Papers by Philippe Guillaume
Cultural Hegemony, Ideological Conflicts, and Power in Second Temple Judaism, 2024
Largely ignored, the significance of the double tithing system of Deuteronomy 14,22-29 is reveal... more Largely ignored, the significance of the double tithing system of Deuteronomy 14,22-29 is revealed by reading these verses in light of the notion of cultural hegemony that Antonio’s Gramsci understood as a means to reconcile the different sectors of the Italian society. Transposed in ancient Israel, the tithes of Deut 14 would have been far more conducive to this aim than the heavy priestly dues of Deut 18 and the priestly taxation in Leviticus.
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There was probably only one past, but there are many different histories. As mental representatio... more There was probably only one past, but there are many different histories. As mental representations of narrow segments of the past, ‘histories’ reflect different cultural contexts and different historians, although ‘history’ is a scientific enterprise whenever it processes representative data using rational and controllable methods to work out hypotheses that can be falsified by empirical evidence. A History of Biblical Israel combines experience gained through decades of teaching biblical exegesis and courses on the history of ancient Israel, and of on-going involvement in biblical archaeology. ‘Biblical Israel’ is understood as a narrative produced primarily in the province of Yehud to forge the collective memory of the elite that operated the temple of Jerusalem under the auspices of the Achaemenid imperial apparatus. The notion of ‘Biblical Israel’ provides the necessary hindsight to narrate the fate of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as the pre-history of ‘Biblical Israel’, since the archives of these kingdoms were only mined in the Persian era to produce the grand biblical narrative. The volume covers the history of ‘Biblical Israel’ through its fragmentation in the Hellenistic and Roman periods until 136 CE, when four Roman legions crushed the revolt of Simeon Bar-Kosiba.
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Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies, 2020
The discovery, excavation, function, typology, and probable date of an ancient winery excavated b... more The discovery, excavation, function, typology, and probable date of an ancient winery excavated by the present Jezreel Expedition in 2013 are the focus of this article. Its method of construction and its function are discussed, and a comparison is made with other simple treading installations. The demand for wine is discussed with reference to the military nature of Jezreel during the period of Assyrian hegemony, and a probable date for the winery's initial use is proposed. The Jezreel winery continued in use until at least the first century CE, when new grape-pressing installations appear in the Byzantine-period village of Jezreel.
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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 2024
This review of Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East, edited by Matthew J. M. Coomber (Eu... more This review of Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East, edited by Matthew J. M. Coomber (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), the inaugural volume of a new series of Guides to the Bible and Economics, continues with a list of crucial issues that biblical scholarship ought to integrate in order to grasp the economic environments in which biblical texts were developed and formalized: usufruct and ownership, rich and poor, credit and debt, land and labour, and exploitation.
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Das Deuteronomium. Beiträge sur seiner Theologie, Literar- und Wirkungsgeschichte, 2024
An elaboration of Georg Braulik's seminal studies on the communal meals mentioned in Deut 14:22–26
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SJOT, 2023
For the last two centuries, cultic centralization was considered the main theme in Deuteronomy. A... more For the last two centuries, cultic centralization was considered the main theme in Deuteronomy. As long as the place chosen for Israel to meet was Jerusalem, the cultic centre was the temple renovated by King Josiah. The recent challenges of the validity of the Josianic hypothesis leave Deuteronomy centreless. To remediate this problem, Kåre Berge proposed either the Book of the Torah of Moses or the autonomous cities ("your gates") as Deuteronomy's centres. In light of Central Flow Theory, the alternative put forward here is that, as YHWH's holy people Israel, is the centre around which the other people gravitate.
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The Woman in the with helmet: a tribute to archaeologist Norma Franklin, 2020
Jezreel is the scene of two murders, that of biblical Naboth and that of kibbutznik Moshele Orion... more Jezreel is the scene of two murders, that of biblical Naboth and that of kibbutznik Moshele Orion. Splicing the biblical story and one particular episode of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle in the 1950s, this essay explores the formation of social memory. The fate of the two heroes may help probe
deeper the formation of the Naboth tradition and how the memory of Moshele may evolve depending on local political developments.
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Deuteronomy Outside the Box, 2022
Deuteronomy has long been held as particularly innovative, humanitarian and kind to the poor. The... more Deuteronomy has long been held as particularly innovative, humanitarian and kind to the poor. The legal collection in the heart of the book is read here in light of ancient economic practices. Once the basic principles of any economy are understood, the practices prescribed in Deuteronomy display much common sense and their purported humanistarian traits are not devoid of self-interest.
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Archimède, 2022
The words Zipporah pronounces after circumcising her son are commonly rendered as “you are a brid... more The words Zipporah pronounces after circumcising her son are commonly rendered as “you are a bridegroom of blood to me” (Exodus 4:25). Several studies of that puzzling scene have argued that these words are not addressed to Moses but to her son. A ritual of symbolic circumcision attested in Zimbabwe in the 1970s illustrates the potential attributed to blood in the transfer of a son from his maternal to his paternal lineage. In this
light, Zipporah’s son becomes her son-in-law.
The circumcision of Moses’ son by his Midianite mother served to disqualify Moses’ line from the priesthood.
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Traduire les deux passages de Job 2 : 10 et de Jonas 4 : 11 par une question rhetorique constitue... more Traduire les deux passages de Job 2 : 10 et de Jonas 4 : 11 par une question rhetorique constitue une grave traitrise pour les lecteurs qui ne peuvent verifier par eux-memes. Il s'agit d'une correction illegitime si la traduction n'est pas clairement discutee par son auteur. En se basant sur ces deux passages, le recours habituel a une question rhetorique dans des phrases depourvues de particule interrogative semble etre un subterfuge du traducteur pour echapper aux questions theologiques resultant d'une traduction honnete de la phrase. Dans ce cas, une question elude des questions plus grandes et evite l'etude de certains sens possibles du texte.
