Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Gudar och människor bland texter och paratexter : Om varför Gamla testamentet inte har några författare

Davage, David LU (2021) In Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift 97(2). p.133-154
Abstract

It is a wellknown fact that the books of the Hebrew Bible are, to a great extent, anonymous and that the individuals long identified as their authors (Moses, Isaiah, David, Solomon, and so on) are not the ones who have penned them. How, then, should the few paratexts that do, in fact, relate texts explicitly to named individuals be understood? In this article, I argue that such a question is essentially related to the historical contingency of author concepts. After introducing the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault as a contrast to the Romantic author ideal, I provide an outline of two diverging author concepts in the ancient world: (1) a Mesopotamian trajectory where texts often circulated anonymously and where authorship was... (More)

It is a wellknown fact that the books of the Hebrew Bible are, to a great extent, anonymous and that the individuals long identified as their authors (Moses, Isaiah, David, Solomon, and so on) are not the ones who have penned them. How, then, should the few paratexts that do, in fact, relate texts explicitly to named individuals be understood? In this article, I argue that such a question is essentially related to the historical contingency of author concepts. After introducing the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault as a contrast to the Romantic author ideal, I provide an outline of two diverging author concepts in the ancient world: (1) a Mesopotamian trajectory where texts often circulated anonymously and where authorship was distributed across several agents, with a divinehuman interaction at its core, and (2) a Greek trajectory, where authors were regularly named and given prime place in the interpretive activity. By arguing that there are clear overlaps in the way authorship is conceived in the Mesopotamian trajectory and in the Hebrew Bible (more specifically in the book of Isaiah), I provide a new framework in relation to which the formation of the literature of the Hebrew Bible can be understood.

(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift
volume
97
issue
2
pages
22 pages
publisher
Gleerups Utbildning AB
external identifiers
  • scopus:85129531954
ISSN
0039-6761
DOI
10.51619/stk.v97i2.23193
language
Swedish
LU publication?
yes
id
215de5ee-11da-47a3-b42d-217f555012a3
date added to LUP
2022-07-05 14:21:36
date last changed
2022-07-05 14:21:36
@article{215de5ee-11da-47a3-b42d-217f555012a3,
  abstract     = {{<p>It is a wellknown fact that the books of the Hebrew Bible are, to a great extent, anonymous and that the individuals long identified as their authors (Moses, Isaiah, David, Solomon, and so on) are not the ones who have penned them. How, then, should the few paratexts that do, in fact, relate texts explicitly to named individuals be understood? In this article, I argue that such a question is essentially related to the historical contingency of author concepts. After introducing the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault as a contrast to the Romantic author ideal, I provide an outline of two diverging author concepts in the ancient world: (1) a Mesopotamian trajectory where texts often circulated anonymously and where authorship was distributed across several agents, with a divinehuman interaction at its core, and (2) a Greek trajectory, where authors were regularly named and given prime place in the interpretive activity. By arguing that there are clear overlaps in the way authorship is conceived in the Mesopotamian trajectory and in the Hebrew Bible (more specifically in the book of Isaiah), I provide a new framework in relation to which the formation of the literature of the Hebrew Bible can be understood.</p>}},
  author       = {{Davage, David}},
  issn         = {{0039-6761}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  number       = {{2}},
  pages        = {{133--154}},
  publisher    = {{Gleerups Utbildning AB}},
  series       = {{Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift}},
  title        = {{Gudar och människor bland texter och paratexter : Om varför Gamla testamentet inte har några författare}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.51619/stk.v97i2.23193}},
  doi          = {{10.51619/stk.v97i2.23193}},
  volume       = {{97}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}