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R. N. Whybray

 

 
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R. N. Whybray
 
 
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Roger Norman Whybray (1923-1997) was a Biblical scholar and specialist in Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 studies.

Whybray read French
French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional languages of France....
 and Theology
Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
 at Oxford and was ordained as priest in the Church of England
Church of England

The Church of England is the State religion Christianity Ecclesia in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches....
. After a number of minor teaching posts he held the position of Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Central Theological College, Tokyo, 1952-1965. He returned to Oxford in 1960-61 to prepare for a DPhil under G. R. Driver, his thesis subsequently being published as Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 19.






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Roger Norman Whybray (1923-1997) was a Biblical scholar and specialist in Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 studies.

Whybray read French
French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional languages of France....
 and Theology
Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
 at Oxford and was ordained as priest in the Church of England
Church of England

The Church of England is the State religion Christianity Ecclesia in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches....
. After a number of minor teaching posts he held the position of Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Central Theological College, Tokyo, 1952-1965. He returned to Oxford in 1960-61 to prepare for a DPhil under G. R. Driver, his thesis subsequently being published as Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 19. In 1965 he became Lecturer in Theology in the University of Hull
University of Hull

The University of Hull, also known as Hull University, is an England university, founded in 1927, located in Hull , a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire....
, becoming Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies in 1978. He retired in 1982 in order to devote himself to his scholarly writing.

Publications


In The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament (1974) Whybray questioned the common scholarly assumption there was in ancient Israel a class of 'wise men' or intellectuals who controlled affairs of state and to whose interests and outlook we owe the biblical 'wisdom literature
Wisdom literature

Wisdom literature is the genre of literature common in the Ancient Near East. This genre is characterized by sayings of wisdom intended to teach about divinity and about virtue....
'. Whybray put forward the proposition that the evidence for any such group of wise men in ancient Israel was lacking, that 'wisdom' was not the preserve of a class or an institution, and the wise were simply educated citizens "who were accustomed to read for education and pleasure". Wisdom literature, according to Whybray, was therefore the product of literary-minded individuals among the intellectuals.

In The Making of the Pentateuch
The Making of the Pentateuch

The Making of the Pentateuch by R. N. Whybray, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at the University of Hull , was a major contribution to the field of Old Testament studies, and specifically to theories on the origins and composition of the Pentateuch....
 (1987) Whybray examined the evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis is the proposal that the first five books of the Old Testament represent a combination of documents from originally independent sources....
, the dominant hypothesis on the origins of the Pentateuch for more than a century, and concluded that it was insubstantial. His alternative proposal was that the Pentateuch was essentially the work of a single author who drew upon multiple sources and disregarded, or was ignorant of, modern notions of literary consistency and smoothness of style and language. The book remains the most complete critique to date of the documentary hypothesis by a mainstream biblical scholar.