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Title: An Analysis of the Ongoing Validity of the Documentary Hypothesis for Final Form Interpretation: The Portrayal of Outsiders in the Abrahamic Narratives as a Case Study
Contributor: Daniel E. Hawkins (author), Craig Broyles (thesis supervisor), Andrew B. Perrin (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: This thesis will investigate three inter-connected questions. First, how are outsiders portrayed in the Abrahamic narratives? Secondly, is the portrayal of outsiders different between the different sources of Genesis, and, if so, what does the possible historical context of each source contribute to an understanding of why these differences exist? This in turn will contribute to the larger and third question: does the Documentary Hypothesis specifically, and diachronic analysis in general, have sufficient value for understanding the text as it now stands? It will be shown that while the Documentary Hypothesis involves some speculation, it offers a more coherent framework through which one can interpret and understand many of the complexities that arise in a reading of the Pentateuch. As such, diachronic analysis proves to be an invaluable tool for interpreting the final form of Genesis, if one is aware of its limitations.
Publication Year: 2020

Title: Cinematic Childhood(s) and Imag(in)ing the Boy Jesus: Adaptations of Luke 2:41-52 in Late Twentieth-Century Film
Contributor: James Magee (author), Dirk Büchner (thesis supervisor), Adele Reinhartz (external examiner), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Despite sustained academic examinations of Jesus in film over the past couple of decades, as well as biblical scholars’ multidisciplinary work in the areas of children’s and childhood studies, the cinematic boy Jesus has received little attention. This thesis begins to fill the lacuna of scholarly explorations into cinematic portrayals of Jesus as a child by analyzing two adaptations of Luke’s story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in late twentieth-century film. Using methods of historical and narrative criticism tailored to the study of film, I situate the made-for-television movies Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and Jesus (2000) within the trajectories of both Jesus films and depictions of juvenile masculinity in cinema, as well as within their respective social, cultural and historical contexts. I demonstrate how these movie sequences are negotiations by their filmmakers between theological and historical concerns that reflect contemporary ideas about children and particular idealizations about boyhood.
Publication Year: 2019

Title: Conceptualizing Historical Periodization in the Apocalypse : The Canonical Shaping of the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns
Contributor: Omele Burrell (author), Kent Clarke (thesis supervisor), Tony Cummins (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the historical context from which the book derives. While it remains true that careful historical analysis has advanced our understanding of the world in which the seer of Patmos lived and wrote, a strictly contemporary historical focus threatens to confine the significance of this apocalyptic symbol to the environs of the first century. In seeking to recover the theological and contemporary relevance of this symbol as a critique of imperial ambitions, this thesis argues for a reading strategy which locates the Book of Revelation foremost in the context of "canon." Such a reading stance illuminates the meaning of the symbolic beast in relationship to the deep intertextual and theological history which the final book of the Bible shares with the canonical corpus of Christian Scriptures.
Publication Year: 2015

Title: A Critical Edition of Codex 0150 Including Its Textual and Reception History
Contributor: Matthew J Hama (author), Kent D Clarke (thesis supervisor), Dirk L Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Codex 0150 is an unpublished New Testament manuscript that has received minimal scholarly attention since its discovery. This critical edition offers a conservative transcription of 0150 based upon high resolution digital images provided by the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM). The transcription includes a comprehensive analysis of variants, which occur when 0150 is read against both the NA28 and the RP versions of the Greek New Testament. This edition critically engages background information of the manuscript such as date, provenance, and content, while also providing a close examination of scribal features present in 0150. Additionally, this work maximizes digital imaging technology to better understand the contents of the manuscript, its author, and the ancient world from which it arose. This edition provides access to an important piece within the New Testament manuscript tradition, and offers a rich foundation on which future scholarship can build.
Publication Year: 2017

