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Patristic Exegesis in Context
Exploring the Genres of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation
Miriam De Cock
Catholic University of America Press, 2023
The essays of Patristic Exegesis in Context examine the biblical exegesis of early Christians beyond the formal genre of biblical commentary. The past couple of decades have seen a broadening of perspective on the study of patristic exegesis; the phenomenon is increasingly situated within its various literary contexts and genres, and the definition of what counts as patristic exegesis is therefore widened. This volume thus situates itself within this emerging scholarly tradition, which aims not to give an account of exegetical strategies and methodologies as found primarily in exegetical commentaries and homilies, but to demonstrate the highly sophisticated nature of biblical exegesis in other genres, and the manifold uses to which this exegesis was put. Ancient Christian authors lived and breathed scripture; it served as their primary source of theological and liturgical vocabulary, their way of processing the world, their social ethic, and their mode of constructing self and communal identity. Scripture therefore permeates all ancient Christian literature, regardless of genre, and the various contexts in which interpretation of scripture took place resulted in a wide variety of uses of the church’s authoritative texts. The essays in this volume demonstrate the interpretive skill, creativity, and sophistication of early Christian authors in a myriad of other early Christian genres, such as poetry, paraphrase, hymns, martyr accounts, homilies, prophetic vision accounts, monastic writings, argumentative treatises, encomia, apocalypses, and catenae. Accordingly, the volume aims to help the modern person, who is used to hearing the Bible explained in explicitly expository situations (for example, in academic commentaries or religious sermons) to become more habituated to ancient ways of interacting with and expounding the biblical text. These essays attempt to contextualize various types of patristic exegesis, in order for us to glimpse the complex and diverse uses of the Bible in this period.
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Paul and Scripture
Extending the Conversation
Christopher D. Stanley
SBL Press, 2012
This book, which grew out of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Paul and Scripture Seminar, explores some of the methodological problems that have arisen during the last few decades of scholarly research on the apostle Paul’s engagement with his ancestral Scriptures. Essays explore the historical backgrounds of Paul’s interpretive practices, the question of Paul’s “faithfulness” to the context of his biblical references, the presence of Scripture in letters other than the Hauptbriefe, and the role of Scripture in Paul’s theology. All of the essays look at old questions through new lenses in an effort to break through scholarly impasses and advance the debate in new directions. The contributors are Matthew W. Bates, Linda L. Belleville, Roy E. Ciampa, Bruce N. Fisk, Stephen E. Fowl, Leonard Greenspoon, E. Elizabeth Johnson, Mitchell M. Kim, Steve Moyise, Jeremy Punt, Christopher D. Stanley, and Jerry L. Sumney.
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Paul and the Resurrected Body
Social Identity and Ethical Practice
Matt O'Reilly
SBL Press, 2020

A new reading of Pauline theology, ethics, and eschatology grounded in social-identity theory and sociorhetorical criticism

Readers often think of Paul’s attitude toward the resurrection of the body in individual terms: a single body raised as the climax of an individual’s salvation. In Paul and the Resurrected Body: Social Identity and Ethical Practice, Matt O’Reilly makes the case that, for Paul, the social dimension of future bodily resurrection is just as important, if not more so. Through a close reading of key texts in the letters to the Corinthians, Romans, and Philippians, O’Reilly argues that resurrection is integral to Paul’s understanding of Christian social identity. In Paul’s theological reasoning, a believer’s hope for the future depends on being identified as part of the people of God who will be resurrected.

Features

  • A clarification of the eschatological basis for Paul’s ethical expectations
  • Exploration of the social significance of Paul’s theological reasoning
  • An integration of ancient rhetorical theory with contemporary social-identity theory
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Paul as Infant and Nursing Mother
Metaphor, Rhetoric, and Identity in 1 Thessa
Jennifer Houston McNeel
SBL Press, 2014

Explore the significance of maternal metaphors in the writings of a first-century male missionary and theologian

Paul employed metaphors of childbirth or breastfeeding in four out of the seven undisputed epistles. In this book, McNeel uses cognitive metaphor theory and social identity analysis to examine the meaning and function of these maternal metaphors. She asserts that metaphors carry cognitive content and that they are central to how humans process information, construct reality, and shape group identity.

