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Konrad Schmid is a Swiss biblical scholar who belongs to a larger group of Continental researchers proposing new directions in the study of the Pentateuch. In this volume, a translation of his Erzväter und Exodus, Schmid argues that the ancestor tradition in Genesis and the Moses story in Exodus were two competing traditions of Israel’s origins and were not combined until the time of the Priestly Code—that is, the early Persian period. Schmid interacts with the long tradition of European scholarship on the Hebrew Bible but departs from some of the main tenets of the Documentary Hypothesis: he argues that the pre-Priestly material in both text blocks is literarily and theologically so divergent that their present linkage is more appropriately interpreted as the result of a secondary redaction than as thematic variation stemming from J’s oral prehistory. He dates Genesis–2 Kings to the Persian period and considers it a redactional work that, in its present shape, is a historical introduction to the message of future hope presented in the prophetic corpus of Isaiah-Malachi.Scholars and students alike will be pleased that this translation makes Schmid’s important work readily available in English, both for the contributions made by Schmid and the summary of continental interpretation that he presents. In this edition, some passages have been expanded or modified in order to clarify issues or to engage with more-recent scholarship. The notes and bibliography have also been updated.Dr. Schmid is Professor of Old Testament and Early Judaism at the University of Zürich.

The biblical-theological approach Boda takes in this work is canonical-thematic, tracing the presentation of the theology of sin and its remedy in the canonical form and shape of the Old Testament. The hermeneutical foundations for this enterprise have been laid by others in past decades, especially by Brevard Childs in his groundbreaking work. But A Severe Mercy also reflects recent approaches to integrating biblical understanding with other methodologies in addition to Childs’s. Thus, it enters the imaginative space of the ancient canon of the Old Testament in order to highlight the “word views” and “literary shapes” of the “texts taken individually and as a whole collection.” For the literary shape of the individual texts, it places the “word views” of the dominant expressions and images, as well as various passages, in the larger context of the biblical books in which they are found. For the literary shape of the texts as a collection, it identifies key subthemes and traces their development through the Old Testament canon. The breadth of Boda’s study is both challenging and courageous, resulting in the first comprehensive examination of the topic in the 21st century.

Winner of the 2011 RBY Scott Award from the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies/Société canadienne des études bibliquesThe God of the Bible favors a national people, Israel, and this is at the cost of the other nations. In fact, not being Israel usually means humiliation or destruction or simply being ignored by God. Reading the text “with the grain” or placing oneself within the chosen’s perspective may seem very well until one considers the unchosen. There is much regarding the unchosen that has not been explored in scholarly research, but in this important work, Lohr attempts to make sense of the question of election and nonelection in the OT as a Christian interpreter and with a concern for the history of interpretation and Jewish-Christian dialogue.He also corrects a Christian tendency to read election and nonelection as love and damnation, respectively, a perception that is altogether foreign to the OT itself. The unchosen are important to the overall world view of Scripture and, although election entails exclusion, and God’s love for the one people Israel is a love in contrast to others, it does not follow that the unchosen fall outside of the economy of God’s purposes, his workings, or his ways. The unchosen often face important tests of their own and have a responsibility to God and the chosen, however much this idea defies modern-day notions of fairness. It is a central idea of Scripture that already appears in the original call of and promises made to Abram and something that, if ignored, places our larger understanding of God at risk.Equally important, if contemporary faith communities (both Jewish and Christian) form their understanding of “the other” on a faulty reading of Scripture regarding the unchosen, chaos and hatred can ensue. The political and religious climate of our contemporary world has never presented a more important time to get this matter right. Scholars and students alike are finding Chosen and Unchosen to be an indispensable resource as they mull over these difficult questions.

