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These seven essays offer fresh perspectives on beauty’s role in revelation. Each essay features a hermeneutical approach informed by the contemporary study of aesthetics. Covering a series of texts in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, from Adam and Eve in the garden to Jesus on trial in the Fourth Gospel, the authors engage beauty from three overarching perspectives: modern philosophy, contextual criticism, and the postcritical return to beauty’s primary qualities. The three perspectives are not harmonized but rather explored concurrently to create a volume with intriguing methodological tensions. As this collection highlights beauty in the narratives of scripture, it opens readers to a largely unexplored dimension of the Bible. The contributors are Richard J. Bautch, Jo-Ann A. Brant, Mark Brummitt, David Penchansky, Antonio Portalatín, Jean-François Racine, and Peter Spitaler.
The 22 essays in this new and comprehensive study explore how notions of covenant, especially the Sinaitic covenant, flourished during the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods. Following the upheaval of the Davidic monarchy, the temple’s destruction, the disenfranchisement of the Jerusalem priesthood, the deportation of Judeans to other lands, the struggles of Judeans who remained in the land, and the limited returns of some Judean groups from exile, the covenant motif proved to be an increasingly influential symbol in Judean intellectual life. The contributors to this volume, drawn from many different countries including Canada, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Switzerland...
In biblical and theological studies, fresh perspectives and novel approaches can breathe new life into familiar subjects. Remembering the Covenants in Song reconsiders the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenant relationship through the unique biblical and canonical lens of a postexilic song. In Psalm 105, the psalmist’s intriguing intertextual engagement with both of Israel’s great covenant traditions provides a rare glimpse into the covenant-understanding of a postexilic biblical writer interacting with the Torah. Remembering the Covenants in Song entails an intertextual study of Psalm 105 that brings the psalmist’s rhetorical design and covenant references into a dialogue with the Torah’s seminal covenant texts. The examination of the psalmist’s use of covenant references and allusions represents an innovative approach to assessing the rhetorical significance of intertextuality in biblical writings.
"For the Danielic group, exile is a place of privilege, a locus of God's revelation and presence. By identifying themselves with those remaining in exile, the Danielic group claims the legitmacy of their prophetic identity and teaching during the persecution under Antiochus IV." --
This study argues for the recovery of trust as a central theme in Christian theology, and offers the first theology of trust in the New Testament. 'Trust' is the root meaning of Christian 'faith' (pistis, fides), and trusting in God and Christ is still fundamental to Christians. But unlike faith, and other aspects of faith such as belief or hope, trust is little studied. Building on her ground-breaking study Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and drawing on the philosophy and psychology of trust, Teresa Morgan explores the significance of trust, trustworthiness, faithfulness, and entrustedness in New Testament writings. Trust between God, Christ, and humanity is revealed as a risky, dynamic, f...
Offering a reading of the intermarriage debate and expulsion of the foreign women in Ezra 9-10, this book engages with the production and performance of masculinities in this biblical text, shifting the focus away from the 'foreign women' to the men who are the primary actors in this work. This approach addresses the diversity of masculinities and the ways in which they are implicated in the production of power relations in the text. It explores the ‘feminized’ masculinity of the peoples-of-the-lands, the unstable masculinity of the golah, Ezra’s performance of penitential masculinity, and the rehabilitation of divine masculinity. The rejection of the marriages and the call for the exp...
This text introduces the book of Psalms and provides an exposition of each psalm with attention to genre, liturgical connections, societal issues and the psalm's place in the book of Psalms as a whole. The treatments of the psalms feature a close look at particular issues raised by the text and the encounters between the world of the psalm and the world of contemporary readers. The exposition of each psalm provides a reader's guide to the text in conversation with relevant theological issues.
In Word and Image, Michael Patella explores the principles, intentions, and aims of The Saint John's Bible - the first handwritten and hand-illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine abbey since the invention of the printing press. Patella focuses not on how it was made but on how it can be read, viewed, and interpreted in a way that respects biblical inspiration and Christian tradition in our postmodern context. It is a book that is sure to appeal to academics, pastors, teachers, and educated laypersons. Patella considers this Bible in the context of the great Christian tradition of illuminated Bibles across the ages and also the fascinating ways The Saint John's Bible reflects third-m...
The book of Isaiah is without doubt one of the most important books in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, as evidenced by its pride of place in both Jewish and Christian traditions as well as in art and music. Most people, scholars and laity alike, are familiar with the words of Isaiah accompanied by the magnificent tones of Handel's 'Messiah'. Isaiah is also one of the most complex books due to its variety and plurality, and it has accordingly been the focus of scholarly debate for the last 2000 years. Divided into eight sections, The Oxford Handbook of Isaiah constitutes a collection of essays on one of the longest books in the Bible. They cover different aspects regarding the formation, interpretations, and reception of the book of Isaiah, and also offer up-to-date information in an attractive and easily accessible format. The result does not represent a unified standpoint; rather the individual contributions mirror the wide and varied spectrum of scholarly engagement with the book. The authors of the essays likewise represent a broad range of scholarly traditions from diverse continents and religious affiliations, accompanied by comprehensive recommendations for further reading.