Features:

  • A focus on “identity” as the way in which people understand themselves in relation to one another, to society, and to those perceived as outsiders
  • Examination of metaphor as part of Paul’s rhetorical strategy
  • Integration of the work of philosopher Max Black with the work of cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
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Paul the Martyr
The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West
David L. Eastman
SBL Press, 2011

Ancient iconography of Paul is dominated by one image: Paul as martyr. Whether he is carrying a sword—the traditional instrument of his execution—or receiving a martyr's crown from Christ, the apostle was remembered and honored for his faithfulness to the point of death. As a result, Christians created a cult of Paul, centered on particular holy sites and characterized by practices such as the telling of stories, pilgrimage, and the veneration of relics. This study integrates literary, archaeological, artistic, and liturgical evidence to describe the development of the Pauline cult within the cultural context of the late antique West.

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Paul Unbound
Other Perspectives on the Apostle
Mark D. Given
SBL Press, 2022

"As long as there are readers of Paul, there will be always be other perspectives."

The essays in this second edition of Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle provide introductions to Paul's relationship to and views on the Roman Empire, first-century economic stratification, his opponents, ethnicity, the law, Judaism, women, and Greco-Roman rhetoric. Contributors Warren Carter, Charles H. Cosgrove, A. Andrew Das, Steven J. Friesen, Mark D. Given, Deborah Krause, Mark D. Nanos, and Jerry L. Sumney have added addendums to their original essays and updated the bibliography to take into account scholarship produced in the decade since the publication of the first edition. The collection provides essential background and sets out new directions for study useful to students of the New Testament and Paul's letters.

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Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Karina Martin Hogan
SBL Press, 2017

Engage fourteen essays from an international group of experts

There is little direct evidence for formal education in the Bible and in the texts of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. At the same time, pedagogy and character formation are important themes in many of these texts. This book explores the pedagogical purpose of wisdom literature, in which the concept of discipline (Hebrew musar) is closely tied to the acquisition of wisdom. It examines how and why the concept of musar came to be translated as paideia (education, enculturation) in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint), and how the concept of paideia was deployed by ancient Jewish authors writing in Greek. The different understandings of paideia in wisdom and apocalyptic writings of Second Temple Judaism are this book's primary focus. It also examines how early Christians adapted the concept of paideia, influenced by both the Septuagint and Greco-Roman understandings of this concept.

Features

  • A thorough lexical study of the term paideia in the Septuagint
  • Exploration of the relationship of wisdom and Torah in Second Temple Judaism
  • Examination of how Christians developed new forms of pedagogy in competition with Jewish and pagan systems of education
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    front cover of The People beside Paul
    The People beside Paul
    The Philippian Assembly and History from Below
    Joseph A. Marchal
    SBL Press, 2015

    Who are the people beside Paul, and what can we know about them?

    This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars with a broad range of expertise and a common interest: Philippi in antiquity. Each essay engages one set of contextual particularities for Paul and the ordinary people of the Philippian assembly, while simultaneously placing them in wider settings. This 'people's history' uses both traditional and more cutting-edge methods to reconsider archaeology and architecture, economy and ethnicity, prisons and priestesses, slavery, syncretism, stereotypes of Jews, the colony of Philippi, and a range of communities. The contributors are Valerie Abrahamsen, Richard S. Ascough, Robert L. Brawley, Noelle Damico, Richard A. Horsley, Joseph A. Marchal, Mark D. Nanos, Peter Oakes, Gerardo Reyes Chavez, Angela Standhartinger, Eduard Verhoef, and Antoinette Clark Wire.

    Features

    • An examination of the social forms and forces that shaped and affected the Philippian church
    • Essays offer insight into standard questions about the letter s hymn and audience, Paul's 'opponents,' and the sites of the community and of Paul's imprisonment
    • A focused exploration of more marginalized topics and groups, including women, slaves, Jews, and members of localized cults
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    front cover of PERSON TO PERSON
    PERSON TO PERSON
    THE GOSPEL OF MARK
    PAUL VICKERS
    Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 1998

    Paul Vickers grapples with the question of how God wants us to live our daily lives, and he turns to a new way of reading the gospel of Mark for answers. Vickers' insightful discussion of its rich symbolism reveals the relevance this gospel has to our lives. God, according to Vickers, is the same immediate presence for the reader of today that he was at the time of the writing of the book of Mark. Through the immediacy of his presence, in a manner unique to each reader, God urges us to examine and improve our lives. Encouraging a less self-centered engagement with the world, Person to Person: The Gospel of Mark fosters development of a more loving, more spiritually conscious soul.

