A concise study of a large number of examples of pluses and minus providing insight into translation from Hebrew to Greek

Van der Vorm-Croughs focuses this translation study on the processes leading to pluses and minuses including linguistic and stylistic aspects (i.e., cases in which elements have been added or omitted for the sake of a proper use of the Greek language), literary aspects (additions and omissions meant to embellish the Greek text), translation technical aspects (e.g., the avoidance of redundancy), and contextual and intertextual exegesis and harmonization. This work also covers the relation between the Greek Isaiah and its possible Hebrew Vorlage to try to determine which pluses and minuses may have been the result of the translator’s use of a different Hebrew text.

Features:

• Eleven categories for the pluses and minuses of the Greek Isaiah
• Examination of translation techniques and translator errors
• Use of Joseph Ziegler’s critical edition

An engaging anthology that deals with both theory and practice

The emerging discipline of biblical spirituality considers how faith finds expression within the biblical texts and how modern expressions of faith interact with those texts. This volume represents Christo Lombaard’s reflective, analytical, and exegetical contributions to the field in order to explore how biblical texts mediate faith, both ancient and contemporary. It reflects on aspects of the interaction of faith and Scripture, critically approaching both dimensions.

Features:

• Seven previously published papers drawn predominately from South African journals
• Explorations of how biblical texts mediate faith
• Close examination of the discipline of biblical spirituality as part of spirituality studies

A history of research that changed scholarly perceptions of early Judaism

This collection of essays by some of the most important scholars in the fields of early Judaism and Christianity celebrates fifty years of the study of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha at the Society of Biblical Literature and the pioneering scholars who introduced the Pseudepigrapha to the Society. Since its early days as a breakfast meeting in 1969, the Pseudepigrapha Section has provided a forum for a rigorous discussion of these understudied texts and their relevance for Judaism and Christianity. Contributors recount the history of the section's beginnings, critically examine the vivid debates that shaped the discipline, and challenge future generations to expand the field in new interdisciplinary directions.

Features:

• Reflections from early members of the Pseudepigrapha Group
• Essays that examine a methodological shift from capturing and preserving traditions to exploring the intellectual and social world of Jewish antiquity
• Evaluations of past interactions with adjacent fields and the larger academic world

From ancient times to the present day, utopian social ideas have made the unity of humankind a central concern. In the face of the threats to civic peace and harmony caused by misrule, factions, inequality, and moral weakness, philosophical and religious traditions in antiquity gave considered attention to the attainment of oneness both as an ideal and as an embodied practice. In this volume, scholars of ancient history, early Judaism, and biblical studies come together to show that ideas of unity and practices of oneness were grounded in larger conceptions of worldview, cosmic order, and power, with theological ideas such as the oneness of God laying an important foundation. In particular, contributors focus on how early Christians, with their inherited Jewish, Greek, and Roman traditions, reinterpreted oneness in light of their new identity as “members of Christ” and how they put it into practice. Contributors are Stephen C. Barton, Anna Sieges-Beal, Max Botner, Andrew J. Byers, Carsten Claußen, Kylie Crabbe, Robbie Griggs, James R. Harrison, Walter J. Houston, T. J. Lang, Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, John-Paul Lotz, Lynette Mitchell, Nicholas J. Moore, Elizabeth E. Shively, Julien C. H. Smith, and Alan Thompson.

A Brill classic now in paperback from SBL Press

Essays in this volume describe the shift in biblical exegesis within the last several decades from the interpretation of biblical texts as the outcome of historical development, or diachronic methodology, to the exploration of the text as the result of a reading process rather than a historical process, or synchronic methodology. The methods discussed include ideology criticism, semantic and poetic analysis, cognitive linguistics, drama theory, narratology, deconstruction, and anthropology, and intertextuality. The authors of this work challenge biblical scholars not to just perform exegesis, but to explore the methods and aims underlying their interpretations.

Features:

• Essays examine texts from the Old or New Testament through the lens of one of the many modern synchronic methods used in postmodern literary interpretation
• Fifteen essays from top scholars in the field

This festschrift honors the work of Stanley K. Stowers, a renowned specialist in the field of Pauline studies and early Christianity, on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday and retirement from Brown University. The collection includes twenty-eight essays on theory and history of interpretation, Israelite religion and ancient Judaism, the Greco-Roman world, and early Christinity, a preface honoring Stowers, and a select bibliography of his publications.

Contributors include: Adriana Destro, John T. Fitzgerald, John G. Gager, Caroline Johnson Hodge, Ross S. Kraemer, Saul M. Olyan, Mauro Pesce, Daniel Ullucci, Debra Scoggins Ballentine, William K. Gilders, David Konstan, Nathaniel B. Levtow, Jordan D. Rosenblum, Michael L. Satlow, Karen B. Stern, Emma Wasserman, Nathaniel DesRosiers, John S. Kloppenborg, Luther H. Martin, Arthur P. Urbano, L. Michael White, William Arnal, Pamela Eisenbaum, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Karen L. King, Christopher R. Matthews, Erin Roberts, and Richard Wright.