Liber Annuus

Most studies of 1 Kings 8 have focused on the compositional history of the text. Analysis of its literary structure, however, suggests that the passage has a literary unity that needs to be taken seriously. The heart of 1 Kgs 8 is a prayer put on the lips of Solomon that is almost completely at odds with the tenor of the event that the Deuteronomistic Historian (DtrH) is narrating: the dedication of the Temple. The text focuses on what action Israel should take once it experiences natural disaster, military defeat and exile. The Deuteronomistic story of the Temple's dedication underscores the significance of the Temple as a place of prayer rather than as the dwelling place of God and the setting for sacrificial worship. In doing so, DtrH follows a pattern of subordinating all institutions of ancient Israel to the written Torah, the observance of which was the key to the future. The efforts of DtrH ironically made possible the continuity of the idea of the Temple in a world without a temple.

The article offers an easy way to read and understand the notes, massorah parva (mp) and massorah magna (mm) of the book of Ruth in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). Starting with the printed biblical text the marginal notes of mp are explained at first. Afterwards references in the list of mm of the monograph published by G. Weil are examined.

After an outline of the author’s theory of the verb in prose, the paper attempts to show that the same theory, specifically that of direct speech, is also valid for poetry. The prophecy of Malachi is examined as an example. First the complete Hebrew text is given with an English translation (based on the RSV with corrections). The Hebrew text is subdivided into poetic units and arranged according to the three temporal axes—present (esp. with non-verbal sentences), past (esp. with qatal and wayyiqtol), and future (with indicative yiqtol and weqatal and volitive imperative, sentence-initial yiqtol, weyiqtol verb forms). A syntactic and exegetical commentary follows. According to the author, the prophecy comprises two parts, each with five units, i.e., 1:2-5, 1:6-8, 1:9-14, 2:1-9, 2:10-16 in the first part; 2:17-3:7b, 3:7c-12, 3:13-18, 3:19-21 (Engl. 4:1-3), and 3:22-24 (Engl. 4:4-6) in the second part. The internal coherence of the text is then outlined. The prophecy switches from one temporal axis to the other according to various situ ations and intention. The dynamics of the text and its meaning result from the interplay of the various temporal axes.

The studies on Jewish prayer underline the importance of Qumran texts and of Sirach 36 and 51 to decipher the religious and literary background of the Shemone Ezre. The present article examines the prayers written in Greek of I and II Maccabees. The author is convinced that the examination of these texts should be added in order to specify the milieu of the Shemone Ezre. It means that Hellenistic Judaism had an influence on the constitution of this prayer. Perhaps the division between Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism was not so sharp as some pretend it to be.

The most recent studies have proved that in the first letter of Clement to the Corinthians the term “ki÷ndunoß danger” refers to the ultimate extra-terrestrial reality. The present article intends to show how the author of the letter uses the concept to call the Corinthian community back to unity and assure them that the church in Rome will never cease to intercede before God on their behalf.

This Paper offers to the scholars special features and peculiarities of the “Hebrew Gospel of Matthew”. The Sitz im Leben of this Gospel has already been studied (RB juillet 1999, 358ss). One should describe it as a particular case of the use of mixed elements of Grammar (Hebrew and Romance), with the scope of rewriting the Gospel in Hebrew (supposing that it was originally written in Hebrew). One can perceive and remove an inner Grammar layer, fruit of the Spoken Language (Catalan Romance Language) and another from the Ancient Biblical Language, interaction of which gives some explicable grammatical errors (e.g. Concordance). The Lexical level is unusual, as it offers us new composed words of Hebrew and Romance, and creative as it utilizes Hebrew words from different periods: from the Hebrew Bible, even some expressions common to Hebrew of Medieval Spain. The Lexicon is specially rich in some fields such as the Legal terminology, that of every day Life, trades and roles as well as Cosmology. The Patterns of Narrative are based on a good Biblical Syntax. The final result can be characterized as an effort of Cultural Restitution: the theology of Matthew’s Gospel, which gathers and compiles many expressions and procedures of the Hebrew Bible, passing through the veil of a Jewish mind of the Middle Ages. It results in a language enriched with the ideological tones of a person who knows both Christianity and Rabbinical discourse of Spain in the Middle Ages, in the apparel of expressions of Judaism of this late period.

These pages form the first update of the article, “Grammatiche e dizionari di ebraicoaramaico in italiano. Catalogo ragionato” that appeared in LA 42 (1992) 9-32. Some works which were not included in the preceding research as well as publications of the last ten years (up to December 2001) are included in this update.

When he wrote, “The Life of St. Melanie”, Gerontios did not refrain from mentioning the diverse circumstances in which, all along her existence, this great lady of the 5th century, converted to the monastic way of life, shows her fervor towards the martyrs and their cult. St. Melanie placed them at the center of the monasteries she had built for her monks and nuns of Jerusalem. This form of piety, bound to a period of time in a way particularly notable, is presented as an additional witness to the Christian faith of this saint.

The document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), elaborated through an entire five year period, contributes to a discussion which is developing in the Catholic Church from the time of the Second Vatican Council; its continual development is closely followed to this day. A concise synthesis gives direction for the reading of the long and complex text. The overall reception of the document has been favorable; having had a modest start, the discussion does not give signs of halting. The article is interested for the most part in the Hebrew and Christian reading of the Hebrew Bible. The PBC often uses the categories of continuity and discontinuity, seen in the light of coherent development of the OT and the NT. If one is to speak about progress or organic novelty, one must also recognize that both "Testament Writings" are characterized by a "completeness incomplete" noticeable in the escatological projection of both the Old and New Testaments.

