Mark McEntire – författare

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 voicesâ€� one hears when reading them as part of a coherent literary corpus.

The Hebrew Bible displays a complicated attitude toward cities. Much of the story tells of a rural, agrarian society, yet those stories were written by people living in urban environments. Moreover, cities frequently appear in a negative light; the Hebrew slaves in the book of Exodus were forced to build cities, and the book of Samuels critique of monarchy assumes an urban setting that supports that monarchy. At the same, time Ezra-Nehemiah makes restoration of Jerusalem and its wall a holy priority, and Genesis 111 (and subsequent references to the primeval narrative) show a much more layered view of the dangers and opportunities of the urban context. As the worlds population continues to move into cities and we debate the impact on human life and the natural environment, it becomes increasingly important to know how the biblical writers understood the ways in which urban life enhances and disrupts human thriving. In this book, McEntire offers a comprehensive and hopeful understanding of the Bible and the city.

The preeminent example of monotheism, the God of the Hebrew Bible, is the end product of a long process. The world from which this literature emerged was polytheistic. The nature and arrangement of the literature diminishes polytheistic realities and enhances the effort to portray a single divine being. The development of this divine character through the course of a sustained narrative with a sequential plot aided the move toward monotheism by allowing for the placement of diverse, even conflicting, portrayals of the deity at distant points along the plot line. Through the sequence of events the divine character becomes more withdrawn from the sphere of human activity, more aged in appearance and behavior, and increasingly disembodied. All these characteristics lend themselves to the presentation of disparate narrative portrayals as a singular subject in this Element.

The preeminent example of monotheism, the God of the Hebrew Bible, is the end product of a long process. The world from which this literature emerged was polytheistic. The nature and arrangement of the literature diminishes polytheistic realities and enhances the effort to portray a single divine being. The development of this divine character through the course of a sustained narrative with a sequential plot aided the move toward monotheism by allowing for the placement of diverse, even conflicting, portrayals of the deity at distant points along the plot line. Through the sequence of events the divine character becomes more withdrawn from the sphere of human activity, more aged in appearance and behavior, and increasingly disembodied. All these characteristics lend themselves to the presentation of disparate narrative portrayals as a singular subject in this Element.