Tag Archives: textual criticism

The Memoir Problem and the Postwar Record: Source Criticism and the Lost Cause in the Study of Davis and His Generals

Abstract The eight case studies in this volume have repeatedly anchored their conclusions in a single methodological commitment: that contemporary correspondence must be privileged over the self-justifying memoirs of the principals, and that the later Lost Cause historiography must be … Continue reading

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The Seniority Crisis of 1861: Jefferson Davis, Joseph E. Johnston, and the Origins of Confederate Command Estrangement

Abstract In late August 1861 President Jefferson Davis submitted to the Confederate Congress the names of five officers for appointment to the grade of full general, fixing their relative seniority in an order that placed Joseph E. Johnston fourth. Johnston, … Continue reading

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Paper 4: The Bride Price Reconsidered: What the Mohar Texts Actually Govern

Abstract This is the honest paper of the suite. Unlike a case built on a command that grants the reader nothing, the bride-price texts do give a father a genuine role and a genuine right of refusal. Exodus 22:16–17 and … Continue reading

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Paper 2 — The Constitutional Text: Foreign and Domestic Emoluments and the Anti-Dependence Architecture

The text as the prohibition’s strongest ground If the emoluments regime is anywhere at its most formidable, it is on the page. The clauses are short, declarative, and categorical; they do not hedge, balance, or invite the weighing of interests. … Continue reading

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Steelmanning the Critic: Surfacing the Counter-Texts Yourself

Abstract This paper argues that the most credible move available to a biblicist authority is to raise the strongest objections to his own position before his critics do, and to invite testing rather than resist it. Building on the costly-signaling … Continue reading

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Touch Not Mine Anointed: Anatomy of a Misused Text

Abstract This paper offers a case study in how a single verse becomes a shield for authority, demonstrating by close exegesis the difference between faithful interpretation and self-protection. The text is the divine word recorded in Psalm 105:15 and 1 … Continue reading

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Paper 6 — Synthesis: The Firstfruits Harvest and the Shape of Redemption

Sixth and final in the suite “Pentecost in the Bible: A Feast Read at Many Depths” Thesis Read together, the feast charts the whole arc of redemption and marks the hinge between what has been accomplished and what is still … Continue reading

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Paper 4 — Two Assemblies, One Feast: The Old and New Testament Church Begin on Pentecost, and What That Says About the Kingdom

Fourth in the suite “Pentecost in the Bible: A Feast Read at Many Depths” Thesis Both the congregation in the wilderness and the Spirit-born assembly at Jerusalem are founded on the same feast, and the firstfruits character of that feast … Continue reading

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Paper 2 — Levels of Interpretation: What Actually Happened on Pentecost

Second in the suite “Pentecost in the Bible: A Feast Read at Many Depths” Thesis Pentecost carries several meanings at once, and the meanings reinforce rather than compete with one another. A reader pressed to say what the feast is … Continue reading

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From Sanhedrin to Rabbinic Authority: Reinvention in the Mishnah: An Afterlife and Memory Study

Abstract The Sanhedrin of the late Second Temple period ceased to function in any meaningful institutional sense in the wake of the First Jewish-Roman War. Yet the institution did not disappear from Jewish memory; it was remembered, codified, and reimagined … Continue reading

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