The book of Genesis portrays the character Jacob as a brazen trickster who deceives members of his own family: his father Isaac, brother Esau, and uncle Laban. At the same time, Genesis depicts Jacob as YHWH’s chosen, from whom the entire people Israel derive and for whom they are named. These two notices produce a latent tension in the text: Jacob is concurrently an unabashed trickster and YHWH’s preference. How is one to address this tension? Scholars have long focused on the implications for the character and characterization of Jacob. The very question, however, at its core raises an issue that is theological in nature. The Jacob cycle (Gen 25–36) is just as much, if not more, a text about God as it is about Jacob, a point startlingly absent in a great deal of Genesis scholarship. Anderson argues for the presence of what he has dubbed a theology of deception in the Jacob cycle: YHWH operates as a divine trickster who both uses and engages in deception for the perpetuation of the ancestral promise (Gen 12:1–3).Through a literary hermeneutic, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between how the text means and what the text means, and a keen eye to the larger task of Old Testament theology as literally “a word about God,” Anderson examines the various manifestations of YHWH as trickster in the Jacob cycle. The phenomenon of divine deception at every turn is intimately tethered in diverse ways to YHWH’s unique concern for the protection and advancement of the ancestral promise, which has cosmic implications. Attention is given to the ways that the multiple deceptions—some previously unnoticed—evoke, advance, and at times fulfill the ancestral promise.Anderson’s careful and thoughtful interweaving of trickster texts and traditions in the interest of theology is a unique contribution of this important volume. Oftentimes, scholars who are interested in the trickster are unconcerned with the theological ramifications of the presence of material of this sort in the biblical text, while theologians have often neglected the vibrant and pervasive presence of the trickster in the biblical text. Equally vital is the necessity of viewing the Old Testament’s image of God as also comprising dynamic, subversive, and unsettling elements. Attempts to whitewash or sanitize the biblical God fail to recognize and appreciate the complex and intricate ways that YHWH interacts with his chosen people. This witness to YHWH’s engagement in deception stands alongside and paradoxically informs the biblical text’s portrait of YHWH as trustworthy and a God who does not lie. Anderson’s Jacob and the Divine Trickster stands as a stimulating and provocative investigation into the most interesting and challenging character in the Bible, God, and marks the first true comprehensive treatment of YHWH as divine trickster. Anderson has set the stage to continue the conversation and investigation into a theology of deception in the Hebrew Bible.

Using narrative devices such as allusions and free associations, multivalent expressions, and irony, the author of Esther wrote a story that is about a Jewish woman, Esther, during the time of the Persian exile of Yehudites, and the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who was in power at the time. At various junctures, the author also used secret writing, or we could say that he conveys mixed messages: one is a surface message, but another, often conflicting message lies beneath the surface. For instance, the outer portrayal of the king as one of the main protagonists is an ironic strategy used by the author to highlight the king’s impotent, indecisive, “antihero” status. He may wield authority—as symbolized by his twice-delegated signet ring—but he remains powerless. Among all the concealments in the story, the concealment of God stands out as the most prominent and influential example.A growing number of scholars regard the book of Esther as a “comic diversion,” the function and intention of which are to entertain the reader. However, Grossman is more convinced by Mikhail Bakhtin’s approach, and he labels his application of this approach to the reading of Esther as “theological carnivalesque.” Bakhtin viewed the carnival (or the carnivalesque genre) as a challenge by the masses to the governing establishment and to accepted social conventions. He described the carnival as an eruption of ever-present but suppressed popular sentiments. The connection between the story of Esther and Bakhtin’s characterization of the carnivalesque in narrative is evident especially in the book of Esther’s use of the motifs of “reversal” and “transformation.” For example, the young girl Esther is transformed from an exiled Jewess into a queen in one of the turnabouts that characterize the narrative. Many more examples are provided in this analysis of one of the Bible’s most fascinating books.

To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy’s conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel’s generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of “you” and the “fathers” functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the “fathers” is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy.First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book’s self-presentation as “the words that Moses spoke” (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel’s ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act.The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the “fathers” (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same “God of the fathers” across the nation’s history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the “fathers” between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the “fathers” begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH’s promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment.Hwang’s study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style.Jerry Hwang (Ph.D., Wheaton College) serves as Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College.

Bernard F. Batto spent the bulk of his career examining the ancient Near Eastern context of the Hebrew Bible, with particular interest in the influence of the surrounding cultures on the biblical creation stories. This collection gathers six of his most important previously published essays and adds two new contributions. Among the essays, Batto identifies various creation motifs prevalent in the ancient Near East and investigates the reflexes of these motifs in Genesis 1–11 and other biblical accounts of the primeval period. He demonstrates how the biblical writers adapted and responded to the creation ideas of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ugarit, and elsewhere.The articles in the volume were written as independent essays. Nevertheless, they are united by theme. Throughout, Batto makes clear his understanding of the Hebrew Bible as a patently unique text, yet one that cannot possibly be understood independent of greater cultural sphere in which it developed. In the Beginning will serve as an indispensable resource for those interested in both the biblical ideas of creation and the mythology of the ancient Near East that influenced them.

