https://hcommons.org/members/tombolin/activity/ Activity feed for Thomas M. Bolin. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 03:58:33 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 923a3424bb754c6fd029485848feb51b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1917203/ Sat, 26 Apr 2025 17:32:26 -0400 0 0f1839db549ea602f1d0e2b7c59a3449 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1912258/ Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:42:17 -0500 0 70dbc83d57f08e92614526e16aa87d37 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1912257/ Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:40:08 -0500 0 e7fb2c91790f236dbbcb1d43677f755c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1879326/ Wed, 13 Mar 2024 03:01:51 -0400 Modern interpretations of Jonah 4,11 see God's reference to the Ninevites' animals as an example of divine solicitude for all created life. This article, rather, looks at the reference in light of ancient religious and po-litcial beliefs. Doing so demonstrates that the Ninevite beasts' function in the story is as sacrficial animals. The offering…[Read more]

]]> 0 8217e094f70df2f12069b2139668f0ce https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1879325/ Wed, 13 Mar 2024 03:01:34 -0400 The first part of this article reviews significant scholarly contributions on the Book of Jonah for the last ten years. Looking specifically at the work of Serge Frolov, Yvonne Sherwood, Ehud Ben Zvi, Lowell Handy and T.A. Perry demonstrates that exegesis of Jonah has entered a very fruitful period, free of the anti-Jewish biases characteristic of…[Read more]

]]> 0 ee69ab4dcad35bc942b63ed9703732be https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1879323/ Wed, 13 Mar 2024 03:01:22 -0400 The first part of this article reviews significant scholarly contributions on the Book of Jonah for the last ten years. Looking specifically at the work of Serge Frolov, Yvonne Sherwood, Ehud Ben Zvi, Lowell Handy and T.A. Perry demonstrates that exegesis of Jonah has entered a very fruitful period, free of the anti-Jewish biases characteristic of…[Read more]

]]> 0 5243edf0b3d080a9a23d721be80f01db https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1879249/ Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:23:43 -0400 Modern interpretations of Jonah 4,11 see God's reference to the Ninevites' animals as an example of divine solicitude for all created life. This article, rather, looks at the reference in light of ancient religious and po-litcial beliefs. Doing so demonstrates that the Ninevite beasts' function in the story is as sacrficial animals. The offering…[Read more]

]]> 0 706a6825fdb7f1ac1ca464639a1d6e59 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1879248/ Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:20:36 -0400 The first part of this article reviews significant scholarly contributions on the Book of Jonah for the last ten years. Looking specifically at the work of Serge Frolov, Yvonne Sherwood, Ehud Ben Zvi, Lowell Handy and T.A. Perry demonstrates that exegesis of Jonah has entered a very fruitful period, free of the anti-Jewish biases characteristic of…[Read more]

]]> 0 1e7cf76205ff82baa5ce2db83d65fd0f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1853689/ Wed, 02 Aug 2023 22:31:21 -0400 0 9c3b5b382e8bf7946520139fd9274d56 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754508/ Sat, 09 Oct 2021 02:26:00 -0400 This article reads Genesis 18-19 in the light of the principal of exchange at work in ancient religious belief concerning divine justice. Genesis 18.1-15 and 19.1-29, as examples of the well-worn tale of the divine visitor, are narrative expressions of confidence in a divine justice that rewards the kind and punishes the inhospitable. In the…[Read more]

]]> 0 82105b5ba8c73b709d6f4dd16fff528f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754506/ Sat, 09 Oct 2021 02:25:55 -0400 This article reads Genesis 18-19 in the light of the principal of exchange at work in ancient religious belief concerning divine justice. Genesis 18.1-15 and 19.1-29, as examples of the well-worn tale of the divine visitor, are narrative expressions of confidence in a divine justice that rewards the kind and punishes the inhospitable. In the…[Read more]

]]> 0 b27951bd14fdfa34efcba23dc0cf80a0 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754504/ Sat, 09 Oct 2021 02:25:48 -0400 This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book of Qoheleth, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind” (NRSV) and reads it as a disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh and jwr denote mortality and the divine spirit, respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, “All is mortal, but strives for immortality”. Using R…[Read more]

]]> 0 7546ede9573b4cd3a531a0d13f5dbb10 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754346/ Fri, 08 Oct 2021 17:10:48 -0400 This article reads Genesis 18-19 in the light of the principal of exchange at work in ancient religious belief concerning divine justice. Genesis 18.1-15 and 19.1-29, as examples of the well-worn tale of the divine visitor, are narrative expressions of confidence in a divine justice that rewards the kind and punishes the inhospitable. In the…[Read more]

