Talk:Tryggve Mettinger

Tryggve N.D. Mettinger PHOTO JPG Tryggve Mettinger (2010) SEE END OF THE ARTICLE Career

• Born 1940 in Helsingborg, Sweden
• Studies in Theology, Comparative Literature, Semitic Languages, Assyriology and Egyptology in Lund and Copenhagen
• 1963 MA, Comparative Literature, Religious Studies
• 1965 Studies at the Swedish Theological Institute, Jerusalem
• 1971 Doctor of Divinity, Old Testament Studies, Lund
• 1971-78 Docent of OT Studies, Lund
• 1978-2003 Professor of OT Studies, Lund

Tryggve Mettinger is a Swedish Biblical Scholar (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible). He was born in 1940 in Helsingborg as the son of the baker Allan Nilsson Mettinger and his wife Anna, born Hallberg. He studied Theology, Comparative Literature, Semitic Languages, Assyriology and Egyptology in Lund and Copenhagen. During the years 1978 — 2003 he was professor at Lund University, Sweden. He has been visiting professor with various teaching assignments in the U.S., Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and South Africa and has given guest lectures at a number of universities and major papers at a number of conferences for OT studies, Comparative Religion, and Assyriology. During the period 1978-2003 Mettinger was co-editor of the series Coniectanea Biblica. Old Testament Series. He was consultant to the Swedish Bible Translation Project for the Old Testament (Bibel 2000). He is a member of the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, Stockholm, and an Honorary Member of The (British) Society of Old Testament Studies (SOTS). He was awarded the Thuréus Prize 2008 by Kungl. Vetenskaps-societeten in Upsala. His avocations are classical music and modern fiction of various genres. Since June 14, 1963 he is married to Solvi, née Axell.

Tryggve Mettinger’s research is marked by an attitude that he described as follows: "I try to draw a line of distinction between what I believe I know as a scholar and what I know I believe as a Christian." In his research, the data are of mainly three kinds: textual (with an emphasis on the philological, historical and literary dimensions), archaeological, and iconographical. Over the years he stresses the importance of applying broad comparative perspectives, working with the implications of material from the whole Fertile Crescent, though the West Semitic evidence attracts special attention.

In two monographs, Solomonic State Officials (1971) and King and Messiah (1976) Tryggve Mettinger dealt with various aspects of Israelite kingship, notably royal administration and sacral legitimation of power (royal ideology). He focused on such aspects as the role of the popular assembly, the anointing of the king, and the designation of the king as son of God. In a later paper he carried out an in-depth analysis of the Prophecy of Nathan (2 Samuel 7). He found an old kernel in the text that had the function of pro-Solomon propaganda cast in the form of an oracle to David (recent reprint of the study in Mettinger 2015: 190-213).

Mettinger devoted several studies to the notions of God in ancient Israel. Here he first focused on the ideas connected with various divine names, such as YHWH, The Lord Sabaoth, and others. This book (Namnet och närvaron, 1987; In Search of God, 1988) has appeared in an updated Italian version (In Cerca di Dio, 2009). So far it has been published in English, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Corean, and Italian.

Another major study(The Dethronent of Sabaoth. Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies,1982) deals with the Zion-Sabaoth theology during the period of the monarchy: Lord Sabaoth on the cherubim throne in the temple. After the national catastrophe, during the period of the Exile, it was succeeded by the theologies focusing on the divine Name and Glory in the sanctuary (the Shem and Kabod theologies). These two concepts were understood by Mettinger as responses to the cognitive dissonance caused by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonian conquerors.

Another field of interest in Mettinger’s research is Israelite aniconism, cult without images. In a monograph (No Graven Image, 1995) and a number of related papers (notably one reprinted in Mettinger 2015: 153-177) Mettinger placed this phenomenon in a wider ancient Near Eastern context. Israelite aniconism was from the beginning an outstanding feature of Israelite religion. Ultimately it has its background in the standing-stones aniconism that Mettinger sees as characteristic of different West Semitic forms of religion. He argued for the aniconic character of the official cult at the Jerusalem temple, thus confronting a number of scholars who surmised the presence of a cultic statue of YHWH in the Holy of Holies of the national shrine.

In a subsequent monograph (The Riddle of Resurrection, 2001) Mettinger subjected the notion of the Dying and rising god to a thorough analysis. He criticized a century of evasive strategies in modern research and arrived at the conclusion that the Semitic world did have a number of dying and rising deities: Dumuzi, Baal, Melqart, Adonis and Eshmun. At least some of these deities were known as dying and rising already in pre-Christian times. He returned to this issue in a subsequent paper (reprinted in Mettinger 2015: 114-131).

Throughout his life, Mettinger has taken an interest in literature and literary theory as developed in the discipline of Comparative Literature. In a monograph (1983) he took his farewell to the so called ”Servant Songs” (reprinted in Mettinger 2015: 257-302). In a paper from 1993 he studied intertextuality and outlined recent developments in this field using two Job passages as examples. In another essay he studied 2 Samuel 7 in the perspective of rhetoric of persuasion (reprinted in Mettinger 2015: 190-213).

In two monographs Mettinger deals with the primeval history in the Bible, notably the Creation and Fall narratives. In his monograph on the latter (The Eden Narrative, 2007) Mettinger uses such techniques as narratology, genre analysis, and study of theme.

