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Was God being ironic in commanding Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of wisdom? Carolyn J. Sharp suggests that many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures may be ironically intended. Deftly interweaving literary theory and exegesis, Sharp illumines the power of the unspoken in a wide variety of texts from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. She argues that reading with irony in mind creates a charged and open rhetorical space in the texts that allows character, narration, and authorial voice to develop in unexpected ways. Main themes explored here include the ironizing of foreign rulers, the prostitute as icon of the ironic gaze, indeterminacy and dramatic irony in prophetic performance, and irony in ancient Israel's wisdom traditions. Sharp devotes special attention to how irony destabilizes dominant ways in which the Bible is read today, especially when it touches on questions of conflict, gender, and the Other.
One of the most lamentable aspects of Christendom's history has been the long-standing antipathy of some of its members toward persons of the Jewish faith. However, the writer of Mark's gospel did not intend to promulgate such antipathy. Parker's groundbreaking re-assessment of how the evangelist applies Jewish scriptures serves to establish the true nature of Mark's unfavourable depiction of Judaism's custodians as a theological construct. The overriding purpose behind Mark's caricature of Jesus' compatriots was to explain the presence of «faulty» belief, or even unbelief, among a Gentile readership. Subsequent generations have mistakenly given historical credence to Mark's account of Jesus's ministry. Regrettably, this has resulted in the erroneous theological legitimization of atrocities against the Jews.
What has hermeneutics to do with ecology? What texts, if any, come to mind when you consider what the scriptures might say about environmental ethics? To help readers think critically and clearly about the Bible's relation to modern environmental issues, this volume expands the horizons of biblical interpretation to introduce ecological hermeneutics, moving beyond a simple discussion about Earth and its constituents as topics to a reading of the text from the perspective of Earth. In these groundbreaking essays, sixteen scholars seek ways to identify with Earth as they read and retrieve the role or voice of Earth, a voice previously unnoticed or suppressed within the biblical text and its interpretation. This study enriches eco-theology with eco-exegesis, a radical and timely dialogue between ecology and hermeneutics. The contributors are Vicky Balabanski, Laurie Braaten, Norman Habel, Theodore Hiebert, Cameron Howard, Melissa Tubbs Loya, Hilary Marlow, Susan Miller, Raymond Person, A
This study analyzes several passages in the Former Prophets (2 Sam 19:12-44; 2 Kgs 2:1-18; Judg 8:4-28) from a literary perspective, and argues that the text presents Transjordan as liminal in Israel's history, a place from which Israel's leaders return with inaugurated or renewed authority. It then traces the redactional development of Samuel-Kings that led to this literary symbolism, and proposes a hypothesis of continual updating and combination of texts, beginning early in Israel's monarchy and continuing until the final formation of the Deuteronomistic History. Several source documents may be isolated, including three narratives of Saul's rise, two distinct histories of David's rise, an...
Formerly known by its subtitle “Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete”, the International Review of Biblical Studies has served the scholarly community ever since its inception in the early 1950’s. Each annual volume includes approximately 2,000 abstracts and summaries of articles and books that deal with the Bible and related literature, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, Non-canonical gospels, and ancient Near Eastern writings. The abstracts – which may be in English, German, or French - are arranged thematically under headings such as e.g. “Genesis”, “Matthew”, “Greek language”, “text and textual criticism”, “exegetical methods and approaches”, “biblical theology”, “social and religious institutions”, “biblical personalities”, “history of Israel and early Judaism”, and so on. The articles and books that are abstracted and reviewed are collected annually by an international team of collaborators from over 300 of the most important periodicals and book series in the fields covered.
The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase of interest in the wisdom literature of the Bible, as scholars have come to appreciate the subtlety and originality of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as well as of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon. Interest has likewise grown in the wisdom literatures of the neighboring cultures of Canaan, Egypt, and especially Mesopotamia. To help readers understand the place of biblical wisdom within this broader context, including its originality and distinctiveness, this volume offers a collection of essays by Assyriologists and biblicists on the social, intellectual, and literary setting of Mesopotamian wisdom; on specific wisdom texts; and on key themes common to both Mesopotamian and biblical culture. --From publisher's description.
The Book List provides short reviews of up to 500 books a year. It includes publications not only on the Old Testament directly but also on many related areas, including archaeology, epigraphy, Hebrew and related Semitic languages (especially Northwest Semitic), relevant ancient Near Eastern history and literature, the Hellenistic world, early Judaism, and social anthropology. The main value of the Book List is its comprehensiveness and its immediacy, in that it is usually among the first periodicals to review a book.
This book demonstrates that Primary History, the historical work contained in the first nine books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis-2 Kings), was written as one unitary work, in deliberate emulation of the Greek-language Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (completed c. 440 BCE); the diversity of its books and sections is largely a literary device. The work was most likely written in the period 440-420 BCE, in the period of reform usually associated with the name of Nehemiah. Though this thesis does not directly affect questions of historicity, understanding the literary nature of primary history promises to open new vistas for research into the history of Israel, the Hebrew Bible in general and the history of the Hebrew language.
The book of Amos holds a unique and central place among the canonical prophetic literature and presents a special array of issues for scholarly discussion. This book provides a thorough and balanced overview of the history of scholarship on the book of Amos, two essays that trace the history of scholarship and offer promising lines for further inquiry, a substantial anthology of readings of the multiple ways Amos has been analyzed and appropriated, an extensive and current bibliography, and notes on doctoral dissertations conducted in recent years. The result is a comprehensive compendium of resources for scholarly writing on the book of Amos.
This book reexamines the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative in Genesis 18–19, an ethically charged text that has significantly influenced views about homosexuality, stereotyping the other, the rewards and risks of hospitality, and the justice owed to outsiders. Its twelve essays, reflecting their authors’ considerable geographical, religious, methodological, and academic diversity, explore this troubling text through the lens of universalism and particularism. Biblical Sodom is read as the site of multiple borders—fluid, porous, and bi-directional—between similar and different, men and angels, men and women, fathers and daughters, insiders and outsiders, hosts and guests, residents and aliens, chosen and nonchosen, and people and God. Readers of these exegetically and theologically attentive essays published in memory of Ron Pirson will experience a rare sense of an ancient text being read in and for the modern world. The contributors are Calum Carmichael, Diana Lipton, William John Lyons, Nathan MacDonald, Amira Meir, Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg, T. A. Perry, Ron Pirson, Jonathan D. Safren, Megan Warner, Harlan J. Wechsler, and Ellen J. van Wolde.