For decades, the prophetic book of Joel has been the focus of scrutiny that belies its brevity. It captures readers with its vivid descriptions of locusts and military invasion and the distress that they cause. It then reveals the concern of YHWH for the covenant community as it systematically reverses the crises that it announces. The book of Joel also offers a window into the rhetorical function of “the day of YHWH” as it uses the phrase to announce both judgment and restoration. Reflecting the creativity of the Old Testament prophetic spirit, the book then guides its readers from utter anguish to the hope of restoration, rooted in the presence of YHWH.From the Depths of Despair to the Promise of Presence delves into Joel’s rhetoric and explores the ways in which it seeks to persuade its audience to adopt its perspective in order to respond to a time of crisis. Barker evaluates the state of the discussion surrounding Joel’s composition and relationship to the Book of the Twelve. He develops a model of rhetorical criticism that builds on the foundations of previous approaches and proposes modifications that address the specific challenges posed by the book of Joel. He then puts this model into practice and demonstrates that the book of Joel moves from scenes of devastation to promises of restoration in articulating the necessity of calling and relying on YHWH in all circumstances. He explores the persuasive potential of Joel by focusing on its rhetorical structures and strategy. He examines the way the book of Joel engages its audience and guides the people to realize that they must turn to YHWH so that YHWH will turn and bring restoration.From the Depths of Despair to the Promise of Presence invites the reader to enter into the world of Joel. It calls the reader to experience the ways in which the book of Joel intertwines threats of destruction and the hope of renewal in order to reveal the character of YHWH.

At the heart of this study is a biblical-theological approach to central passages on intercessory prayers in the OT. After examining these largely prophetic prayer dialogues, Widmer argues that they provide an important key to biblical theology and spirituality. Furthermore, a close reading of prayers by Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, and Amos reveals fascinating insights into the portrayals of these characters and confirms strong conceptual associations with Moses, Israel’s archetypal mediator. Widmer reads these prayers in both their immediate literary and wider canonical contexts. The ultimate aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the God whom the church worships and confesses to be the Father of Jesus Christ.Particularly pertinent is the finding that many OT prayers interact with God’s nature as revealed to Moses in Exod 34:6–7. Yhwh’s fullest revelation is also given in the context of an intercessory prayer. Widmer argues that intercessory prayer and theology have a hermeneutical-spiral relationship, mutually informing and correcting each other. It is in engaging with a loving and holy God that the phenomenon of divine mutability must be understood. Overall, Standing in the Breach suggests that fundamental biblical themes such as God’s mercy and judgment, divine retribution and forgiveness, covenant mediation, substitutionary suffering and atonement, and eventually the dynamics of the cross are all intrinsically related to and illuminated by prophetic OT intercessory prayers.

Terence E. Fretheim has long been a leading voice in Old Testament theology. In this volume, thirty of his classic studies have been gathered together for the first time under the rubrics “God and the World”, “God and Suffering”, “God, Wrath, and Divine Violence”, “God and the Pentateuch”, “God and the Prophets”, and “God and the Church’s Book”. Here readers can find a compelling answer to the question that has motivated Fretheim’s work for more than forty years—namely, what kind of God is the God of Scripture? The studies are introduced by a critical overview of Fretheim’s career and theology by the editors and a retrospective by Fretheim himself.

Catherine McDowell presents a detailed and insightful analysis of the creation of adam in Gen 2:5–3:24 in light of the Mesopotamian mīs pî pīt pî (“washing of the mouth, opening of the mouth”) and the Egyptian wpt-r (opening of the mouth) rituals for the creation of a divine image. Parallels between the mouth washing and opening rituals and the Eden story suggest that the biblical author was comparing and contrasting human creation with the ritual creation, animation, and installation of a cult statue in order to redefine ṣelem ʾelohîm as a human being—the living likeness of God tending and serving in the sacred garden.McDowell also considers the explicit image and likeness language in Gen 1:26–27. Drawing from biblical and extrabiblical texts, she demonstrates that ṣelem and demût define the divine-human relationship, first and foremost, in terms of kinship. To be created in the image and likeness of Elohim was to be, metaphorically speaking, God’s royal sons and daughters. While these royal qualities are explicit in Gen 1, McDowell persuasively argues that kinship is the primary metaphor Gen 1 uses to define humanity and its relationship to God.Further, she discusses critical issues, noting the problems inherent in the traditional views on the dating and authorship of Gen 1–3, and the relationship between the two creation accounts. Through a careful study of the tôledôt in Genesis, she demonstrates that Gen 2:4 serves as both a hinge and a “telescope”: the creation of humanity in Gen 2:5–3:24 should be understood as a detailed account of the events of Day 6 in Gen 1.When Gen 1–3 are read together, as the final redactor intended, these texts redefine the divine-human relationship using three significant and theologically laden categories: kinship, kingship, and cult. Thus, they provide an important lens through which to view the relationship between God and humanity as presented in the rest of the Bible.

