Speaker

Dr Kevin Mattison, University of Bristol

Bio

Kevin is Lecturer of Jewish Studies at the University of Bristol. His research focuses on how ancient Jewish communities reimagined their foundational literature to meet changing needs in their changing world. He is currently writing his second book, Reimagining Sinai and Transforming the Torah in Ancient Judaism. This book studies the competing claims different ancient communities made on the Mount Sinai encounter to challenge anachronistic scholarly categories of “biblical” versus “non-biblical” and composition versus transmission versus reception, to better understand ancient Jewish texts, their authors, and their communities on their own terms. He is the author of Rewriting and Revision as Amendment in the Laws of Deuteronomy.

Abstract

The Pentateuch or Torah, a foundational scripture in Judaism and Christianity, originated as a repository of ancient Israelite and Judean traditions. The Torah tells the story of Israel’s origins from multiple perspectives. The multivocality of the Torah has sometimes troubled readers but its tensions have often been productive,

Modern scholars studying the Torah have recognized the composite nature of the Torah as both a historical fact and as a key to understanding the origins of this foundational piece of literature and of Judaism itself. But scholars disagree strenuously, and seemingly intractably, on whether, how, and to what extent we can isolate the constituent parts of this complex work of literature. Some interpreters have preferred to analyze the Pentateuch internally, focus on its literary features, while others rely more on external considerations of historical context.

This paper uses ideology as a bridge between text and context. On the textual side, the literary discrepancies within the Pentateuch may be interesting in and of themselves, but important insofar as they reveal different worldviews. Efforts to pin down the historical contexts of various parts of the Torah have proved chimerical. But we can more readily identify their ideological context, i.e., the place of each in an ongoing conversation about how the people Israel came into being, how they relate to their God, and what it all means for those who claim descent from Israel.

This paper will examine two closely-connected key points of ideological disagreement reflected in the Pentateuch and related stories: the history of Israel’s relationship to its god Yahweh, and the geography of that relationship. Has humanity always known of Yahweh, and always been able to interact with him? Or is such knowledge limited to the Israelites alone, and did it begin after Israel’s national founding? Can Yahweh be worshiped anywhere, or only in the promised land of Canaan? At all sites in Canaan or only a single specially-chosen site? If so, which site? The Torah itself offers multiple answers to all of these questions. The earliest interpreters of the Torah, whose views can be recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls, struggled both to make sense of these multiple views and, more importantly, to read them in ways that spoke to their own audiences.

The talk will be followed by a Q&A and a small reception of drinks and nibbles. 

All are welcome!