Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions: Methodological Encounters and Debates

This volume presents the work of the international, interdisciplinary research project Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), whose members focused on cultural, ideological, and material changes in the period when the sacred traditions of the Hebrew Bible were created, transmitted, and transformed. Specialists in the textual study of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, archaeology, Assyriology, and history, working across their fields of expertise, trace how changes occurred in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. Contributors Tero Alstola, Anneli Aejmelaeus , Rick Bonnie, Francis Borchardt, George J. Brooke, Cynthia Edenburg, Sebastian Fink, Izaak J. deHulster , Patrik Jansson, Jutta Jokiranta, Tuukka Kauhanen, Gina Konstantopoulos, Lauri Laine, Michael C. Legaspi, Christoph Levin, Ville Mäkipelto, Reinhard Müller, Martti Nissinen, Jessi Orpana, Juha Pakkala, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Christian Seppänen, Jason M. Silverman, Saana Svärd, Timo Tekoniemi, Hanna Tervanotko, Joanna Töyräänvuori, and Miika Tucker demonstrate that rigorous yet respectful debate results in a nuanced and complex understanding of how ancient texts developed.

Martti Nissinen is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Helsinki. He was the director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT, 2014‒2019). His books include Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (2017), Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (2019), and Prophetic Divination: Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy (2019).

Jutta Jokiranta is Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Cognate Studies at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology. She led the research team Society and Religion in Late Second Temple Judaism in the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT, 2014‒2019). She is the author of Social Identity and Sectarianism in the Qumran Movement (2013) and coeditor of Law, Literature, and Society in Legal texts from Qumran (2019). She is coeditor for the Brill series Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah.