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The book of 1 Enoch is one of the most remarkable literary products of Second Temple Judaism. Attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, the text provides details about how some early Jews understood the cosmos, angels, the corruption of humanity, and coming judgment. Despite 1 Enoch’s importance for understanding early Jewish and Christian eschatology, its complicated textual history has left the work largely inaccessible in its original languages. With the tools provided in this volume, Vladimir Olivero takes intermediate students of Ethiopic through 1 Enoch in one of its primary languages, Ge‘ez. Students not only gain greater facility in language but prepare themselves for more advanced textual study of this important text across its various witnesses. This unique, user-friendly guide introduces readers to 1 Enoch’s linguistic features. Olivero parses all the verbs and provides English glosses for the verbs and nouns that appear in 1 Enoch. A convenient lexicon and concordance at the end of the volume provide the range of translations available for each word occurring in 1 Enoch and a list of passages in which the term occurs. This volume is perfect for independent learning, classroom settings, or as a refresher to Classical Ethiopic.

The wisdom tradition of ancient Israel, represented in the Hebrew Bible by Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes and in the Apocrypha by Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, is also well-attested in the texts from Qumran. 4QInstruction (1Q26, 4Q415–418, 4Q423), the largest wisdom text of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is considered a sapiential text primarily because of its explicit and insistent pedagogical nature. To make this significant wisdom text more widely available, this volume offers a critical edition, translation, and commentary on the main fragments of 4QInstruction. It examines particular texts of 4QInstruction as well as broader issues, including its date, genre, main themes, and place in Second Temple Judaism. Finally, in order to contextualize this pivotal work, 4QInstruction’s relationship to the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions is also explored.

This collection of essays exemplifies new directions being taken by biblical scholars using new literary, historical, and sociological critical tools to explore issues of concern to their communities and thus poses a challenge to others in the discipline to broaden the canons of interpretation and sources. The essays, from the generation of scholars following the writers of the historic Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Fortress, 1991), address issues of cultural criticism, utilization of Black religious sources such as the Negro spirituals and sermons, histories of struggles of Afro-diasporan peoples, and ideological criticism in interpreting the biblical text. This collection of essays exemplifies new directions being taken by biblical scholars using new literary, historical, and sociological critical tools to explore issues of concern to their communities and thus poses a challenge to others in the discipline to broaden the canons of interpretation and sources. The essays, from the generation of scholars following the writers of the historic Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Fortress, 1991), address issues of cultural criticism, utilization of Black religious sources such as the Negro spirituals and sermons, histories of struggles of Afro-diasporan peoples, and ideological criticism in interpreting the biblical text.