Outline: Daniel is a book of exile and expectation. In a foreign land, God's people face confusion, uncertainty, and even death. Where is God? What is his plan? What is the future of us? The book's familiar stories and unsettling visions answer these questions with a simple but stunning truth: the God of Israel is sovereign king of a world-encompassing eternal kingdom. He is king of all kings, …
Outline: The book of Habakkuk is most known for its theological value as a prooftext for Paul's gospel - "the just shall live by faith" - and its devotional value of hope, trust, and triumph in its closing verses. Indeed, theology and devotion come together as we engage with the prophet's personal faith journey. In the historical context of the looming Babylonian exile, Habakkuk struggles, as A…
Outline : This updated third edition of Old Testament Survey revises the original edition and greatly expands its attention to historical, methodological, and geographical topics. These are combined with the second edition’s focus on literature and narrative, and an increased number of improved maps are also included. In all, the book charts every major element that unifies the Old Testament,…
Andrew Angel briefly reviews the work of Old Testament scholars on the mythological motif of God's battle with the dragon and the chaos waters. He also reviews works that touch on the existence of the motif in the period 515 BCE to 200 CE, noting the need for thorough survey of the motif in Hebrew literature of this period. There follows a study of forty-two Jewish and Christian texts (in Hebre…
Outline : The fourth edition of this classic text brings with it a renewed focus on purpose, theology, and message of the Old Testament in a more succinct and more inviting size for students. It provides,
Outline: A new commentary for today's world. The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approa…
Outline: How does the New Testament echo the Old? Which versions of the Hebrew Scriptures were authoritative for New Testament writers? The appearance of concepts, images, and passages from the Old Testament in the books of the New raises important questions about textual versions, allusions, and the differences between ancient and modern meaning. Written by ten distinguished scholars, Hearing …
Outline: Sixty years ago, biblical scholars typically maintained that Israel's religion was unique, that it stood in marked contrast to the faiths of its ancient Near Eastern neighbors. Nowadays, it is widely argued that Israelite religion mirrors that of other West Semitic societies. What accounts for this radical change, and what are its implications for our understanding of the Old Testament…
Outline: Old Testament Use of Old Testament by Gary Edward Schnittjer surveys hundreds of Old Testament allusions within the Old Testament and provides hermeneutical guidance for interpreting these interrelated Scriptures. The handbook takes an easy-to-navigate, book-by-book approach. Schnittjer provides a list of scriptural allusions for each book and follows with an interpretive profile of ho…
Outline: Read the Old Testament from a Biblical-Theological Perspective. Featuring contributions from thirteen respected evangelical scholars, this gospel-centered introduction to the Old Testament will help anyone who teaches or studies Scripture to better see the initial outworking of God's plan to redeem the world through Jesus Christ.
Outline: An exploration of the parallels between Old Testament texts and contemporary writings from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East. The fifth edition expands on the first four with additional texts.
Outline : THE STORY OF ISRAEL IN THE FIVE CENTURIES LEADING UP TO THE BIRTH OF JESUS Bridging the Testaments surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel's postexilic history: the Persian Era (539-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (331-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were…
Outline : HOW TO STUDYTHE OLD TESTAMENT FOR SIGNS OF CHRIST Since the majority of the Bible was written before Jesus's life and death on the cross, the Old Testament is often used for historical context and moral guidance alone. When studied in detail, however, we see how even the Old Testament reveals Christ as the center of God's plan for redemption. In this book, biblical scholar Vern S. Po…
This volume continues the study of intertextuality in the 'Wisdom Literature' initiated in Reading Job Intertextually (Dell and Kynes, T & T Clark, 2012). Like that book, Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually provides the first comprehensive treatment of intertextuality in this wisdom text. Articles address intertextual resonances between Ecclesiastes and texts across the Hebrew canon, along with…
Includes 115 articles covering all aspects of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the twelve "minor prophets" and Daniel. Each book's historical, cultural, religious and literary background is thoroughly covered, alongside articles on interpretation history and critical method.
