shaped object is rolled across a pliable surface, usually clay, in order to leave an impression (or sealing). As visual media, cylinder seals and sealings communi\nD\n Dance Dance appears in the Hebrew Bible and NT as one of many embodied expressions of emotion, including particularly praise and worship to God. Throughout Scripture, dance is admonished as a form of praise (e.g. Pss 149; 150; Eccl. 3), and the Bible and\n Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Judean Desert Texts The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) comprise a collection of approximately 900 manuscripts discovered in caves near the Wadi Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea beginning in 1947. The documents are composed\n Dialogism Dialogism is widely recognized as the signature concept in the theoretical work of Russian literary theorist M. M. Bakhtin. Though Bakhtin himself did not use the term, his late writings allude briefly and impressionistically to ‘dialogical rela\n Dibelius, Martin Martin Dibelius (1863–1947) was a German NT scholar whose pioneering work on Jesus tradition, the Gospels, and the historical Jesus was foundational to the development of Form Criticism. Dibelius also significantly contributed to the stud\n Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis (sometimes referred to as textlinguistics) refers to any of various means of examining discourse using a range of linguistic tools. Such analysis usually involves study of language elements at or above the level of th\n Drama (Greco-Roman) Drama is an event, not a genre: it is a mode of presenting a story in a performance format. The word drama is derived from the Greek verb draō (‘to do’ or ‘to act’) and entails the enactment of a plot through gestures and/or speech and\n Dundes, Alan Alan Dundes (1934–2005) was an internationally acclaimed American folklorist and anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley whose vast array of studies was informed to a large degree by the application of Freudian psychology t\nE\n Early Christian Catechism A catechism is a manual used for teaching or learning Christian faith, and the word is derived from the Greek katechein, meaning ‘to teach’ or ‘to instruct’. While no manual could have existed in the first generation or two of th\n Early Christian Literature Early Christian texts offer many insights into the intersection between written documents and other means of communication in the early Christian movement(s). This entry concentrates on texts traditionally considered Christian l\n Early Christian Preaching Preaching, or public proclamation and teaching, was one of the most common ways that early Christians would have encountered the Scriptures and scriptural interpretation. While the formal structure of sermons was not developed un\n Early Jewish Literature The term early Jewish literature typically refers to writings that can be approximately dated to the period between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE and the first or second century CE, that is, before\n Early Jewish Preaching Early Jewish preaching served as the forerunner of Christian and Islamic preaching and provided the gateway to a tradition that survived, with some interruptions, through the Medieval period and on into the present day in sermons gi\n Education, Hellenistic Education in schools throughout the Greco-Roman world was a luxury that only a small percentage of families could afford. Of those receiving formal education, most completed only primary school, and only a few progressed to intermed\n Education in Ancient Israel Throughout history, education has always begun in the home, where children learn from elders and siblings basic language skills and culture in the course of daily tasks, especially during meals and the process of food preparati\n Elephantine Papyri Opposite the city of Syene (modern Aswan), on the east bank of the Nile, lies the island of Elephantine. In the fifth century BCE, when Egypt was under Persian rule (Dynasty 27), an Aramaeo-Jewish Diaspora community lived on the island.\n Enchiridion Enchiridion is an Anglicized Latin term (derived in turn from the Greek enkheiridion, ‘that which is held in the hand’) that refers to a personal manual or handbook. As a genre of ancient literature, handbooks functioned as central locations f\n 1 Enoch/Enochic Traditions 1 Enoch is a Jewish text written from the early third century BCE to the first century CE that contains a variety of revelations attributed to Enoch, the antediluvian patriarch briefly mentioned in Gen. 5.24. While the text is o\n Epigraphy The corpus of epigraphic texts (written inscriptions on physical objects, ranging from small household items to large public buildings) from the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds is vast, dwarfing many times over the amount of materi\n Equiprimordiality Equiprimordiality refers to the equality of originals that is characteristic of oral culture, as opposed to the concept of a singular original archetype characteristic of print culture. The principle of equiprimordiality indicates that e\n Ethnography of Speaking The ethnography of speaking is a hybridizing approach to the study of human speaking that draws together and employs an unrestricted range of theories and methods from folklore, linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology.\n Ethnopoetics Ethnopoetics is a collective term for a variety of perspectives on, and approaches to, the study of relationships between non-Western oral verbal performances and their renderings in written texts. It is especially aimed at capturing or resto\n Eucharist The Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, is a symbolic community consumption of food and drink (normally bread and wine) that has served as a ‘ritual of remembrance’ in Christianity since its beginnings. The memorial aspect of the ritual is already evid\n Exorcism The Greek term exorkismos (‘binding by oath’) derives from the verb exorkoō (‘cause to swear, adjure’). These words can designate 1) the act of driving out, or deterring, demonic beings from persons and places believed to be possessed by them; or\nF\n Fasting Fasting is an ascetic ritual practice that entails the voluntary abstention from food and drink for a finite period of time. Since the physical body requires nourishment to survive, fasting is a form of self-denial that negates one’s bodily needs\n Finnegan, Ruth Ruth Finnegan is a social anthropologist with an interest in many aspects of human communication. Her original fieldwork was among the Limba people of Sierra Leone, and she has continued to write on African oral literature throughout her ca\n Flashbulb Memory The term flashbulb memory was coined by Roger Brown and James Kulik to describe ‘memories for the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event’ (1977: 73). The metaphor de\n Foley, John Miles John Miles Foley (1947–2012) was the W. H. Byler Endowed Chair in the Humanities at the University of Missouri, where he held appointments in the Departments of English, Classical Studies, Anthropology, and Germanic and Slavic studies. H\n Folklore/Folkloristics Folkloristics is the study of folklore. Folklore, however, like many categories of communication and human behaviour, is difficult to define precisely – Funk and Wagnalls’ classic Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Lege\n Form Criticism Form criticism is an English rendering of the German Formgeschichte, an influential twentieth-century interpretive model for analysing both Hebrew Bible and NT texts that are grounded in oral tradition. The term form translates the two word\n Formulas The term formula is a technical definition given for certain linguistic repetitions found in early Greek epic poetry by Homeric scholar Milman Parry in the late 1920s. The term was soon linked to the study of oral elements in various literary tex\nG\n Genealogies Genealogies are a specific form of cultural recall, characterized by the core structure of ancestor trees and using a highly formalized language. Genealogies fulfil various sociopolitical functions, among them the construction of identity/alte\n Genre Genre, the forms that speech and writing might take, is a crucial aspect of communication. Members of a culture typically possess a shared repertoire of genres and a knowledge of how these different forms convey meaning. Over the past century of res\n Gerhardsson, Birger Birger Gerhardsson (1926–2013) was a Swedish NT scholar whose publications focused on oral tradition and transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Gerhardsson explicitly postured his work as an alternative to German Form\n Gist Memory\n Glossolalia/‘Speaking in Tongues’ Glossolalia (from the Greek glossa ‘tongue’ and lalein ‘speak’) is the term given to the charismatic gift or practice of speaking in tongues, namely in a linguistic form that is foreign or alien to the speaker. If such to\n Goody, Jack John (Jack) Rangine Goody (1919–2015) was a British anthropologist and historian who taught for most of his career at Cambridge. Although his primary fieldwork was conducted in Africa, his writings display wide comparative interests. An import\n Graffiti Thousands of graffiti, or ‘wall writings’, from the ancient world have been discovered, often comprising little more than crude drawings and a word or two. Some date to the First Temple period, thousands more date to the Second Temple period and\n Great Tradition/Little Tradition The term great tradition refers to the total set of values that operate within a complex society’s collective memory to rationalize and maintain the homogeneous outlook necessary for that society, and its individual member\n Great Divide Media criticism is the ‘analysis of the function and dynamics of various media of communication (speech, writing, ritual, etc.), and especially of the significance of shifts from one medium to another (e.g. from oral to written expression)’ (\n Gunkel, Hermann Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932) was a German OT scholar significant for his influence on biblical interpretation in the twentieth century. The founder of form criticism, Gunkel’s work heavily influenced subsequent generations of biblical schola\n Guslar The term guslar (pl. guslari) is used to describe the oral poets of the former Yugoslavia (now Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Kosovo) whose performances of traditional epic material significantly informed\nH\n Halbwachs, Maurice Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) was a French sociologist who is widely regarded as the founder of the field of collective memory: the study of how groups remember and how their memories condense and transcend those of their members. Viewe\n Hallel The term Hallel refers to the liturgical recitation of Psalms 113–118 on each day of the festivals of Hanukkah and Sukkot, the first day of Passover and on Shavuot (t. Suk 3.2). The Hallel is also recited during the Passover seder. An abridged vers\n Havelock, Eric Alfred Eric Alfred Havelock (1903–88) was a British-trained classicist whose career was mostly in North America, including appointments at Toronto, Harvard, and Yale. Influenced by Milman Parry’s oral-formulaic thesis, Havelock explained th\n Hexapla The Hexapla, a synopsis of texts of the OT in different languages laid out in six parallel columns, was produced by Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185–254) in the third century CE. Columns one and two included the Hebrew consonantal text in Hebrew lett\n Historiography, Ancient The field