The essays by Florentino García Martínez collected in this volume reflect some of his most recent work on theological concepts as they are formed in the interpretations and in the imagination of ancient Jewish writers, and thus illuminate the nexus between philology and theology. The essays, five of which are published for the first time in English, engage a broad range of ancient Jewish texts ranging from Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Jubilees, 4 Ezra and the Targumim. Focus of the essays is the way in which ancient Jewish writers (and, in the case of 4 Ezra, Christian Renaissance authors) are interpreting and transforming earlier biblical traditions and how these new interpretations shape theological concepts.

Modern disciplinary silos tend to separate the fields of classical philology and theology. This collection of essays, however, explores for the first time the deep and significant interactions between them. It demonstrates how from antiquity to the present they have marched hand in hand, informing each other with method, views of the past and structures of argument. The volume rewrites the history of discipline formation, and reveals how close the seminar is to the seminary.

Explores for the first time the deep and significant interactions between classical philology and theology.

This study proposes to examine the tension in Nietzsche’s works between two competing discourses, i.e., the discourse of theology and the discourse of philology. It argues that, in order to understand Nietzsche’s complicated standpoint and the aim of his Kulturkritik, we have to appreciate how he operates with two different discourses, one indexed to belief, faith, liturgy (i.e., the discourse of theology) and another indexed to analytical reason, sceptical investigation, and logical argumentation, as well as historical context and linguistic precision (i.e., the discourse of philology). Its core thesis is that, in the end, Nietzsche can no longer believe, because he thinks he has uncovered a fraudulent production of meaning in the texts, in a way that is comparable with his insight into the production of morality in On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).

"The Emancipation of Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1590-1670 argues that the application of tools, developed in the study of ancient Greek and Latin authors, to the Bible was aimed at stabilizing the biblical text but had the unintentional effect that the text grew more and more unstable. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) capitalized on this tradition in his notorious Theological-political Treatise (1670). However, the foundations on which his radical biblical scholarship is built were laid by Reformed philologists who started from the hermeneutical assumption that philology was the servant of reformed dogma. On the basis of this principle, they pushed biblical scholarship to the center of historical studies during the first half of the seventeenth century. Dirk van Miert shows how Jacob Arminius, Franciscus Gomarus, the translators and revisers of the States' Translation, Daniel Heinsius, Hugo Grotius, Claude Saumaise, Isaac de La Peyráere, and Isaac Vossius all drew on techniques developed by classical scholars of Renaissance humanism, notably Joseph Scaliger, who devoted themselves to the study of manuscripts, (oriental) languages, and ancient history. Van Miert assesses and compares the accomplishments of these scholars in textual criticism, the analysis of languages, and the reconstruction of political and cultural historical contexts, highlighting that their methods were closely linked"--Publisher's description.

In this expanded version of James Barr's classic work, three additional articles by the author are added. They are (1) "Philology and Exegesis: Some General Remarks, with Illustrations from Job," (2) "Ugaritic and Hebrew sbm?" and (3) "Limitations of Etymology as a Lexicographical Instrument in Biblical Hebrew." The text of the original edition (Oxford University Press, 1968) remains unchanged. In addition to the seventy-five pages of additional material, this expanded version concludes with a postscript by Professor Barr, placing the articles within the context of the book.

Drawing on new manuscript sources, this volume offers seven contributions on Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the most significant biblical critic in eighteenth-century Germany, as well as an eminent Enlightenment philosopher, a renowned classicist, and expert on Judaism.