• Why Apply Analytical Methods of Study?
• • Most scholars assume that the Hebrew Bible is open to study by analytical and scientific means as well as spiritual means
  • The aim is not so much to prove the veracity of the Hebrew Bible but to help all who read it understand and apply it better
  • One could answer the question by simply saying "Why not?" - God, as ultimate truth, has nothing to fear from those seeking truth
• Studying the Text
• • Textual analysis
  • • Compare the various texts available (especially the Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic) in an effort to bring us closer to what was originally written and to the history of the text
    • We have no originals and thus can never be sure whether we have reconstructed the original text or not - knowing the history of the text, however, is possible and informative
    • Some rules when comparing texts
    • • Shorter reading is usually best because we tend to expand accounts and add explanations as time passes
      • More difficult reading grammatically is usually best because we tend to correct things
    • Rules like those above are helpful as we attempt to sort out what readings are the more original
  • Literary analysis
  • • Used to be concerned primarily with who wrote a book or a part of a book
    • Now looks more at the structure of passages or books as literary works applying the same techniques used to study literature in general to the Hebrew Bible
  • Form Analysis
  • • Look for distinctive types or forms of speaking or writing that characterize a particular situation or aspect of life
    • Often the way something is said, the form that is mimicked in telling a story, can help interpret the passage
  • Redaction analysis
  • • Study how various sources were combined into larger units
    • Three types of sources are oral, written, and editorial touches
• Archaeology
• • Archaeologist - a scientist who excavates as carefully as possible and applies his or her knowledge to understand the history and culture of the people who lived there
  • Tell - an artificial hill built up over centuries of occupation - each succeeding civilization builds upon the ruins of the earlier - the deeper one digs, the farther back in history one goes
  • Most common remains found are everyday utensils, like pottery
  • Some important discoveries
  • • Rosetta Stone
    • • Discovered in Egypt in 1801 by an engineer in Napoleon's army
      • An inscription in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphics
      • Using this stone, the French scholar Champollion was able to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time
    • Behistun Stone
    • • Carved during the reign of Darius I of Persia on a mountainside to recount his deeds
      • An inscription written in Babylonian, Elamite, and Persian
      • Translated in 18^th century by Sir Henry Rawlinson who then was able to decipher cuneiform
    • Ugaritic Materials
    • • In the late 1920's a Syrian farmer who was plowing his field turned up some clay tablets
      • French archaeologists excavated the site and found the city of Ugarit and many more clay tablets
      • Some of the texts were religious texts that greatly enhanced our knowledge of Canaanite religion
    • Dead Sea Scrolls
    • • A Bedouin boy searching for a lost goat came upon a cave near Qumran that contained jars with scrolls
      • The scrolls came into the hands of experts who realized what they were and explored the site finding more caves and scrolls
      • An entire scroll of Isaiah was discovered as well as parts of every other Old Testament book except Esther - in addition, other works not in the Hebrew Bible were discovered
      • These Hebrew manuscripts were 1,000 years earlier than the Hebrew texts scholars had been using - they dated to 200 B.C.E. and after
    • Mari Tablets
    • • Discovered at Mari, the capital city of a Semitic state located in northern Mesopotamia
      • This state flourished before the patriarchs did in Israel but many of the customs in Mari shed light on the lives of the Israelite patriarchs

Photograph is of a thumb-sized ivory pomegranate which, at this point in time, is the only relic left from Solomon's Temple. The pomegranate probably was the top of a scepter used by the Temple priests. Check out the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.