of historiography has within its purview the study of techniques and methods used to write about the past. Historiographers attend to both overarching developments within the discipline of history itself and to investigat\n The Homeric Question The Homeric Question denotes the scholarly debate regarding the origin, composition, and authorship of the Homeric poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is ongoing uncertainty and debate surrounding those works over authorial identi\n Household Items (media aspects of) Household items are those utilitarian objects necessary for survival in nearly every agrarian household of the Iron Age (ca. 1200–586 BCE) and later. Many items (e.g. ceramic objects, stone tools and vessels, metal imple\n Hymes, Dell Folklorist, linguist, and anthropologist Dell Hymes (1927–2009) was a major contributor to the aesthetical movement called ethnopoetics, especially in extended and often lively exchanges with the parallel work of anthropologist Dennis Tedlock\n Hymns Hymn is a transliteration of the Greek hymnos, a broad term referring, in the Hellenistic world, to a song of praise to the divine. Used interchangeably with psalm and ode, hymnos also translated various Hebrew generic terms for song, like shir, miz\nI\n Iconography in the Hebrew Bible Research into the iconography of the Hebrew Bible has received less attention in the study of biblical themes and motifs than might be expected, given the plethora of supporting materials from surrounding cultures excavated\n Identity Identity refers to the distinctive characteristics belonging to an individual or shared by all members of a particular category/group. From an individual perspective, the core of identity is the categorization of the self into a particular role.\n Initiation Rituals Initiation rituals, which mark or enact an individual’s entrance or acceptance into a group, have played an important role in societies both ancient and modern. While virtually every culture has practices that could fit the definition,\n Inscriptions See Epigraphy.\n Intersemeiotics See Translation.\nJ\n Jamnia See Yavneh.\n Jesus Tradition The term Jesus tradition describes one of the most foundational concepts in Gospels and historical Jesus research. Broadly stated, ‘Jesus tradition’ refers to the stories about, and the teachings attributed to, Jesus in early Christianity\n Jesus Tradition and Memory Form criticism conceived memory as individual reminiscence (see personal/cognitive memory). Understood as such, memory hardly fit the generic profile of the synoptic tradition. Form criticism therefore made a sharp distinction b\n Jousse, Marcel Marcel Jousse (1886–1961) was a French scholar who, along with Milman Parry, ranks among the pioneers in the study of oral style and orally based cultures. A thinker of global ambitions, he aspired to achieve a grand synthesis of anthropolo\n Jubilees Jubilees is a second-century BCE Jewish text that serves as a prime example of rewritten scripture. The narrative follows closely the contents of Genesis and Exodus 1–19, sometimes apparently quoting these biblical texts verbatim but more often p\nK\n Kelber, Werner Werner Kelber is an NT scholar whose interests have ranged from narrativity in the Gospels to the implications of ancient media studies, through a consideration of oral tradition, scribality, and collective memory theory. He has been a pio\nL\n Lector The term lector (Latin lector; Greek anagnōstēs) refers to a trained reader, usually of servile status, who performed public reading from a manuscript. ‘Public reading’ denotes a reading event in which a text is read aloud directly from a manuscrip\n Letters The twenty-one letters included in the NT make up a significant proportion of the earliest literary evidence of emerging Christianity. These letters relate to different groups and locations, the diversity of their cultures, their identities and co\n Libraries See Archives.\n Literacy In general terms, literacy refers to the skills of reading and writing. Although largely taken for granted in modern industrialized societies, these skills were rare in antiquity. Ancient cultures lacked anything like a widespread, publicly funde\n Long-Term/Short-Term Memory The categories short- and long-term memory are used to differentiate the temporary holding of information in personal awareness (short-term memory) from its storage for later recall (long-term memory). Knowing the processes, ca\n Lord, Albert Albert Bates Lord (1912–91) was an American scholar whose work in folklore and comparative literature was central to the development of the methodological approach now commonly known as oral-formulaic theory. He initially worked alongside hi\nM\n Manuscript A manuscript is a handwritten copy of an ancient literary or documentary text. Whereas the term text may refer to a recognizable tradition that occurs in multiple copies (e.g. the Gospel of John), the term manuscript refers to an individual cop\n Masoretic Text The Tiberian Masoretic tradition (MT) is the source of the medieval manuscripts that form the base of today’s editions of the Hebrew Bible (e.g. BHS). Though there are thousands of medieval Masoretic manuscripts, the principal witnesses to\n Master Commemorative Narrative A master commemorative narrative is a metanarrative that operates as an organizing principle for recollections of the past within a group’s collective memory. Metanarrative stresses that master commemorative narratives do no\n McLuhan, Marshall Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) was a pioneer researcher on the pervasive impact of communication technology in the formation of culture and author of the proverbial summary of media research, ‘The medium is the message’. McLuhan grew up in\n Memory, Greco-Roman Theories of In media criticism