LAF-Fabric: a data analysis tool for Linguistic Annotation Framework with an application to the Hebrew Bible

The Linguistic Annotation Framework (LAF) provides a general, extensible stand-off markup system for corpora. This paper discusses LAF-Fabric, a new tool to analyse LAF resources in general with an extension to process the Hebrew Bible in particular. We first walk through the history of the Hebrew Bible as text database in decennium-wide steps. Then we describe how LAF-Fabric may serve as an analysis tool for this corpus. Finally, we describe three analytic projects/workflows that benefit from the new LAF representation: 1) the study of linguistic variation: extract cooccurrence data of common nouns between the books of the Bible (Martijn Naaijer); 2) the study of the grammar of Hebrew poetry in the Psalms: extract clause typology (Gino Kalkman); 3) construction of a parser of classical Hebrew by Data Oriented Parsing: generate tree structures from the database (Andreas van Cranenburgh)

Tamar’s Legacy: The Early Reception of Genesis 38

The story of Tamar and Judah is one of the Torah’s more morally complicated narratives. As such, interpreters throughout history, but specifically early Jewish interpreters, grappled with how to relay this story in their translations of the Hebrew Bible. Using the theories and methods of reception history, this study demonstrates how the translations these early interpreters produced shed light on the dynamic relationship between a text and those who interpret it. Examining both the Greek Septuagint and Aramaic Targumim, the study identifies places in the translations where hints of the socio-historical position and theological commitments of the translators and their communities are woven into the Greek and Aramaic versions of the text

Book Review: Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World

Mark Smith’s Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World is a tour de force of philological commentary, comparative religion, and historical reconstruction that ultimately focuses its attention on the way warriors and their concerns appear in the Hebrew Bible. After an introduction posing the question of warrior poetry’s broad cultural appeal (1–12), Smith devotes part 1 to “the literary commemoration of warriors and warrior culture” (15–47), in which he lays out a glossary of heroic terminology and literary practice in the Hebrew Bible, highlighting the problem of finding cultural reality within literary representations. Part 2 (51–67) explores “three warrior pairs in Mesopotamia, Greece, and Israel” (i.e., Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroklos, and David and Jonathan) and then “gender inversion in the poetry of heroic pairs” (68–95). Part 3 undertakes a detailed study of “human and divine warriors in the Ugaritic texts” (99– 208), focusing on the Aqhat and Baal epics as well as the Rephaim texts, and part 4 arrives at “Israelite warrior poetry in the early Iron Age” (211–332), where the focus is on Judges 5 and 2 Sam. 1:19–27. The book is replete with maximal citation to the secondary literature, featuring nearly 250 pages of endnotes (333–576) as well as a detailed set of indexes

An Investigation of Ancient Hebrew Music During the Time of the Old Testament: Especially the Role of Music in the Lives of Israel\u27s First Two Kings, Saul and David

Music has always been an inextricable component of Jewish culture from its beginnings. Even before the construction of the Temple, music was used for worship, feasts, festivals, and various other cultural activities. Since much of this music involves the singing of texts, poetry was also a central part of the Jewish music culture. Singing in ancient Israel often involved instrumental accompaniment. The Bible records the texts of much musical activity. Instrumental music, vocal music, and accompanied vocal music are found throughout the Bible. Instrumental music is found in 1 Samuel 16 when David played his harp to soothe Saul and in 1 Samuel 19 when Saul tried to kill David when a troubling spirit came upon him. When men were coming back from battle in 1 Samuel 18, women played instruments and sang songs of David’s greatness. Psalms 16, 24, and 64 are great representations of Hebrew vocal music written by David. Music played a central role in the lives of the first two kings of Israel. This study will encompass a discussion of the role of music in the lives of the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David

The dynamics of syntax acquisition: facilitation between syntactic structures

This paper sets out to show how facilitation between different clause structures operates over time in syntax acquisition. The phenomenon of facilitation within given structures has been widely documented, yet inter-structure facilitation has rarely been reported so far. Our findings are based on the naturalistic production corpora of six toddlers learning Hebrew as their first language. We use regression analysis, a method that has not been used to study this phenomenon. We find that the proportion of errors among the earliest produced clauses in a structure is related to the degree of acceleration of that structure's learning curve; that with the accretion of structures the proportion of errors among the first clauses of new structures declines, as does the acceleration of their learning curves. We interpret our findings as showing that learning new syntactic structures is made easier, or facilitated, by previously acquired ones

In Search of Portrayals of Valiant Women in the Hebrew Narratives

Naomi and Ruth

Amos 3:3-8: A Case Study of the Function of Rhetorical Questions in Amos

Graduate Textual or Investigativ

Coming, Going, and Knowing. Reading Sex and Embodiment in Hebrew Narrative

This article both summarizes and analyzes recent feminist scholarship in literary studies and, in light of that analysis, examines a range of Hebrew terms for sexual intercourse. Particular attention is paid to Genesis and Judges