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    front cover of The Philistines and Other Sea Peoples in Text and Archaeology
    The Philistines and Other Sea Peoples in Text and Archaeology
    Ann E. Killebrew
    SBL Press, 2013
    The search for the biblical Philistines, one of ancient Israel’s most storied enemies, has long intrigued both scholars and the public. Archaeological and textual evidence examined in its broader eastern Mediterranean context reveals that the Philistines, well-known from biblical and extrabiblical texts, together with other related groups of “Sea Peoples,” played a transformative role in the development of new ethnic groups and polities that emerged from the ruins of the Late Bronze Age empires. The essays in this book, representing recent research in the fields of archaeology, Bible, and history, reassess the origins, identity, material culture, and impact of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples on the Iron Age cultures and peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. The contributors are Matthew J. Adams, Michal Artzy, Tristan J. Barako, David Ben-Shlomo, Mario Benzi, Margaret E. Cohen, Anat Cohen-Weinberger, Trude Dothan, Elizabeth French, Marie-Henriette Gates, Hermann Genz, Ayelet Gilboa, Maria Iacovou, Ann E. Killebrew, Sabine Laemmel, Gunnar Lehmann, Aren M. Maeir, Amihai Mazar, Linda Meiberg, Penelope A. Mountjoy, Hermann Michael Niemann, Jeremy B. Rutter, Ilan Sharon, Susan Sherratt, Neil Asher Silberman, and Itamar Singer.
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    front cover of The Philosophy, Theology, and Rhetoric of Marius Victorinus
    The Philosophy, Theology, and Rhetoric of Marius Victorinus
    Stephen A. Cooper
    SBL Press, 2022

    Pagan rhetor, (Neo-)Platonist philosopher, Christian theologian

    This collection of essays is devoted to the rhetoric, Neoplatonic philosophy, and Christian theology of Marius Victorinus, a mid-fourth-century professor of rhetoric and philosopher who converted to Christianity late in life. Scholars from eight different countries, some of whom have not previously published in English, reflect on debates about his writings and theological development. These topics include Victorinus's deployment of philosophical sources for trinitarian theology, possible connections in his work to Origen, Augustine, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Gnosticism, as well as his contributions to Latin rhetoric and dialectic. Contributors include Jan Dominik Bogataj, Michael Chase, Nello Cipriani, Stephen A. Cooper, Volker Henning Drecoll, Lenka Karfíková, Josef Lössl, Václav Němec, Thomas Riesenweber, Guadalupe Lopetegui Semperena, Miran Špelič, Chiara O. Tommasi, John D. Turner, and Florian Zacher. The chapters in this volume are of great interest to students of late antique philosophy, Christian theology, and Latin rhetoric.

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    front cover of Plant Metaphors in Prophetic Condemnations of Israel and Judah
    Plant Metaphors in Prophetic Condemnations of Israel and Judah
    Tina M. Sherman
    SBL Press, 2023

    Tina M. Sherman offers a first-of-its-kind, detailed analysis of prophetic passages that depict people as plants—from grasses and grains to fruit trees and grapevines—examining how the biblical authors exploited these metaphors to portray the condemnation and punishment of Israel and Judah in terms of the everyday work of crop farming and plant husbandry. Additionally, she explores how the prophetic authors employed plant imagery to construct national identities that emphasize the people’s collective responsibility for the kingdoms’ fate. Plant Metaphors in Prophetic Condemnations of Israel and Judah demonstrates the usefulness of combining conceptual metaphor theory with aspects of frame semantics in the analysis of patterns of thought and expression in biblical metaphor.

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    front cover of Plant Metaphors in the Old Greek of Isaiah
    Plant Metaphors in the Old Greek of Isaiah
    Benjamin M. Austin
    SBL Press, 2019

    A thorough analysis of metaphor translation techniques used in Isaiah

    In this study Benjamin M. Austin analyzes all the plant metaphors in Isaiah and classifies them according to the metaphor translation techniques used by the Septuagint translator. Austin illustrates how the translator took the context of each metaphor into account and demonstrates how the natural features of the plants under discussion at times influenced their translation. He argues that the translator tried to render metaphors vividly and with clarity, sometimes adjusting them to match the experience of his audience living in Egypt. Austin also examines metaphors in terms of their vehicles (the objects of comparison), so that the translation of similar metaphors can be compared.

    Features

    • A comparison of the Masoretic Text to the Septuagint and Targum
    • A classification of metaphor translation strategies
    • An introduction to the Hellenistic and the Jewish conception of metaphors
    [more]

    front cover of A Political History of the Arameans
    A Political History of the Arameans
    From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities
    K. Lawson Younger Jr.
    SBL Press, 2016
    An up-to-date analysis of the history of the ancient Near East and the Arameans

    K. Lawson Younger Jr. presents a political history of the Arameans from their earliest origins to the demise of their independent entities. The book investigates their tribal structures, the development of their polities, and their interactions with other groups in the ancient Near East. Younger utilizes all of the available sources to develop a comprehensive picture of this complex, yet highly important, people whose influence and presence spanned the Fertile Cresent.