The monograph with the title I begynnelsen, dealing with the Creation narrative (2011; update 2013), is available only in Swedish. It adopts the same literary perspectives as the Eden book. In addition Mettinger raises the question whether modern astrophysics leaves room for a meaningful belief in a Creator. The final chapter is devoted to this issue. Mettinger first surveys the development of astrophysics leading up to the victory of the Big Bang theory and then deals with the constants of nature, whether these got their fine tuning at random or not.

A small monograph from 2016 deals with the Song of Songs and is available only in Swedish: Sångernas Sång: En mästares dikt om kärleken. Mettinger here applies literary perspectives to the Biblical book and understands it as a celebration of human love as a gift from the Creator.

In 2015 Eisenbrauns published a selection of Mettinger’s major contributions to journals and Festschriften etc., Reports from a Scholar’s Life. Select Papers on the Hebrew Bible. Tryggve N.D. Mettinger edited by Andrew Knapp.

Mettinger’s bibliography is found in almost complete shape (with articles and book reviews) in G. Eidevall and B. Scheuer, Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, 2011: xvii-xxx. Below are listed his monographs and a volume of collected essays. Most of Mettinger’s English-language monographs are now marketed by the Eisenbrauns division of Penn State University Press. The abbreviation ConB OT Series stands for Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament Series.

• 1971. Solomonic State Officials. A Study of the Civil Government Officials of the Israelite Monarchy (ConB OT Series 5). Lund. Doctoral dissertation.
• 1976. King and Messiah. The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings (ConB OT Series 8). Lund.
• 1982. The Dethronement of Sabaoth. Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (ConB OT Series 18). Lund.
• 1983. A Farewell to the Servant Songs. A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Lundensis 1982-1983: 3; reprinted in Mettinger 2015: 257-302). Lund.
• 1984. Eva och revbenet. Sex uppsatser om Gamla Testamentet (Religio. Skrifter utgivna av Teologiska institutionen i Lund, 16). Lund.
• 1987. Namnet och närvaron. Gudsnamn och gudsbild i Böckernas Bok. Örebro. 222 pp. Available for free downloading on the home-page of Svenska Bibelsällskapet: "Namnet och närvaron" (PDF).
• 1988. In Search of God. The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names. Philadelphia. English translation of Mettinger 1987. Available from Fortress.
• 1994. Buscando a Dios. Signficado y mensaje de los nombres divinos en la Biblia. Cordoba. Spanish translation of Mettinger 1988.
• 1995. No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context (ConB OT Series 42). Stockholm.
• 2001. The Riddle of Resurrection. ”Dying and rising gods” in the Ancient Near East (ConB OT Series 50). Stockholm.
• 2006. Hananim-ui irumdul. Yongwonhan irumdur-ui uima-wa mesiji. Seoul: K’umran ch’ulp’ansa (Qumran publishing house). (Korean translation of the monograph published in 1988).
• 2007. The Eden Narrative. A Literary and Religio-historical Study of Genesis 2-3. Winona Lake, IN.
• 2009. In Cerca di Dio. Il significato e il mesaggio dei nomi eterni (EDB Edizioni Dehoniane). Bologna. (Italian translation of the monograph published in 1988).
• 2011. I begynnelsen. Hur skall vi förstå Bibelns tre första kapitel? Aspekter från astrofysik och exegetik. For an update, see next item.
• 2013. I begynnelsen. En forskare tolkar Bibelns urberättelser och tar en promenad i astrofysikens universum (Bibelakademiförlaget). Uppsala. (Revised and updated edition of the preceding title.)
• 2015. Reports From a Scholar’s Life. Select Papers On the Hebrew Bible. Tryggve N.D. Mettinger edited by Andrew Knapp.
• 2016. Sångernas Sång. En mästares dikt om kärleken (Bibelakademiförlaget). Uppsala.

Göran Eidevall and Blazenka Scheuer in G. Eidevall and B. Scheuer, Enigmas and Images. Studies in Honor of Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, 2011: ix-xiii.

Andrew Knapp, “The Enigma of Tryggve. Editors Preface”, in Mettinger, Reports from a scholar’s life, 2015: xiv-xxii.

Mettinger’s farewell address, published in Mettinger 2015: 1-21 and also found on Mettinger’s home page (tryggvemettinger.com, the window in the section “Research”), contains a retrospect on his entire life and caeer.

Mettinger’s home page is found at the address tryggvemettinger.com

– – – – (supposed to be four tildes)

NB: INFO ABOUT PHOTO WHICH CAN BE GOT IN THE WAYS LISTED BELOW

Photo To be placed at top of first page of the present article.

a) Look for attachment with picture sent with the present mail. If it is not there then try:

b) If you send me an e-mail, so that I get your e-mail address, I will send a mail plus an attachment with the photo.

c) The same picture can be culled from Mettinger’s home page (tryggvemettinger.com). It shows Mettinger in 2010. The picture was taken by his wife, Solvi Mettinger. It may be used freely and is not subject to any copyright limitations.

FOR THE WH0LE ENTRY: Andrew N. Knapp,ed.,Reports from a Scholar's Life, 2015, Pp. XIV-XXII. (Editor's preface). Knapp is presently working as an editor at Eerdmans, Grand Rapids.

G. Eidevall and B. Scheuer, Enigmas and Images. Studies in Honor of Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, 2011, pp. xvii - xxii.