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An international collection of ecumenical, gender-sensitive interpretations

The latest volume in the Bible and Women series seeks to provide an ecumenical, gender-sensitive interpretation and reception history of the Writings and later wisdom traditions including Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon. Articles trace the living conditions of women, examine the presentation of female figures in the Israelite wisdom tradition, discuss women and gender relations in single books, and explore narratives about great female protagonists, such as Ruth, Esther, and Susanna, who prove their wit and strength in situations of conflict.

Features:

• Essays by scholars from five European countries, Israel, and the United States
• An introduction and fourteen essays focused on women and gender relations
• Coverage of power relations and ideologies within the texts and in current interpretations.

New research on Sirach for scholars and students

The present volume of English and German essays includes the proceedings of an international conference held in Eichstaett, Germany, in 2017. Themes of creation, emotions, life, death, wisdom, knowledge, the individual and society, family, gender, mercy, justice, and freedom are but a few of the topics that contributors explore in this new collection. Essays explore the rich intertextual connections between Sirach and other biblical texts.

Features:

• Attention to theological distinctions presented in the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions of the book of Sirach
• Examination of the reception of Sirach in the New Testament and the early modern era
• English abstracts for German-language essays and German abstracts for English-language essays

Diverse approaches to biblical theology

This volume presents a collection of studies on the methodology for conceiving the theological interpretation of the Hebrew Bible among Jews and Christians as well as the treatment of key issues such as creation, the land of Israel, and divine absence. Contributors include Georg Fischer, SJ, David Frankel, Benjamin J. M. Johnson, Soo J. Kim, Wonil Kim, Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Julia M. O’Brien, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Marvin A. Sweeney, and Andrea L. Weiss.

Features:

• Examination of metaphor, repentance, and shame in the presence of God
• Ten essays addressing the nature of biblical theology from a Jewish, Christian, or critical perspective
• Discussion of the changes that have taken place in the field of biblical theology since World War II

This follow-up to Theology of the Hebrew Bible, Volume 1: Methodological Studies, focuses on readers’ engagement with the text and their communities. Part 1 offers fresh interpretations of divine images and theological concepts drawn from various theophanies in the text. Part 2 focuses on how these insights can form new overarching structures, serving as reading strategies or foundations for alternative theologies. Part 3 emphasizes the bond between readers and their communities, highlighting the active participation of both ancient and modern readers through an analysis of past literature. Contributors, each an expert in their field, include Rachel Adelman, Samuel E. Balentine, Shelly L. Birdsong, Ginny Brewer-Boydston, Johanna Etzberger, Frances Flannery, David Frankel, Barry R. Huff, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Barbara Leung Lai, J. Richard Middleton, Hye Kyung Park, Kris Sonek, Brent A. Strawn, David E. S. Stein, Marvin A. Sweeney, Soo Kim Sweeney, Joseph Sykora, Daniel C. Timmer, and Beat Weber. This collection of essays guides readers, including those well-versed in theology, to explore innovative and unexpected depictions of divine beings and how human characters respond to them.

In These Words, liturgist Alden Solovy distills the Torah into its very essence: the individual words it contains. Echoing the midrash that the Torah has seventy faces, Solovy selects seventy of its Hebrew words that are pregnant with meaning. For each word, he delves into the etymology, translation, and usage, providing deeper insights into familiar texts. Then Solovy presents a beautiful poem—what he calls “poetic midrash”—inspired by and interpreting each word. From b’reishit (“in beginning”) to shamayim (“heavens”) to zachor (“remember”), These Words will change the way you look at the language of the Torah.

Critics from three major racial/ethnic minority communities in the United States—African American, Asian American, and Latino/a American—focus on the problematic of race and ethnicity in the Bible and in contemporary biblical interpretation. With keen eyes on both ancient text and contemporary context, contributors pay close attention to how racial/ethnic dynamics intersect with other differential relations of power such as gender, class, sexuality, and colonialism. In groundbreaking interaction, they also consider their readings alongside those of other racial/ethnic minority communities. The volume includes an introduction pointing out the crucial role of this work within minority criticism by looking at its historical trajectory, critical findings, and future directions. The contributors are Cheryl B. Anderson, Francisco O. García-Treto, Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Frank M. Yamada, Gale A. Yee, Jae-Won Lee, Gay L. Byron, Fernando F. Segovia, Randall C. Bailey, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Demetrius K. Williams, Mayra Rivera Rivera, Evelyn L. Parker, and James Kyung-Jin Lee.

