A new reconstruction of cultic practices surrounding death in ancient Israel

In Caring for the Dead in Ancient Israel, Kerry M. Sonia examines the commemoration and care for the dead in ancient Israel against the broader cultural backdrop of West Asia. This cult of dead kin, often referred to as ancestor cult, comprised a range of ritual practices in which the living provided food and drink offerings, constructed commemorative monuments, invoked the names of the dead, and protected their remains. This ritual care negotiated the ongoing relationships between the living and the dead and, in so doing, helped construct social, political, and religious landscapes in relationship to the past. Sonia explores the nature of this cult of dead kin in ancient Israel, focusing on its role within the family and household as well as its relationship to Israel’s national deity and the Jerusalem temple.

Features:

• A reevaluation of whether burial and necromantic rituals were part of the cult of dead kin
• A portrait of the various roles Israelite women played in the cult of dead kin
• A reassessment of biblical writers’ attitudes toward the cult of dead kin

This volume presents the work of the international, interdisciplinary research project Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), whose members focused on cultural, ideological, and material changes in the period when the sacred traditions of the Hebrew Bible were created, transmitted, and transformed. Specialists in the textual study of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, archaeology, Assyriology, and history, working across their fields of expertise, trace how changes occurred in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. Contributors Tero Alstola, Anneli Aejmelaeus , Rick Bonnie, Francis Borchardt, George J. Brooke, Cynthia Edenburg, Sebastian Fink, Izaak J. deHulster , Patrik Jansson, Jutta Jokiranta, Tuukka Kauhanen, Gina Konstantopoulos, Lauri Laine, Michael C. Legaspi, Christoph Levin, Ville Mäkipelto, Reinhard Müller, Martti Nissinen, Jessi Orpana, Juha Pakkala, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Christian Seppänen, Jason M. Silverman, Saana Svärd, Timo Tekoniemi, Hanna Tervanotko, Joanna Töyräänvuori, and Miika Tucker demonstrate that rigorous yet respectful debate results in a nuanced and complex understanding of how ancient texts developed.

This book provides the first translations in English and a preliminary analysis of the commentaries on the chreia chapter in Aphthonius’s standard Progymnasmata, a classroom guide on composition. The chreia, or anecdote, was a popular form that preserved the wisdom of philosophers, kings, generals, and sophists. Aphthonius used the chreia to provide instructions on how to construct an argument and to confirm the validity of the chreia by means of an eight-paragraph essay. His treatment of this classroom exercise, however, was so brief that commentators needed to clarify, explain, and supplement what he had written as well as to situate the chreia as preparation for the study of rhetoric—the kinds of public speeches and the parts of a speech. By means of these Byzantine commentaries, we can thus see more clearly how this important form and its confirmation were taught in classrooms for over a thousand years.

The Christ Party in the Corinthian Community by Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), one of the founders of modern New Testament scholarship, is now available in English for the first time. In this ground-breaking work, Baur argued for a diversity of views in the earliest strata of the Christian tradition that shaped the modern study of Paul in lasting ways. Baur's work revealed a tension between Pauline, gentile Christianity, on the one hand, and Petrine, Judaizing Christianity. In addition to Baur’s essay, this edition includes the first English translation of Ernst Käsemann's introduction to Baur's Historisch-kritische Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. Even if some of Baur's concrete historical results have been surpassed by subsequent scholarship, this book offers a compelling glimpse of the critical method and piercing insight into one of the shapers of modern biblical study.

Explore new routes into the burgeoning field of biblical literature and film theory

The present collection of essays is a sequel to the groundbreaking Semeia 74 issue, published in 1996, entitled Biblical Glamour and Hollywood Glitz. These new essays showcase the divergent approaches from film studies and cultural studies that can be used in the visual analysis of biblical and religious themes, narratives, and characters in cinema. It is the first volume that specifically addresses issues of methodology, theory, and analysis in the study between bible and film. As such, this collection is of interest to scholars in film studies and theology/religion/biblical studies, who are invested in doing interdisciplinary research in the expanding field of religion and film.