]]> 0 9f7f8c921e14abdb55593a5cd128dd80 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754341/ Fri, 08 Oct 2021 17:03:24 -0400 his article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book of Qoheleth, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind” (NRSV) and reads it as a disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh and jwr denote mortality and the divine spirit, respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, “All is mortal, but strives for immortality”. Using R…[Read more]

]]> 0 7a10bd8ee2c856b3ae0725150b1c5e0a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1729117/ Fri, 26 Feb 2021 02:30:06 -0500 An analysis of multiple traditions in the Hebrew Bible on the founding of Jerusalem.

]]> 0 e4d0690f48550c32691b14dbdd054c41 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1729046/ Thu, 25 Feb 2021 20:28:10 -0500 An analysis of multiple traditions in the Hebrew Bible on the founding of Jerusalem.

]]> 0 622515edefe67a88fc77f2b91dc96b38 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720249/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 17:18:07 -0500 0 7ef33b1bf88bb3df6b63bc3922cea169 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1696274/ Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:12:38 -0400 This article asks the question how post-exilic readers would have read 1-2 Samuel in Yehud. It answers the question by looking at ancient Mediterranean models of textual authority and education.

]]> 0 ccfe2a4943694a9e34d4469b3984f131 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1696273/ Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:12:36 -0400 This article asks the question how post-exilic readers would have read 1-2 Samuel in Yehud. It answers the question by looking at ancient Mediterranean models of textual authority and education.

]]> 0 cdb03101e919b85e60ca230f1c1b1e35 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1695786/ Tue, 07 Jul 2020 22:07:18 -0400 This article asks the question how post-exilic readers would have read 1-2 Samuel in Yehud. It answers the question by looking at ancient Mediterranean models of textual authority and education.

]]> 0 60217f79e189c8bc94d9885b1bcdb38c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1658187/ Sat, 20 Jul 2019 16:26:36 -0400 An overlooked but important document in the history of magisterial pronoun- cements on historical-critical biblical scholarship is the 1964 Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Sancta mater ecclesia. This article traces the history leading up to the Instruction and analyzes its importance during the Second Vatican Council and…[Read more]

]]> 0 9d2b53ee68f6f43262c4f93550d64dc1 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1658142/ Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:35:12 -0400 An overlooked but important document in the history of magisterial pronoun- cements on historical-critical biblical scholarship is the 1964 Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Sancta mater ecclesia. This article traces the history leading up to the Instruction and analyzes its importance during the Second Vatican Council and…[Read more]

]]> 0 5456e343ecd27f6b0e15677b040e06a9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1640266/ Wed, 15 May 2019 16:25:21 -0400 This essay examines the current state of the field in pentateuchal studies and recommends taking up large-genre questions once again and looking at canonical texts from other religious traditions, in this case ancient Sanskrit texts, for clues on how this type of literature grows.

]]> 0 51b833b7e70ce770a9ac79f0a3789f51 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1640215/ Tue, 14 May 2019 16:05:08 -0400 This essay examines the current state of the field in pentateuchal studies and recommends taking up large-genre questions once again and looking at canonical texts from other religious traditions, in this case ancient Sanskrit texts, for clues on how this type of literature grows.

]]> 0 a6722f0a4ff0d4a3f53229245c1f8fcb https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623825/ Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:25:33 -0500 A survey of an re-reading of Job 42:6, in a Festshcrift honoring the late Semitic philologist, Giovanni Garbini.

]]> 0 9a81f4bc39b6c512722d947612281792 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623783/ Wed, 14 Nov 2018 23:36:02 -0500 A survey of an re-reading of Job 42:6, in a Festshcrift honoring the late Semitic philologist, Giovanni Garbini.

]]> 0 9f4a25478873371133b2327268a92653 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623435/ Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:25:53 -0500 This chapter explores the prose traditions in the Writings under the broad division between historiography and storytelling. While 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah make use of archival sources and possibly genuine first-person accounts, these materials are arranged and subsumed under an ideological umbrella—much like contemporaneous Greek his…[Read more]

]]> 0 a700024fdb49e5cfec35328bd7139ed1 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623434/ Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:25:22 -0500 This chapter explores the prose traditions in the Writings under the broad division between historiography and storytelling. While 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah make use of archival sources and possibly genuine first-person accounts, these materials are arranged and subsumed under an ideological umbrella—much like contemporaneous Greek his…[Read more]