The academy has not been kind to Malachi. Indeed, some of the most influential and seminal studies on the book denigrate its style, message, and overall artistry. This negative assessment proves extensive in the history of scholarship. Furthermore, the studies demonstrating a more positive assessment of Malachi do so without offering serious challenges to these long-standing denigrations. Complicating the matter is the observation that critical study has proffered numerous suggestions for what Malachi contains while failing to provide a viable model of what Malachi actually is.A Message from the Great King presents serious challenges to the guild’s prior assessments and conclusions about the book. Through an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes insights from literary theory, thorough historical reconstruction, and a close reading of the biblical text, R. Michael Fox makes a formidable case that a root messenger metaphor pervades the entire text of Malachi. Viewed and read through this new lens, Malachi’s artistry becomes more readily apparent and its theological message more intense and demanding. A Message from the Great King provides serious reassessment of the academy’s long-standing denigrations of the book and a compelling answer to what Malachi actually is. Accompanying these insights into Malachi are new methodological procedures and exercises that merit further attention and reflection.

Unusually for the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jeremiah contains a high number of references to writers, writing, and the written word. The book (which was primarily written during the exilic period) demonstrates a key moment in the ongoing integration of writing and the written word into ancient Israelite society. Yet the book does not describe writing in the abstract. Instead, it provides an account of its own textualization, thereby blurring the lines between the texts in the narrative and the texts that constitute the book. Scrolls in Jeremiah become inextricably intertwined with the scroll of Jeremiah.To authenticate the book of Jeremiah as the word of YHWH, its tradents present a theological account of the chain of transmission from the divine to the prophet and then to the scribe and the written page. Indeed, the book of Jeremiah extends the chain of transmission beyond the written word to include the book of Jeremiah itself and, finally, a receiving audience. To make the case for this chain of transmission, See and Read’s three exegetical chapters attend to writers (YHWH, prophets, and scribes), the written word, and the receiving audience.The first exegetical chapter describes the standard chain of transmission from the divine to the prophet to the scribe, demonstrating that all three agents in this chain are imagined as writers and that writing was increasingly understood as a suitable conduit for the divine word. The second exegetical chapter attends to the written word in Jeremiah, especially Jeremiah’s self-references (e.g., “in this book”, “all these words”) as a pivotal element in the extension of the chain of transmission beyond the words in the text to the words of the text. Finally, the third exegetical chapter considers the construction of the audience in the book of Jeremiah, concluding that the written word, as Jeremiah imagines it, is to be received by a worshiping audience through public reading but delivered via textual intermediaries.

I, You, and the Word “God” introduces the approach of lyrical ethics, inspired by Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical-phenomenological philosophy. Through the optics of lyrical ethics, the reader discovers how the ancient erotic poems of the Song of Songs bear ethical and theological significance for contemporary readers. Levinas’s intertwined concepts—oneself qua sensibility, otherness perceived through responsibility, and transcendence embodied in one’s love for the other—reveal themselves as lyrical colors woven into the fabric of Song 4:1–7, 5:2–8, and 8:6. More importantly, Levinas’s understanding that poetic language breaks the tautology of logocentric discourse and gestures to the outside of consciousness provides the theoretical ground for the listener to solicit meaningfulness from the Song. Through this lyrical reading of the selected poetic units, the book demonstrates that the traditional interpretive methods of representative description, narrative paraphrase, and thematic distillation fail to encounter the otherness of poetry. In contrast, lyrical ethics pays attention to that which transcends consciousness: the awakening of the reader’s subjectivity, the saying underlying the said, the sound of the sense, and the invisibility of the visible. The Song so caressed reveals in human love the purposelessly purposive encounter with God.

How are we to study complex speech acts such as the text of Jeremiah? How can understanding these complex speech acts both shed light on the larger text and the smaller text portions and reveal how a larger text employs smaller texts within a more complex speech act? In A (S)Word against Babylon, Holroyd proposes a multilevel speech act approach and demonstrates it with the oracle against Babylon in MT Jeremiah.This study endeavors to expand the works of Walter Houston, Jim Adams, and Steven Mann by further exploring indirect speech acts, illocutionary compatibility, and studies of the performative nature of liturgy. Holroyd applies this more-expansive application of performative theories of language to the oracle against Babylon in MT Jeremiah 50–51 to study the illocutionary force of the oracle against Babylon on some of its many levels, including lower levels in which the oracle performs to Babylon and to Israel and higher levels in which the oracle performs within the collection of foreign nation oracles and the larger text of MT Jeremiah.

