In the ancient Near East, when the gods detected gross impropriety in their ranks, they subjected their own to trial. When mortals suspect their gods of wrongdoing, do they have the right to put them on trial? What lies behind the human endeavor to impose moral standards of behavior on the gods? Is this effort an act of arrogance, as Kant suggested, or a means of keeping theological discourse honest? It is this question James Crenshaw seeks to address in this wide-ranging study of ancient theodicies. Crenshaw has been writing about and pondering the issue of theodicy - the human effort to...

This volume offers one of the best available introductions to the psalms literature of the Bible. Specially designed for general readers, James L. Crenshaw's new book will help beginning students read the psalms with understanding and appreciation. Part 1 examines the composition and major features of the book of Psalms. Comparisons to other biblical psalms and to deutero- and noncanonical psalms are also made. Part 2 surveys the various approaches to the Psalter, illustrating with great clarity the various modes of interpreting the book. Crenshaw looks in particular at the types of psalms,...

One of the most important contributions to our understanding of the psalms, The Psalms in Israel's Worship by Sigmund Mowinckel has largely provided the framework and suppositions of modern Psalms study. Fully revised from the original Norwegian edition and now featuring a substantial new foreword by James Crenshaw, this classic work (two volumes in one) argues that the psalms originated in actual temple worship and were used regularly to add drama to Israel's adoration of Yahweh. Throughout this fascinating work, Mowinckel carefully explores the relationship of the various psalm types to the...

In this groundbreaking new book, distinguished biblical scholar James L. Crenshaw investigates both the pragmatic hows and the philosophical whys of education in ancient Israel and its surroundings. Asking questions as basic as "Who were the teachers and students and from what segment of Israelite society did they come?" and "How did instructors interest young people in the things they had to say?" Crenshaw explores the institutions and practices of education in ancient Israel. The results are often surprising and more complicated than one would expect.
Education, for the people who lived...

Scripture scholar James L. Crenshaw captures the ominous, yet hopeful spirit of Joel's prophecy in his New Translation and commentary.
Joel's Prophecy has an unexpectedly familiar ring to it. The biblical book of Joel is relevant to our late-twentieth-century world because it confronts an age when people tolerated almost anything, did not want someone telling them how to live their lives, and had difficulty distinguishing right from wrong. It was at once a time of self-indulgence and a time of spiritual decay. The economic and political disparity of the day, combined with widespread...

Description: In the wake of excessive evil--the Holocaust, genocide in Africa, tsunamis in Indonesia, terrorism, earthquakes, and floods--must one surrender belief in a good God? The poems in this volume, honest and reverent, arose from the struggle to answer that question with an emphatic ""No."" They exhibit the tension that also exists in the Bible where the expression ""Dust and Ashes"" occurs. When Abraham questioned God's justice involving the wholesale destruction of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and an aggrieved Job responded to speeches from a whirlwind, their status as...