BiblioVault - Books about Criticism, interpretation, etc

Dark Passages of the Bible

Matthew J. Ramage

Catholic University of America Press, 2013

Following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI, in Dark Passages of the Bible Matthew Ramage weds the historical-critical approach with a theological reading of Scripture based in the patristic-medieval tradition. Whereas these two approaches are often viewed as mutually exclusive or even contradictory, Ramage insists that the two are mutually enriching and necessary for doing justice to the Bibles most challenging texts.

[more]

Daughter Zion

Her Portrait, Her Response

Mark J. Boda

SBL Press, 2012

This volume showcases recent exploration of the portrait of Daughter Zion as “she” appears in biblical Hebrew poetry. Using Carleen Mandolfo’s Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets (Society of Biblical Literature, 2007) as a point of departure, the contributors to this volume explore the image of Daughter Zion in its many dimensions in various texts in the Hebrew Bible. Approaches used range from poetic, rhetorical, and linguistic to sociological and ideological. To bring the conversation full circle, Carleen Mandolfo engages in a dialogic response with her interlocutors. The contributors are Mark J. Boda, Mary L. Conway, Stephen L. Cook, Carol J. Dempsey, LeAnn Snow Flesher, Michael H. Floyd, Barbara Green, John F. Hobbins, Mignon R. Jacobs, Brittany Kim, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Christl M. Maier, Carleen Mandolfo, Jill Middlemas, Kim Lan Nguyen, and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer.

[more]

Death and Dissymmetry

The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges

Mieke Bal

University of Chicago Press, 1988

Combining literary criticism and feminist analysis, Death and Dissymmetry radically reinterprets not only the Book of Judges but also the tradition of its reception and understanding in the West. In Mieke Bal's account, Judges documents the Israelite culture learning to articulate itself in a decisive period of transition.

Counter to standard readings of Judges, Bal's interpretation demonstrates that the book has a political and ideological coherence in which the treatment of women plays a pivotal role. Bal concentrates here not on the assassinations and battles that rage through Judges but on the violence in the domestic lives of individual characters, particularly sexual violence directed at women. Her skillful reading reveals that murder, in this text, relates to gender and reflects a social structure that is inherently contradictory. By foregrounding the stories of women and subjecting them to subtle narrative analysis, she is able to expose a set of preoccupations that are essential to the sense of these stories but are not articulated in them. Bal thereby develops a "countercoherence" in conflict with the apparent emphases of Judges—the politics, wars, and historiography that have been the constant focus of commentators on the book.

Death and Dissymmetry makes an important contribution to the development of a feminist method of interpreting ancient texts, with consequences for religious studies, ancient history, literary theory, and gender studies.

[more]

The Deed and the Doer in the Bible

David Daube's Gifford Lectures, Volume 1

David Daube

Templeton Press, 2008

David Daube (1909–1999) was a world-renowned biblical law scholar. He was a fellow at All Souls College at Oxford, an emeritus professor of law at Oxford, and an emeritus professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Scholars have hailed his essential research on Roman law, biblical law, Hebraic Law, and ethics throughout his life and today.

Daube produced dozens of books and published over 150 articles in scholarly journals. Now, for the first time, his twenty Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1962 and 1964, will be available to the public. His first ten Gifford Lectures have been collected in The Deed and the Doer in the Bible: David Daube's Gifford Lectures, Volume 1.

The theme of Daube's Gifford Lectures is law and wisdom in the Bible. His wide-ranging deliberations reveal how complicated and profound the biblical text is. He analyzes deeds described in the Bible and considers, for example, what causes people to act in a certain way, the role of intent, why unintended deeds are sometimes punishable, and how the origin of a deed is determined. His lectures are aimed at professionals in biblical criticism, biblical history, ethics, and the history of law concerning its roots in Old Testament traditions. Daube is a recognized master in these fields, and there are substantial applications to current ethical and legal issues.