    Features:

    • The best, recent understanding of tribal political structures, aspects of mobile pastoralism, and models of migration
    • A regional rather than a monolithic approach to the rise of Aramean polities
    • Thorough integration of the complex relationships and interactions of the Arameans with the Luwians, the Assyrians, the Israelites, and others
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    Political Memory in and after the Persian Empire
    Jason M. Silverman
    SBL Press, 2015

    An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

    Various disciplines that deal with Achaemenid rule offer starkly different assessments of Persian kingship. While Assyriologists treat Cyrus's heirs as legitimate successors of the Babylonian kings, biblical scholars often speak of a "kingless era" in which the priesthood took over the function of the Davidic monarch. Egyptologists see their land as uniquely independently minded despite conquests, while Hellenistic scholarship tends to evaluate the interface between Hellenism and native traditions without reference to the previous two centuries of Persian rule. This volume brings together in dialogue a broad array of scholars with the goal of seeking a broader context for assessing Persian kingship through the anthropological concept of political memory.

    Features

    • Articles present the results of an international symposium held in Leiden, the Netherlands, 2014
    • More than twenty illustrations
    • Seventeen articles, an introduction, and a summary response
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    front cover of The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes
    The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes
    A Social-Science Perspective
    Mark R. Sneed
    SBL Press, 2012
    Scholars attempt to resolve the problem of the book of Ecclesiastes’ heterodox character in one of two ways, either explaining away the book’s disturbing qualities or radicalizing and championing it as a precursor of modern existentialism. This volume offers an interpretation of Ecclesiastes that both acknowledges the unorthodox nature of Qoheleth’s words and accounts for its acceptance among the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible. It argues that, instead of being the most secular and modern of biblical books, Ecclesiastes is perhaps one of the most religious and primitive. Bringing a Weberian approach to Ecclesiastes, it represents a paradigm of the application of a social-science methodology.
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    front cover of Postclassical Greek and Septuagint Lexicography
    Postclassical Greek and Septuagint Lexicography
    William A. Ross
    SBL Press, 2022
    A long-standing tradition within biblical scholarship sets the Greek text of the Septuagint constantly in relationship with its supposed Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage, examining the two together in terms of their grammatical alignment as a standard. Yet another tradition frames the discussion in different terms, preferring instead to address the Septuagint first of all in light of its contemporary Greek linguistic environment and only then attempting to describe its language and style as a text. It is this latter approach that William A. Ross employs in this textually based study of the Greek versions of Judges, a so-called double text in the textual history of the Septuagint. The results of his study offer a window into the Old Greek translation and its later revision, two distinct stages of Greek Judges with numerous instances of divergent vocabulary choices that reflect deliberateness in both the original selection and the subsequent change within the textual development of the book. Ross’s study illustrates the practicalities and payoff of a Greek-oriented lexicographical method that situates the language of the Septuagint squarely within its contemporary historical and linguistic context.

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    front cover of Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations
    Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations
    Musa W. Dube
    SBL Press, 2012
    This volume foregrounds biblical interpretation within the African history of colonial contact, from North Atlantic slavery to the current era of globalization. It reads of the prolonged struggle for justice and of hybrid identities from multifaceted contexts, where the Bible co-exists with African Indigenous Religions, Islam, and other religions. Showcasing the dynamic and creative approaches of an emerging and thriving community of biblical scholarship from the African continent and African diaspora, the volume critically examines the interaction of biblical texts with African people and their cultures within a postcolonial framework. While employing feminist/womanist, postcolonial, Afrocentric, social engagement, creative writing, reconstruction, and HIV/AIDS perspectives, the authors all engage with empire in their own ways: in specific times, forms, and geography. This volume is an important addition to postcolonial and empires studies in biblical scholarship. The contributors are David Tuesday Adamo, Lynn Darden, H. J. M. (Hans) van Deventer, Musa W. Dube, John D. K. Ekem, Ernest M. Ezeogu, Elelwani B. Farisani, Sylvester A. Johnson, Emmanuel Katongole, Malebogo Kgalemang, Temba L. J. Mafico, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan’a Mphahlele), Andrew M. Mbuvi, Sarojini Nadar, Elivered Nasambu-Mulongo, Jeremy Punt, Gerrie Snyman, Lovemore Togarasei, Sam Tshehla, Robert Wafawanaka, Robert Wafula, Gerald West, Alice Y. Yafeh-Deigh, and Gosnell L. Yorke.
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    front cover of Postcolonialism and the Hebrew Bible
    Postcolonialism and the Hebrew Bible
    The Next Step
    Roland Boer
    SBL Press, 2013
    This volume returns to where initial interest in postcolonial biblical criticism began: the Hebrew Bible. It does so not to celebrate the significant achievements of postcolonial analysis over the last few decades but to ask what the next step might be. In these essays, established and newer scholars, many from the interstices of global scholarship, discuss specific texts, neo/post/colonial situations, and theoretical issues. Moving from the Caribbean to Greenland, from Ezra-Nehemiah to the Gibeonites, this collection seeks out new territory, new questions, and possibly some new answers. The contributors are Roland Boer, Steed Davidson, Richard Horsley, Uriah Y. Kim, Judith McKinlay, Johnny Miles, Althea Spencer-Miller, Leo Perdue, Christina Petterson, Joerg Rieger, and Gerald West.
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    front cover of Poverty, Law, and Divine Justice in Persian and Hellenistic Judah
    Poverty, Law, and Divine Justice in Persian and Hellenistic Judah
    Johannes Unsok Ro
    SBL Press, 2018

