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The Unity of the Book of Lamentations
The last decade has seen a significant expansion in Lamentations research. Since 2013, over 30 new commentaries and monographs have been published on various topics in this short biblical book, along with dozens of articles and essays. Many of these studies represent extensions of the once ‘new’ trends of the 2000s—literary studies, feminist interpretations, trauma readings, and reception historical studies—while others have pushed Lamentations research into even ‘newer’ territories (iconographic exegesis, performance criticism, intertextual approaches, and so forth). This essay traces these various trends in Lamentations research and surveys many publications from the last decade.
The biblical book of Lamentations has received extensive scholarly attention in the past decade, research that moves beyond traditional historical-critical approaches. Although these traditional approaches have by no means been abandoned, new trends are nevertheless emerging. This article will survey the diverse field of research on Lamentations with particular focus given to feminist, psychological, theological, ecological, post-colonial and reception-historical approaches to Lamentations. The essay will, however, begin by presenting the rich work done on historical treatments of the book, as well as discussing the text and versions of Lamentations.
This article discusses the structure and meaning of the oracles in Joel 1, 2-2, 17 that deal with the locust plague and its disastrous effects. It is proposed that the text is divided into 4 oracles that are designed according to one principal format, and combined together in a rhetorical structure in which each one is more revealing than the one preceding it. The structure of the oracles, which shows a progression from one to the next, demonstrates the main purpose of the oracles, which is to bring the people to pray to God for the removal of the plague. A prayer of this sort appears in the fourth oracle (2, 17). This purpose exposes the problem the prophet faced: the people's general abstention from prayer. This refraining from prayer is typical of the exilic period, when the people thought that they had been abandoned by God and so there was no possibility of appealing to Him. Joel seeks to instill in the people the notion that the option of prayer does exist and is efficacious even in the times of darkness and despair through which the people are going.
This paper argues that the Book of Joel is best understood against the background of the exilic period in Judah, after the Destruction but before the Return to Zion, that is, between 587 and 538 BCE. While concrete historical evidence is not decisive, an investigation of the ideology of the Book may determine the Book's historical setting. The lack of any rebuke in Joel accords with the view that he lived in the exilic period, when it would not have been appropriate to rebuke and criticize the people, who were in a state of deep despair. The Book of Joel places great emphasis on the motif of the Divine presence residing in the midst of Israel. This central message of assurance of the Divine presence is particularly apt if we accept the view that Joel belongs to the period of the Destruction, when the people were in despair and saw in the events their abandonment by God. There are cultic concerns in the book. This is understood if it is accepted that Joel functioned in the exilic period, and aimed at persuading his audience that one can pray to the Lord even when the Temple is in ruins. The prophet's main purpose was to bring the people to renew their connection with the Lord after the destruction of the Temple, and to focus the people's attention on the Temple, which, although physically ruined, had not lost its religious significance. Other characteristics of the Book of Joel that point to the same historical setting are discussed in the paper.
This study reacts against the reductive simplicity of form-critical and other diachronically focused methodologies, which attempt to systematize the book of Lamentations according to a sequence of ready-made forms. The laments’ thematic fragmentation can be more fruitfully understood as a form of montage, an ancient analogue to Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. Employing the modern experience of ruination, as it is formulated in Benjamin’s oeuvre, the analysis illuminates the biblical author’s literary method through the visual metaphor of the photomontage. The graphic images of Jerusalem’s destruction are considered as photographs, which Benjamin elsewhere defines as modes of bereavement. The ‘aesthetics of mourning’in both biblical and post-War mediums are thus defined by relentless dislocation and yet subtly constructive means to recovery. Finally, particular pieces of juxtaposed ‘evidence’ in Lamentations are shown to heighten the apparent sense of abandonment and chaos. The interdisciplinary approach defends the book’s artistic integrity while demonstrating that biblical criticism might profitably be informed by research from other disciplines.
Cet article dresse un parallele entre la structure des Lamentations, qui laisse apparaitre cinq perspectives differentes sur le chagrin et la peine, et les travaux de la psychologue E. Kubler-Ross qui a beaucoup travaille avec des mourants. Cette lecture psychologique met en relief le presuppose theologique de la liberte divine et engage la justice de Dieu dans l'acceptation de la culpabilite humaine.
This contribution offers a new approach to explain the hostile attitude of the biblical sources towards Edom. It is suggested that the relations between Edom and Israel are influenced by the way in which Israel perceived the meaning of the struggle between their fathers—Esau and Jacob. The constant conflict between Edom and Judah may well have been connected by the inhabitants of Judah, consciously or subconsciously, with the conflict between Esau and Jacob over the birthright, and over the control of the promised land. Edom's aspirations to occupy areas in Israel may have been interpreted as Edom's wish to reverse the situation and to restore the election and the birthright to Esau. Following the events in Judah of 587 BCE the people were in despair because they assumed that God had cast off his people forever. They interpreted the destruction of the temple and the expulsion from their land as severance of the relationship between God and his people. The people's exile because of their sins could also be interpreted as the people's loss of their status as the chosen people. Two facts supported their thoughts that they were rejected and Edom was now chosen by God. The first was the Edomite participation in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the expulsion of Judah from their country. And the second was the colonization of the land of Judah by the Edomites. It was not Edom's participation in the destruction or even in the colonization of Judah that led to the exceptional attitude towards Edom in the Biblical sources. The ideological and theological significance that Judah assigned to Edom's acts is what led the prophets to focus on Edom. The anti-Edomite oracles were meant to instil into the hearts of the people that, despite the destruction, Israel is still the chosen people and the sins of Edom against Judah would not remain unpunished.