Features

• Specific focus on methods of film analysis, rather than the more common focus on thematic analysis in the study of religion, Bible, and film.
• Visual analysis in the encounter between Bible and film
• Fourteen essays and an introduction by top scholars in the field

The first thorough commentary on the Old Greek and Peshitta of Isaiah

Ronald L. Troxel’s new textual commentary on Isaiah focuses on the book’s Greek and Syriac translations and seeks to recover, as much as possible, the Hebrew texts on which these early translations relied. Troxel treats the Greek and Syriac together in order to present a detailed analysis of their relationship, devoting particular attention to whether the Syriac was directly or indirectly influenced by the Greek. This comparison sheds light on both the shared and distinct approaches that the translators took in rendering lexemes, phrases, verses, and even passages. In addition Troxel presents observations about the literary structures the translators created that differ from those implicit in their source texts (as we understand them), to produce coherent discourse in the target language.

Features:

• Textual commentary on the life of the text of Isaiah 1–25
• Use of the Dead Sea Scrolls to shed light on particular issues
• Detailed comparison of the Masoretic Text, the Old Greek, and the Peshitta

Reflections on the relationship between research and teaching

Using Mark as a test case, scholars address questions like: How should my research and my approach to the text play out in the classroom? What differences should my academic context and my students' expectations make? How should new approaches and innovations inform interpretation and teaching? This resource enables biblical studies instructors to explore various interpretative approaches and to begin to engage pedagogical issues in our changing world.

Features:

• Ideas that may be adapted for teaching any biblical text
• Diverse perspectives from nine experts in their fields
• Essays include tips, ideas, and lesson plans for the classroom

Presenting the best work on the Johannine Epistles from a world-class gathering of scholars

This anthology includes papers presented at the McAfee School of Theology Symposium on the Johannine Epistles (2010). Contributions on the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Letters of John, Johannine theology and ethics, the concept of the Antichrist, and the role of the elder round out the collection. This is a must-have book for libraries and New Testament scholars.

Features:

• Introductory essay places the collection in context
• Articles engage the work of Raymond Brown and J. Louis Martyn
• Sixteen essays from the Book of Psalms Consultation group and invited scholars

An authoritative critical edition

The discovery and translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls transformed our understanding of the life and history of ancient Jewish communities when both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity were emerging. As part of this rich discovery, the Community Rule serves to illuminate the religious beliefs and practices as well as the organizational rules of the group behind the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, there is no single, unified text of the Community Rule; rather, multiple manuscripts of the Community Rule show considerable variation and highlight the work of ancient Jewish scribes and their intentional literary development of the text. In this volume, Sarianna Metso brings together the surviving evidence in a new edition that presents a critically established Hebrew text with an introduction and an English translation.

Features:

• A critical apparatus and textual notes
• All the surviving evidence of the Community Rule
• A new method for presenting complex developments and transmission history of ancient texts

The first comprehensive study of the Song of Songs' use of military metaphors

Although love transcends historical and cultural boundaries, its conceptualizations, linguistic expressions, and literary representations vary from culture to culture. In this study, Danilo Verde examines love through the military imagery found throughout the Song’s eight chapters. Verde approaches the military metaphors, similes, and scenes of the Song using cognitive metaphor theory to explore the overlooked representation of love as war. Additionally, this book investigates how the Song conceptualizes both the male and the female characters, showing that the concepts of masculinity and femininity are tightly interconnected in the poem. Conquered Conquerors provides fresh insights into the Song's figurative language and the conceptualization of gender in biblical literature.

Essential research on the relationship between the Persian empire and the the formation of the book of Psalms

In this latest entry in the Ancient Israel and Its Literature series, W. Dennis Tucker, Jr. examines the role of Persian imperial ideology in the creation of psalms in Book 5 of the Psalter and in the shaping of the book of Psalms as a whole. Although much research has been conducted on the relationship between the Persian empire and the creation of biblical texts, the book of Psalms has been largely absent from this discussion. Tucker seeks to rectify this omission by illustrating that Book 5 constructed a subtle anti-imperial ideology in response to the threats imposed from all empires both past and present.