Title: Employing Deuteronomy: an Analysis of the Quotations and Allusions to Deuteronomy in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Contributor: Joshua M. Matson (author), Martin G. Abegg, Jr. (thesis supervisor), Andrew Perrin (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The study of quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible in religious texts has only recently began to be methodically approached and analyzed. Although previous studies on quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls are amply available concerning individual manuscripts, no such study has sought to approach the subject from a perspective of universality. This study seeks to identify and analyze universal conclusions that have been obtained by a study of the quotations and allusions to Deuteronomy in all of the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts. This is accomplished through an in-depth study of the history of studies on quotations and allusions in religious texts, a detailed explanation of the methodology utilized in this study, and an analysis of fifteen universal conclusions that are exhibited by the authors/scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls when quoting or alluding to the Deuteronomy text of the Hebrew Bible.
Publication Year: 2015

Title: The exegetical interpretation of Leviticus 19:1-18 and the restoration of the Jewish community in the post-exilic period
Contributor: BaeSick P. Choi (author), Dirk Büchner (thesis supervisor), Craig Broyles (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The goal of this thesis to look at the functions of the commands and laws in Leviticus 19:1-8 as follows: (1) the function of Leviticus 19: 1-18 and the Holiness Code; (2) Leviticus 19:1-18 as an aid to the restoration of Jewish Community. (3) The Prophet Ezekiel's understanding of the Holiness Code and possible connections to Leviticus 19:1-18. The thesis is divided into sections as follows: Chapter 1 will present an exegesis of Leviticus 19:1-18. The relationship between these two sources will be discussed in chapters 1 and 2 in order to show the function of Leviticus 19 in relation to the other Pentateuchal sources. Chapter 2 will examine the life of the Jews in the exilic. Chapter 3 will present the ideas in Leviticus 19 against life in the exile. The Book of Ezekiel with its close relationship to H will also be brought into focus.
Publication Year: 2013

Title: Incorporating syntax into theories of textual transmission : preliminary studies in the Judaean desert Isaiah scrolls and fragments
Contributor: James Tucker (author), Martin Abegg (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Prior to the discovery of the Qumran and Judaean Desert scrolls and fragments, text-critical scholars conducted their investigation of textual variation by means of manuscript stemma, among which ! and its associated scribal school was the golden rule. With nearly seventy years of research now complete, scholars have emended their methodological framework to account for variation by means of the scribal practices of the Second Temple era. To analyze textual variation vis-à-vis scribal practices and approaches has required that scholars incorporate historical linguistics into existing philological methods. The linguistic categories of orthography, phonology, and morphology have received a significant amount attention, mostly in Emanuel Tov's Non-Aligned theory. However, syntax has received little attention. To test the hypothesis that syntax should likewise be incorporated into transmission theory methodology, several case studies from the Judaean Desert Isaiah corpus are presented. The conclusion of the present study affirms that syntax offers a viable method to account for the extant readings witnessed in the Judaean Desert Isaiah corpus.
Publication Year: 2014

Title: Jewish monotheism : the exclusivity of Yahweh in Persian period Yehud (539-333 BCE)
Contributor: Abel Sitali (author), Kent Clarke (thesis supervisor), Dirk Buchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Studies about the origin of monotheism—the belief in one god while denying the existence of all others, have continued to be a matter of debate among Hebrew Bible scholars. The debate has often fallen into two contrasting categories. On the one hand, there are those who argue for an early origin in which it is posited that monotheism must have begun somewhere between the time of Moses and the monarchical period. On the other hand, others have argued for a late date which stretches from the exilic period to the Persian period. In spite of the different explanations given by the proponents of early monotheism, this thesis builds on the hypothesis that exclusive monotheism was only realized during the Persian period. The monotheistic rhetoric that characterized the message of Deutero-Isaiah, only came to be put into practice by the confessional community of faith among the returning exiles in Yehud.
Publication Year: 2014

