From 1 Corinthians we know that the church at Corinth was beset by all sorts of problems. Some of these problems resulted from contacts with the pagan world - one member of the church cohabited with his stepmother, one brought a suit against another brother before the pagan magistrate, some ate idolatrous feasts at the pagan temple, and others underwent baptism for the dead. This refreshing and stimulating book seeks to understand the significance of these problems from the perspective of the social structures and conditions of this Graeco-Roman city, and places Paul's response to them in the same context.

Professional caregivers need to replenish their spiritual stock because they are always giving out. Here is a book that offers strength and encouragement from the Bible for lay visitors, nurses, doctors, social workers, clergy and volunteers.

Pickett explores how Paul appealed to the death of Jesus in the Corinthian correspondence in order to promote a community ethos and ethic consistent with the ideals and values it symbolized. In so doing, Paul was responding to interpersonal conflicts within the community and criticisms of his ministry-criticisms he saw as founded on Graeco-Roman cultural values of the cultivated elite. His consistent emphasis on the weakness of the cross served to critique social expressions of power in Corinth. More constructively, Paul attempted to secure conduct befitting the gospel by invoking the death of Jesus as a symbol of other-regarding behaviour.

This book is devoted both to the problem of Paul's view of the law as a whole, and to his thought about and relation to his fellow Jews. Building upon his previous study, the critically acclaimed Paul and Palestinian Judaism, E.P. Sanders explores Paul's Jewishness by concentrating on his overall relationship to Jewish tradition and thought. Sanders addresses such topics as Paul's use of scripture, the degree to which he was a practicing Jew during his career as apostle to the Gentiles, and his thoughts about his "kin by race" who did not accept Jesus as the messiah. In short, Paul's thoughts about the law and his own people are re-examined with new awareness and great care. Sanders addresses an important chapter in the history of the emergence of Christianity. Paul's role in that development -- specially in light of Galatians and Romans -- is now re-evaluated in a major way. This book is in fact a significant contribution to the study of the emergent normative self-definition in Judaism and Christianity during the first centuries of the common era.

This work studies the word order of the Gospel of Luke and some of its prominent messages with consideration of systemic functional linguistic theories. The first part of the work focuses on the relative positions of four constituents (subject, predicate, complement and circumstantial adjunct) of different types of Lukan clauses (independent, dependent, infinitival, participial and embedded clause). The result gives some unmarked (typical or common) word order patterns and some marked word order patterns of all Lukan clauses. The second part traces the foregrounded messages of the Gospel based on their related marked word order patterns incorporated with functional linguistic phenomena. The result highlights the messages of Jesus' disciples and his parents' failure in understanding him, Pilate's crime of handing over Jesus and Jesus' predictions of his future sufferings and Peter's future failure. JSNTS and Studies in New Testament Greek series

Medieval Jewish philosophers have been studied extensively by modern scholars, but even though their philosophical thinking was often shaped by their interpretation of the Bible, relatively little attention has been paid to them as biblical interpreters. In this study, Robert Eisen breaks new ground by analyzing how six medieval Jewish philosophers approached the Book of Job. These thinkers covered are Saadiah Gaon, Moses Maimonides, Samuel ibn Tibbon, Zerahiah Hen, Gersonides, and Simon ben Zemah Duran. Eisen explores each philosopher's reading of Job on three levels: its relationship to interpretations of Job by previous Jewish philosophers, the way in which it grapples with the major difficulties in the text, and its interaction with the author's systematic philosophical thought. Eisen also examines the resonance between the readings of Job of medieval Jewish philosophers and those of modern biblical scholars. What emerges is a portrait of a school of Joban interpretation that was creative, original, and at times surprisingly radical. Eisen thus demonstrates that medieval Jewish philosophers were serious exegetes whom scholars cannot afford to ignore. By bringing a previously-overlooked aspect of these thinkers' work to light, Eisen adds new depth to our knowledge of both Jewish philosophy and biblical interpretation.

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's pioneering and widely acclaimed volume, now reissued with a new Preface and Epilogue, has served to reorient interpretations of this controversial book. Rather than finding an individual Christian vision of a fiery endtime, Schussler Fiorenza writes of Christian communities living in the shadow of imperial power, fearing denunciation by their neighbors, yet envisioning the eventual effect of Jesus Christ's resurrection and enthronement on the whole social order. In Sch ssler Fiorenza's theological-historical analyses, the Book of Revelation is a literary product of early Christian prophecy, and her interpretation leads to distinctive notions of the book's composition, social intent, relation to the Gospel of John, and visionary rhetoric of apocalypse and justice.

