K. C. Hanson – författare

Essays by a pre-eminent Old Testament scholar on the biblical emphasis on the material life and its implications for social, political and economic issues.Biblical faith is passionately and relentlessly material in its emphasis. This claim is rooted in the conviction that the creator God loves the creation and summons creation to be in sync with the will of the creator God. This collection of essays is focussed on the bodily life of the world as it ordered in all of its problematic political and economic forms. The phrase of the title 'all flesh' in the flood narrative of Genesis 9 refers to all living creatures who are in covenant with God - human beings, animals, birds, and fish - as recipients of God's grace, as dependent upon God's generosity, and as destined for praise and obedience to God. The insistence on the materiality of life as the subject of the Bible means that the difficult issues of economics and the demanding questions of politics are front and centre in the text. So the Pentateuch pivots around the Exodus narrative and the emancipation from an unbearable context of abusive labour practices. In a similar manner, the prophets endlessly address such questions of social policy and the wisdom teachers reflect on how to manage the material things of life and social relationships for the well-being of the community. This emphasis, pervasive in these essays, is a powerful alternative and a strong resistance against all of the contemporary efforts to transcend (escape!) the material into some form of the 'spiritual'. All around us are efforts to find an easier, more harmonious faith. This may be evoked simply because of a desire to shield economic, political advantage from the inescapable critique of biblical faith. Such a temptation is a serious misreading of the Bible and a critical misjudgment about the nature of human existence. Thus the Bible addressed the most urgent issues of our day, and refuses the 'religious temptation' that avoids lived reality where the power of God is a work.

Multiple essays on the Psalms by the influential Psalms exegete, Erhard Gerstenberger. Erhard Gerstenberger (1932-2023) has been a highly influential exegete of the Psalms for several decades. He demonstrated how the Psalms were able to modulate the deepest feelings of individuals and communities, encompassing a wide variety of existential experiences relating to God and the world. Gerstenberger believed that psalmic poetry grew out of diverse and real-life situations.The first two essays in Charting the Course of Psalms Research deftly review the secondary literature. The first covers the 'lyrical literature' of the Old Testament, and the second considers the history of interpretation of the Psalms. The remaining essays explore the social settings of the Psalms and their connection to theology and communication theory, and include two chapter translated into English for the first time and edited by K.C. Hanson. Student and researcher alike will be enriched by the insights Gerstenberger provides.

This collection of essays is drawn from a series of previous collections to which the author has contributed that were designed to honor senior scholars in the discipline of Old Testament study. Each of these essays reflects a distinct intention depending on the nature of the original collection in which they appeared and the scholar who was being honored. Taken together, however, this collection amounts to an articulation of Brueggemann''s distinctive approach to theological interpretation of the Old Testament. Already in his major volume on Old Testament theology, Brueggemann proposed a dynamism of tension, dispute, and contradiction as the text of ancient Israel sought to give voice to the mystery of God as a sustaining and disruptive agent in the life of the world. Over a long period of time, this collection reflects the author''s growing clarity about the task of Old Testament theology. It further reflects on the nature of the biblical text and the way in which the God who inhabits the text runs beyond all of our attempts to define and explain. These essays reflect not so much on methodological issues, but take up the substantive questions that regularly occupied these ancient text-makers.

Contents1. Social Criticism and Social Vision in the Deuteronomic Formula of the Judges2. A Poem of Summons (Isa 55:1-3), a Narrative of Resistance (Dan 1:1-21)3. Psalms 9-10: A Counter to Conventional Social Reality4. Prophetic Imagination toward Social Flourishing5. A Royal Miracle and Its Nachleben6. The Living Afterlife of a Dead Prophet: Words That Keep Speaking7. The Tearing of the Curtain: Matthew 27:518. Five Strong Rereadings of the Book of Isaiah

Biblical faith is passionately and relentlessly material in its accent. This claim is rooted in the conviction that the creator God loves and cares for the creation and summons creation to be in sync with the will of the creator God. This collection of essays is focused on the bodily life of the world as it is ordered in all of its problematic political and economic forms. The phrase of the title, "all flesh," in the flood narrative of Genesis 9, refers to all living creatures who are in covenant with God--human beings, animals, birds, and fish--as recipients of God''s grace, as dependent upon Gods'' generosity, and as destined for praise and obedience to God.The insistence on the materiality of life as the subject of the Bible means that the hard issues of economics and the demanding questions of politics are front and center in the text. So the Pentateuch pivots around the exodus narrative and the emancipation from an unbearable context of abusive labor practices. In like manner the prophets endlessly address such questions of social policy, and the wisdom teachers reflect on how to manage the material things of life and social relationships for the well-being of the community.This accent, pervasive in these essays, is a powerful alternative and a strong resistance against all of the contemporary efforts to transcend (escape!) the material into some form of the "spiritual." All around us are efforts to find an easier, more harmonious faith. This may be evoked simply because life is "too hard," or more ominously because of a desire to shield economic, political advantage from the inescapable critique of biblical faith. Such a temptation is a serious misreading of the Bible and a serious misjudgment about the nature of human existence. Thus the Bible addressed the most urgent issues of our day, and refuses the "religious temptation" that avoids lived reality where the power of God is a work.