Title: Memories of Balaam: Translatability of a Religious Specialist in Ancient Israel
Contributor: Ryan D. Schroeder (author), Craig Broyles (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Scholars have employed the biblical Balaam traditions both in the defense of and in opposition to Jan Assmann’s assertion that early Israel rejected cross-cultural religious translatability. The Hebrew Bible’s diverse portrayals of Balaam have long stimulated scholarly, literary-critical analysis. Also, the Deir ʿAlla inscription provides an intriguing extra-biblical glimpse of this enigmatic character. In this study, I discern how these early depictions of Balaam reflect socially shaped and shared memories of Balaam as a foreign religious specialist who participated in Israel’s past. I argue that early memories of Balaam suggest his warm reception among Yhwh worshipping Israelites in spite of his foreign status. However, later guardians of Israel’s written traditions came to remember and write about Balaam as a diviner whose role in Israel’s past primarily served to demonstrate the dangers of non-Israelites and their abominable religious practices.
Publication Year: 2015

Title: The Messiah and Eschatology in the Psalms of Solomon
Contributor: Scott Reynolds (author), na na (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The central purpose of this thesis is to read the Psalms of Solomon as a literary and theological whole while considering the particular historical and theological milieu in which they were written. My reading of the Psalms of Solomon will demonstrate that, in these poems, the Messiah is expected to be a Davidic monarch who will restore the righteous to their appropriate position under the rule of YHWH with a decisive victory that will include the ingathering of the exiles in the penultimate period of history and an everlasting theocratic peace. I will further demonstrate that the writers of these psalms came to this conclusion through a careful rereading of their scriptural traditions based on their current historical circumstances. Connections will be drawn between this understanding of the Messiah’s eschatological role and the role of messianic figures in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as messianic interpretations in the Septuagint.
Publication Year: 2016

Title: A new edition of Codex I (016) : the Washington manuscript of the epistles of Paul
Contributor: Justin Soderquist (author), Kent Clarke (thesis supervisor), Thomas Wayment (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Nearly a century has passed since Henry A. Sanders first published his editio princeps of the Washington Manuscript of the Epistles of Paul (Codex I or 016). Within that time, it has received very little scholarly attention. This new edition provides a fresh, conservative transcription based on two new image sets, and identifies all differences between the new transcription and Sanders. It additionally provides comprehensive lists of variants between Codex I, the Nestle-Aland 28th, and the Robinson Pierpont editions of the Greek New Testament. The new edition also provides valuable data surrounding the manuscript’s provenance, character, scribal habits, textual affiliation, and substantive variants. Several corrections to Sanders are offered, and the new transcription shows the effects of nearly a century upon the manuscript. This work seeks both to update Sanders, and to provide valuable data which will make the text of Codex I more readily accessible for future inquiry.
Publication Year: 2014

Title: No faithful oaths : a comparison of Esau’s speech in Jubilees 37:18-23 with Achilles’ speech in Iliad 22.260-272
Contributor: James Hamrick (author), James Scott (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-twentieth century scholars have made significant progress in understanding the Book of Jubilees, yet very little work has been done exploring this composition within its broader non-Jewish Hellenistic literary and cultural context. The handful of studies that have addressed this issue show that Jubilees was conversant with Greek intellectual traditions, demonstrating the potential fruitfulness of this area of research and the need to explore it further. This thesis attempts a modest contribution to this task by examining Esau's speech to Jacob in Jubilees 37:18-23 in light of Achilles' speech to Hector in Iliad 22:260-272. This comparison reveals that Esau’s speech exhibits notable similarities to Achilles’ speech in literary setting, rhetorical purpose, rhetorical mechanism, use of imagery, syntax, vocabulary, and characterization. These similarities are best explained as the result of the author of Jubilees intentionally adopting and adapting elements of the Iliad for his own purposes.
Publication Year: 2014