The new document attempts to give a general idea of the unity of the Bible as “Scripture” of the people of God and re-discover the sense of its fundamental meaning. For us, the Bible is made up of two parts: The Old and the New Testaments— both of which are highly related one to the other. On the one hand, early Christianity received as “Scripture” the same collection of books used by Judaism of New Testament times. On the other hand, Christianity introduced as a principal a new interpretation, which has become key to Scripture reading, namely,— Jesus, who declared that the Scriptures spoke of him and the authors of the New Testament interpreted the Old Testament as having its fulfillment in Him. This results in a very precise perspective about the relation between the two Testaments: The Old Testament is the announcement and preparation of that which Jesus would fulfill definitely; and the New Testament is, at the same time, the fulfillment and full realization of the promises announced by the Old Testament.

Two points particularly hold the Author’s attention: the fundamental perspective of the Christian reading of the Old Testament and the relation of the Christians to the Jewish people in the context of the New Testament writings. The Author analizes the recent document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission with its important foreword by Card. J. Ratzinger, which underlines the specifics of the Christian reading of the Old Testament. The first part presents the Holy Scriptures of the Jewish people as being a fundamental part of the Christian Bible; the second part is devoted to the study of NT topics in OT texts; the third part is concerned with the theme of the Jews in the New Testament. On this subject the Author discusses ancient and modern translations of a famous text of the first epistle of Paul to Thessalonicians (2,14-16)

In the center of the Arab village of el-Bira, is a Crusader church that was constructed in the village of Birra, or Magna Mahomeria (“the great Mohammedan shrine”), a reference to the Muslim religious structure located there. Close to the church there are a large caravanserai and a hospital, both apparently erected in the Crusader period. In the nineteenth century the church was still standing almost in its entirety, including part of the roof. The disintegration of the church did not cease afterwards, and today only its lower courses remain. The excavations of the church were conducted under the direction of the author intermittently during the years 1987-1991.

The ruins at Nitl are located on a raised spot. The prominent ancient edifices among the ruins, were a vaulted room and a square tower with its stone door still in situ, both built of squared-up stones with protruding ashlar work, typical of Roman buildings found in the region. The ‘tower’ lies to the west of the ecclesiastical complex we have excavated. The complex turns out to be really spectacular and unique in the religious architecture of the Madaba region. With its two churches and chapel, built in stone and decorated with mosaics, it has a unified appearance that made it look like a fortified citadel. The inscriptions clarify the nature of the Christian community we have met in the churches at Umm al-Rasas – Kastron Mefaa with a decidedly Arab character. The ecclesiastical complex at Nitl is a monument, which for its importance, can only be compared, in the Madaba region, with the great ecclesiastical complexes of the Memorial of Moses on Mount Nebo and the Saint Stephen Complex at Umm al-Rasas. It is to be considered as a sepulchral church for high ranking members of the Banu Ghassan family living in the region of Madaba.

The Ghassanid Church Complex at Nitl, in the Madaba region of Jordan, is truly a landmark in the history of Arab Federate art and architecture in this Late Antique period. It is the first indubitably Ghassanid Arab monument to be discovered in the south of Oriens, (Biläd al-Shäm), while others, such as Qas†al, have been only inferentially declared Ghassanid, since they are anepigraphic, unlike this one, the inscriptions of which have survived and they establish its Ghassanid identity beyond doubt. It is also the first Ghassanid church to be discovered. The excavation of a Church in this region with a clear Ghassanid Arab patronage could raise the question whether the zealous Ghassanid kings of the region participated, perhaps in a small way, with the Chalcedonian Church of Byzantium in the artistic renaissance in this region.

In late antiquity Umm al Rasas was the basis of a limitanean military unit which was part of the army at disposition of the dux Arabiae. The name of the unit was equites promoti indigenae. The installation of this unit at Umm al Rasas was part of a more general project of military renovation of the Near East predisposed by Diocletian and Galerius. It is not easy to choose if the equites promoti indigenae were cavalry detachments of a legion or, as some pieces of evidence seem to suggest, locally recruited cavalry units. Recent surveys have shown that Umm al Rasas was connected with the military fort of Qasr el Thuraiya by a paved road. Similarly, a paved road stretched from Qasr el Thuraiya into the wadi Su'eida.

This study presents a corpus of the coin hoards found in Israel, dating to the Roman and Byzantine periods. In this study we investigated data relating to the shelf life of coins in Roman and Byzantine hoards found in Israel. It is commonly accepted that coins were in circulation for more than ‘a few years’. However most of the hoards in our sample contained a relatively large amount of late coins. We can therefore argue that, from the hoards examined it appears that people seemed to use coins that were minted during the last ‘generation’. Hence, it can be said that even though the maximum time span of coins in hoards is around 250 years, and although the average median is about 50 years, it nevertheless appears that most of the coins in hoards are, in fact, from the last 25 years prior to concealment.

The article presents a catalogue with a short typo-chronological discussion of the Byzantine belt buckles kept in the Museum of the SBF. Most of the 15 buckles were acquired from the antique market. But without doubt, they come from Israel or Jordan. The buckles are dated in the second half of the 6th and 7th century AD. It is supposed that some buckles also continued to be used in Ummayad times. In this context the buckles with long U-shaped plate demand special attention.