Ronald S. Hendel offers a careful and thorough re examination of the text of Genesis 1 11. He takes a strongly positive position on the value of the Septuagint as a reliable translation of its Hebrew parent text. This position is contrary to that taken in most existing studies of the text of Genesis, including some in standard editions and reference works. Nevertheless, Hendel shows, there is an accumulating mass of evidence indicating that his position is correct.
Hendel begins with a discussion of theory and method, and points out the lessons to be learned from the new biblical manuscripts discovered at Qumran. He goes on to argue for the preparation of eclectic critical editions of books of the Hebrew Bible a task long pursued in Classical, New Testament, and Septuagint studies, but still highly controversial with respect to the Hebrew scriptures. The critical edition of Genesis 1 11 which follows is Hendel's first step toward such a comprehensive task.

Hugh Williamson's Isaiah 1-5 is the first of three volumes in a important new commentary on Isiah 1-27. For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought.

In this volume, the book of Hebrews receives a thorough commentary, a summary of the book as a whole, a breakdown of the theological thought in the text, and an overview of the historical circumstances in which Hebrews was written.

The Book of Proverbs is permeated with patterns of repetition, yet to date no major work on Proverbs has dealt adequately with this phenomenon. Snell catalogs and analyzes repetitive words and verses and uses the data to draw conclusions about the composition of the book. He sees four stages in the composition of the book, with the earliest section dated no later than Hezekiah's reign. This book provides a wealth of information, including indexes of repetitive words and verses and an English translation of J. M. Grintz's major essay on the composition of Proverbs, which has previously been available only in Hebrew. The basic work done here will need to be considered in any future work on the Book of Proverbs and wisdom literature in general.

An application of current linguistic research on discourse markers to sentence conjunctions in Matthew's Gospel. This treatment combines linguistic insights with a detailed examination of Matthew's use of kai, de and similar conjunctions in narrative passages, culminating in a verse by verse commentary on the structure of Matthew's; miracle chapters', Matthew 8-9. Black breaks new ground in linguistic theory by modelling the interplay between features such as sentence conjunction, word order, and verb tense in the portrayal of continuity and discontinuity in Greek narrative. A volume of interest to New Testament scholars, classicists, discourse analysts and linguists alike.

'This significantly expanded and revised fourth edition of what has always been the best English translation of the Scrolls has become a combination of two books: Vermes has replaced nearly all of the original Introduction with an abridged version of the corresponding material from The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective... He has also added new translations of material that has been published since the last edition appeared in 1975... By far still the best edition of the scrolls in English.' James R Mueller, Religious Studies Review

The Peshitta is the Syriac translation of the Old Testament made on the basis of the Hebrew text during the second century CE. Much like the Greek translations of the Old Testament, this document is an important source for our knowledge of the text of the Old Testament. Its language is also of great interest to linguists. Moreover, as Bible of the Syriac Churches it is used in sermons, commentaries, poetry, prayers, and hymns. Many terms specific to the spirituality of the Syriac Churches have their origins in this ancient and reliable version of the Old Testament. The present edition, published by the Peshitta Institute in Leiden on behalf of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, is the first scholarly one of this text. It presents the evidence of all known ancient manuscripts and gives full introductions to the individual books. This volume contains Isaiah.

Professor Rofe seeks to clarify the contents and unity of each section of Deuteronomy, its literary history, the origin of the single laws and their relation to other kindred laws in other documents of the Pentateuch.

In Matthew 5:38-42, Jesus overrides the Old Testament teaching of 'an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth' - the Lex Talionis law - and commands his disciples to turn the other cheek. James Davis asks how Jesus' teaching in this instance relates to the Old Testament talionic commands, how it relates to New Testament era Judaism and what Jesus required from his disciples and the church. Based on the Old Testament texts such as Leviticus 24, Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 19, a strong case can be made that the Lex Talionis law was understood to have a literal application there are several texts that text of Leviticus 24 provides the strongest case that a literal and judicial application. However, by the second century AD and later, Jewish rabbinic leadership was essentially unified that the OT did not require a literal talion, but that financial penalties could be substituted in court matters. Yet there is evidence from Philo, Rabbi Eliezer and Josephus that in the first century AD the application of literal talion in judicial matters was a major and viable Jewish viewpoint at the time of Jesus. Jesus instruction represents a different perspective from the OT lex talionis texts and also, possibly, from the Judaism of his time. Jesus commands the general principle of not retaliation against the evil person and intended this teaching to be concretely applied, as borne out in his own life. JSNTS