Title: Northern Psalms in Southern Contexts: Defining a Historical Setting for the Psalms of Asaph
Contributor: Spencer J Elliott (author), Craig C Broyles (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The psalms of Asaph (50, 73-83) present an intriguing problem for their interpreters. Though these psalms show every sign of being used in the temple at Jerusalem, they contain a ponderous amount of traditions, geographic references, and names that would be more appropriate in Israel’s northern kingdom. The haphazard geographic and tradition-history provenance of these psalms is best reconciled by assuming a fundamental mixture between northern and southern material in the growing and cosmopolitan city of pre-exilic Jerusalem, beginning in the time of Hezekiah. As northern psalmists moved to Jerusalem after the conquests of the Assyrian empire in the late 8th c. BCE, they brought their traditions of worship and assimilated these traditions within the liturgies of Jerusalem’s temple. These psalms illumine how northern Israelites accommodated to their new Jerusalemite setting after 722 BCE, and how their psalms reflect their experience of forced displacement.
Publication Year: 2019

Title: Reading Genesis 1-35 in Persian Yehud
Contributor: Scott A. Bailey (author), Jim Scott (thesis supervisor), Craig Broyles (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Using a multi-dimensional historical-critical and literary method this thesis examines Genesis in a fixed socio-historical location, Achaemenid Persian period, and compares the polemic and function of the myths in Genesis to contemporaneous literature and competing ideology. The purpose of analyzing Genesis in such a fashion is to determine how the normative myths recontextualized in the text would have functioned polemically for the Yehud elite who had returned to a land with which they had ethnic ties, and who were empowered by the Persian Empire to govern. Ultimately, it is argued that while no history can be found in these myths, the paradigmatic actions of the patriarchs in Genesis communicate the ideology of the authors, and a great deal of the textual data can be explained through the historical setting of Persian Yehud, and the social, ethnic, religious, and political concerns of the Yehud elite.
Publication Year: 2013

Title: Reading the Text With its Ancient Audience: The Amnon and Tamar Narrative as a Test Case
Contributor: Jonathon M. Riley (author), Craig C. Broyles (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the methods of narrative criticism can be employed in a modified way to address the problems with the intentional fallacy that are inherent in narrative criticism, and the tendency of narrative criticism to ignore historical-critical questions about the text. This modification will employ a new method to analyze the Amnon and Tamar narrative as follows: first use the historical-critical method to reconstruct JEDtrH, then use reception criticism to determine the ways in which the earliest audience of JEDtrH could have understood the text, then use narrative criticism to present one way in which one member of its earliest audience could have understood one pericope within the text. This analysis is preceded by a chapter explaining the interpretive styles associated with narrative criticism.
Publication Year: 2018

Title: Reconstructing the text of the church : the “canonical text” and the goal of New Testament textual criticism
Contributor: David R. Herbison (author), Craig Allert (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution), Kent Clarke (thesis supervisor)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Amidst recent doubts about the feasibility of achieving New Testament textual criticism’s traditional goal of establishing the “original text” of the New Testament, Brevard Childs proposed that text critics should go about reconstructing the “canonical text” instead. However, concepts of “canon” have generally been limited to discussions of which books were included or excluded from a list of authoritative writings, not necessarily the specific textual readings within those writings. This thesis considers whether there is historical evidence to support the existence of such a “canonical text” of the New Testament, and whether modern text critics and exegetes should prefer this textform to more traditional reconstructions. This study concludes that there is little evidence to support the existence of a lost “canonical text” of the New Testament, and that even if one assumes the existence of such a text, there are good reasons for continuing to prefer more traditional reconstructions.
Publication Year: 2015

