Reading Other Peoples’ Texts: Social Identity and the Reception of Authoritative Traditions(The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)

This volume draws together eleven essays by scholars of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Greco-Roman religion and early Judaism, to address the ways that conceptions of identity and otherness shape the interpretation of biblical and other religiously authoritative texts. The contributions explore how interpreters of scriptural texts regularly assume or assert an identification between their own communities and those described in the text, while ignoring the cultural, social, and religious differences between themselves and the text’s earliest audiences. Comparing a range of examples, these essays address varying ways in which social identity has shaped the historical contexts, implied audiences, rhetorical shaping, redactional development, literary appropriation, and reception history of particular texts over time. Together, they open up new avenues for studying the relations between social identity, scriptural interpretation, and religious authority.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. “Social Identity and Scriptural Interpretation: An Introduction” - Ken Brown, Whitworth University, USA and Brennan Breed, Columbia Theological Seminary, USA 2. “Boundaries and Bridges: Journeys of a Postcolonial Feminist in Biblical Studies” - Musa W. Dube, University of Botswana, Republic of Botswana 3. “Reading without History,” - Michael Satlow, Brown University, USA 4. “What Happens to Precursor Texts in Their Successors?” - Robert L. Brawley, McCormick Theological Seminary, USA 5. “Redaction as Reception: Genesis 34 as Case Study,” - Alison Joseph, Jewish Theological Seminary, USA 6. “Between Our Ancestors and the Other: Negotiating Identity in the Early Reception of the Water from the Rock” - Ken Brown, Whitworth University, USA 7. “Abrahamic Identity in Paul and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum” - Kyle Wells, Westmont College, USA 8. “Heracles between Slavery and Freedom: Subversive Textual Appropriation in Philo of Alexandria” - Courtney Friesen, University of Arizona, USA 9. “Perspectives on a Pluriform Classic” - Choon-Leong Seow, Vanderbilt Divinity School, USA 10. “Iconoclastic Readings: Othering in Isaiah 44 and in Its Reception in Biblical Scholarship,” - Sonja Ammann, University of Basel, Switzerland 11. “Biblical Scholarship’s Ethos of Respect: Original Meanings, Original Texts, and the Reception History of Ecclesiastes,” - Brennan Breed, Columbia Theological Seminary, USA Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Ken Brown is Lecturer at Whitworth University, USA. Alison L. Joseph is Senior Editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, USA. Brennan Breed is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, USA.

Review :
This stimulating volume of essays draws attention to the fact that, in some sense, all acts of reading are reading other people’s texts and that scholars should be attentive to the range of actual and potential meanings these readings produce. The collection genuinely points to new directions in the conversations around interpretation and identity creation of ancient texts. As such, it makes a valuable contribution to reception history and does precisely what an edited collection of this sort ought to do.