Old Testament Studies – serie

God's covenant with Israel is one of the most important themes of Old Testament scholarship: 'I will be your God, you shall be my people'. Yet this has only rarely been the focus of a comprehensive study.Professor Rendtorff explores the different ways the covenant formula is used in the Bible, its structural and theological functions, the connections between covenant and election.An important contribution to a canonical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

In this challenging book Cyril Rodd questions many of the assumptions that lie behind recent studies of Old Testament ethics. He views the 'strangeness' of the biblical world and wonders whether there is an Old Testament ethics in the modern sense of the word - finding rather that the Old Testament writers did not regard many of today's ethical dilemmas as problems at all.Dr Rodd examines all the Old Testament writings on five ethical issues: the poor, war, treatment of animals, ecology and the position of women. He considers their validity and relevance for today and discusses the extent to which they can be referred to for authority - or for inspiration and guidance..

This study on the book of Deuteronomy brings together different methods of biblical study. Topics examined include Old Testament laws ranging from warfare to sex and the family.

This project examines two areas where there are important interpretive problems: the composition of the book of Jeremiah and, specifically, the provenance of and ideological functions served by the text of Jeremiah on the one hand; and the redactional interests in prophecy evident in the Deuteronomistic History on the other. The book argues that two distinct political groups can be seen to vie for theological authority via their literary portrayals of traditions about Jeremiah and prophets generally in the Deutero-Jeremianic prose - a group in Babylon after the deportations of 597 B.C.E. that is attempting to claim political and cultic authority, and a group remaining behind in Judah after 597 that counters the political claims and related interpretive moves made by the Babylonian traditionists. The book then illustrates through analysis of prophetic roles in Jeremiah, Kings, and Deuteronomy 18 that there are substantial and fundamental discontinuities between the view of prophecy and the prophetic word presented in the Deuteronomic texts and the view presented in the Deutero-Jeremianic texts. The results of the present study challenge the widely accepted scholarly thesis of monolithic redaction of the book of Jeremiah at the hands of the same 'Deuteronomists' whose work is evident in the Deuteronomistic History.