Focusing Biblical Studies: The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods PDF Download

Author: Jon L. Berquist
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0567369072
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This volume makes a positive intervention into maximalist/minimalist debates about Israelite historiography by pointing to the events that happened during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. During this historical epoch, traditions about Israel and Judah's founding became fixed as markers of ethnic identity, and much of the canonical Hebrew Bible came into its present form. Concentrating on these events, a clearer historical picture emerges. The entire volume is set within the context of Douglas A. Knight's contributions, which have encouraged a rigorous social-scientific and tradition-historical approach to the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in general.

Author: David Janzen
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506474594
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
The field of biblical studies has championed the historical-critical method as the only way to guarantee objective interpretation. But in recent decades, women, people of color, scholars from the Two-Thirds World, and members of the the LGBTQIA+ community have pursued hermeneutical approaches that provide interpretations useful for marginalized communities who see the Bible as a resource in their struggles against oppression. Such liberative strategies remain at the margins of the field. The Liberation of Method argues that this marginality must end, and that liberative methods should become the central methods of biblical studies. The first part of the book draws upon the hermeneutics of philosophical pragmatism to argue that, because readers are responsible for the interpretation, there is no necessary connection between the meanings they produce and the ones ancient authors may have intended. As a result, the historical-critical method, which prioritizes the study of the ancient contexts of biblical writings, becomes an optional rather than a necessary aspect of interpretation. The second part of The Liberation of Method argues that if we truly hope to create an ethical academic field, more privileged scholars and students must see their minoritized colleagues as the leaders in the field, as models of the ethical liberative standards of interpretation.

Author: M. Daniel Carroll R.
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467459402
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
In this commentary on the book of Amos, Daniel Carroll combines a detailed reading of the Hebrew text with attention to its historical background and current relevance. What makes this volume unique is its special attention to Amos’s literary features and what they reveal about the book’s theology and composition. Instead of reconstructing a hypothetical redactional history, this commentary offers a close reading of the canonical form against the backdrop of the eighth century BCE.

Author: Mark S. Smith
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506480497
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 924

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Book Description
This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation of the text and detailed interpretation of almost every word or phrase in the book of Judges, drawing from archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, many never noted before. Archaeology also serves to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges." The synchronic analysis for each unit sketches its characters and main themes, as well as other literary dynamics. The diachronic, redactional analysis shows the shifting settings of units as well as their development, commonly due to their inner-textual reception and reinterpretation. The result is a remarkably fresh historical-critical treatment of 1:1-10:5.

Author: Athalya Brenner-Idan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567710297
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This unique volume on the Psalms is the final Hebrew Bible installment of the Texts@Contexts series. Each contribution provides a contextual reflection on a Psalm as chosen by the contributor. These contributions take account of the contributor's own personal context or the contexts of those around them, providing readings that are varied in geographical and linguistic scope, that reflect on pressing themes such as immigration, diversity, race, marginalized voices (such as those of adults with learning disabilities) and postcolonialism. Scholars also reflect on their own contexts of research and education. Taken together the contributions to this volume provide a sort of contextual commentary on the Psalms, gathering a wide range of voices and reflecting a diverse range of cultural afterlives of the Psalms.

Author: Stephen J. Andrews
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 172524988X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament (JESOT) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the academic and evangelical study of the Old Testament. The journal seeks to fill a need in academia by providing a venue for high-level scholarship on the Old Testament from an evangelical standpoint. The journal is not affiliated with any particular academic institution, and with an international editorial board, open access format, and multi-language submissions, JESOT cultivates and promotes Old Testament scholarship in the evangelical global community. The journal differs from many evangelical journals in that it seeks to publish current academic research in the areas of ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinics, Linguistics, Septuagint, Research Methodology, Literary Analysis, Exegesis, Text Criticism, and Theology as they pertain only to the Old Testament. JESOT also includes up-to-date book reviews on various academic studies of the Old Testament.

Author: Mark McEntire
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611646073
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
While there are many textbooks about the prophetic literature, most have taken either a historical or literary approach to studying the prophets. A Chorus of Prophetic Voices, by contrast, draws on both historical and literary approaches by paying careful attention to the prophets as narrative characters. It considers each unique prophetic voice in the canon, in its fully developed literary form, while also listening to what these voices say together about a particular experience in Israel's story. It presents these four scrollsâ€"Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelveâ€"as works produced in the aftermath of destruction, works that employ prophetic characters, and as the words uttered during the crises. The prophetic literature became for Israel, living in a context of dispersion and imperial domination, a portable and adaptable resource at once both challenging and comforting. This book provides the fullest picture available for introducing students to the prophetic literature by valuing the role of the original prophetic characters, the finished state of the books that bear their names, the separate historical crises in the life of Israel they address, and the “chorus of prophetic voices†one hears when reading them as part of a coherent literary corpus.

Author: Torleif Elgvin
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467465399
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
An exegetical and diachronic survey of messianic texts from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition up through the first millennium CE. Jewish messianism can be traced back to the emerging Kingdom of Judah in the tenth century BCE, when it was represented by the Davidic tradition and the promise of a future heir to David’s throne. From that point, it remained an important facet of Israelite faith, as evidenced by its frequent recurrence in the Hebrew Bible and other early Jewish texts. In preexilic texts, the expectation is for an earthly king—a son of David with certain ethical qualities—whereas from the exile onward there is a transition to a pluriform messianism, often with utopic traits. Warrior, King, Servant, Savior is an exegetical and diachronic study of messianism in these texts that maintains close dialogue with relevant historical research and archaeological insights. Internationally respected biblical scholar Torleif Elgvin recounts the development and impact of messianism, from ancient Israel through the Hasmonean era and the rabbinic period, with rich chapters exploring messianic expectations in the Northern Kingdom, postexilic Judah, and Qumran, among other contexts. For this multifaceted topic—of marked interest to Jews, Christians, and secular historians of religion alike—Elgvin’s handbook is the essential and definitive guide.

Author: Amos Yong
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493419927
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Bringing Pentecostal theology into the Bible and mission conversation, Amos Yong identifies the role of the divine spirit in God's mission to redeem the world. As he works through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, Yong emphasizes the global missiological imperative: "People of all nations reaching out to people of all nations." Sidebars include voices from around the globe who help the author put the biblical text into conversation with twenty-first-century questions, offering the church a fresh understanding of its mission and how to pursue it in the decades to come.

Author: John Goldingay
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725273160
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Ecclesiastes is the most surprising book in the Scriptures. It challenges its readers to reconsider what they think life is about and how far it is possible to understand God’s involvement in the world. This commentary seeks to help people enter the world of Ecclesiastes and see how it can increase their understanding of God and of themselves.