of the Bible, research into ancient theories of memory has focused primarily on the Greco-Roman context, where personal memory was viewed as an essential element in the composition and performance of phil\n Memory, Persistence and Decay of Impressions of events, things, and people persist in human memory for variable periods of time (see Cognitive Memory). Some persist (remain memorable) for a very long time, while others decay (fade from memory) almost imme\n Memory Theatre A memory theatre is a mnemonic device used in place system techniques for the recall of information in live performance. Ancient (and modern) place systems facilitated the recall of both individual pieces of information and the interrelatio\n Metonymy Metonymy is the term applied by John Miles Foley to the basic aesthetic of oral-traditional composition. In Foley’s definition, metonymy is a figure of speech by which ‘a part stands for the whole’ (Foley 1991: 7). For example, popular English re\n Mishnah The Mishnah is the first document of rabbinic Oral Law, assumed to have been edited around 200 CE. It constitutes the basis of the later Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, which are commentaries on the Mishnah and follow its structure into orders\n Monuments Many civilizations, though not all, create monuments. Certainly the major empires that span the biblical writings – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia (Syria and Egypt), and Rome – engaged in monumentalizing, constructing palaces, temple\n Mouvance Mouvance is a term that originally described the instability and flexibility of oral poetry, but was then applied to the manuscript culture of oral traditions and literature with roots in oral traditions, originally medieval poetry.\n Multiformity The term multiformity describes the thematic variation, narrative fluidity, and semantic polyvalence of oral traditions. As Ruth Finnegan observes, ‘by its very nature oral literature is changeable’ (1988: 69). Oral traditions therefore ‘exis\n Music The Bible and its related ancient literature witness to a concept of music in which organized sound was not an independent medium, but was always allied with what modern Western culture regards as non-musical elements. Those elements might be functi\nN\n Naḥal Ḥever Naḥal Ḥever is a stream in the Judean Desert that runs towards the Dead Sea, about 3 km (approximately 2 mi) south of En Gedi. The stream became famous because of important manuscript finds in two caves at the head of the stream. During an ini\n Narrative Gospels Historical Jesus and Gospels scholarship has typically differentiated the origin and transmission of reputed sayings of Jesus from stories about him. This differentiation closely mirrors the generic distinction between Sayings and Narrat\n Narrativity Narrativity is the quality of coherent structure and story-like articulability that individuals and social groups bestow upon personal memories, the actual past, traditions, history, and discourses. Narrative serves as a memorial tool that aid\n Niditch, Susan Susan Niditch (b. 1950) is an American religious scholar, Biblicist, and folklorist whose research has surveyed a variety of aspects of ancient and early Judaism. Her work centres on the interdisciplinary study of early literature from the\n Nonverbal Communication in Performance In considerations of performance, nonverbal communication is communication that takes place without words in the context of oral speech or live presentation. In a live exchange, any form of communication that does no\nO\n Oaths In the biblical world, oaths (Hebrew shevca; Greek horkos) occurred in human or divine discourse, and typically consisted of a promise reinforced by a curse invoking a deity or king who could enforce the curse. Oaths typically referenced one’s own b\n Ong, Walter J., S.J. Walter Jackson Ong, S.J. (1912–2003) was a prolific and polymathic twentieth-century scholar whose professional publishing and teaching career spanned over six decades and numerous academic disciplines. In addition to his over four hu\n Oral Tradition, the Comparative Study of The term oral tradition encompasses three interrelated topics of research relevant to biblical studies. First, it denotes ways in which societies and individuals carry information, organize themselves, and make sen\n Oral tradition and the New Testament See Jesus Tradition; Jesus Tradition and Memory\n Orality In discussions of biblical media, the term orality is used in at least two senses: first, and more narrowly, to denote human communication by word of mouth; second, and more broadly, to describe the media status of cultures in which oral communica\n Ordeals An ordeal is a form of ritual in which a person accused of wrongdoing is subjected to a physical test, such as drinking an unpleasant concoction or being plunged into a river, the result of which determines his or her guilt or innocence. Ordeals w\n Original The term original is primarily used in the field of Gospels studies to refer to the form of a pericope that chronologically precedes all of its other attested forms and, as such, is the one upon which other, later versions are based. It is also u\n Orthography Orthography literally means ‘correct writing’. As a technical term, it refers to a broad constellation of the components of a writing system, including the graphemes (the signs or letters in a writing system) used to represent the phonemes (th\n Ostraca The term ostraca (plural; sg. ostrakon) is a Greek loanword often used to describe pieces of pottery bearing a written message. As broken pottery is ubiquitous across the biblical landscape, discarded shards, usually smaller than a human hand, cou\nP\n Papias (on writing) Papias of Hierapolis (fl. ca. 110–135 CE) was one of the earliest Christians to write on