College students have some familiarity with interpreting written texts from high school English classes. But after years of watching TV, movies, and music videos, most college students are more comfortable with visual media than written texts. Before even opening a Bible, I introduce interpretation using a visual text, such as a political poster from a different country or historical era...
This book is an introduction to Judaism of the Second Temple period. That is, it covers the time beginning in the Persian period and ending with the fall of the temple (539 bce–70 ce), though I find it helpful to go as late as the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–35 ce). I have already given a detailed history of the Judaism of the period in Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian (1992) and the four-volume wo…
The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and this book tells their story for the first time. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn details the methods, assumptions, and material means that gave rise to biblical texts. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the …
The author describes the standing of woman in the Old Testament based upon more than 700 Scriptural passages in which a woman or women are mentioned. He discusses the creation of woman, sexual attraction, marriage, the woman as mother, the subservience of women, sisters, divorcees, widows, the freedom of action accorded women, and women in the cult. He concluded that while the Old Testament rep…
This is a detailed examination of Proverbs 1-9, an early Jewish poetic work and an example of Wisdom literature. The author shows that certain parts of it, profoundly influential on the development of both Judaism and Christianity, belong to a much broader and more intricate set of ideas than older scholarship allowed.
One of Italy's foremost experts on antiquity addresses a new issue surrounding the birth of Israel and its historic reality.
The use of the term “Septuagint” in the title of A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) requires some justification. According to legend1 it was seventy(-two) Jerusalem elders who at the behest of King Ptolemy II (285–246 BCE) and with the consent of High Priest Eleazaros translated the Scriptures of Egyptian Jewry into Greek from a Jerusalem manuscript inscribed in gold. The …
This book examines the theology and ethics of land use, especially the practices of modern industrialized agriculture, in light of critical biblical exegesis. Nine interrelated essays explore the biblical writers’ pervasive concern for the care of arable land against the background of the geography, social structures, and religious thought of ancient Israel. This approach consistently brings …
The book of Proverbs is the starting point of the biblical wisdom tradition. But how did individual proverbs, instructions and poems come together to form the various collections we have today? Katharine Dell explores the possible social contexts for this varied material in the royal court, wisdom schools and popular culture. She draws shrewdly on materials from the wisdom traditions of the anc…
An upper-level introduction to the Old Testament that offers students a thorough understanding of three key issues: historical background, literary analysis, and theological message. This second edition of An Introduction to the Old Testament integrates recent developments in Old Testament scholarship. It has many distinctive features that set it apart from other introductions to the Old Testam…
Myth is that most elusive of cultural forms—forever avoiding the constraints of definition and analysis; yet always attesting, through its protean persistence, to an indomitable grip upon the human imagination. Call myth what you will, others will certainly put it differently and claim good grounds for their standpoint. For those bred in the West, the ancient Greek patrimony casts a long shad…
Containing both triumphant stories of God's provision and difficult prophetic images, the book of Daniel stirs readers' imagination and interest. Examples abound of Daniel's unswerving dedication to the God of Israel, and the prophet describes the coming days in striking detail. Throughout this book the nature of Daniel's God is revealed to us. God's plans for the future judgment and deliveranc…
Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry , his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative , Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew po…
The book of Genesis contains foundational material for Jewish and Christian theology, both historic and contemporary, and is almost certainly the most appealed-to book in the Old Testament in contemporary culture. R. W. L. Moberly’s The Theology of the Book of Genesis examines the actual use made of Genesis in current debates, not only in academic but also in popular contexts. Traditional iss…
The book of Genesis contains some of the most beautiful and well-known stories in the the garden, the flood, the tower of Babel, and the lives of the patriarchs. But these are more than just good stories. They lay the groundwork for God's relationship with humanity and for his plan for our salvation, making Genesis foundational to understanding everything else that happens in the Bible. Genesis…
Apologist Paul Copan takes on some of the most vexing accusations of our time, including that God is arrogant and jealous, punishes people too harshly, is guilty of ethnic cleansing, oppresses women, and endorses slavery. He also challenges the accusation that Christianity causes violence. Copan not only answers God's critics, he also shows how to read both the Old and New Testaments faithfully…
A detailed examination of the passages central to the debate about Paul's christology and his view of Jewish Law. From meticulous exegesis makes some striking theological and historical conclusions.
