Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Biblical Studies - Old Testament - General

This commentary interprets Daniel 1-6 against the background of a group of Diaspora Judaeans who desire to succeed in the court of a foreign king despite the dangers inherent in the attempt, and Daniel 7-12 against the backdrop of that same group in Jerusalem during the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. The eschatological narratives (Daniel 7-12) deal with four themes of apocalyptic rhetoric: time, destiny, suffering/evil, and authority. With respect to time, the commentary emphasizes that Daniel is an attempt to read both the past and the future. With respect to authority, it emphasizes that...

Ash re-examines the question of the relationship between Egypt and Palestine during the time of David and Solomon. By analysing all the available evidence-epigraphical sources from Egypt, archaeological data from Palestine and the pertinent biblical texts-he concludes that relations and contacts between Egypt and the peoples inhabiting ancient Palestine at the time of David and Solomon were minimal. Any reconstructions of the history of relations and contacts between Egypt and Palestine, including ancient Israel, must take this study into consideration.

This book attempts an interesting exercise in character analysis. It scrutinizes the speeches of Joseph in such a way as to expose the problematic nature of his claims to know God's intentions. While Judah is forced by Joseph's test to choose slavery for the sake of his father's survival, the ironic reversal of Judah's role from victimizer to victim is undercut by the rationale by which he had Joseph sold in order to save him. Unwittingly, Joseph mistakes this rationale as a divine principle that undergirds his suffering and he dreams of domination for the same purpose of survival. He is...

The highly popular Sheffield Old Testament Guides are being reissued in a new format, grouped together and prefaced by one of the best known of contemporary biblical scholars. This new format is designed to ensure that these authoritative introductions remain up to date and accessible to seminary and university students of the Old Testament while offering a broader theological and literary context for their study. John Goldingay introduces Genesis and Exodus as a whole, illuminating their distinctive literary and theological features and their importance for modern theological...

The second edition of this highly popular introduction includes a new preface and each chapter has been revised to keep it as up-to-date as possible. 'Introducing Feminist Theology remains a lively and stimulating 'first read' for anyone embarking on feminist theology, as well as a first rate resource for those wishing to refresh their acquiantaince with it. Despite claims in some quarters that 'feminism' has been surpassed by 'gender' this book explains how vital a feminist agenda remains, and how much is still to be done, both at the theological and the practical level, to transform...

This study argues that the gist and movement of the prophecy in the book of Amos can be attributed to Amos himself, who composed a coherent cycle of poetry. His dire predictions came after the Fall of Samaria but before the Fall of Jerusalem. Writing a century later, the author of the book preserved but updated Amos' text by fitting it into a developing literary, historical and prophetic tradition. Amos is used as a test case to show that prophecy originated in the performing arts but was later transformed into history and biography. The original prophecy is a song Amos recited at symposia...

A fascinating intertextual study of the classic biblical tragedy of Saul, the first king of Israel, as first narrated in biblical narrative and later reworked in Lamartine's drama Saul: Tragedie and Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. Plot and characterization are each explored in detail in this study, and in each of the narrations the hero's tragic fate emerges both as the result of a character flaw and also as a consequence of the ambivalent role of the deity, showing a double theme underlying not only the biblical vision but also its two very different retellings nearer to...