Features:

• Close study of the psalms portrayal of human power to that of Yahweh
• Comparison of Achaemenid propaganda to the ideology found in the psalms
• Evidence drawn from Persian iconography and inscriptions

Explore the ancient context of prophecy and prophetic figures

This collection of essays examines the construction of prophecy in the Former and Latter Prophets, Chronicles, Daniel, and even in the Quran. This unique anthology recognizes that these texts do not simply describe the prophetic phenomena but rather depict prophets according to various conventional categories or their own individual points of view. Each essay analyzes how these writings portray prophecy or prophets to better understand how the respective authors structured their writings.

Features

• Introduction and twelve essays cover prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran
• Essays examine the relationship between the prophets and the cult, oral pronouncements and written collections, and divination, prophecy, and apocalypticism
• Additional essays raise questions about the prophetic persona and examine the prophets in hermeneutical perspective

An essential resource exploring orality and literacy in the pre-Hellenistic southern Levant and the Hebrew Bible

Situated historically between the invention of the alphabet, on the one hand, and the creation of ancient Israel's sacred writings, on the other, is the emergence of literary production in the ancient Levant. In this timely collection of essays by an international cadre of scholars, the dialectic between the oral and the written, the intersection of orality with literacy, and the advent of literary composition are each explored as a prelude to the emergence of biblical writing in ancient Israel. Contributors also examine a range of relevant topics including scripturalization, the compositional dimensions of orality and textuality as they engage biblical poetry, prophecy, and narrative along with their antecedents, and the ultimate autonomy of the written in early Israel. The contributors are James M. Bos, David M. Carr, André Lemaire, Robert D. Miller II, Nadav Na'aman, Raymond F. Person Jr., Frank H. Polak, Christopher A. Rollston, Seth L. Sanders, Joachim Schaper, Brian B. Schmidt, William M. Schniedewind, Elsie Stern, and Jessica Whisenant.

Features

• Addresses questions of literacy and scribal activity in the Levant and Negev
• Articles examine memory, oral tradition, and text criticism
• Discussion of the processes of scripturalization

Do professional historians and New Testament scholars use the same methods to explore the past? This interdisciplinary textbook introduces students of the New Testament to the vocabulary and methods employed by historians. It discusses various approaches to historiography and demonstrates their applicability for interpreting the New Testament text and exploring its background. Overviews of the philosophy of history, common historical fallacies, and the basics of historiography are followed by three exegetical studies that illustrate the applicability of various historical methods for New Testament interpretation.

Peu d'études spécifiques ont été consacrées à Ben Sira 10,19-11,6. Lentz examine le texte en hébreu, grec, syriaque et latin, en essayant d'identifier les différences majeures entre ces versions et leurs orientations fondamentales respectives. Dans cette péricope, elle révèle trois thèmes importants: la crainte de Dieu, la sagesse et la loi. En prenant comme point de départ le thème de la crainte de Dieu dans le Deutéronome, les Psaumes et les Proverbes, Job et Qoheleth en plus de Ben Sira, Lentz examine la relation de ce thème avec la sagesse et la loi. La relation étroite entre la crainte de Dieu, la sagesse et la loi devrait inciter les spécialistes à se demander si celles-ci ne représentent pas trois aspects de la même réalité.

Few specific studies have been devoted to Ben Sira 10:19-11:6. Lentz examines the text in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin, trying to identify the major differences between these versions and their respective fundamental orientations. In this pericope she reveals three important themes: the fear of God, wisdom, and the law. Taking as a point of departure the theme of the fear of God in Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Proverbs, Job, and Qoheleth, in addition to Ben Sira, Lentz examines the relationship of this theme with wisdom and the law. The close relationship between the fear of God, wisdom, and the law should lead scholars to ask if these do not represent three aspects of the same reality.

New directions and fresh insight for scholars and students

The single greatest catalyst and contributor to our developing understanding of priestly literature has been Jacob Milgrom (1923-2010), whose seminal articles, provocative hypotheses, and comprehensively probing books vastly expanded and significantly altered scholarship regarding priestly and related literature. Nineteen articles build on Milgrom's work and look to future directions of research. Essays cover a range of topics including the interpretation, composition and literary structure of priestly and holiness texts as well as their relationships to deuteronomic and extra-biblical texts. The book includes a bibliography of Milgrom's work published between 1994 and 2014.

Features:

Comparisons with Mesopotamian Hittite texts

Essays from a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and methodologies

Charts and tables illustrate complex relationships and structures