Author : E. Theodore Mullen
Publisher : Society of Biblical Literature
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 39,19 MB
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN :
Proposes a new interpretive model that views the section of the Old Testament as documenting the foundation of a distinct ethnic and religious group. Argues that it was composed in Judah during the Persian period in response to threats to the community resulting from foreign domination. The emphasis is on the function of the texts; avoids the much
Author : John Van Seters
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 28,49 MB
Release : 2004-08-23
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567080882
This overview of the Pentateuch reviews the various historical-critical attempts to read it that arise from notions about the social evolution of Israel's religion and culture. Is the Pentateuch an accumulation of folk traditions, a work of ancient historiography, a document legitimizing religious reform? The present book, in dialogue with competing views, advocates a compositional model that recognizes the social and historical diversity of the literary strata. It argues that a proto-Pentateuchal author created a comprehensive history from Genesis to Numbers that was written as a prologue to the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy to 2 Kings) in the exilic period and later expanded by a Priestly writer to make it the foundational document of the Jerusalem temple community.
Author : Gerald West
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 21,46 MB
Release : 2008-07-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9047442407
Far too long, the relationship between European and African biblical scholarship has been a non-relationship. Divergent insights into how biblical texts should be interpreted and made fruitful for the current context, cultural differences, colonial past and post-colonial future, radically different social situations – this all made companionship and real interaction difficult. This rich and multilayered volume (result of a Stellenbosch conference 2006) attempts to disclose new modes of dialogue between readers of the Bible from those two worlds. More than twenty theologians from Africa and Europe reflect together on how readers from radically different contexts – professional and ordinary alike –, may become allies in an ethically accountable way of relating the biblical text to their current (global) situations and how a process of mutual learning may be established. This book provides important insights in intercultural hermeneutics, the relationship between classical historico-literary approaches and new forms of interpretation. It also gives examples of new forms of how to read the Bible in the secularised European context and the HIV/Aids stricken Africa. Particularly enriching is that every contribution is followed by a personal letter of response of another contributor to the book, giving impulses for further dialogue and debate. The book is useful for all biblical scholars and students, in particular for those interested in how to do contextual exegesis in a manner that also takes into account the context of the other.
Author : Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 339 pages
File Size : 28,21 MB
Release : 2015-03-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9004292225
Ancient Near Eastern empires, including Assyria, Babylon and Persia, frequently permitted local rulers to remain in power. The roles of the indigenous elites reflected in the Nehemiah Memoir can be compared to those encountered elsewhere. Nehemiah was an imperial appointee, likely of a military/administrative background, whose mission was to establish a birta in Jerusalem, thereby limiting the power of local elites. As a loyal servant of Persia, Nehemiah brought to his mission a certain amount of ethnic/cultic colouring seen in certain aspects of his activities in Jerusalem, in particular in his use of Mosaic authority (but not of specific Mosaic laws). Nehemiah appealed to ancient Jerusalemite traditions in order to eliminate opposition to him from powerful local elite networks.
Author : T. Desmond Alexander
Publisher : Baker Academic
Page : 467 pages
File Size : 39,4 MB
Release : 2022-04-12
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1493434640
This accessibly written textbook has been a popular introduction to the Pentateuch for over twenty-five years. It identifies the major themes of the first five books of the Bible and offers an overview of their contents. Unlike some academic studies, it focuses on how the books from Genesis to Deuteronomy form a continuous story that provides an important foundation for understanding the whole Bible. This new edition has been substantially updated throughout to reflect the author's refined judgments and to address the future of pentateuchal studies.
Author : Victor P. Hamilton
Publisher : Baker Books
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 46,8 MB
Release : 2005-09-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1585583006
In this introduction to the first five books of the Old Testament, Victor Hamilton moves chapter by chapter through the Pentateuch, examining the content, structure, and theology. Hamilton surveys each major thematic unit of the Pentateuch and offers useful commentary on overarching themes and connections between Old Testament texts.
Author : Erwin Fahlbusch
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Page : 994 pages
File Size : 18,81 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Reference
ISBN : 9789004145955
Containing more than 300 articles, covering the alphabetical entries P-Sh, this book also includes articles on significant topics ranging from Paul, political theology and the Qur'an, to religious liberty, salvation history and scholasticism.
