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According to the demands of the Decalogue, manhood entails the avoidance of stealing, killing, and coveting, not to mention apostasy and violation of the Sabbath and other men's property. What, then, would be the essence of womanhood, if different? By selecting female characters' narratives as interpretative clues for the "law," this book presents a legal, behavioral, and representational reading of the Decalogue. Beginning with an analysis of the legal contents of each Commandment through allied legal texts which relate to women and to the feminine, each chapter continues with an investigation of the ways in which the activities of the female and male protagonists of select narratives elucidate the range of Commandments.
This volume is written in the context of trauma hermeneutics of ancient Jewish communities and their tenacity in the face of adversity (i.e. as recorded in the MT, LXX, Pseudepigrapha, the Deuterocanonical books and even Cognate literature. In this regard, its thirteen chapters, are concerned with the most recent outputs of trauma studies. They are written by a selection of leading scholars, associated to some degree with the Hungaro-South African Study Group. Here, trauma is employed as a useful hermeneutical lens, not only for interpreting biblical texts and the contexts in which they were originally produced and functioned but also for providing a useful frame of reference. As a consequence, these various research outputs, each in their own way, confirm that an historical and theological appreciation of these early accounts and interpretations of collective trauma and its implications, (perceived or otherwise), is critical for understanding the essential substance of Jewish cultural identity. As such, these essays are ideal for scholars in the fields of Biblical Studies—particularly those interested in the Pseudepigrapha, the Deuterocanonical books and Cognate literature.
The New Testament gospels feature numerous social exchanges between Jesus and people with various physical and sensory disabilities. Despite this, traditional biblical scholarship has not seen these people as agents in their own right but existing only to highlight the actions of Jesus as a miracle worker. In this study, Louise A. Gosbell uses disability as a lens through which to explore a number of these passages anew. Using the cultural model of disability as the theoretical basis, she explores the way that the gospel writers, as with other writers of the ancient world, used the language of disability as a means of understanding, organising, and interpreting the experiences of humanity. Her investigation highlights the ways in which the gospel writers reinforce and reflect, as well as subvert, culturally-driven constructions of disability in the ancient world.
To the authors of this book, today's world is "postmodern". They see a fragmented world. It seems to have become implausible to find a common point of view, a unity in purpose or truth. Postmodernity challenges Christian faith, because it appears to go against the very grain of a sense of tradition, communion, and commitment. On the eve of his election pope Benedict XVI warned against the "dictatorship of relativism". Would it still be possible to find genuine Christian ways to live in postmodern times? This collection of essays by a group of Dutch theologians will stimulate the imagination of anyone who reads them.
The cultural politics of commemorating war.
The book of Isaiah is one of the longest and strangest books of the Hebrew Bible, composed over several centuries and traversing the catastrophe that befell the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. Francis Landy's book tells the story of the poetic response to catastrophe, and the hope for a new and perfect world on the other side. The study traces two parallel developments: the displacement of the Davidic promise onto the Persian Empire, Israel, and the prophet himself; and the transition from exclusively male images of the deity to the matching of male and female prototypes, whereby YHWH takes the place of the warrior goddess. Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in ...
The first Christians operated with a hierarchical model of sexual difference common to the ancient Mediterranean, with women considered to be lesser versions of men. Yet sexual difference was not completely stable as a conceptual category across the spectrum of formative Christian thinking. Rather, early Christians found ways to exercise theological creativity and to think differently from one another as they probed the enigma of sexually differentiated bodies. In Specters of Paul, Benjamin H. Dunning explores this variety in second- and third-century Christian thought with particular attention to the ways the legacy of the apostle Paul fueled, shaped, and also constrained approaches to the ...
How is rage related to hunger? Hunger is a liminal experience, connected to powerlessness, shame, and violence. Hunger does not issue into speech. It cannot therefore be easily found in the biblical texts, written by (and about) people who knew hunger. It hides behind the words in these texts. Rage, conversely, finds expression; and in the texts, it can alert readers to hidden experiences of hunger. But rage is not just a response to the lack of food. It is also a transformative force, reaching towards a justice that is not yet real. The experience of hunger and the fear of famine often go hand in hand with anger—a rage that can bring whole populations to their feet. Luzia Sutter Rehmann develops a biblical hermeneutic that centers on the “fire” in the belly of the hungry, their rage that leads to protests and uprisings. Her reading shows “the poor” or “the many” as those with whom Jesus cooperates and as subjects acting on their own initiative. The book also highlights key socio-historical information on the food situation of ancient Rome and Palestine: on poverty, political dependence and unrest, droughts, and famines.
In matters of mission history, most major works that treat the full sweep of the church's missional self-understanding are less than helpful in understanding women's part of that narrative. Smith tries to redress the balance with a comprehensive history of mission that highlights the critical contributions of women, as well as the theological developments that influenced their role. --From publisher's description.