the Jesus tradition outside of the NT. His five-volume work, The Explanation of the Lord’s Oracles, has unfortunately perished, but fragments surv\n Papyrus Papyrus is a tall, fibrous reed plant that grew along the shallow banks of the Nile River in Egypt. Papyrus was used for a variety of purposes in the ancient world (e.g. for making sandals, mummy wrappings, rope, nets, sails, basketry), but it cam\n Parables (of Jesus) The term parable is a transliteration of the Greek word parabolē, a word found in the NT throughout the Synoptic Gospels (17 times in Matthew, 13 times in Mark, and 18 times in Luke) and twice in the Book of Hebrews. The term is also f\n Parchment/Vellum Parchment was an ancient writing material typically made from the skins of sheep or goats. The terms parchment and vellum are often used interchangeably, but the latter designation refers strictly to the finer skins of a smaller animal, s\n Parry, Milman Milman Parry (1902–35) was an American classicist whose work on Homeric poetry provided the foundation for the methodological approach that is now termed oral-formulaic theory. His untimely death prevented Parry himself from bringing to frui\n Passion Narrative The phrase passion narrative refers narrowly to the extended stories of Jesus’ suffering and death found in each of the canonical Gospels (Mt. 26.1-27.61; Mk 14.1-15.47; Lk. 22.1-24:56: Jn 18.1-19.42), as well as in the non-canonical Gos\n Pauline Literature Nearly half of the NT literature claims to have been written by Paul, a Jewish artisan who went from being a violent pursuer of Jesus’ disciples to one of his foremost champions and a leading rhetorician of the earliest church, followin\n Performance Arena The term performance arena designates the literal and figurative place of oral performance – both a geographical site (possibly with ritualistic overtones) and a metaphorical area where performers and audience go to experience an oral te\n Performance Criticism (Biblical) Biblical performance criticism is the study of the biblical writings as witnesses to oral performances that were either told from memory or presented as prepared readings before communal audiences in the context of the pre\n Performance of the Gospels (in antiquity) The original medium of the Gospels was the sounds of stories performed for audiences either with or without a manuscript in hand. This conclusion is based on the descriptions of performances of similar works in an\n Pergamum Pergamum/Pergamon (modern Bergama) is a city located approximately 16 miles (26 kilometres) inland from the Aegean Sea in the Caicus river valley of present-day Turkey. One of the seven letters to the cities of Asia Minor found in the book of Rev\n Personal Memory See Cognitive/Personal Memory.\n Period A period (periodos) is a unit of Greek prose, composed of cola. The period and colon comprise the building blocks of Greek prose. They serve as the prose analogues to the verse and metric line in Greek poetry (Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.8) and comprise\n Pesharim The pesharim (singular: pesher) are ‘a type of biblical interpretation found in the Qumran scrolls in which selected biblical texts are applied to the contemporary sectarian setting by means of various literary devices’ (Berrin 2000: 644). A prom\n Pilgrimage Pilgrimage is the practice of making a journey attributed with ritually symbolic meaning to a destination attributed with complementary meaning. The scale of the practice ranges from visits to a grave to travels to a long sequence of sacred sit\n Plato (on writing and memory) Plato (ca. 428–348 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher and founder of the school known as the Academy. While he is the most well-known author to have produced dialogues featuring his teacher Socrates, he is not the only one to h\n Pluriformity The term pluriformity is typically used in Gospels studies to refer to the existence of the Jesus tradition in multiple forms. It is an implicit rejection of earlier form-critical work that sought to recover the original form of any given tra\n Poetics The term poetics can carry a wide range of meanings, from the study of all human activity (based on the Greek verb poieo, ‘to do or make’) to the modern study of theories of literature. In the context of media studies, poetics refers to a range of\n Poetry in the Hebrew Bible Biblical Hebrew poetry shares features with a range of oral-traditional poetry. These features include the recurrent use of similar phrases, motifs, and structural patterns that parallel the categories of formula, theme, and sto\n Pompeii (writing/literacy in) Nowhere does the ancient world come alive more than in the archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, two Greco-Roman towns destroyed and (ironically) preserved in large measure by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C\n Postmemory Marianne Hirsch’s work on postmemory participates in ongoing and developing theoretical discussions in Holocaust and genocide studies, while extending to other fields addressing trauma, memory, and inter/transgenerational acts of transfer. She\n Potmarks/Potter’s Marks The term potmark is used to describe a non-decorative sign or symbol on the surface of a ceramic vessel. This mark may be painted, scratched, incised, stamped, or applied (as a clay addition). Potmarks take a variety of shapes, ran\n Presentism/Constructionism Presentism (or constructionism) is the position that memory is a mental state or shared experience that is constructed primarily according to the needs and strategies of the present (rather than generated primarily from past rea\n Prophecy Prophecy is an oral phenomenon that includes four necessary components: ‘the divine sender of the message, the message itself, the human transmitter