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David Hey (1938-2016) was one of the leading local and regional historians of our age and the author of a number of highly regarded books on the practice of local history. His work on surnames was pioneering and he was amongst the first to identify the potential of DNA in historical studies. In this collection of essays in David's memory, friends and colleagues celebrate his commitment to the landscape, economy, and society of south Yorkshire--especially Sheffield--and Derbyshire, which together make up 'Hey country, ' the area in which he grew up and to which he returned to work. This lively volume will be of interest to anyone who shares David Hey's curiosity for the people, economies, and landscapes of the part of England he made his focus. At the same time the essays will prove to be of interest to all those concerned with the workings of English local society and economy.
Space and time are basic features of the world-view, even the theology, of many religions, ancient and modern. How did the world begin, and how will it end? What is the importance of religious architecture in symbolizing sacred space? Where and how do we locate the self? The divine world? Wyatt's textbook treats ancient Near Eastern religions from a perspective that allows us to access how religion shapes and orders the world of human thought and experience. The book is designed especially for classroom use, each chapter provided with suggested reading, copious quotations from ancient texts and summaries. The subject matter is treated by topic, not according to individal religions, so that the reader understands the essential points of similarity and difference between religious systems and how they model their universe.
Over the centuries, New Testament texts have inspired both peace activism and violence towards others. Most Christians, including New Testament scholars, continue to find peace at the core of these scriptures, and consider that the use of violence misrepresents basic Christian beliefs. This challenging study contends that the New Testament promotes violence as strongly as it promotes peace. Through close analysis of a wide range of texts, Desjardins shows how foundational both peace and violence are in the New Testament, and then suggests that the leading interpretative theories in this area do not do justice to the complexity of the primary sources.
While the book of Jonah is, in some ways, unique, it stands firmly in the Old Testament tradition. There have been various suggestions as to genre, the most likely being the (short) didactic story; but the aim of the author is not easy to discern. The authenticity of Jonah's message to the Ninevites is stressed, as is their repentance, and Yahweh's mercy. The purpose of the book must lie in a combination of these themes. Lamentations is a neglected book, perhaps because it was associated with the book of Jeremiah and considered almost as an appendix. On the question of genre it has the closest affinities with the psalms of lament; but, whereas it is very difficult to link a psalm with a specific historical event or period, the five chapters of Lamentations appear to have the Fall of Jerusalem as background. While gloom abounds, the careful reader discovers the faith of the author shining through. He is a "practical monotheist" who interprets the castastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem in the light of his faith.
Based on an international colloquium held at the University of Sheffield, this collection represents the first book-length encounter between biblical studies and the proliferating and controversial field of cultural studies. A multidisciplinary team of contributors engage in a multifaceted examination of the Bible's place in culture, ancient and modern, 'high' and 'low'. Contributors include Alice Bach, Fiona Black, Athalya Brenner, Robert Carroll, David Clines, Margaret Davies, Philip Davies, Philip Esler, Cheryl Exum, Yael Feldman, Jennifer Glancy, Jan Willem van Henten, David Jasper, Francis Landy, Barry Matlock, Stephen Moore, Hugh Pyper, John Rogerson, Regina Schwartz, William Scott, and Erich Zenger.
Is free will just an illusion? What is it in the brain that allows us to pursue our own actions and objectives? What is it about this organ that permits seemingly purposeful behaviour, giving us the impression we are free? This book takes a journey into the brain to examine what is about known voluntary behaviour, and why it can go wrong.
A casual reader enters a bookshop looking for a Bible. However, not all the Bibles on display have the same contents! Some have more books than others, some are study editions, some use gender-free language. How did this come about? This Introduction works back through the processes by which the Bible was written, transmitted, copied and declared to be authoritative by various churches. The following topics are dealt with: What is the Bible?; How Biblical Writers Wrote; The Making of the Old Testament; The Making of the Apocrypha; The Making of the New Testament; The Canon of the Bible; The Study of the Bible; The Use of the Bible in Social, Moral and Political Questions. This updated edition takes account of developments in scholarship since the book was first published in 1999 by Penguin. The original edition has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese.
Fontaine explores the social roles of women as depicted within the book of Proverbs, as well as the character archetypes and patriarchal ideologies which undergird the sages' portrayal. Using feminist folklore methodologies and performance studies, the author explores an alternative paradigm for understanding women's relationship to wisdom traditions in the ancient Near East, using parallel texts, later midrash and extrabiblical re-presentations of biblical women associated with wisdom. Fontaine is thus able to show that women were culturally authorized 'performers' of the family-based wisdom traditions of teaching, economic problem-solving, and care-giving, and that these roles provided them with a platform to use their acknowledged wisdom in public roles.
There has been a proliferation of publications in the field of Christian ecological theology over the last three decades or so. These include a number of recent edited volumes, each covering a range of topics and consolidating many of the emerging insights in ecological theology. The call for Christian churches to respond to the environmental crisis has been reiterated numerous times in this vast corpus of literature, also in South Africa.
This publication includes a revised and updated version of Luke Timothy Johnson's introduction to the New Testament, with a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM includes: a fully searchable version of Johnson's text; links to the NRSV text from each biblical reference in the book; a glossary hyperlinked to key words in the text; student-friendly summaries for each chapter; additional discussion/reflection questions for each chapter; suggestions for research-paper topics; and links to additional resources on the Web (primary documents, other introductory material, museum artefacts, artwork).