You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In this volume Thomas Dozeman presents a fresh translation of the Hebrew text of Exodus along with a careful interpretation of its central themes, literary structure, and history of composition. He explores two related themes in the formation of the book of Exodus: the identity of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and the authority of Moses, the leader of the Israelite people. Dozeman clarifies the multiple literary genres within the text, identifies only two separate authors in the book's composition, and highlights the rich insights that arise from the comparative study of the ancient Near Eastern literary tradition. Also treating the influence of Exodus in the history of Jewish and Christian interpretation, Dozeman's comprehensive commentary will be welcomed by Old Testament scholars.
The World Council of Churches has called for renewed theological reflection on the biblical roots of ordination to strengthen the vocational identity of the ordained and to provide a framework for ecumenical dialogue. This book is a response to that call. It is grounded in the assumption that the vocation of ordination requires an understanding of holiness and how it functions in human religious experience. The goal is to construct a biblical theology of ordination that is embedded in broad reflection on the nature of holiness. Dozeman's study of holiness and ministry interweaves three methodologies. The first, from the History of Religions, describes two theories of holiness in the study of...
Methods for Exodus is a textbook on biblical methodology. The book introduces readers to six distinct methodologies that aid in the interpretation of the book of Exodus: literary and rhetorical, genre, source and redaction, liberation, feminist, and postcolonial criticisms. Describing each methodology, the volume also explores how the different methods relate to and complement one another. Each chapter includes a summary of the hermeneutical presuppositions of a particular method with a summary of the impact of the method on the interpretation of the book of Exodus. In addition, Exodus 1–2 and 19–20 are used to illustrate the application of each method to specific texts. The book is unique in offering a broad methodological discussion with all illustrations centered on the book of Exodus.
The present volume contains a collection of articles from an international conference in Zürich that brought together leading voices from North America, Europe, and Israel to evaluate the present state of research on the composition of the Pentateuch. The aim of the conference was to clarify differences in methodology and to identify points of convergence in the present state of pentateuchal research as a basis for further discussion. "The essays in this volume provide important insights about the way toward a better understanding of the Pentateuch's literary development."Angela Roskop Erisman in Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3 (2013), p. 551-553
An acknowledged expert on the Hebrew Bible, Thomas Dozeman offers a fresh translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the book of Joshua and explores the nature, function, and causes of the religious violence depicted therein. By blending the distinct teachings of Deuteronomy and the Priestly literature, Dozeman provides a unique interpretation of holy war as a form of sacred genocide, arguing that, since peace in the promised land required the elimination of the populations of all existent royal cities, a general purging of the land accompanied the progress of the ark of the covenant. This essential work of religious scholarship demonstrates how the theme of total genocide is reinterpreted as partial conquest when redactors place Joshua, an independent book, between Deuteronomy and Judges. The author traces the evolution of this reinterpretation of the central themes of religious violence while providing a comparison of the two textual versions of Joshua and an insightful analysis of the book's reception history.
The destruction of the Egyptian army in the Book of Exodus is the primary story of salvation for Israel; God is the chief combatant in this story. "Yahweh is a warrior!" So goes the victory hymn in Exodus 15:3 after the annihilation of the enemy by Yahweh, marking the importance held by this show of divine power. This unleashing of divine power and its militaristic imagery has long caught the attention of scholars as starkly nationalistic. Thomas B. Dozeman furthers this study by addressing the theological problem of divine power in the Exodus story and, by extension, the Judeo-Christian attempt to deify nationalism by calling its wars holy. He interprets Exodus as liturgy, the Day of Yahweh...
The Pentateuch is the heart of the Hebrew Bible and the foundational document of Judaism. It is also the focus of tremendous scholarly debate regarding the complex history of its composition. This history will be explored along with analysis of the historical background and ancient Near Eastern parallels for its primeval history, its ancestry narratives and laws, the theological purposes of its final redaction, and its diverse interpretation in communities today. This textbook introduces students to the contents of the Torah and orients them to the key interpretive questions and methods shaping contemporary scholarship, inviting readers into the work of interpretation today. Pedagogical features include images, maps, timelines, reading lists, and a glossary.
This volume makes available both the most recent European scholarship on the Pentateuch and its critical discussion, providing a helpful resource and fostering further dialogue between North American and European interpreters. The contributors are Erhard Blum, David M. Carr, Thomas B. Dozeman, Jan Christian Gertz, Christoph Levin, Albert de Pury, Thomas Christian Roemer, Konrad Schmid, and John Van Seters.
Throughout the Old Testament, the stories, laws, and songs not only teach a way of life that requires individuals to be moral, but they demonstrate how. In biblical studies, character ethics has been one of the fastest-growing areas of interest. Whereas ethics usually studies rules of behavior, character ethics focuses on how people are formed to be moral agents in the world. This book presents the most up-to-date academic work in Old Testament character ethics, covering topics throughout the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, in addition to the use of the Bible in the modern world. In addition to Carroll and Lapsley, contributors are Denise M. Ackermann, Cheryl B. Anderson, Samuel E. Balentine, William P. Brown, Walter Brueggemann, Thomas B. Dozeman, Bob Ekblad, Jose Rafael Escobar R., Theodore Hiebert, Kathleen O'Connor, Dennis T. Olson, J. David Pleins, Luis R. Rivera Rodriguez, J. J. M. Roberts, and Daniel L. Smith-Christopher.
The identification of literary works in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets is a hallmark of the modern historical-critical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The theories of a Tetrateuch, a Hexateuch, or a Deuteronomistic History have played a central role in recovering the literary history of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. The breakdown of these methodologies in recent research has forced scholars to reevaluate the criteria for identifying literary works in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. The present volume explores anew, without presupposition or exclusion, the criteria by which interpreters identify literary works in these books as a resource for recovering the composition history of the literature. It also brings North American and European approaches to the topic into a common discussion. The contributors are Christoph Berner, Erhard Blum, Suzanne Boorer, David M. Carr, Thomas B. Dozeman, Cynthia Edenburg, Michael Konkel, Christoph Levin, Thomas Römer, Konrad Schmid, and Felipe Blanco Wißmann.