We all know the story of how Eve was created from Adam's rib. But what if, perhaps, "rib" was a mistranslation and the body part she was really created from was Adam's penis bone? This would explain why human males don't have such a bone, unlike other male mammals. That's only one of many surprising and fun biblical twists readers will encounter in The Uncensored Bible . Here readers will learn…
A wide ranging survey of the secondary literature on the books of Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Ben Sira, and the Wisdom of Solomon in which the author summarizes not only modern scholarship, but also Church Fathers, Medieval authorities, and contemporary interpretations by artists and theologians.
A companion to Reading Biblical Narrative, this volume provides an authoritative introduction and overview to biblical poetry. Fokkelman describes, in step-by-step fashion, how to understand the Bible's poetry. Full of examples, Reading Biblical Poetry makes available a holistic and integrative approach to understanding poetry found nowhere else.
Nothing confuses Christian ethics quite like the Old Testament. Some faithful readers struggle through its pages and conclude that they must obey its moral laws but may disregard its ceremonial and civil laws. Others abandon its teaching altogether in favor of a strictly New Testament ethic. Neither option, argues Chris Wright, gives the Old Testament its due. In this innovative approach to …
The rich tapestry of the creation narrative in the early chapters of Genesis proved irresistible to the thoughtful, reflective minds of the church fathers. Within them they found the beginning threads from which to weave a theology of creation, Fall, and redemption. Following their mentor the apostle Paul, they explored the profound significance of Adam as a type of Christ, the second Adam. The…
Outline: How can we make sense of Violence in the Bible? Joshua commands the people of Israel to wipe out everyone in the promised land of Canaan, while Jesus commands of God's people to love their enemies. How are we to interpret biblical passages on violence when it is sanctioned at one point and condemned at another? The Violence of the Biblical God by L. Daniel Hawk presents a new framework…
Outline: The Bible's sixty-six books form overreaching story - the story of a Hero and his heroic mission. And this story is personal, focusing on the relationship of God and his people in the past, present, and future. On this eye-opening journey through the Old and New Testaments, Dennis Johnson shows how pervasive, recurring themes are always pointing us to Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of a…
Outline: During the past millennia, the Christian church has repeatedly faced challenges to its acknowledgment of both Old and New Testaments as Scripture. None of these challenges has been successful: at the dawn of the third Christian millennium, the Bible contains the same books as it did in the early church, with only silight variation between different traditions. And yet, doubts remain an…
Outline: The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi texts, and new Targums has greatly increased scholarly interest in the relationship between the New Testament and first-century Judaism. This critically acclaimed study by Richard Longenecker sheds light on this relationship by exploring the methods the earliest Christians used to interpret the Old Testament. By comparing the first…
Outline: One exciting area of study is Paul's use of the Old Testament. The apostle routinely appeals to Scripture to support his arguments and to persuade his readers. One gets the impression that Paul has a high respect for Scripture and that his knowledge of it is broad and comprehensive. And yet, there is something enigmatic about his use of the Old Testament at the same time - something el…
Outline : Time and time again, God uses insignificant and desperately sinful people to fulfill his marvelous plans. In short, he uses people lis us! We find vivid examples of this truth in Isaac and Jacob, two men who couldn't live up to Abraham's example, let alone God's standards - yet God never abondoned them. The author's study of their stories in Genesis shows us how the gospel triumphs…