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Commentators are often disturbed by the presence of various speakers in the three poems of Lamentations 1 and 2, and Isaiah 51.9-52.2, the change of speakers being thought to disrupt the flow of ideas. This study shows that a close reading of all three poems in the light of their mourning ceremony setting displays a clear and consistent flow of thought. Purported cases of 'disruption' now fit into their present context as moments in which different mourners voice their pains and their questions aloud, and bring their incomprehensible sufferings to Yahweh their God and the creator of all.
This study takes Lamentations as an integrated unity of form and content and considers the mini-acrostic in Lam 5:19-20 as crucial for the interpretation of the whole book. It applies a holistic approach and a dialogic interpretation to the book of Lamentations. Examining first the extent to which an intrinsic connection exists between the acrostic structure and the content of the book, Rong reads Lamentations as a whole from the angle of the mini-acrostic in Lam 5:19-20. She explores whether and how this mini-acrostic underlines the main themes running through the book. Moreover, Rong explores the dialogic interaction among the voices within Lamentations and between Lamentations and other related communal laments in the Hebrew Bible on the subjects of mood change and the admission of guilt. Finally, this book examines the significance of Lamentations for contemporary suffering--individuals and communities.
Glazov demonstrates that the interlinked themes of bridling the tongue and opening the mouth, well-known components of wisdom teaching, are also crucial to understanding much in the prophets, as well as later Jewish and Christian writings, especially liturgical texts. His comprehensive survey and analysis of the theme contribute to both a literary and a historical perspective on the prophetic literature of the Bible.
The format of the new The Bible in the 21st Century series reflects an international dialogue between experts and graduate students. In this book, experts on Bible translations present essays on the practices of translating the Bible for the present and the future, through Christian and Jewish approaches, in Western Europe and North America as well as in the former Eastern Bloc and in Africa. Each paper is paired with a response. The international contributors here include Adele Berlin, John Rogerson, Robert Carroll, Mary Phil Korsak, Everett Fox, Jeremy Punt and Athalya Brenner, and the debate is prefaced with an introduction by the Editors.
What makes one crime more serious than another, and why? This book investigates the problem of "seriousness of offence" in English law from the comparative perspective of biblical law. Burnside takes a semiotic approach to show how biblical conceptions of seriousness are synthesised and communicated through various descriptive and performative registers. Seven case studies show that biblical law discriminates between the seriousness of different offences and between the relative seriousness of the same offence when committed by different people or when performed in different ways. Recurring elements include location and the offender's social statue. The closing chapter considers some of the implications for the current debate about crime and punishment.
Grief is a universal human response to death and loss. Mourning is an equally universally observable practice that enables the bereaved to express their grief and come to terms with the reality of loss. Yet, despite their prevalence, there is no unified understanding of the nature and meaning of grief and mourning. The Meaning of Mourning: Perspectives on Death, Loss, and Grief brings together fifteen essays from diverse disciplines addressing the topics of death, grief, and mourning. The collection moves from general questions concerning the putative badness of death and the meaning of loss through the phenomenology and psychology of grief, to personal and cultural aspects of mourning. Cont...
This book shows that in Psalm 22 the psalmist complains to God about his shame experiences and he prays to him for his deliverance from shame and the restoration of his honor. The book also presents the shame and honor values and means found in Psalm 22 which are related to the shame and honor status of the psalmist. It discusses the social values of patronage, kinship/family, and trust which are the key values the psalmist held on to maintain his honor. are discussed in the book. It also explains the means of forsakenness/abandonment, taunt speeches, nakedness, and feast/meal that factor in the psalmist’s shame and honor. The book also surveys the different deliverance terms which convey the psalmist’s deliverance from shame. It shows Yahweh’s active role in the restoration of the psalmist from shame to honor. The study adds an overview of the similarities and differences of how the same values and means were practiced in the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian, and Israelite backgrounds.
This volume brings together ten essays on the various contexts for texts that social-scientific approaches invoke. These contexts are: the cultural values that inform the writers of texts, the relationship between the text and the reader or community of readers, and the production of texts themselves as social artifacts. In the first, predominantly theoretical, section of the book, John Rogerson applies the perspective of Adorno to the reading of biblical texts; Mark Brett advocates methodological pluralism and deconstructs ethnicity in Genesis; and Gerald West explores the 'graininess' of texts. The second part contains both theory and application: Jonathan Dyck draws a 'map of ideology' for biblical critics and then applies an ideological critical analysis to Ezra 2. M. Daniel Carroll R. reexamines 'popular religion' and uses Amos as a test case; Stanley Porter considers dialect and register in the Greek of the New Testament, then applies it to Mark's Gospel. This is an original as well as wide-ranging exploration of important social-scientific issues and their application to a range of biblical materials.
This 'close reading' of Exodus 19-40 focuses on the repetition of the 'encounter on the mountain'. This double encounter is expressed in a narrative structure of preparatory episodes climaxed by the theophany. The tension of the narrative is linked to 'the people' as the unlikely heroes of encounter and solved by the divine descent from the divine mountain to the man-made tent. The new situation of permanent encounter is foregrounded by the juxtaposed stories of pre- and post- Sinai journey, and the theme of the 'substitution of Moses' underlines a radical reinterpretation of traditional concepts, inviting the reader to embark on a process of identification.
It has often been argued that Zerubbabel, the Jewish governor of Yehud at the time of the rebuilding of the temple (late 6th century BCE), was viewed by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah as the new king in the line of David. In this new study, Rose offers a contrary proposal for the interpretation of the oracles in Haggai 2 and Zechariah 3 and 6. He traces their background in the pre-exilic prophets, pays special attention to often neglected details of semantics and metaphor, and concludes that neither Haggai nor Zechariah designated Zerubbabel as the new king in Jerusalem. Instead, the oracles in Zechariah 3 and 6 should be seen as fully messianic.