AJR is pleased to publish remarks delivered as part of a book review panel at the annual meeting of the 2022 Society of Biblical Literature in Denver. The panel was organized by members of the Religious Experience in Antiquity steering committee chaired by Frederick S. Tappenden (St. Stephen’s College, University of Alberta). The book is Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022) by Reed Carlson and the panelists were: Jutta Jokiranta (University of Helsinki), David Lambert (University of North Carolina), Ingrid Lilly (Wofford College), and Ethan Schwartz (Villanova University).So far, the essay by Ingrid E. Lilly has been posted:
The Critical Potential of Spirits: Hebrew Philology, the Poetics of Relation, and Unfamiliar Selves.
Reed Carlson’s book,Unfamiliar Selves, is hardly confrontational about its implications for Hebrew philology. And yet, in my view, Carlson’s philological project of comparative anthropology enters the inner-chambers of an academic assemblage where biblical philology has often figured as an unbiased epistemological practice that forms the lower-critical foundation for studying history and practicing historical criticism. These values are rather strange when you think about it: do objectivity and unbiased perception really best characterize communication in zones of language contact?I noted the publication of the book here.
UPDATE (26 April): More here.
UPDATE (2 May): More here. Also, I just realized that recently I noted a relevant essay by Carlson here.
UPDATE: (3 May): More here.
UPDATE (4 May): More here.
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