| The study described how Scripture and related literature functioned in antiquity. Following the work of James A. Sanders and his students, this study showed how Scripture was occasionally adapted and resignified in specific contexts and through certain hermeneutics. Using the character of the Judean King Manasseh (697--642 B. C. E.) as a kind of independent variable, the study described over a dozen manifestations in which Manasseh had been utilized in eastern Mediterranean contexts prior to the mid fifth century C. E. The study assessed the function of Manasseh in the Masoretic text (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah 15) as well as other literature (4 Reigns and 2 Paralipomenon, Jewish Antiquities, Prayer of Manasseh, 2 Baruch, Ascension of Isaiah, the Targums to 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah, Rabbinic Literature and both the Vulgate and other writings of Jerome). After the literary features of each portrayal were given, a description of the broad sociopolitical context within which the portrayal was manifest followed. The study then featured a description of the hermeneutics employed which had allowed for the transitions within each manifestation. Manasseh was portrayed in Scripture and related literature with only broad agreement respective of his sin and the fact that the Divine response to this sin sustained a constitutive (supportive) view of the Divine. Manasseh was found to be another variable in Scripture which shows that ancient communities, especially at times of crisis, sought to update traditions with respect to key concerns of the community. Noting that the research to date has typically responded to such phenomena with necessary but, in itself, insufficient diachronic analysis, this study also described how such a variety of portrayals of Manasseh may function synchronically as Scripture. Within the Masoretic text, one sees that no one view of how the Divine responds to Manasseh's sin can be held without attention to the others. |
