Knut Martin Heim - Böcker

Designed for the pastor and Bible teacher, the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament features today's top Old Testament scholars and brings together commentary features rarely gathered together in one volume. With careful discourse analysis and interpretation of the Hebrew text, the authors trace the flow of argument in each Old Testament book, showing that how a biblical author says something is just as important as what they say.Commentary on each passage follows a clear structure to help readers grasp the flow and meaning of the text:The Main Idea of the Passage: A one- or two-sentence summary of the key ideas the biblical author seeks to communicate.Literary Context: A brief discussion of the relationship of the specific text to the book as a whole and to its place within the broader argument.Translation and Exegetical Outline: Commentators provide their own translations of each text, formatted to highlight its discourse structure and accompanied by a coherent outline that reflects the flow and argument of the text.Structure and Literary Form: An overview of the literary structure and rhetorical style adopted by the biblical author, highlighting how these features contribute to the communication of the main idea of the passage.Explanation of the Text: A detailed commentary on the passage, paying particular attention to how the biblical authors select and arrange their materials and how they work with words, phrases, and syntax to communicate their messages.Canonical and Practical Significance: The commentary on each unit will conclude by building bridges between the world of the biblical author and other biblical authors and with reflections on the contribution made by this unit to the development of broader issues in biblical theology--particularly on how later Old Testament and New Testament authors have adapted and reused the motifs in question. The discussion also includes brief reflections on the significance of the message of the passage for readers today.?The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament series is the go-to resource for pastors and Bible teachers looking for deep but accessible study that equips them to connect the needs of Christians today with the biblical text.

No fewer than 223 verses in Proverbs appear two times (79 sets), three times (15 sets), or even four times (5 sets) in identical or slightly altered form—more than 24% of the book. Heim analyzes all of these, presenting them in delineated Hebrew lines and in English translation. Where appropriate, the translations are followed by textual notes that discuss uncertainties regarding the textual witnesses (textual criticism) and explore lexical, grammatical, and syntactical problems. Heim also analyzes the way the parallelism in each verse of a variant set has been constructed, presenting diagrams and tables with columns that highlight the corresponding similarities and differences among repeated verses. Key to this investigation is the search for links between the variants and their surrounding verses, such as repetitions of sound and sense.Heim shows that most variant repetitions result from skillful poetic creativity. Reconstruction of the editorial and creative poetic process highlights what poets did, how they did it, and why they did it. He develops criteria for determining the direction of borrowing between the verses and demonstrates that the phenomenon of variant repetition is an editorial concern that operates on the level of the book as a whole. He develops and refines a range of interpretive techniques and skills, arrives at fresh interpretations, and shows that ancient proverbial wisdom is relevant to modern societies.This study sheds new light on the nature of biblical poetry and on the methods and virtues best suited for its study. While specific to the book of Proverbs in the first instance, the findings in this study apply to poetry elsewhere. Three fundamental insights should inform future work on poetry: the creative combination of repetition with variation is the very essence of poetry; what has been written with imagination should be read with imagination; imaginative interpretation values the normal features of poetic expression and celebrates the truly unusual.

The book of Ecclesiastes is probably best known for its repeated refrain that "everything is meaningless," or "vanity." However, a thorough reading demonstrates that this is not its final conclusion.Knut Heim's Tyndale commentary shows that the book is intellectually sophisticated, theologically rich, emotionally deep - and full of humor. While it is realistic about life, it is life-affirming and immensely practical.The Tyndale Commentaries are designed to help the reader of the Bible understand what the text says and what it means. The Introduction to each book gives a concise but thorough treatment of its authorship, date, original setting, and purpose. Following a structural Analysis, the Commentary takes the book section by section, drawing out its main themes, and also comments on individual verses and problems of interpretation. Additional Notes provide fuller discussion of particular difficulties.In the new Old Testament volumes, the commentary on each section of the text is structured under three headings: Context, Comment, and Meaning. The goal is to explain the true meaning of the Bible and make its message plain.