of the message and the recipient(s) of the message’ (Nissinen 2003: 2). Prophets are one type of\n Proverb(s) A proverb is a short, pithy saying that makes an observation by aligning (sometimes unrelated) images, often in the service of a moral point and with the aim of forming character. A proverb usually contains a contrast between different types of\n Psalms in Worship The biblical psalms have nurtured the public and private faith of Jews and Christians through the centuries, yet we have almost no knowledge of how they were originally used. In searching for evidence, the best place to start is actually\n Publication (in antiquity) The act of writing and disseminating a literary text in the Greco-Roman world was a process involving at least three steps: composition, revision, and publication. Publication frequently involved retracing previous steps as a te\n Purification Rituals The purification rituals described in the Hebrew Bible are cultic actions, primarily ablutions, that remove ritual impurity from persons and objects in Israel. According to the priestly traditions, ritual impurity stems from particula\nQ\n ‘Q’ (The Sayings Source) Within the Two-Source Hypothesis approach to the solution of the Synoptic Problem, ‘Q’ is the name given to the second major source (the Gospel of Mark being the first) utilized by the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. T\nR\n Rabbinic Literature Medium was a central theological concept for the ancient rabbis, and thus the question of biblical media has long occupied students of rabbinic Judaism. The early rabbis (Tannaim, 1st–3rd c. CE) were great champions of canonization and\n Ras Shamra Tell Ras Shamra, situated in northwestern Syria, contains the remains of the city of Ugarit, which flourished during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. It has become famous due to the excavations undertaken there since 1929, during which about 500\n Reading culture Classicist William A. Johnson coined the phrase reading culture, as well as the similar term reading community, to emphasize that reading in the ancient context was primarily a social phenomenon rather than an individual phenomenon. Johnso\n Realism Realism, in its simplest and most fundamental sense, refers to the belief that the world’s qualities exist independent of how one perceives them. Anti-realism, by contrast, conceives the observer’s perception of the world to be constructed by his\n Register Register is a sociolinguistic term that refers to the different types of speech styles used by the same person in different social settings and, by extension, the major speech styles associated with recurrent types of situations. Dell Hymes made\n Reputation Reputation refers to a person’s publicly available persona, the Gestalt that enables individuals, groups, and whole societies to perceive, appraise, and evaluate that individual, whether or not they have ever directly encountered this person an\n Reputational Entrepreneurs See Reputation.\n Reworked Pentateuch 4QReworked Pentateuch (4QRP) refers to a collection of five manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in cave 4 at Qumran: 4Q158, 4Q364, 4Q365, 4Q366, and 4Q367. Scholars disagree about whether and to what extent the manuscripts are\n Rewritten Scripture Rewritten scripture is a term of convenience used primarily by specialists who work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. It refers to works of literature that appear to rewrite already existing works recognized as scripture/canon, especially for e\n Rhetoric in Antiquity Rhetoric is the art of verbal persuasion. Although attempts to communicate persuasively are universal, Greeks in the classical period sought to classify and describe rhetoric formally. Republican Rome prohibited both rhetoric and phi\n Riddles A riddle is an ambiguous interrogative statement that intentionally hides its referent and asks the audience to name it. An ambiguous statement is one that could reasonably refer to more than one thing, depending on the frame of reference. While s\nS\n Sabbath Within the Hebrew Bible, observation of the Sabbath, or seventh day of the week (Saturday), is identified as a central and critical religious practice for ancient Israelite and Judean worshippers of YHWH. By the Second Temple period, there is ampl\n Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch is the version of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (the Torah) – regarded as canonical by the Samaritan Israelite community. These five books cons\n Sayings and Dialogue Gospels Sayings and Dialogue Gospels are early Christian texts that present Jesus as a speaker of sayings or that show him in dialogue with others, with the implicit assumption that such was his primary, or sole, activity. Sayings Gos\n Schema The term schema, originally introduced to developmental psychology by Jean Piaget (1928) and applied to cognitive/personal memory by Frederick Bartlett (1932), refers to a learnt cognitive framework that enables one to organize past experience and\n Schwartz, Barry Barry Schwartz (b. 1938) is an American sociologist and historian whose recent work has focused on collective memories of significant figures from the American past, including most notably former US Presidents George Washington (1732–99) a\n Scribal Memory The term scribal memory refers narrowly to the knowledge of traditional texts held in the collective memory of scribes and, more broadly, to the impact of such knowledge on the biblical writings and their manuscript traditions. Scribal memo\n Scribes/scribality Scribes were the professional writers of manuscripts and documents in antiquity. Writing was primarily a technical skill that required special training and was done to earn a living. Throughout First and Second Temple times scribes woul\n Scriptoria Scriptoria were areas designed for scribes to copy write documents, particularly in scroll or codex form. Through scriptoria, broadly defined, have come the majority of extant premodern versions of the Bible, as well as a great deal of extant a\n Scrolls A scroll consists of a series of papyrus, parchment, or leather sheets sewn or glued together for the purpose of being inscribed. Often referred to as a roll or bookroll, the scroll was the most common book form in antiquity, but was eventually re\n Second Temple See Temple, Jerusalem.