Author : Walter Brueggeman
Publisher : James Clarke & Company
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 29,44 MB
Release : 2017-01-26
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0227905849
Biblical faith is passionately and relentlessly material in its emphasis. This claim is rooted in the conviction that the creator God loves the creation and summons creation to be in sync with the will of the creator God. This collection of essays is focussed on the bodily life of the world as it ordered in all of its problematic political and economic forms. The phrase of the title 'all flesh' in the flood narrative of Genesis 9 refers to all living creatures who are in covenant with God - human beings, animals, birds, and fish - as recipients of God's grace, as dependent upon God's generosity, and as destined for praise and obedience to God. The insistence on the materiality of life as the subject of the Bible means that the difficult issues of economics and the demanding questions of politics are front and centre in the text. So the Pentateuch pivots around the Exodus narrative and the emancipation from an unbearable context of abusive labour practices. In a similar manner, the prophets endlessly address such questions of social policy and the wisdom teachers reflect on how to manage the material things of life and social relationships for the well-being of the community. This emphasis, pervasive in these essays, is a powerfulalternative and a strong resistance against all of the contemporary efforts to transcend (escape!) the material into some form of the 'spiritual'. All around us are efforts to find an easier, more harmonious faith. This may be evoked simply because of a desire to shield economic, political advantage from the inescapable critique of biblical faith. Such a temptation is a serious misreading of the Bible and a critical misjudgment about the nature of human existence. Thus the Bible addressed the most urgent issues of our day, and refuses the 'religious temptation' that avoids lived reality where the power of God is a work.
Author : Oded Lipschitz
Publisher : Eisenbrauns
Page : 746 pages
File Size : 10,5 MB
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 157506104X
In July 2003, a conference was held at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), focusing on the people and land of Judah during the 5th and early 4th centuries B.C.E.-- the period when the Persian Empire held sway over the entire ancient Near East. This volume publishes the papers of the participants in the working group that attended the Heidelberg conference. Participants whose contributions appear here include: Y. Amit, B. Becking, J. Berquist, J. Blenkinsopp, M. Dandamayev, D. Edelman, T. Eskenazi, A. Fantalkin and O. Tal, L. Fried, L. Grabbe, S. Japhet, J. Kessler, E. A. Knauf, G. Knoppers, R. Kratz, A. Lemaire, O. Lipschits, H. Liss, M. Oeming, L. Pearce, F. Polak, B. Porten and A. Yardeni, E. Stern, D. Ussishkin, D. Vanderhooft, and J. Wright. The conference was the second of three meetings; the first, held at Tel Aviv in May 2001, was published as Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period by Eisenbrauns in 2003. A third conference focusing on Judah and the Judeans in the Hellenistic era was held in the summer of 2005, at M nster, Germany, and will also be published by Eisenbrauns.
Author : Dean Andrew Nicholas
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 18,93 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Bibles
ISBN : 9781433102264
The Trickster Revisited: Deception as a Motif in the Pentateuch explores the use of deception in the Pentateuch and uncovers a new understanding of the trickster's function in the Hebrew Bible. While traditional readings often «whitewash» the biblical characters, exonerating them of any wrongdoing, modern scholars often explain these tales as significant at some earlier point in Israelite tradition. But this study asks the question: what role does the trickster have in the later pentateuchal setting? Considering the work of Victor Turner and the mythic function of the trickster, The Trickster Revisited explores the connections between tricksters, the rite de passage pattern, marginalization, and liminality. Marginalized individuals and communities often find trickster tales significant, therefore trickster stories often follow a similar literary pattern. After tracing this pattern throughout the Pentateuch, specifically the patriarchal narratives and Moses' interaction with Pharaoh in the Exodus, the book discusses the meaning these stories had for the canonizers of the Pentateuch. The author argues that in the Exile and post-exilic period, as the canon was forming, the trickster was the perfect manifestation of Israel's self-perception. The cognitive dissonance of prophetic words of hope and grandeur, in light of a meager socio-economic and political reality, caused the nation to identify itself as the trickster. In this way, Israel could explain its lowly state as a temporary (but still significant) «betwixt and between», on the threshold of a rise in status, i.e. the great imminent kingdom predicted by the prophets.