[more]

Deuteronomy-Kings as Emerging Authoritative Books

A Conversation

Diana V. Edelman

SBL Press, 2014

Explore how the past came to address the present and the future and why it became important for emerging Jewish identity.

Experts explore the themes and topics that made Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets appealing to ancient readers leading ultimately to those texts becoming authoritative for Persian and Hellenistic readers. This unique collection of essays focuses on what larger impact these texts might have had on primary and secondary audiences as part of emerging Torah. Contributors include Klaus-Peter Adam, Yairah Amit, Thomas M. Bolin, Philip R. Davies, Serge Frolov, Susanne Gilmayr-Bucher, E. Axel Knauf, Christoph Levin, James R. Linville, and Thomas Römer, and Diana V. Edelman.

Features:

Essays focused on why texts became authoritative instead of when they were written or their historicity
Two scholars examine each book providing a range of views
Coverage of the socio-religious function of emerging Torah in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods

[more]

Discovering the Qur'an

A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text, Second Edition

Neal Robinson

Georgetown University Press, 2003

This latest edition of Discovering the Qur'an includes a new preface by the author. Used by students around the world as a reliable guide to reading a translation of the Qur'an, it shows how the Qur'an is experienced by Muslims, describing the rhythmic and rhyme scheme structures, the context in which it is heard, the part played by learning by heart, and the importance of calligraphy. It is also about the Qur'an and its relationship to Muhammed, as well as helping to divine the ordering of the surahs or chapters. In an English-speaking world newly sensitized to Islam and its believers, Discovering the Qur'an will be an invaluable tool to greater understanding.

[more]

Dismembering the Whole

Composition and Purpose of Judges 19-21

Cynthia Edenburg

SBL Press, 2016

A fresh literary analysis of political polemic in the Bible

The Book of Judges ends with a bizarre narrative of sex and violence that starts with a domestic tiff and ends with the decimation of a tribe that is restored by means of abduction and rape. Cynthia Edenburg applies a fresh literary analysis, recent understandings of historical linguistics, and historical geography in her exploration of the origin of the anti-Benjamin polemic found in Judges 19–21, the growth and provenance of the book of Judges, and the shape of the Deuteronomistic History. Her study exposes how Judges 19–21 function as political polemic reflecting not the pre-monarchic period but instead the historical realities of the settlement of Benjamin during the Babylonian and Persian period.

Features:

Methodological discussions that open each chapter
Charts and tables
Engagement with current research produced by scholars from around the world

[more]

Disturbing Revelation

Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Bible

John J. Ranieri

University of Missouri Press, 2009

Political philosophers Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin share an abiding interest in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Disturbing Revelation, the first book to focus on their treatment of the Bible, John Ranieri explores how they draw on its texts in their philosophies and shows what these considerations say about whether the combination of religion and politics leads to violence or can prevent it.

In addressing fundamental questions of reason and revelation, Ranieri focuses not on Strauss’s treatment of Judaism or Voegelin’s of Christianity, but rather on the place of the Bible in their thought. He first examines the differences between their methodological approaches and attitudes toward the Bible and biblical criticism—rather than their attitudes toward religion or questions of faith—and then explores in depth their interpretations of the biblical message and its contribution to the modern world.

Ranieri shows how both men recognized that biblical texts must be seriously engaged in order for us to understand our contemporary situation—but that their appreciation of the Bible is marked by deep ambivalence concerning its vision of life and its influence on the political sphere. He brings their thought into conversation with that of René Girard, whose writings on violence and religion shed light on the problems that arise when biblical insights take root in a culture, and also offers fresh insight into Strauss’s elusive writings, such as his indebtedness to Nietzsche.

Disturbing Revelation reveals how Strauss and Voegelin viewed the applicability of biblical texts to what they considered the crisis of modernity without belaboring questions of their own personal faith. It is a clearly written exposition that reflects a rich understanding of the work of these thinkers and is as provocative as it is informative, not only for students of the two men but also for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and religious belief.

[more]