Thatcher - Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media

London – New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017

ISBN: HB: 978-0-5672-2249-7

ePDF: 978-0-5676-7838-6

ePUB: 978-0-5676-7837-9

 

Media studies, as a broad and multifaceted academic discipline, is concerned with the history of the affects of communications media on human culture. Within this larger universe of research, the Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media (DBAM) focuses specifically on the Bible and related literatures as understood within, and as products of, their original communication contexts. Media scholars view this emphasis on ancient communications culture as a corrective to presuppositions about the Bible that are informed exclusively by the dynamics and aesthetics of modern media, most particularly the print medium. DBAM seeks to introduce researchers at all levels to this growing field by providing a convenient handbook of key terms, concepts, methods, and voices that are frequently encountered in media-critical studies of the Bible.

 

The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament – the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures – are the primary focus of this book. However, the study of other ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic literatures can provide tremendous insight into the ancient media culture in which the Bible was composed, published and transmitted, and references to such texts are common in media-critical studies of the Bible. DBAM therefore includes entries on a number of non-canonical texts and issues surrounding their study, including, for example, Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, the Cave of Letters (Naḥal Ḥever), the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Judean Desert Texts, the Elephantine Papyri, the Enochic literature, Jubilees, letters, pesharim, Ras Shamra, rabbinic literature, testaments, and testimonia. Since DBAM is concerned with the period in which the biblical books were composed, the historical and geographical scope of the book is limited to the time periods of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires and the lands included within these empires, with an emphasis on Israel/Palestine and other areas in which ancient Israelites, Jews, and Christians lived during these times.

 

Beyond these historical and geographical considerations, the scope and content of DBAM reflect the current contours of the field of biblical media studies. Most Bible dictionaries (e.g. the Anchor Bible Dictionary and the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary) strive to be comprehensive in scope, covering a very broad range of historical, interpretive, and critical concerns related to the biblical texts. DBAM strives to comprehend only the scope and distinct concerns of media criticism of the Bible, with emphasis on terms, themes and theories that might be encountered while reading a media-critical study. Reflecting this unique focus, DBAM omits many entries that might appear in other reference tools (e.g. on specific biblical characters or books of the Bible and their histories of research) and includes entries not found in most other Bible dictionaries (e.g. on terms and concepts such as cultural memory and pluriformity) that are specific to media studies. Further, those entries that DBAM may share with other Bible dictionaries reflect the distinctive concerns of media studies, and may therefore introduce issues that others do not or may exclude the more familiar themes upon which they focus. For example, many Bible reference works will include an entry on Poetry in the Hebrew Bible, but in DBAM this entry explores how the comparative study of oral traditions, as founded by Milman Parry and Albert Lord, can inform the study of biblical poetic texts. In this respect, DBAM seeks to supplement, rather than replace, the existing library of biblical reference tools, specifically by providing both students and scholars with a comprehensive and accessible handbook for understanding the significant contribution that media studies is providing to the study of the Bible.

 

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Reading culture

 

Classicist William A. Johnson coined the phrase reading culture, as well as the similar term reading community, to emphasize that reading in the ancient context was primarily a social phenomenon rather than an individual phenomenon. Johnson was particularly reacting against a lengthy history of research concerning whether ancient people could read silently. Although affirming that ancient people did occasionally read silently, Johnson insisted that the amount of scholarly effort directed at this research question had missed the opportunity to ask larger sociological questions about ancient reading practices and the cultural realities in which they were located (Johnson 2010: 9). He thus advocated a shift in scholarly focus, stating: ‘Reading is not, in my view, exclusively or even mostly a neurophysiological, cognitive act – not in fact an individual phenomenon, but a sociocultural system in which the individual participates’ (2010: 11; emphasis original).

 

Working from this perspective, Johnson focused on ways in which aspects of ancient book culture were embedded in larger constructions of reality and identity among various ancient readers. Those aspects could range from the specific citation practices of obscure authors to the realia of ancient book culture. As one example, Johnson argued that certain features of ancient bookrolls/SCROLLS (see also CODEX and MANUSCRIPT), such as their usage of scriptio continua (no breaks between words), size of their margins, or costs of production, reflect their connection with the educated class. ‘The bookroll seems … an egregiously elite product intended in its stark beauty and difficulty of access to instantiate what it is to be educated’ (2010: 21).

 

Although Johnson primarily focused on elite literary culture in the high Roman empire (see LITERACY), his research has clear significance for the distinct reading cultures of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, among others, and scholars of Christian Origins have begun to apply his approach to these reading cultures. Larry Hurtado (2012), for example, has applied Johnson’s approach to early Christian manuscripts, and Chris Keith (2015) has applied them to the textualization of the Gospel of Mark.

 

Chris Keith (St. Mary’s University, UK)