    A view of Persian and Hellenistic Judean communities through theological and socioeconomic lenses

    Johannes Unsok Ro employs philological, historical, and sociological approaches to investigate the close connections between socioeconomic structures, social inequality, and theological developments in the Judean communities in Persian- and Hellenistic-era Palestine. Ro contends that competing points of view from communities of lay returnees, priestly returnees, and communities of resident Judeans and Samaritans were juxtaposed within the Hebrew Bible, which took shape during the postexilic period. By exploring issues such as the relationship between the shaping of the canon and literacy in the Judean community, the term strangers in the biblical law codes, the socioeconomic structures of Judean communities reflected in the biblical law codes, the development of the theological concept of divine punitive justice, the piety of the poor in certain psalms, and the concept of poverty in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ro illustrates that the communities behind each text and its redactions can be ascertained through sociological and theological lenses.

    Features

    • Demonstration that a theology of the poor materialized orally among the poor but found written expression among Levites
    • Insight into the socioeconomic and theological concerns of the authorial groups behind various biblical law codes
    • A case that biblical “poverty” sometimes refers to humility and a theologically reflected consciousness of lowliness toward God
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    Power
    Divine and Human: Christian and Muslim Perspectives
    Lucinda Mosher and David Marshall, Editors
    Georgetown University Press, 2019

    This volume of the Building Bridges Seminar, Power: Divine and Human, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, comprises pairs of essays by Christians and Muslims which introduce texts for dialogical study, plus the actual text-excerpts themselves.

    This new book goes far beyond mere reporting on a dialogical seminar; rather, it provides guidance and materials for constructing a similar dialogical experience on a particular topic. As a resource for comparative theology, Power: Divine and Human is unique in that it takes up a topic not usually explored in depth in Christian-Muslim conversations. It is written by scholars for scholars. However, in tone and structure, it is suitable for the non-specialist as well. Students (undergraduate and graduate), religious leaders, and motivated non-specialists will find it readable and useful. While it falls solidly in the domain of comparative theology, it can also be used in courses on dialogical reading of scripture, interreligious relations, and political philosophy.

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    front cover of Prayers and the Construction of Israelite Identity
    Prayers and the Construction of Israelite Identity
    Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher
    SBL Press, 2019

    Substantial insights into various identity discourses reflected in the biblical prayers

    This collection of essays from an international group of scholars focuses on how biblical prayers of the Persian and early Hellenistic periods shaped identity, evoked a sense of belonging to specific groups, and added emotional significance to this affiliation. Contributors draw examples from different biblical texts, including Genesis, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Psalms, Jonah, and Daniel.

    Features

    • Thorough study of prayers that play a key role for a biblical book’s (re)construction of the people’s history and identity
    • An examination of ways biblical figures are remodeled by their prayers by introducing other, sometimes even contradictory, discourses on identity
    • An exploration of different ways in which psalms from postexilic times shaped, reflected, and modified identity discourses
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    front cover of Praying Legally
    Praying Legally
    Shalom E. Holtz
    SBL Press, 2019

    Explore the lengthy history of legal metaphors in ancient prayer

    In biblical and other ancient Near Eastern sources, prayer is an opportunity to make one’s case before divine judges. Prayers were formulated using courtroom or trial language, including demands for judgment, confessions, and accusations. The presence of these legal concepts reveals ancient Near Eastern thoughts about what takes place when one prays. Holtz highlights legal concepts that appear in prayers, including the motif of the speakers' oppression in Psalms the possibility of countersuit against God through prayer, and divine attention and inattention as legal responses. By reading ancient prayers together with legal texts, this book shows how speakers took advantage of prayer as an opportunity to have their day in the divine court and even sue against divine injustice.

    Features

    • Identification of legal vocabulary and concepts that appear in ancient prayers
    • Analysis of legal metaphors in prayer examples in Akkadian and postbiblical rabbinic texts
    • Interpretations of trial records and texts from Psalms and Lamentations
    [more]

    front cover of The Pre-Nicene New Testament
    The Pre-Nicene New Testament
    Fifty-four Formative Texts
    Robert M. Price
    Signature Books, 2006
    In this monumental work, Professor Price offers an inclusive New Testament canon with twenty-seven additional sacred books from the first three centuries of Christianity, including a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi writings. Price also reconstructs the Gospel of Marcion and the lost Gospel according to the Hebrews. Here, for the first time, is a canon representing all major factions of the early church.   

    As an interpretive translation, Price’s text is both accurate and readable and is tied more closely to the Greek than most previous translations. Price conveys the meanings of words in context, carefully choosing the right phrase or idiom to convey their sense in English. For words that had a specific theological import when first written, Price leaves the Greek transliteration, giving readers archons for the fallen angels thought to be ruling the world, paraclete for encourager, andpleroma for the Gnostic godhead. 

    Within the collection, each book is introduced with comments about the cultural setting, information about when a document was probably written, and significant textual considerations, which together form a running commentary that continues into the footnotes. The findings of scholars, documented and summarized by Price, will come as a surprise to some readers. It appears, as Price suggests, that most of what is known about Jesus came by way of revelation to Christian oracles rather than by word of mouth as historical memory. In addition, the major characters in the New Testament, including Peter, Stephen, and Paul, appear to be composites of several historical individuals each, their stories comprising a mix of events, legend, and plot themes borrowed from the Old Testament and Greek literature.   

    In the New Testament world, theology developed gradually along different trajectories, with tension between the charismatic ascetics such as Marcion and Thecla, as examples, and the emerging Catholic orthodoxy of such clergy as Ignatius and Polycarp. The tension is detectable in the texts themselves, many of which represent “heretical” points of view: Gnostic, Jewish-Christian, Marcionite, and proto-orthodox, and were later edited, sometimes clumsily, in an attempt to harmonize all into one consistent theology.  

    What may occur to many readers, among the more striking aspects of the narratives, is that the earliest, most basic writings, such as Mark’s Gospel in inarticulate Greek, are ultimately more impressive and inspirational than the later attempts by more educated Christians to appeal to sophisticated readers with better grammar and more allusions to classical mythology and apologetic embellishments.   

    The critical insights and theories on display in these pages have seldom been incorporated into mainstream conservative Bible translations, and in many ways, Price has made the New Testament a whole new book for readers, allowing them, by virtue of the translation, to comprehend the meaning of the text where it is obscured by the traditional wording. Whatever usefulness teachers, students, and clergy may find here in terms of pedagogical and inspirational value, The Pre-Nicene New Testament is guaranteed to provoke further thought and conversation among the general public—hopefully toward the goal of more personal study and insights. 
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    Priests and Cults in the Book of the Twelve
    Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer
    SBL Press, 2016

    Key essays that explore a range of attitudes toward clergy and ritual

    This book discusses the depictions of the cult and its personnel in the twelve prophetic books commonly referred to as the Book of the Twelve or the Minor Prophets. The articles in the volume explore the following questions: How did these prophetic writers envision the priests and the Levites? What did they think about the ritual aspects of ancient Israelite faith, including not only the official temple cult in Jerusalem but also cultic expressions outside the capital? What, in their views, characterized a faithful priest and what should the relationship be between his cultic performance and the ways in which he lived his life? How does the message of each individual author fit in with the wider Israelite traditions? Finally, who were these prophetic authors, in which historical contexts did they live and work, and what stylistic tools did they use to communicate their message?

    Features:

  • Essays investigate the ways in which key texts in the Book of the Twelve endorse, criticize, seek to reform, or seek to abolish the cult and clergy
  • Articles focus on the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Zephaniah, Zechariah, and Malachi, but include other texts
  • Exploration of how the attitudes towards cult and clergy in these key texts tie in with the attitudes found elsewhere in the Book of the Twelve
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    front cover of Profaning Paul
    Profaning Paul
    Cavan W. Concannon
    University of Chicago Press, 2021
    A critical reconsideration of the repeated use of the biblical letters of Paul.
     
    The letters of Paul have been used to support and condone a host of evils over the span of more than two millennia: racism, slavery, imperialism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism, to name a few. Despite, or in some cases because of, this history, readers of Paul have felt compelled to reappropriate his letters to fit liberal or radical politics, seeking to set right the evils done in Paul’s name. Starting with the language of excrement, refuse, and waste in Paul’s letters, Profaning Paul looks at how Paul’s “shit” is recycled and reconfigured. It asks why readers, from liberal Christians to academic biblical scholars to political theorists and philosophers, feel compelled to make Paul into a hero, mining his words for wisdom. Following the lead of feminist, queer, and minoritized scholarship, Profaning Paul asks what would happen if we stopped recycling Paul’s writings. By profaning the status of his letters as sacred texts, we might open up new avenues for imagining political figurations to meet our current and coming political, economic, and ecological challenges.
     
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    front cover of Prophecy and Gender in the Hebrew Bible
    Prophecy and Gender in the Hebrew Bible
    L. Juliana Claassens
    SBL Press, 2021

    Multifaceted insights into female life in prophetic contexts

    Both prophets and prophetesses shared God’s divine will with the people of Israel, yet the voices of these women were often forgotten due to later prohibitions against women teaching in public. This latest volume of the Bible and Women series focuses on the intersection of gender and prophecy in the Former Prophets (Joshua to 2 Kings) as well as in the Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Essays examine how women appear in the iconography of the ancient world, the historical background of the phenomenon of prophecy, political and religious resistance by women in the biblical text, and gender symbolism and constructions in prophetic material as well as the metaphorical discourse of God. Contributors Michaela Bauks, Athalya Brenner-Idan, Ora Brison, L. Juliana Claassens, Marta García Fernández, Irmtraud Fischer, Maria Häusl, Rainer Kessler, Nancy C. Lee, Hanne Løland Levinson, Christl M. Maier, Ilse Müllner, Martti Nissinen, Ombretta Pettigiani, Ruth Poser, Benedetta Rossi, Silvia Schroer, and Omer Sergi draw insight into the texts from a range of innovative gender-oriented approaches.

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    front cover of Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East
    Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East
    Martti Nissinen
    SBL Press, 2019

    A new, expanded edition of a classic reference tool

    This volume of more than 170 documents of prophecy from the ancient Near East brings together a representative sample of written documents from Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt dating to the second and first millennia BCE. Nissinen's collection provides nonspecialist readers clear translations, transliterations, and discussions of oracles reports and collections, quotations of prophetic messages in letters and literature, and texts that reference persons with prophetic titles. This second edition includes thirty-four new texts.

    Features:

    • Modern, idiomatic, and readable English translations
    • Thirty-four new translations
    • Contributions of West Semitic, Egyptian, and Luwian sources from C. L. Seow, Robert K. Ritner, and H. Craig Melchert
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    front cover of Prophets Male and Female
    Prophets Male and Female
    Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the
    Jonathan Stökl
    SBL Press, 2013
    Because gender is an essential component of societies of all times and places, it is no surprise that every prophetic expression in the ancient social world was a gendered one. In this volume scholars of the biblical literature and of the ancient Mediterranean consider a wide array of prophetic phenomena. In addition to prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible, the essays also look at prophecy in ancient Mesopotamia and early Christianity. Using the most current theoretical categories, the volume demonstrates how essential a broad definition of gender is for understanding its connection to both the delivery and the content of ancient prophecy. Attention to gender dynamics will continue to reveal the fluidity of prophetic gender performance and to open up the ancient contexts of prophetic texts. The contributors are Roland Boer, Corrine Carvalho, Lester L. Grabbe, Anselm C. Hagedorn, Esther J. Hamori, Dale Launderville, Antti Marjanen, Martti Nissinen, Jonathan Stökl, Hanna Tervanotko, and Ilona Zsolnay.
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    front cover of The Prophets Speak on Forced Migration
    The Prophets Speak on Forced Migration
    Mark J. Boda
    SBL Press, 2015

    A valuable resource with productive avenues for inquiry

    In this collection of essays dealing with the prophetic material in the Hebrew Bible, scholars explore the motifs, effects, and role of forced migration on prophetic literature. Contributors focus on the study of geographical displacement, social identity ethics, trauma studies, theological diversification, hermeneutical strategies in relation to the memory, and the effects of various exilic conditions in order to open new avenues of study into the history of Israelite religion and early Judaism.

    Features:

    • An introductory essay that presents a history of scholarship and an overview of the collection
    • Ten essays examining the rhetoric of exile in the prophets
    • Current, thorough approaches to the issues and problems related to historical and cultural features of exile in biblical literature
    [more]

    front cover of Psalm Studies, Volume 1
    Psalm Studies, Volume 1
    Sigmund Mowinckel
    SBL Press, 2014

    Sigmund Mowinckel is widely recognized as one of the leading forces in Psalms research during the twentieth century. Indeed, the culmination of Mowinckel’s thought and work, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, continues to play a significant role in Psalms scholarship today. Not as well known are the seminal studies that prepared the ground for Mowinckel’s later work, the six Psalmenstudien that are translated here into English for the first time. In these studies Mowinckel explores with care and in detail such topics as: “'Awen and the Psalms of Individual Lament”; “YHWH’s Enthronement Festival and the Origin of Eschatology”; “Cultic Prophecy and Prophetic Psalms”; “The Technical Terms in the Psalm Superscriptions”; “Blessing and Curse in Israel’s Cult and Psalmody”; and “The Psalmists.” Anyone interested in Psalms study, especially the possible role of the New Year’s enthronement festival within Israel’s cult and its relation to the Psalter, will find much to consider in these classic works.

    [more]

    front cover of Psalm Studies, Volume 2
    Psalm Studies, Volume 2
    Sigmund Mowinckel
    SBL Press, 2014

    Sigmund Mowinckel is widely recognized as one of the leading forces in Psalms research during the twentieth century. Indeed, the culmination of Mowinckel’s thought and work, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, continues to play a significant role in Psalms scholarship today. Not as well known are the seminal studies that prepared the ground for Mowinckel’s later work, the six Psalmenstudien that are translated here into English for the first time. In these studies Mowinckel explores with care and in detail such topics as: “'Awen and the Psalms of Individual Lament”; “YHWH’s Enthronement Festival and the Origin of Eschatology”; “Cultic Prophecy and Prophetic Psalms”; “The Technical Terms in the Psalm Superscriptions”; “Blessing and Curse in Israel’s Cult and Psalmody”; and “The Psalmists.” Anyone interested in Psalms study, especially the possible role of the New Year’s enthronement festival within Israel’s cult and its relation to the Psalter, will find much to consider in these classic works.

    [more]

    front cover of The Psalms of Solomon
    The Psalms of Solomon
    Language, History, Theology
    Eberhard Bons
    SBL Press, 2015

    A fresh analysis of that sheds new light on the Psalms of Solomon

    Researchers whose work focuses on the Psalms of Solomon, experts on the Septuagint, and scholars of Jewish Hellenistic literature take a fresh look at debates surrounding the text. Authors engage linguistic, historical, and theological issues including the original language of the psalms, their historical setting, and their theological intentions with the goal of expanding our understanding of first-century BCE Jewish theology.

    Features:

    • New methods applied to open questions of authorship and historical context
    • Focusd scholarly attention on a work of theological and literary importance
    • Revised essays originally presented at the First International Meeting on the Psalms of Solomon
    [more]

    front cover of The Psalms of Solomon
    The Psalms of Solomon
    Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts
    Patrick Pouchelle
    SBL Press, 2021

    Explore new approaches to the Psalms of Solomon

    The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts explores a unique pseudepigraphal document that bears witness to the 63 BCE Roman conquest of Jerusalem. Essays address a variety of themes, notably their political, social, religious, and historical contexts, through the lens of anthropology of religion, cognitive science, socioeconomic theory, and more. Contributors include Kenneth Atkinson, Eberhard Bons, Johanna Erzberger, Angela Kim Harkins, G. Anthony Keddie, Patrick Pouchelle, Stefan Schreiber, Shani Tzoref, and Rodney A. Werline.

    [more]

    front cover of Psychoanalytic Mediations between Marxist and Postcolonial Reading of the Bible
    Psychoanalytic Mediations between Marxist and Postcolonial Reading of the Bible
    Tat-siong Benny Liew
    SBL Press, 2016

    The first sustained conversation between Marxism, postcolonialism, and psychoanalysis in biblical studies

    This volume pursues critical readings of the Bible that put psychoanalysis into conversation with Marxist and postcolonial criticism. In these essays psychoanalysis provides a way to mediate between Marxism's materialist groundings and postcolonialism's resistance against empire. The essays in the volume illuminate the way empire has shaped the biblical text by looking at the biblical texts' silences, ruptures, oversights, over-emphases, and inexplicable elements. These details are read as symptoms of a set of oppressive material relations that shaped and continue to haunt the text in the ascendancy of the text in the name of the West.

    Features:

    • Essays and responses from multiple perspectives and geographical locations, including Africa, Australia, Oceania, Latin America, and North America
    • Psychoanalysis that considers how the traumas of colonialism manifest both materially and psychically
    • Close readings of biblical texts
    [more]


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