Text and Texture


Book Description




Biblical Text and Texture


Book Description

A literary exploration of the Hebrew Bible focussing on three distinct literary elements: narrative text, direct speech, and themes and motifs.




African Americans and the Bible


Book Description

Perhaps no other group of people has been as much formed by biblical texts and tropes as African Americans. From literature and the arts to popular culture and everyday life, the Bible courses through black society and culture like blood through veins. Despite the enormous recent interest in African American religion, relatively little attention has been paid to the diversity of ways in which African Americans have utilized the Bible.African Americans and the Bibleis the fruit of a four-year collaborative research project directed by Vincent L. Wimbush and funded by the Lilly Endowment. It brings together scholars and experts (sixty-eight in all) from a wide range of academic and artistic fields and disciplines--including ethnography, cultural history, and biblical studies as well as art, music, film, dance, drama, and literature. The focus is on the interaction between the people known as African Americans and that complex of visions, rhetorics, and ideologies known as the Bible. As such, the book is less about the meaning(s) of the Bible than about the Bible and meaning(s), less about the world(s) of the Bible than about how worlds and the Bible interact--in short, about how a text constructs a people and a people constructs a text. It is about a particular sociocultural formation but also about the dynamics that obtain in the interrelation between any group of people and sacred texts in general. ThusAfrican Americans and the Bibleprovides an exemplum of sociocultural formation and a critical lens through which the process of sociocultural formation can be viewed.




Dictionary of Biblical Imagery


Book Description

This reference work explores the images, symbols, motifs, metaphors, figures of speech, and literary patterns found in the Bible. With over 800 articles by over 100 expert contributors, this is an inviting, enlightening and indispensable companion to the reading, study, contemplation and enjoyment of the Bible.




Literary Approaches to the Bible


Book Description

The study of the Bible has long included a literary aspect with great attention paid not only to what was written but also to how it was expressed. The detailed analysis of biblical books and passages as written texts has benefited from the study of literature in classical philology, ancient rhetoric, and modern literary criticism. This volume of the Lexham Methods Series introduces the various ways the study of literature has been used in biblical studies. Most literary approaches emphasize the study of the text alone—its structure, its message, and its use of literary devices—rather than its social or historical background. The methods described in Literary Approaches to the Bible are focused on different ways of analyzing the text within its literary context. Some of the techniques have been around for centuries, but the theories of literary critics from the early 20th century to today had a profound impact on biblical interpretation. In this book, you will learn about those literary approaches, how they were adapted for biblical studies, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.




Exploring the Texture of Texts


Book Description

In this book Vernon K. Robbins provides an accessible introduction to socio-rhetorical criticism, illustrating the method by guiding the reader through the study of specific New Testament texts and stories. An opening chapter outlines this new approach and its focus on values, convictions, and beliefs both in the text we read and in the world in which we live. Then follow studies and exercises dealing with specific textural features: inner texture, intertexture, social and cultural texture, ideological texture, and sacred texture.




Biblical Text and Exegetical Culture


Book Description

In this wide-ranging collection, Michael Fishbane investigates the complex and diverse relationships between the 'biblical text' and 'exegetical culture.' The author demonstrates the multiple literary dimensions and interpretative strategies that came to form the Hebrew Bible in the context of the ancient Near East, the Dead Sea Scrolls in the context of an emergent biblical-Jewish culture, and the classical rabbinic Midrash in the context of an emergent rabbinic civilization in late antiquity. Within each study, and in the collection as a whole, the author shows a broad range of creative methods, always with a scholarly concern to illuminate the religious ideas of Scripture as it was perceived through diverse hermeneutical lenses and exegetical methodologies. The studies range from the purely literary to the highly analytic, from myth to law, and from studies of symbols to the study of exegetical methods.




Rhetorical Argumentation in Biblical Texts


Book Description

In the latest volume in the Emory Studies in Early Christianity series, the contributors seek a better understanding of how various biblical authors present their arguments, support their claims, and attempt to persuade their readers. A century ago the rhetorical analysis of texts focused on the study of rhetorical figures in texts (elocutio). In the mid-twentieth century, scholars such as James Muilenburg, Hans Dieter Betz, and Wilhelm Wuellner introduced biblical scholars to the illustrious tradition of rhetorical study. These scholars tended to focus on the arrangement of the texts themselves (dispositio). During the last ten years, however, interpreters have increasingly studied the rhetorical argumentation in texts. The authors in this volume examine rhetorical argumentation in the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, the Pauline letters, and the Book of Revelation, offering striking new readings of these materials. Contributors include: J. David Hester (Amador), Center for Rhetoric and Hermeneutics; R. Dean Anderson, Valkenburg, The Netherlands; Harold W. Attridge, Yale Divinity School; L. Gregory Bloomquist, St. Paul University, Ottawa; Michael R. Cosby, Messiah College; Rodney K. Duke, Appalachian State University; Frans H. van Eemeren, University of Amsterdam; Anders Eriksson, Lund University; Alan J. Hauser, Appalachian State University; Roy R. Jeal, William and Catherine Booth College; Manfred Kraus, Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Tübingen; John W. Marshall, University of Toronto; Roland Meynet, Pontificia Università Gregoriana; Thomas H. Olbricht, Emeritus, Pepperdine University; Carol Poster, Florida State University; Rollin A. Ramsaran, Emmanuel School of Religion; Vernon K. Robbins, Emory University and University of Stellenbosch; Russell B. Sisson, Union College; Jerry L. Sumney, Lexington Theological Seminary; C. Jan Swearingen, Texas A & M; Lauri Thurén, Univeristy of Joensuu; Johan S. Vos, Vrije Universiteit; and Duane F. Watson, Malone College.




Biblical Hermeneutics


Book Description

Biblical Hermeneutics is a textbook for introductory courses in hermeneutics. It takes an interdisciplinary approach that is both balanced and practical with six major areas of focus: the history of biblical interpretation, philosophical presuppositions, biblical genre, the uniqueness of Scripture, the practice of exegesis, and use of exegetical insights that will be lived and communicated in preaching and teaching. Biblical Hermeneutics is designed for students who have little or no knowledge of biblical interpretation. It provides, in one volume, resources for gaining a working knowledge of the multi-faceted nature of biblical interpretation and for supporting the practice of exegesis on the part of the student. The first chapter "A Student's Primer for Exegesis" by Bruce Corley gives the student a bird's eye view of the entire process. It becomes for the student a kind of template to which they will return again and again as they engage in the process of exegesis. This revised edition of Biblical Hermeneutics contains seven new chapter that deal with the major literary genre of Scripture: law, narrative, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, Gospels and Acts, epistles, and apocalyptic. The unique nature of Scripture is presented in part three that addresses the authority, inspiration, and language of Scripture. The book contains two extensive appendices, "A Student's Glossary for Biblical Studies" and an updated and expanded version of "A Student's Guide to Reference Books and Biblical Commentaries.




What Did Jesus Look Like?


Book Description

Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image adorns countless churches, icons, and paintings. He is the subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and works of art. Everyone can conjure an image of Jesus: usually as a handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes. But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different vision of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair.