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This Day in History
Feb 9
Literary
Alice Walker is born, 1944
On this day in 1944, Alice Walker is born in Eatonton, Georgia, the youngest of eight children born to sharecroppers. In their poor, rural community,…
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Ecclesiasticus
deuterocanonical biblical work (accepted in the Roman Catholic canon but noncanonical for Jews and Protestants), an outstanding example of the wisdom genre of religious literature that was popular in the early Hellenistic period of Judaism (3rd century BC to 3rd century AD).
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The Letter of Jeremiah
apocryphal book of the Old Testament, in the Roman canon appended as a sixth chapter to the book of Baruch (itself apocryphal in the Jewish and Protestant canons).
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Melchizedek
in the Old Testament, a figure of importance in biblical tradition because he was both king and priest, was connected with Jerusalem, and was revered by Abraham, who paid a tithe to him.
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The Books of the Maccabees
four books, none of which is in the Hebrew Bible but all of which appear in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The first two books only are part of canonical scripture in the Septuagint and the Vulgate (hence are canonical to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) and are included in the Protestant Apocrypha.
the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt in the 13th century BC, under the leadership of Moses; also, the Old Testament book of the same name. The English name of the book derives from the Septuagint (Greek) use of “exodus” to designate the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and their safe passage through the Sea of Reeds (traditionally mislocated as the Red Sea). The Hebrew title of the work is Shemot (Names).
Chapters 1–18 narrate the history of the Egyptian bondage, the Exodus from Egypt, and the journey to Mount Sinai under the leadership of Moses. The second half of the book tells of the Covenant that was established between God and Israel at Sinai and promulgates laws for the ordering of Israel's life.
Since Exodus continues the sacred story of the divine promise to Israel begun in Genesis, it must be seen as part of a larger literary unit that is variously understood to include the first four, five, or six books of the Bible.
Scholars have identified three literary traditions in Exodus, designated by the letters J, E, and P. The J strand, so called because it uses the name Yahweh (Jahweh in German) for God, is a Judaean rendition of the sacred story, perhaps written as early as 950 BC. The E strand, which designates God as Elohim, is a version of the sacred story from the northern kingdom of Israel, written in about 900–750 BC. The P strand, so called because of its cultic interests and regulations for priests, is usually dated in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the law upon which Ezra and Nehemiah based their reform. Each of these strands preserves materials much older than the time of their incorporation into a written work. Exodus thus conserves extremely old oral and written history. See also Torah.
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