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Major parts of the book of Micah were probably composed in the context of a book containing a number of prophetic writings - even as many as twelve. They can therefore only be understood and interpreted adequately within that context. That process of interpretation sheds light on an essential segment of the history of Old Testament theology: it was not primarily a matter of the statements of lone individual prophetic figures but of a common testimony to YHWH's speaking and acting in the history of his people. Zapff shows this by reflecting diachronically on the results of his synchronic exegesis and so tracing the process by which the Micah document and its theological statement were formed.
This two-volume set is a literary commentary of the book of the Twelve Prophets. Building upon the author's previous work on the structure and literary coherence of the book of Isaiah, it attempts to read the book of the Twelve as a distinctive literary work with its own structure, themes and theological or ideological perspective. In addition, it treats each of the twelve minor prophets as a literary entity unto itself as well as a component unity of the larger book of the Twelve.
"Sennacherib put to death many Israelites. So I stole their bodies to bury them; Sennacherib looked for them and he could not find them." Why do we bury the dead? To honor and respect them? To provide closure and comfort to the living? To provide the dead a final resting place? Tobit buried the dead as the ultimate work of mercy, and its pervasive presence in the narrative discourse of the book of Tobit invites reflection on and consideration of the reason for the practice of burial. The narrative drama radiates a universal sense of what it means to be in exile, namely, that it is an experience of death. Weaving together a complex of ideas related to Israelite interment practices and the reality of Israel's exile from the land given to them by God, this book explores the significance of burial as it relates to God's outstanding promises and Tobit's hopes for the household of Jacob.
Coming from a strong gender critical and post-colonial theoretical stance, Runions takes up important questions of the reading process that arise from literary, ideological critical and cultural studies approaches to the Bible. She examines readers' negotiations with the ambiguous configurations of gender, nation and future vision in the book of Micah, using the theoretical work of Homi Bhabha with Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek-all key figures in cultural studies. Her book confronts the problem of the determined subject reading an indeterminate text and suggests that (liminal) identifications with the ambiguitiesof the book of Micah might reconfigure the readers' own ideological positions.
In Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink, Naomi S.S. Jacobs explores how the numerous references to food, drink, and their consumption within The Book of Tobit help tell its story, promote righteous deeds and encourage resistance against a hostile dominant culture. Jacobs’ commentary includes up-to-date analyses of issues of translation, text-criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, and issues of class and gender. Jacobs situates Tobit within a wide range of ancient writings sacred to Jews and Christians as well as writings and customs from the Ancient Near East, Ugarit, Greece, Rome, including a treasure trove of information about ancient foodways and medicine.
Writing in a conversational rather than a scholarly tone, Paul Redditt assumes little or no prior knowledge of the Old Testament as he presents and introduces the Major and Minor Prophets in the canonical order of the English Bible. The chapters of Redditt's Introduction to the Prophets discuss the place of each book in the canon; the literary setting of each book; their structure, integrity, and authorship; the main genre(s) in each; special features of each book; basic emphases of each book; and problems -- theological, literary, or historical -- raised by a study of the book. Among other things, Redditt demonstrates that the prophets were both "foretellers" and "forthtellers," and he argues that the Old Testament prophets developed the concept of monotheism. Each chapter ends with questions for further reflection. Concluding the volume are a helpful glossary and several indexes.
A systematic study of how royal illnesses in the Hebrew Bible are evaluated and integrated in literary and historiographical contexts.
The Literary Coherence of the Book of Micah puts forth a framework to understand the nature of literary coherence. This enables an analysis of the sources and dimensions of the coherence found in the book of Micah by the primary scholarly proposals for understanding the structure and connectedness of the whole book. Each of these proposals ultimately fails to account for all the features found in the text. The author then explains a new reading of the final form of the text of Micah, based on the placement of the references concerning the remnant. A brief exposition of the text as a canonical whole indicates the flow and development in the final form of the book. The framework formulated earlier provides a basis to evaluate the coherence that this understanding of the book of Micah uncovers and to show that this means of reading the canonical book best accounts for the greatest number of features in the text.
In the Old Testament, the Levites stand as key ministry leaders for the worship of the people of God, from their origins with Moses and the tabernacle, to their service at the Jerusalem temple, to their roles in the postexilic period. This study proposes a multidimensional reading of the texts centered on the Levites in the Davidic narratives of 1 Chronicles 10-29. From a literary point of view, the notion that the Levites are closely associated with the symbol of God's presence is explored. From a historical perspective, the roles of the Levites in expanding the service to God and his people is examined. And from a theological perspective, the means by which the Levites facilitate the song ...
What motivates the centuries old human endeavour to impose moral standards of behaviour on the gods? James Crenshaw offers a synthesis of his ideas on the subject of theodicy & the struggle to absolve the deity of responsibility for injustice.