]]> 0 c24a65b872b98386454523ecc60c5870 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623433/ Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:25:21 -0500 This chapter explores the prose traditions in the Writings under the broad division between historiography and storytelling. While 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah make use of archival sources and possibly genuine first-person accounts, these materials are arranged and subsumed under an ideological umbrella—much like contemporaneous Greek his…[Read more]

]]> 0 d0b0700f8fb183303569927013e4cbe9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623374/ Fri, 09 Nov 2018 16:48:06 -0500 0 54fabd4d1b1b0b5dea00d1bdc0e9db5d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623368/ Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:52:46 -0500 This chapter explores the prose traditions in the Writings under the broad division between historiography and storytelling. While 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah make use of archival sources and possibly genuine first-person accounts, these materials are arranged and subsumed under an ideological umbrella—much like contemporaneous Greek his…[Read more]

]]> 0 958e492b74621f40e15ca335be615b6c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610304/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 04:12:27 -0400 This essay explores the different ways parts of the Hebrew Bible have been described as historiography. It's an old essay whose usefulness is limited to giving the reader a snapshot of the state of the question in biblical historiography at the height of the maximalist-minimalist debate.

]]> 0 27befc9f59cab7faa506b95f295e6876 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610303/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 04:12:25 -0400 This essay explores the different ways parts of the Hebrew Bible have been described as historiography. It's an old essay whose usefulness is limited to giving the reader a snapshot of the state of the question in biblical historiography at the height of the maximalist-minimalist debate.

]]> 0 c2692f15c392c1311af34de749a5027c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610087/ Wed, 06 Jun 2018 14:46:28 -0400 This essay explores the different ways parts of the Hebrew Bible have been described as historiography. It's an old essay whose usefulness is limited to giving the reader a snapshot of the state of the question in biblical historiography at the height of the maximalist-minimalist debate.

]]> 0 d766b5ab901d90327ff32b620bffdb1d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1609368/ Tue, 29 May 2018 04:12:26 -0400 This essay looks at how the Persian authorization to rebuild of Jewish temple at Elephantine reflects imperial policy and sheds light on post-exilic Judaism.

]]> 0 d2e50597ec9b9c8353efcca737ac4c1d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1609367/ Tue, 29 May 2018 04:12:25 -0400 This essay looks at how the Persian authorization to rebuild of Jewish temple at Elephantine reflects imperial policy and sheds light on post-exilic Judaism.

]]> 0 9e90c17bd0f1aa3c318b5b5a372a22dc https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1609335/ Mon, 28 May 2018 15:41:20 -0400 0 a90976b6f282f492823e10d7f6c38af0 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1609334/ Mon, 28 May 2018 15:35:20 -0400 This essay looks at how the Persian authorization to rebuild of Jewish temple at Elephantine reflects imperial policy and sheds light on post-exilic Judaism.

]]> 0 4b6c27b629a4b49f6cce38d86530e946 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1574242/ Fri, 16 Jun 2017 01:00:04 -0400 As a paratext, the colophon’s functions can be summarily and quickly described. It marks the ending of a text. In the era before printing this was a necessity, so that later copyists would know that they had a complete text before them to reproduce. This is the case with many Egyptian and Akkadkian colophons. As such, a colophon is an assertion o…[Read more]

]]> 0 e067ece9f0bcfdc04e1feb59d2be2a8b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1574241/ Fri, 16 Jun 2017 01:00:03 -0400 As a paratext, the colophon’s functions can be summarily and quickly described. It marks the ending of a text. In the era before printing this was a necessity, so that later copyists would know that they had a complete text before them to reproduce. This is the case with many Egyptian and Akkadkian colophons. As such, a colophon is an assertion o…[Read more]

]]> 0 6b752e92276a7b0e00ffc8622fb4ce95 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1574125/ Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:40:53 -0400 As a paratext, the colophon’s functions can be summarily and quickly described. It marks the ending of a text. In the era before printing this was a necessity, so that later copyists would know that they had a complete text before them to reproduce. This is the case with many Egyptian and Akkadkian colophons. As such, a colophon is an assertion o…[Read more]

]]> 0 d5bbaf60d7559df1cdd915cbfcf257ab https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1568314/ Tue, 02 May 2017 00:30:00 -0400 0 1ba0fa3c91bd88549083726ec8d3970d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1567562/ Sun, 30 Apr 2017 18:38:55 -0400 0 94c5a8574b32c825096371bbbf362687 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1567559/ Sun, 30 Apr 2017 18:37:05 -0400 0