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These accessible volumes break down the barriers between the ancient and modern worlds so that the power and meaning of the biblical texts become transparent to contemporary readers.
A guide to essential aspects of Old Testament exegesis.
The studies in this volume investigate Isaiah's use of early sacred tradition, the editing and contextualization of oracles within the Isaianic tradition itself, and the interpretation of the book of Isaiah in later traditions (as in the various versions and interpretations of the text).
Craig Broyles examines the Psalms as a diverse collection of poems whose main roots are in Jerusalem's worship services. Both in the past and in the present, they provide dynamic liturgies though which the worshipper encounters God--often with vigorous dialogue--and finds meaning for life. Broyles makes the best of contemporary scholarship on the Psalms accessible to both general readers and serious students.
Craig Broyles examines the Psalms as a diverse collection of poems whose main roots are in Jerusalem s worship services. Both in the past and in the present, they provide dynamic liturgies though which the worshipper encounters God often with vigorous dialogue and finds meaning for life. Broyles makes the best of contemporary scholarship on the Psalms accessible to both general readers and serious students.Using the literary method, this commentary examines linguistic detail and patterning and situates the single Psalm within the larger landscape of the Psalter. Broyles writes as one who has lived the Psalms as a scholar and as a believer. This user-friendly commentary, with its distinct fresh angle of vision on community worship, is a good find. Elmer Martens, Mennonite Brethern Biblical Seminary
Can the Old Testament help us in keeping the excesses of capitalism in check? How can a book that goes on about "justice and righteousness," but says "there will always be poor people in the land" and accepts slavery have anything to say to us about social justice? Did kings of Israel draft their subjects--and which subjects--for forced labor? What does it mean when the Psalms say God is coming to judge the world? Is charity justice?--or is justice more than charity? Does Genesis give us the right to use the earth and its creatures as we like? These are some of the questions that Walter Houston asks, and tries to answer, in this book of essays from his work over the last twenty-five years.
In a penetrating analysis, Broyles breaks open the category of the psalms of 'lament', arguing that this conventional grouping encloses two quite different kinds of psalms. Not only are there the psalms of 'plea', which affirm the praise of God and belong theologically on the side of faith, but there are a darker group, the psalms of 'protest' or 'complaint', which depict God as absent or hostile. These psalms portray the conflict between the traditions of faith and the religious experience of the psalmist. The study, a revision of the author's Sheffield PhD thesis, thus proposes a realignment of the form-critical categories in the Psalms, and at the same time engages with a much neglected element in Hebrew piety, the charge against God.
This landmark volume covers the main aspects of modern Psalms study from the formation of individual Psalms down into the first centuries of the Common Era: the formation of the Psalter, individual Psalms and smaller collections, social setting, literary context, textual history, nachleben, and theology.
Readers of the Hebrew Bible are interested readers, bringing their own perspectives to the text. The essays in this volume, written by friends and colleagues who have drawn inspiration from and shown interest in the scholarship of David Clines, engage with his work through examining interpretations of the Hebrew Bible in areas of common exploration: literary/exegetical readings, ideological-critical readings, language and lexicography, and reception history. The contributors are James K. Aitken, Jacques Berlinerblau, Daniel Bodi, Roland Boer, Athalya Brenner, Mark G. Brett, Marc Zvi Brettler, Craig C. Broyles, Philip P. Chia, Jeremy M. S. Clines, Adrian H. W. Curtis, Katharine J. Dell, Susan E. Gillingham, Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Edward L. Greenstein, Mayer I. Gruber, Norman C. Habel, Alan J. Hauser, Jan Joosten, Paul J. Kissling, Barbara M. Leung Lai, Diana Lipton, Christl M. Maier, Heather A. McKay, Frank H. Polak, Jeremy Punt, Hugh S. Pyper, Deborah W. Rooke, Eep Talstra, Laurence A. Turner, Stuart Weeks, Gerald O. West, and Ian Young.
In this timely and highly readable volume, Old Testament scholar William Holladay introduces the reader to the several ways in which Isaiah speaks, from ancient Jewish readings of the text, to Handel's lyrical use of it in his oratorio, Messiah, to the Christian community who has heard it foretelling the life and death of Jesus Christ. Holladay argues persuasively that the text of Isaiah, though rooted in historical time, place, circumstance, is unbound by time. Using those portions of the prophet's writings which are most often included in the various modern lectionaries of the churches, Holladay both provides detailed historical commentary and presents a method for allowing the text to still speak to believers in the twenty-first century.