\n Secondary Orality The term secondary orality was developed by Walter Ong to describe the use and reuse of material included in written texts within an oral culture/context. Ong used the term primary orality to describe the use and reuse of oral materials\n Septuagint The term Septuagint (typically abbreviated LXX) refers to the ancient translation of the Hebrew Torah into Greek. According to the Letter of Aristeas, seventy(-two) translators journeyed from Jerusalem to Alexandria at the request of Ptolemy II\n Short-Term Memory See Long-Term/Short-Term Memory.\n Simonides Simonides (c. 556–468 BCE) was an acclaimed Greek poet from Keos, an Aegean island near Attica. He served as protagonist of a legendary account that earned him a reputation as the father of memory arts. The story, recorded by Cicero (Orator 2.35\n Sitz im Leben Sitz im Leben (‘life setting’) is a German phrase coined by Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932) to describe the ‘typical situation or occupation in the life of a community’ (Bultmann 1968: 4) in which a unit of oral tradition emerged and was transmit\n Social Memory\n Social Memory The concept of social memory was introduced by the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (Halbwachs 1992) and refers to the influence of a given social framework on the individual’s memory processes. In biblical studies, social memory theory\n Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is a term that covers a variety of theoretical approaches to the relationship between language and society, both why we vary our speech depending on different social contexts and how language has different social function\n Song In media studies, the term song typically refers to traditional texts that have informed the oral-formulaic approach to the comparative study of oral traditions and to literature with roots in oral tradition, based originally on Milman Parry’s and Al\n Sound Mapping Sound mapping is an interpretive technique that analyses speech sounds in Hellenistic Greek literature to discern a composition’s organizational structure as determined by audible patterns. Because sound mapping reveals a composition’s inher\n Special Grammar Albert Lord introduced the term special grammar as a way of emphasizing that oral composition is not as mechanical as early critics of Milman Parry and Lord had imagined – that is, the critics mistakenly interpreted oral-formulaic theory a\n Speech Genres Speech genre is a term introduced by the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) in a 1952/1953 essay, which appeared in English translation in 1986 as ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’. Understanding Bakhtin’s use of ‘speech genr\n Story Pattern A story pattern is a distinct complex of narrative elements that recurs in multiple forms within oral-traditional literature. The return song, for example, reflects the pattern of an absent hero, the devastation caused by his absence, and hi\n Storytelling Storytelling occurs when a speaker or speakers narrate(s) events and characters from a place and time different from the speech event of the story itself. That is, in some sense storytelling transports the storyteller(s) and the hearers from\n Synagogues The synagogue (in Hebrew beth knesset, or ‘house of assembly’) is the premier institution for Jewish prayer and Scripture reading. It developed first in the diaspora during the exile and much later as a purpose-built structure in Palestine. The\nT\n Targums A targum is a Jewish Aramaic translation of a (Hebrew) biblical text. The term applies both to translations of individual passages (especially as they were used in the ancient synagogue liturgy) and to translations of biblical books or entire divi\n Tedlock, Dennis Anthropologist Dennis Tedlock (1930–2016) is recognized especially for his award winning translation of Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and for his performance-based translations of traditional Zuni Pueblo storytelling. His d\n Tell El Amarna See Amarna Letters.\n Temples The major empires that span the biblical writings – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia (Syria and Egypt), and Rome – utilized temples as media of communication. Temple buildings provided a physical location for meaning-making through relig\n Temple (Jerusalem) The Second Temple of Jerusalem stood from roughly 516 BCE to 70 CE. During that time, it functioned as the central site of cultic worship and a major ideological focal point for Jews throughout the world. Following its destruction in 70\n Testaments (Jewish) The ancient Jewish testamentary literature typically embraces the pseudepigraphic voice of a figure known from the Hebrew Scriptures, most often one of the patriarchal or pre-diluvian ancestors presented in the Pentateuch (e.g. Enoch,\n Testimonia Testimonia are collections of OT passages drawn from a (usually thematic) anthology of scriptural passages. They are widely thought to comprise the source of OT quotations in certain instances within the NT, as well as in certain apostolic fath\n Text-broker(s) The term text-broker refers to an educated individual who serves as a point of contact between written traditions and the constituencies who prize those