An examination of the language of divination in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in 1 Samuel 28:3-25-the oft-called "Witch of Endor" passage. Kiboko contends that much of the vocabulary of divination in this passage and beyond has been mistranslated in authorized English and other translations used in Africa and in scholarly writings. Kiboko argues that the woman of Endor is not a witch. The woman of Endor is, rather, a diviner, much like other ancient Near Eastern and modern African diviners. She resists an inner-biblical conquest theology and a monologic authoritarian view of divination to...

Notions of women as found in the Bible have had an incalculable impact on western cultures, influencing perspectives on marriage, kinship, legal practice, political status, and general attitudes. Women and Exile is drawn from three separate strands to address and analyse this phenomenon. The first examines how women were conceptualized and represented during the exilic period. The second focuses on methodological possibilities and drawbacks connected to investigating women and exile. The third reviews current prominent literature on the topic, with responses from authors....

This book is concerned with ascertaining the value of having two versions of the same monarchic history of Israel within the Hebrew Bible (focusing on the books of Kings and Chronicles). It is furthermore concerned with how the book of Chronicles is read in relation to the book of Kings as Chronicles is so often considered to be a later rewritten text drawing upon an earlier version of the Masoretic Text of Samuel and Kings.

The predominant scholarly approach to reading the book of Chronicles is to read it in light of how the Chronicler emended his source texts (additions,...

The chapters in this volume clarify crucial aspects of Torah by exploring its relationship to sedaqa (righteousness). Observing the Torah is often considered to be the main identity-marker of Israel in the post-exilic period. However, sedaqa is also widely used as a force of group cohesion and as a resource for ethics without references to torah. The contributors to this volume explore these crucial themes for the post-exilic period, and show how they are related in the key texts that feature them.

Though torah and sedaqa can have some aspects in common, especially when they are...

In this book Barbara Green demonstrates how David is shown and can be read as emerging from a young naive, whose early successes grow into a tendency for actions of contempt and arrogance, of blindness and even cruelty, particularly in matters of cult. However, Green also shows that over time David moves closer to the demeanor and actions of wise compassion, more closely aligned with God.

Leaving aside questions of historicity as basically undecidable Green's focus in her approach to the material is on contemporary literature. Green reads the David story in order, applying seven...

David Janzen argues that the Book of Chronicles is a document with a political message as well as a theological one and moreover, that the book's politics explain its theology. The author of Chronicles was part of a 4th century B.C.E. group within the post-exilic Judean community that hoped to see the Davidides restored to power, and he or she composed this work to promote a restoration of this house to the position of a client monarchy within the Persian Empire. Once this is understood as the political motivation for the work's composition, the reasons behind the Chronicler's particular...

This volume on intercultural biblical interpretation includes essays by feminist scholars from Botswana, Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United States. Reading from a rich variety of socio-cultural locations, contributors present their hermeneutical frameworks for interpretation of Hebrew Bible texts, each framework grounded in the writer's journey of professional or social formation and serving as a prism or optic for feminist critical analysis.

The volume hosts a lively conversation about the nature and significance of biblical interpretation in a global...

Karalina Matskevich examines the structures that map out the construction of gendered and national identities in Genesis 2-3 and 12-36. Matskevich shows how the dominant 'Subject' - the androcentric ha'adam and the ethnocentric Israel - is perceived in relation to and over against the 'Other', represented respectively as female and foreign. Using the tools of narratology, semiotics and psychoanalysis, Matskevich highlights the contradiction inherent in the project of dominance, through which the Subject seeks to suppress the transforming power of difference it relies on for its...

This volume examines and discusses selected Bible documentaries and academically informed dramatizations of the Bible. The major focus is UK mainline television, and on recent productions (mostly within the past 15 years) but there is also engagement with productions from the USA.

After a critical introduction by the editors, charting and reflecting on the use of the Bible on television in recent years, the book falls into three sections. In the first section, a number of influential filmmakers and producers, including Ray Bruce and Jean-Claude Bragard, discuss their work in...