Title: A Sanctuary in Time: Exploring Genesis 1’s Memory of Creation
Contributor: Kyle R.L. Parsons (author), Craig C. Broyles (thesis supervisor), Dirk Büchner (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: Since the days of Wellhausen, pentateuchal scholarship has essentially agreed that Gen 1 and Gen 2 are from two distinct sources. Furthermore, they agree that Gen 1 was added in front of Gen 2 at a relatively late period during the Pentateuch's compositional history. Moving beyond these agreements, this thesis asks why Gen 1, and its cultural memory of creation, was added in front of Gen 2? In other words, what motivated a later group to come along and add Gen 1? As such, this thesis argues that Gen 1 was intentionally added in order to primarily elevate the Sabbath to a position and status equal to the Temple/Tabernacle. In mnemonic terms, then, Gen 1 is a countermemory that resulted in a shift away from sacred space toward sacred time. A mnemonic shift from the sanctuary in Jerusalem to a sanctuary in time.
Publication Year: 2016

Title: Silenced Voices: Hearing Biblical Women Through the Genesis Apocryphon
Contributor: Shelby Bennett (author), Andrew B. Perrin (thesis supervisor), Robynne Rogers Healey (second reader), Craig C. Broyles (third reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: The #MeToo movement broke the silence around abuse of women. Within the church, women’s voices have been dismissed, disbelieved, or intimidated into silence, reflecting the Bible’s depiction of women as passive and silent, if mentioned. In stark contrast, a new text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls – called the Genesis Apocryphon – contains a retelling of Genesis stories in which the women are named, identified, and given speech and action. Why did these ancient scribes choose to expand the female characters? This study employs both biblical and feminist studies to examine the four stories of women in the Genesis Apocryphon: the women of the Watchers myth, Batenosh, Emzara, and Sarai. It finds the Second Temple authors expanding female characters’ identities in order to emphasize endogamous marriages. The Genesis Apocryphon’s inclusion of women’s voices illuminates the deafening silence of Genesis and points a way forward for biblical interpretation and feminist praxis today.
Publication Year: 2021

Title: Syntax in the Septuagint : with special reference to relative clauses in Greek numbers
Contributor: Spencer Jones (author), Dirk Büchner (thesis supervisor), Robert J. V. Hiebert (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: When compared with compositional works of Koiné Greek, the syntax of the Septuagint can appear peculiar in some ways and quite familiar in others. In order to provide an approach that accounts for this peculiarity and enables rigorous syntactical interpretation of the Septuagint, this thesis develops a hypothesis that Septuagintal syntax is reflective of Koiné syntax with a measure of Hebrew influence. It then sets forth a methodology that takes into full account both Greek syntactical strictures and Hebrew interference, and situates this methodology among other approaches to Septuagintal syntax. Subsequently, this study applies its method to a detailed analysis of a few aspects of relative clauses in the Septuagint, namely, the variation of relative pronouns and use of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses. It concludes that the method followed in this study is successful in analyzing the unusual syntax of the Septuagint and could be applied broadly.
Publication Year: 2015

Title: "The Relation of Ra 2110, or P. Bodmer XXIV, to Origen's Hexapla: A Study in the Textual History of the Greek Psalter"
Contributor: Brian P Baucom (author), Dirk Büchner (thesis supervisor), Robert J. V. Hiebert (second reader), Trinity Western University SGS (Degree granting institution)
Discipline/Stream: Biblical Studies
Abstract: This thesis presents the results of a detailed comparative analysis of the earliest known Greek text of Rahlfs's so-called Upper Egyptian text group (Rahlfs 2110) and the Gallican Psalter, as well as other hexaplaric witnesses as presented in Field's collection of hexaplaric fragments. This paper goes beyond the initial study conducted by Albert Pietersma in which he analyzed asterisked and obelized readings of the Gallican Psalter in comparison to Ra 2110 ("Origen's Corrections and the Text of P. Bodmer XXIV" [1993]). The results of my research reveal that Ra 2110 contains a number of hebraizing readings that agree with the Gallican Psalter. Some of the shared readings may be merely coincidence, others may be based on a shared connection to other witnesses thus eliminating the connection between Ra 2110 and Origen’s Hexapla of the Psalms; however, others seem to indicate a closer relationship between Origen's Hexapla and Ra 2110.
Publication Year: 2018