Hegel and the Spirit explores the meaning of Hegel's grand philosophical category, the category of Geist, by way of what Alan Olson terms a pneumatological thesis. Hegel's philosophy of spirit, according to Olson, is a speculative pneumatology that completes what Adolf von Harna…
This dissertation establishes an in-depth traditions-history of a representative sample of major themes in the Eden traditions of rabbinic literature, paying special attention to its development throughout the major corpora of the classical rabbinic sources. This study demonstra…
Pharaoh's command in Gen 41:55—“Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do”—aptly summarizes the breadth of authority Joseph attains in Egypt and the means by which he exercises it: direct speech. By interpreting Egyptian dreams, Joseph establishes himself as a “wise and discerning” …
Since Julius Wellhausen's synthesis of the Documentary Hypothesis—and no doubt owing in part to the Protestant Reformation—dominant portrayals of the Priestly material have described a self-interested legist with little or no concern for those outside the Levitical ranks. Though…
This study applies Michael Polanyi's concept of latent knowledge to biblical echoes and allusions in order to elucidate the role of suffering in the fulfillment of Gen 1:28. Specifically, we explore whether a latent understanding of the relationship between Gen 1:28 and 3:16 as …
In this study, I attempt to reconstruct Paul's pre-epistolary exegesis of Genesis that I hypothesize lies beneath Rom 9. This exegesis goes beyond the discussion of the patriarchs in Rom 9:6–13 and supports the reconfiguration of God's family in Rom 9:24–29. It enables Paul to v…
YHWH, the primary deity of the Hebrew Bible, is the basis of the concept of god in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This structured personality assessment study measured the level of health and pathology attributed to YHWH in two selections of the Hebrew Bible, the J and the P …
This dissertation examines the phenomenon of "scriptural geology"--the nineteenth century equivalent of young-earth creationism largely ignored by historians. More specifically, I look at two brothers prior to the Civil War who publicly defended a literal interpretation of Genes…
This study examines the surface structure of the Pentateuch in the Hebrew Bible. Using a combination of form-critical and linguistic methods the dissertation seeks to understand the role of the toledot formula, often translated "These are the generations of Name," in shaping the…
The story of Adam and Eve in Eden (Gen 2:4b-3:24), raises several problems, which critical interpreters generally attribute to a succession of additions. Yet, the consensus on the talent of the writer and the coherence attributed to Biblical narratives warrant a new study of the…
The Mandate represents more than commands, and blessing defines more than fertility. Five texts were studied (Gen 1:22, 28, 8:17, 9:1, 7) for their role within each text plot and their collective theological portrait. The Creation Mandate is God's functional blessing, most clear…
Previous studies of Jacob's story in Genesis have treated Jacob's vow to God in one of two general ways. One way sees Jacob's vow to God in Gen 28:20-22 as a consistent but isolated moment in the series of tricks Jacob plays on other characters. He makes his acceptance of Yahweh…
In the first book of the Bible, every patriarch and many of the matriarchs have significant encounters with anger. However, scholarship has largely ignored how Genesis treats this emotion, particularly how Genesis functions as Torah by providing ethical instruction about handlin…
In this dissertation I offer a feminist commentary on the Hagar stories and of the stories of Yahweh, Sarah, and Abraham, which entwine and largely determine hers. I consider the influence these stories and their reception have had on Western culture and demonstrate that readers…
The goal of this dissertation is a study of Abraham's portrait as well as an investigation of those Old Testament hopes that were anchored on God's promises given to Abraham as they are portrayed and interpreted in the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament. The focus of the …
The story of Noah's drunkenness in Gen. 9:20-25 is ambiguous, allowing for multiple interpretations, including the possibility that Ham sexually violated Noah's wife. Gen. 19:30-38 interprets Gen. 9:20-25 as maternal incest, presenting Lot's fathering of Moab and Ammon by his da…
In a contribution to the study of biblical narrative and the analysis of the Primary History (Genesis-Kings, Jewish canon), I argue that three biblical texts are mises-en-abyme. Mise-en-abyme is a term used by literary critics to refer to a part of a literary work that duplicate…
Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law (Genesis 38) is an important and enigmatic biblical figure. The enigma stems from the dichotomy between Tamar's daring, unconventional behavior and her elevation to prominence in the Bible and later Jewish tradition. Despite her transgressive behav…
This dissertation demonstrates that the narrators of Genesis 34 and 2 Samuel 13 cast the sexual violations of Dinah and Tamar similarly. Chapter 1 attends to the words that link the two narratives. It also examines other Hebrew Bible (HB) passages containing inah, nevalah, and h…