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In light of the retelling of the Golden Calf episode in Hosea 13, Philo of Alexandria, Pseudo-Phi... more In light of the retelling of the Golden Calf episode in Hosea 13, Philo of Alexandria, Pseudo-Philo and some Targums, the missing link between Moses’s destruction of the Calf and the slaughter performed by the Levites is identified as a judgment by ordeal. After drinking the golden dust, some Israelites developped a symptom which enabled the Levites to identify the guilty and spare the innocent.
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Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods, 2013
Full version available on Google Books
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The verb lqḥ in Prov 31:16 is almost always read as indicating that the field was “bought”. The r... more The verb lqḥ in Prov 31:16 is almost always read as indicating that the field was “bought”. The review of Ugaritic and biblical evidence shows that this reading is baseless. That the field was taken without payment is coherent with the situation in Palestine after the Neo-Babylonian destructions and with the Book of Proverbs.
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This collection of essays by participants in the Magic and Divination in the Biblical World resea... more This collection of essays by participants in the Magic and Divination in the Biblical World research group of the European Association of Biblical Studies represents a wide ranging, analytical, and often unconventional approach to a relatively neglected area within biblical studies. The original articles by new and established scholars include Mesopotamian demonology, Akkadian literary influences, exorcism, healing, calendars, astrology, bibliomancy, dreams, ritual magic, priestly divination, prophecy, magic in the Christian Apocrypha and the New Testament, magic in rabbinic literature, and Jewish biblical magic bowls.
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In the Hebrew Bible, the ephod, and the Urim and Thummim are repeatedly encountered in mantic con... more In the Hebrew Bible, the ephod, and the Urim and Thummim are repeatedly encountered in mantic contexts. They also hold a large place in the intricate descriptions of Aaron’s priestly garments in Exodus 28 and 39, but contemporary exegesis is uncomfortable with the idea that the ceremonial attire of Israel’s first priest includes divinatory devices. Contrary to their modern counterparts, Hellenistic exegetes and later rabbinical texts discussed Aaron’s vestments in terms of divination. A close reading of the biblical description of the mounting of the onyx stones on Aaron’s shoulders and of the relation of the Urim and Thummim to his breastplate supports ancient readings of the priestly vestments as functional mantic devices.
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Memory and the City in Ancient Israel, 2014
A discussion of Tyre as a nonmaterial lieu de mémoire that is crucial to the way Yehudites were t... more A discussion of Tyre as a nonmaterial lieu de mémoire that is crucial to the way Yehudites were to experience Jerusalem. In the Hebrew Bible, Tyre’s fabulous wealth is associated with ultimate hubris though Tyre itself is also portrayed as a benevolent God-fearer. In short, the figuration of Tyre as a site of memory involved two separate approaches: contrasting it with Sidon and associating it with Jerusalem.
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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2020
While welcoming Sandra Richter’s suggestion in a recent Journal for the Study of the Old Testamen... more While welcoming Sandra Richter’s suggestion in a recent Journal for the Study of the Old Testament article that economics should be integrated in the study of Deuteronomy, a number of points in her argument to date Urdeuteronomium in the Iron Age I–II transition are inaccurate or based on contestable assumptions and arguments from silence.
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Journal of Biblical Literature, 2008
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Papers by Philippe Guillaume
deeper the formation of the Naboth tradition and how the memory of Moshele may evolve depending on local political developments.
light, Zipporah’s son becomes her son-in-law.
The circumcision of Moses’ son by his Midianite mother served to disqualify Moses’ line from the priesthood.
deeper the formation of the Naboth tradition and how the memory of Moshele may evolve depending on local political developments.
light, Zipporah’s son becomes her son-in-law.
The circumcision of Moses’ son by his Midianite mother served to disqualify Moses’ line from the priesthood.
Concise and jargon-free chapters present the nature of the biblical texts and the different methodologies that have been developed to understand it. In addition, major issues that standard introductions tend to dodge are considered in a balanced way, providing the pros and cons for each position.
https://www.gorgiaspress.com/studies-on-magic-and-divination-in-the-biblical-world
https://www.academia.edu/4873364/Introduction_to_Studies_on_Magic_and_Divination_in_the_Biblical_World
(For the Introduction, see under "Chapters", below)
histories. As mental representations of narrow segments of the past,
‘histories’ reflect different cultural contexts and different historians,
although ‘history’ is a scientific enterprise whenever it processes
representative data using rational and controllable methods to work out
hypotheses that can be falsified by empirical evidence.
A History of Biblical Israel combines experience gained through
decades of teaching biblical exegesis and courses on the history of
ancient Israel, and of on-going involvement in biblical archaeology.
‘Biblical Israel’ is understood as a narrative produced primarily in the
province of Yehud to forge the collective memory of the elite that
operated the temple of Jerusalem under the auspices of the
Achaemenid imperial apparatus. The notion of ‘Biblical Israel’ provides
the necessary hindsight to narrate the fate of the kingdoms of Israel
and Judah as the pre-history of ‘Biblical Israel’, since the archives of
these kingdoms were only mined in the Persian era to produce the
grand biblical narrative. The volume covers the history of ‘Biblical
Israel’ through its fragmentation in the Hellenistic and Roman periods
until 136 CE, when four Roman legions crushed the revolt of Simeon
Bar-Kosiba.