The Old Testament, and biblical scholarship itself, distinguishes between mythical and historical. This book argues that only historical thing in the Bible is the Bible itself, a superb product of Jewish thought. What is narrated in the Bible is only myth

Drawing on true cases of ill and dying children, this book explores explanations for suffering and evil in today's world.

The structure and content of the Johannine prologue determine the structure and content of the whole Gospel. Elizabeth Harris demonstrates that a type of prologue found in ancient Greek literature could be the literary convention behind John 1.1-18.

This detailed commentary presents the gospel of matthew as a counter-narrative, showing that it is a work of resistance written from and for a minority community of disciples committed to Jesus, the agent of God's saving presence. It was written and functions to shape the identity and lifestyle of the early community of jesus' followers as an alternative community that can resist the dominant authorities both in rome and in the synagogue. The Gospel anticpates the time when Jesus will return and establish God's reign over all, including the powers in Rome.

The only consensus that has been reached on Hosea 1-3 is that it is a notoriously 'problematic' text. Sherwood unpicks this rather vague statement by examining the particular complexities of the text and frictions between the text and reader that conspire to produce such a disorientating effect. Four dimensions of the 'problem' are considered: the conflict between text and reader over the 'improper' relationship between Hosea and Gomer; the bizarre prophetic sign-language that conscripts people into a cosmic charade; the text's propensity to subvert its central theses; and the emergent...

A collection of papers from two international symposia by such important scholars as Aune, Dunn, Gerhardsson, Meyer, Rordorf and Talmon. The articles share the conviction that the only way to break the deadlock in the Synoptic problem is to examine the oral tradition about Jesus which lay behind the Gospels, and to continue even beyond them. The book addresses such central issues as the characteristics of oral tradition: oral tradition in Judaism, in the teaching of Jesus (his aphorisms and the narrative meshalim) and in the Gospel narratives; and the relationships of John, Paul and the...

This volume collects the best articles on the Pauline writings from the first fifty issues of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. The range of the volume reflects the breadth of the journal itself. Here the reader will find ground-breaking studies which introduce new critical questions and move into fresh areas of enquiry, surveys of the state of play in this particular topic of New Testament studies, and articles which engage with each other in specific debates. For students this book offers an invaluable critical introduction to Pauline studies. More advanced students and...

What is wisdom - and where is it to be found? A number of experts in a wide range of theological and related disciplines have come together to explore this question. In the first part they consider wisdom in Israel and in the church, drawing upon scriptural sources and historical case-studies. In the second part, theologians, philosophers, social scientists, ethicists and educationalists look at wisdom in the contemporary world. While much good work has been done on biblical traditions, there has been very little on the many facets of wisdom in the Judeo-Christian theological, philosophical...