traditions. The term was coined by Gregory Snyder, who observes that ‘the appropriation\n Textual Criticism In general, Textual Criticism refers to the study of ancient manuscripts and their texts; biblical textual criticism, then, refers to the study of ancient manuscripts of those texts now included in the Bible. As a research model, textual\n Textual Communities The term textual community was developed by Brian Stock as a label for a sociological model for explaining the rise of heretical/reformist sects during the medieval period of European history. Stock’s The Implications of Literacy (1983\n Theme (in oral theory) Within oral theory, the term theme refers to recurrent narrative units occurring in multiform and drawing from shared traditional idioms. Specific definitions and usages of the term vary according to academic discipline, cultural tr\n Therapeutae The Therapeutae were a Late Second Temple Jewish monastic sect mentioned in Philo of Alexandria’s (ca. 20 BCE–50 CE) treatise The Contemplative Life. According to this text, the Therapeutae lived in a monastic community at Lake Mareotis/Mariou\n Thomas, Rosalind Rosalind Thomas (1959–) is a classicist whose early teaching career was at the University of London and who currently teaches at University of Oxford. Her expertise concerns the democracy of classical Athens, and she has written widely on\n Torah Reading/Service Engagement with Scripture was a central element of synagogue worship as early as the Second Temple period. However, the first detailed descriptions of Torah reading in the synagogue come from the early rabbinic period and describe ra\n Traditional Referentiality John Miles Foley developed the term traditional referentiality, which ‘entails the invoking of a context that is enormously larger and more echoic than the text or work itself, that brings the lifeblood of generations of poems a\n Traditionalism/Continuitism Traditionalism (or continuitism) is a theoretical position within collective memory research that advocates that memory (variously defined) demonstrates a longitudinal connection between past and present. Scholars who adopt a c\n Traditionsbruch Traditionsbruch is a term coined by Jan Assmann to describe the crisis brought about by the breakdown of social/institutional frameworks for the transmission and cultivation of a community’s foundational traditions. Assmann also refers to\n Translation In popular usage, translation refers to the transfer of a text and/or its meaning from one language to another. Media-critical perspectives, however, have raised a number of questions that call for a broader definition that understands transla\n Type Scene A type scene ‘may be regarded as a recurrent block of narrative with an identifiable structure, such as a sacrifice, [or] the reception of a guest’ (Edwards 1992: 284). Type scenes can be observed for events that repeatedly occur in traditional\nV\n Verbatim Memory See memory, Gist and Verbatim\n Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum The Villa of the Papyri (Villa dei Papyri), just outside the walls of Herculaneum (near modern Naples on the southwest coast of Italy), contained one of the largest ancient libraries discovered to date. The scrolls, which\n Vindolanda The Vindolanda archive takes its name from a Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England, just south of the border with modern Scotland, that was occupied from the late first through at least the mid-fourth centuries CE. In 1973, archaeo\n Visual Culture The term visual culture refers to the full expanse of images manifested, produced, and consumed by a given culture, as well as the agents, institutions, conceptualities, and practices that put those images to use. The term may also be used\nW\n War Rituals A war ritual is an act (or series of acts) deliberately performed before, during, or after battle in order to affect some aspect of the battle and its consequences. War is a violent clash between two opposing forces, each seeking to impose its\n Wax Tablet As a medium, wax tablets were widely used in antiquity for occasional, functional writing such as school exercises, household lists, or business accounts. Typically consisting of a wooden frame covered with a layer of wax, and often in the Roma\n Wisdom Collections Collections of wisdom literature have come to be identified as the result of ecclesiastical actions, primarily for purposes of canonization, and of academic processes related to literary classification. Evaluation of wisdom materials be\n Worship, Ancient Israelite Our understanding of ancient Israelite worship is shaped by two sets of media: biblical texts and archaeological evidence. Both describe a range of worship practices, including ritual performances at central and local shrines as\n Worship, Ancient Jewish Worship translates the Hebrew term ‘avodah (lit. ‘work, service’). Initially, ‘avodah described the sacrificial rites and ancillary rituals of the temple in Jerusalem, particularly those acts overseen or enacted by the priests (koh\n Worship, Early Christian Early Christian worship refers to the various expressions of Christian ritual life and piety that spanned the public and private spheres over the course of the first four centuries of the Common Era. While the term suggests a cert\n Writing and Writing Materials Writing is first attested in human history around 3200 BCE, with the evidence suggesting that it began in Mesopotamia at that time and in Egypt a generation or two later. These early Mesopotamian and Egyptian writing systems\nY\n Yavneh/Jamnia Yavneh (Greek name: Jamnia) is a small city (pop. < 40,000) in Israel near the coast, 25 kilometres (about 15.5 miles) south of Tel Aviv. According to rabbinic sources, during the first several decades after the temple’s destruction in 70 CE