This volume is the first in The Bible and Women series. It presents a history of the reception of the Bible as embedded in Western cultural history with a special focus on the history of women and issues of gender. It introduces the series, explaining the choice of the Hebrew canon in connection with the Christian tradition and preparing the way for a changed view of women throughout the series. The contributors explore the gendered significance of the canonical writings as well as the process of their canonization and the social-historical background of ancient Near Eastern women’s lives, both of which play key roles in the series. Turning to the Pentateuch, essays address a variety of texts and issues still relevant today, such as creation and male-female identity in the image of God, women’s roles in the genealogies of the Pentateuch and in salvation history, the rights and responsibilities of women according to the Hebrew Bible's legal and ritual texts, and how archaeology and iconography can illustrate the texts of the Torah. Contributors include Sophie Démare-Lafont, Dorothea Erbele-Küster, Karin Finsterbusch, Irmtraud Fischer, Mercedes García Bachmann, Thomas Hieke, Carol Meyers, Mercedes Navarro Puerto, Jorunn Økland, Ursula Rapp, Donatella Scaiola, Silvia Schroer, Jopie Siebert-Hommes, and Adriana Valerio.

The central element of Jewish worship is the yearly cycle of reading the first five books of the Bible, the Five Books of Moses, called the Torah in Hebrew. Torah Today, a compilation of fifty-four essays that grew out of Pinchas Peli's Torah column in the Jerusalem Post, comments upon the weekly readings from the Torah. Written in a wonderfully clear style, each essay brings the reader closer to the rich spiritual world of Torah as it confronts the challenges of modern society. This reissue of Torah Today, with a new preface by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, makes this classic work available to a new generation of Bible students.

The present volume explores the ever-evolving understandings and diverse manifestations of the Hebrew notion of torah in early Jewish and Christian literature and the different roles torah played within those communities, whether in Judea or in the Hellenistic and early Roman diaspora. This collection of essays is purposefully wide-ranging, with contributors exploring and rethinking some of the most basic scholarly assumptions and preconceptions about the nature of torah in light of new critical approaches and methodologies. Contributors include Gabriele Boccaccini, Francis Borchardt, Calum Carmichael, Federico Dal Bo, Lutz Doering, Oliver Dyma, Paula Fredriksen, Robert G. Hall, Magnar Kartveit, Anne Kreps, David Lambert, Michael Legaspi, Jason A. Myers, Juan Carlos Ossandón Widow, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Patrick Pouchelle, Jeremy Punt, Michael L. Satlow, Joachim Schaper, William Schniedewind, Elisa Uusimäki, Jacqueline Vayntrub, Jonathan Vroom, James W. Watts, Benjamin G. Wright III, and Jason M. Zurawski.

Engage an interdisciplinary approach

In Toward a Latino/a Biblical Interpretation Francisco Lozada Jr. explores the complex and diverse issues related to Latino/a biblical interpretation. After laying the theoretical foundation, he offers three sample readings of biblical texts to lead readers through the intricacy of interpretation that has historically and culturally surrounded understanding what it means to do Latino/a biblical interpretation. Throughout, Lozada attempts to work out various strategies that Latinos/as have employed to read biblical texts. He argues that Latino/a biblical interpretation is concerned with identity and belongingness with a goal of transforming/liberating the Latino/a community.

Features

• An introduction to what it means to do Latino/a biblical interpretation
• A demonstration of three different reading strategies (correlation, dialogical, and ideological) that Latinos/as employ in reading biblical texts
• An exploration of whether one has to be Latino/a to do Latino/a biblical interpretation

Innovative Septuagint research from an international group of scholars

Toward a Theology of the Septuagint: Stellenbosch Congress on the Septuagint, 2018 focuses on the question of whether it is appropriate and possible to formulate a theology of the Septuagint. Nineteen English and German essays examine Old Testament, New Testament, and extrabiblical texts from a variety of methodological perspectives to demonstrate that such a theology is indeed necessary and possible.

Features

Explore the opportunities and challenges of Septuagint studies

Recent research into the Septuagint has revealed numerous examples of modifications of the meaning of the Hebrew text in the course of its translation into Greek. This collection of essays by one of the leading scholars on the Septuagint shows how complex the translation of individual books was, provides reasons for differences between the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and paves the way for a theology of the Septuagint. Articles introduce the field of Septuagint studies, the problem of the Letter of Aristeas, and the Hellenistic environment and the hermeneutics of Hellenistic Judaism.

Features:

• A methodological discussion of whether and how a theology of the Septuagint can be written
• Essays introducing the field of Septuagint studies and its Hellenistic environment and the hermeneutics of Hellenistic Judaism
• Fifteen English and German essays covering twenty-five years of Septuagint research

A theoretical and exegetical exploration of trauma in the Hebrew Bible

David Janzen discusses the concepts of history and trauma and contrasts the ways historians and trauma survivors grapple with traumatic events, a contrast embodied in the very different ways the books of Kings and Lamentations react to the destruction of Jerusalem. Janzen’s study warns that explanations in histories will tend to silence the voices of trauma survivors, and it challenges traditional approaches that sometimes portray the explanations of traumatic events in biblical literature as therapeutic for victims.

Features:

• Exploration of history as a narrative explanation that creates a past readers can recognize to be true
• Examination of how trauma results in a failure of victims to fully experience or remember traumatic events.
• A case for why the past is a construction of cultures and historians