You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Source criticism has been at the center of biblical studies for the last two centuries. In that time, it has produced a wide range of theories and approaches, often conflicting. This book provides a concise overview of the major approaches and positions in the field, helping the reader understand where scholarship has been and where it currently stands, and situating each major development within its broader intellectual and social context.
For well over two centuries the question of the composition of the Pentateuch has been among the most central and hotly debated issues in the field of biblical studies. In this book, Joel Baden presents a fresh and comprehensive argument for the Documentary Hypothesis. Critically engaging both older and more recent scholarship, he fundamentally revises and reorients the classical model of the formation of the Pentateuch. Interweaving historical and methodological chapters with detailed textual case studies, Baden provides a critical introduction to the history of Pentateuchal scholarship, discussions on the most pressing issues in the current debate, and a practical model for the study of the biblical text.
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Harvard University, 2007.
An essential biography of one of the Bible’s most powerful and inspiring books Exodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, but it may rank first in lasting cultural importance. It is here that the classic biblical themes of oppression and redemption, of human enslavement and divine salvation, are most dramatically expressed. Joel Baden tells the story of this influential and enduring book, tracing how its famous account of the Israelites’ journey to the promised land has been adopted and adapted for millennia, often in unexpected ways. Baden draws a distinction between the Exodus story and the book itself, which is one of the most multifaceted in the Bible, containing poems, law codes...
Bringing together nationally and internationally-known scholars, The Museum of the Bible: A Critical Introduction analyzes the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., from a variety of perspectives and disciplinary positions, including biblical studies, history, archaeology, Judaic studies, and religion and public life. The Museum of the Bible is poised to wield unparalleled influence on the national popular imagination of the Bible’s contents, history, and uses through time. This volume provides critical tools by which a broad public of scholars and students alike can assess the Museum of the Bible’s presentation of its vast collection and wrestle with the thorny interpretive issues and complex histories that are at risk of being obscured when private funds put a major museum near the National Mall.
The papers in this volume are the fruits of a conference on the priestly strata of the Pentateuch that took place in Vienna in the summer of 2007. The conference brought together scholars from Europe, North America, and Israel, and revealed the diversity of contemporary views on the nature of the priestly material. The essays in this volume cover a wide range of critical issues, including the question of the extent to which a view of P as a consistent and unified whole can still be defended, criteria for determining literary strata within the priestly material, evaluation of models for understanding these strata, and a discussion about the existence of the Holiness Code and its relationship to P. Contributors include Joel Baden, David Bernat, Erhard Blum, Simeon Chavel, William Gilders, Tamar Kamionkowski, Christophe Nihan, Eckart Otto, Thomas Romer, Baruch Schwartz, Sarah Shectman, and Jeffrey Stackert. Dr. Joel S. Baden, Jahrgang 1977, ist Assistant Professor of Old Testament an der Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Sarah Shectman, Jahrgang 1973, ist Visiting Assistant Professor am Department of Judaic Studies der Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.
This volume, a tribute to John J. Collins by his friends, colleagues, and students, includes essays on the wide range of interests that have occupied John Collins’s distinguished career. Topics range from the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism and beyond into early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. The contributions deal with issues of text and interpretation, history and historiography, philology and archaeology, and more. The breadth of the volume is matched only by the breadth of John Collins’s own work.
Joel Baden, a leading expert on the Old Testament, offers a controversial look at the history of King David, the founder of the nation of Israel whose bloodline leads to Jesus, challenging prevailing popular beliefs about his legend in The Historical David. Baden makes clear that the biblical account of David is an attempt to shape the events of his life politically and theologically. Going beyond the biblical bias, he explores the events that lie behind the David story, events that are grounded in the context of the ancient Near East and continue to inform modern Israel. The Historical David exposes an ambitious, ruthless, flesh-and-blood man who achieved power by any means necessary, including murder, theft, bribery, sex, deceit, and treason. As Baden makes clear, the historical David stands in opposition not only to the virtuous and heroic legends, but to our very own self-definition as David’s national and religious descendants. Provocative and enlightening, The Historical David provides the lost truth about David and poses a challenge to us: how do we come to terms with the reality of a celebrated hero who was, in fact, similar to the ambitious power-players of his day?
The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view? Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew ...
Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized 'translations' from other languages. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as 'genuine' can be established.