Attested as both a human and a divine expression, the biblical Hebrew term qinʾâ is most often translated as “jealousy” or “envy.” In this study, Erin Villareal makes the case for reading qinʾâ as more than a simple reference to an emotion, instead locating the term’s origins in ancient Israel’s social and legal spheres.Jealousy in Context evaluates the socioliterary context of qinʾâ. Through a series of case studies examining this term as it is applied to residents, sister-wives, brothers, and husbands in biblical narrative passages, Villareal explains that qinʾâ is felt by people who experience a threat or disruption to their rights and status within a social arrangement or community and is therefore grounded in practical concerns that have social and juridical ramifications. Investigating examples of divine qinʾâ, Villareal shows that its social meaning was adapted into theological language about the Israelite deity and his relationship with the people of Israel, and that Yahweh expresses qinʾâ whenever there is a threat to the integrity of his land or his sanctuary. Villareal examines the term through this socioliterary lens to reveal ancient Israelite perceptions concerning social organization and divine-human relationships. Additionally, she explores how the socioliterary character of qinʾâ in the Hebrew Bible communicates representations of ancient Israelite beliefs, values, and social expectations.This convincing new understanding of a key biblical term will be appreciated by students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew linguistics, and ancient Near Eastern societies more generally.

The last few decades have seen a gradual shift in Isaianic studies as scholars have begun to give greater attention to the book’s literary features rather than focusing predominantly on the question of its sources. Brittany Kim’s study takes a literary approach, exploring how the book portrays Israel and its capital city using five metaphors that arise from the realm of household relationships: sons/children, daughter(s), mother, wife, and servant(s).Drawing selectively on the resources of metaphor studies and rhetorical criticism, Kim examines each metaphor separately to determine its rhetorical import and, if possible, to trace its development throughout the book. From the beginning of Isaiah, in which Zion appears as a vulnerable but promiscuous daughter in need of both paternal protection and discipline, through the book’s end, when her marital relationship has been restored and Zion has been transformed into a radiant and caring mother, Kim follows the thread of these five themes, showing ultimately how and why only those among yhwh’s children who willingly take on the role of servant experience the joy and delight of Zion’s maternal care.Pulling together insights from individual studies, “Lengthen Your Tent-Cords” draws connections and highlights contrasts among the various metaphors. Kim concludes by examining how Israel and Zion fit into YHWH’s royal household.

This book traces the theme of justice throughout the narrative of Exodus in order to explicate how yhwh’s reclamation of Israel for service-worship reveals a distinct theological ethic of justice grounded in yhwh’s character and Israel’s calling within yhwh’s creational agenda.Adopting a synchronic, text-immanent interpretive strategy that focuses on canonical and inner-biblical connections, Nathan Bills identifies two overlapping motifs that illuminate the theme of justice in Exodus. First, Bills considers the importance of Israel’s creation traditions for grounding Exodus’s theology of justice. Reading Exodus against the backdrop of creation theology and as a continuation of the plot of Genesis, Bills shows that the ethical disposition of justice imprinted on Israel in Exodus is an application of yhwh’s creational agenda of justice. Second, Bills identifies an educational agenda woven throughout the text. The narrative gives heightened attention to the way yhwh catechizes Israel in what it means to be the particular beneficiary and creational emissary of yhwh’s justice. These interpretative lenses of creation theology and pedagogy help to explain why Israel’s salvation and shaping embody a programmatic applicability of yhwh’s justice for the wider world.This volume will be of substantial interest to divinity students and religious professionals interested in the themes of exodus, exile, and return.

Following the work of scholars who have attempted to rehabilitate the notion of “chosenness” in the Hebrew Bible and others who have focused more narrowly on the fate of non-Israelites in the Old Testament, The Unfavored centers on the role of two “unfavored” characters within Israel—Judah and Saul.Josef Sykora examines two narratives with seemingly opposite trajectories: the Joseph cycle in Genesis 37–50 and the Saul episode in 1 Samuel 13–15. Both contain passages that feel intrusive—Genesis 38 and 49 and 1 Samuel 13:7b–15a—and that coincide with Judah’s and Saul’s rise or fall in God’s favor. Taking seriously the redaction-critical proposals suggesting that these puzzling segments may stem from a later editorial hand, Sykora reorients them for theological purposes. He reads the two narratives first without and then with these intrusive parts in order to indicate what their message and content might mean for the idea of election in the Old Testament in general and for the fate of unfavored characters in particular.A freshly insightful exploration of chosenness in the Old Testament, The Unfavored guides us to new and deeper interpretations of these biblical texts.