Now available from SBL Press

Employing social description, social scientific models, and rhetorical analysis, Alicia J. Batten argues that the letter of James is conversant with the topic of friendship within Greek and Roman literature, as well as within various texts of early Christianity. She illustrates how James drew upon some of the language and concepts related to friendship with an intriguing density to advocate resistance to wealth, avoidance of rich patrons, and reliance upon God.

Features:

• Use of friendship, benefaction, and patronage as lenses through which James and related texts can be viewed
• A strong case for how the letter appels to the language and ideas of friendship with regard to God's relationships with humans
• Exploration of the relationship between the book of James and the teachings of Jesus

The first expansive reference examining the texts and material culture related to children in ancient Israel

Growing Up in Ancient Israel uses a child-centered methodology to investigate the world of children in ancient Israel. Where sources from ancient Israel are lacking, the book turns to cross-cultural materials from the ancient Near East as well as archaeological, anthropological, and ethnographic sources. Acknowledging that childhood is both biologically determined and culturally constructed, the book explores conception, birth, infancy, dangers in childhood, the growing child, dress, play, and death. To bridge the gap between the ancient world and today’s world, Kristine Henriksen Garroway introduces examples from contemporary society to illustrate how the Hebrew Bible compares with a Western understanding of children and childhood.

Features:

• More than fifty-five illustrations illuminating the world of the ancient Israelite child
• An extensive investigation of parental reactions to the high rate of infant mortality and the deaths of infants and children
• An examination of what the gendering and enculturation process involved for an Israelite child

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.