Jewish Religion and Literature in Persian and Hellenistic Periods

About the group

Scholars of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament studies at the University of Oslo convene in this group in an effort to contribute to discussing certain major questions that dominate the current research agenda. Each member of the group has at least one research project that relates to the apprehension of Hebrew literature in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and of the religion of the province Jehud during the same periods.

The research situation within the field

Projects

The research group is made up of scholars undertaking more specific projects that are in various ways related to the research situation and agendas sketched above. Some of these projects are liable to be completed within a few years, others are more long-term engagements. The idea is that allocating these projects under the same umbrella will help developing a genuinely integrated research environment. In the future this group would then be able to launch more complex projects that deal more comprehensively with the above described research situation.

Projects:

• Religion and Society in Early Persian Jehud
• Mosaic and Enochic Religion
• In Search of the Missing Voice: Learning in Ancient Israel
• The New Wisdom: Basic Formal and Conceptual Structures in the Song of Songs
• Reading the Book of Job
• 'Mother Earth’ in Classical Hebrew Religion

Description of the research projects

Selected Publications

• Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 149), Leiden: Brill 2011

• Terje Stordalen, "The God of the Eden Narrative" in: Göran Eidevall and Blaženka Scheuer (eds.), Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2011, pp. 3-21
• Terje Stordalen, “Mother Earth in Biblical Hebrew Literature: Ancient and Contemporary Imagination" in: Jill Middlemas, David J.A: Clines, and Else K. Holt (eds.), The Centre and the Periphery: A European Tribute to Walter Brueggemann, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix 2010, pp. 113-29.
• Terje Stordalen, "An Almost Canonical Entity: Text Artifacts and Aurality in Early Biblical Literature!", in: Juha Pakkala and Martti Nissinen (eds.), Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola, (Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 95), Göttingen: Vandenhoech & Ruprecht 2008, pp. 666-83.
• Terje Stordalen, "The Canonization of Ancient Hebrew and Confucian Literature", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.1, 2007, 3-22
• Terje Stordalen, “Dialogue and Dialogism in the Book of Job”, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 20:1, 2006, 18-37
• Terje Stordalen, "Law or Prophecy? On the Order of the Canonical Books", in: Terje Stordalen and Oskar Skarsaune (eds.), Professor, dr. theol. Arvid Tångberg (1946–2000) in memoriam, (TTK 72/1-2), Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 2001, pp. 129-148.
Forthcoming
• Terje Stordalen, "Adorant? Goddess? Ancestress? Iconographic Reflections on a Group of Egyptian Terracotta Figurines in the Ustinov Collection", ms. 14 pp, forthcoming in a book edited by Marina Prusac Lindhagen, Oslo.
• Terje Stordalen, «“His place does not recognise him” (Job 7:10): Reflections of Non-Inscribed Memory in the Book of Job», ms. 19 pp, forthcoming in a book edited by Niels Peter Lemche and Pernille Carstens, Copenhagen.
• Terje Stordalen, «Ancient Hebrew Recitative Meditation», ms. 22 pages, forthcoming in: H. Eifring (ed.), Cultural Histories of Meditation.
• Terje Stordalen, «Canon and Canonical Commentary: The Hebrew Bible – and Beyond», ms., 22 pages, forthcoming in: Terje Stordalen and Saphinaz-Amal Naguib (eds.), The Formative Past and the Formation of the Future.