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In Ruth, Tod Linafelt offers an interpretation of the book which he calls "unsettling," in that he refuses to settle on a single meaning in a book so fraught with complexity and ambiguity. Ambiguity built into grammar, syntax, and vocabulary carrie over into the larger issues of characterization, theology, and the book's purpose. He also argues that Ruth is intended to read as an interlude between Judges and Samuel. Esther, by Timothy Beal, focuses on a story of anti-Judaism in an ancient world that raises contemporary questions about sexism, ethnocentrism, and natioinal identity. Beal questions the text without assuming that there will be univocal answers, allowing for complexity, perplexity, and the importance of accidents. Beal emphasizes the general and the tenative over the continuous. Using rhetorical criticism as a way into the text, Beal also focuses on its narrative structure.
Sex. Race. Scripture. Sovereignty. The book of Ruth entails them all. So readers shouldn't be fooled by its age, says Pastor John Piper. Though its events happened over 3,000 years ago, the story holds astounding relevance for Christians in the twenty-first century. The sovereignty of God, the sexual nature of humanity, and the gospel of God's mercy for the undeserving-these massive realities never change. And since God is still sovereign, and we are male or female, and Jesus is alive and powerful, A Sweet and Bitter Providence bears a message for readers from all walks of life. But be warned, Piper tells his audience: This ancient love affair between Boaz and Ruth could be dangerous, inspiring all of us to great risks in the cause of love.
THE STORY: Two grandmothers, a daughter, and a granddaughter gather on the deck of a beach house in Connecticut. One grandmother has flown, for the first time, from the Canadian prairie. She is an illiterate woman whose parents were homesteading pi
Sexuality is one of the most influential factors in human life. The responses to and reflections upon the manifestations of sexuality provide fascinating insights into fundamental aspects of medieval and early-modern culture. This interdisciplinary volume with articles written by social historians, literary historians, musicologists, art historians, and historians of religion and mental-ity demonstrates how fruitful collaborative efforts can be in the exploration of essential features of human society. Practically every aspect of culture both in the Middle Ages and the early modern age was influenced and determined by sexuality, which hardly ever surfaces simply characterized by prurient interests. The treatment of sexuality in literature, chronicles, music, art, legal documents, and in scientific texts illuminates central concerns, anxieties, tensions, needs, fears, and problems in human society throughout times.
In this work Michael A. Daise broaches the question of the rationale lying behind the six feasts mentioned in the Gospel of John. He argues that, in an earlier recension of the Fourth Gospel, those feasts were sequenced into a single, liturgical year and, as such, furnished temporal momentum for the concurrent motif of Jesus' 'hour'. After reviewing the feasts as they appear in the narrative, then critiquing the major theories proposed for their purpose, the author presents his key premise that the Passover at John 6:4 is to be read not as a regular Passover, observed on 14 Nisan (first month of the Jewish calendar), but as the 'Second Passover' of Numbers 9:9-14, observed on 14 Iyyar (secon...
In the Old Testament we read God s word as it was spoken to his people Israel. Today, thousands of years later, we hear in these thirty-nine books his inspired and authoritative message for us. These twin convictions, shared by all of the contributors to The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, define the goal of this ambitious series of commentaries. For those many modern readers who find the Old Testament to be strange and foreign soil, the NICOT series serves as an authoritative guide bridging the cultural gap between today s world and the world of ancient Israel. Each NICOT volume aims to help us hear God s word as clearly as possible. Scholars, pastors, and serious Bible s...
Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel tracks the mystery of narratives in the Hebrew Bible and their allusions to Sinai laws by highlighting intertextual allusions created by verbal resonances. While the second and the third parts of the volume illustrate allusions to Sinai narratives made by some narratives occurring in the post-Sinaitic era, twenty-three Genesis narratives are analyzed to show that the protagonists were bound by Sinai Laws before God supposedly gave them to Moses, anticipating the Book of Jubilees. Legal Friction suggests that most of Genesis was composed during or after the Babylonian exile, after the codification of most Sinai laws, whi...
The lives, ideas and influence of ten audacious Jews - what they did, what they believed and their contribution to the Jewish story. Courageous, challenging and often misunderstood, they left a lasting legacy for humanity. This book has a chapter on each character, in an easy-to-read bullet point format, which gives a summary of a character's life, personality, beliefs and contribution to Judaism. Jacob - The most successful biblical patriarch Naomi - The heroine of the biblical Book of Ruth King Solomon - The second monarch of Judah and Israel Akiva ben Yosef - The leading 1st century Rabbi and martyr Theodor Herzl - The journalist, writer and inspiration of modern political Zionism Franz Kafka - A literary genius of the 20th century Marc Chagall - The most famous Jewish artist of the 20th century Golda Meir - Israel's fourth Prime Minister Isaiah Berlin - The liberal philosopher and one of the finest minds of the 20th century Leonard Bernstein - The American composer, conductor and pianist
The Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible enables readers to easily compare the texts of a quarter of modern translations that span the full range of scholarly approaches to the ancient text.
The subtitle of this book is “A Somewhat Different Commentary,” so how is it different? Theology without application can be lifeless and boring, and while the comments have been well-researched, contemporary application has been primarily my focus. I hope that with this commentary on the book of Ruth I have written something that can be read for pleasure as well as spiritual growth. I started writing this commentary during the drought of 2019 that ravaged Australia, prompting me to keep my small farming valley in mind. Whenever possible I have tried to tie the lessons of Ruth back to the issues I see in my own community, one which has foreign farm workers, successful landholders, virtuous men and women, older godly women who no longer work but have influence, the issue of who gets the farm, and what constitutes citizenship.