The biblical book of Judges contains culturally familiar stories such as that of Samson and Delilah and Deborah and Baraq. But despite the popularity of these stories, other important stories in Judges such as that of Achsah, the raped pilegesh, and the final civil war are virtually unknown to the average reader.

Approaching Judges as a unified literary document, Tammi Schneider shows that the unity of the narrative reveals that when the Israelites adhere to the covenant established with their deity they prosper, but when they stray from it disaster follows. This is true not only in the Deuteronomistic refrains, as is recognized by many scholars, but in the whole book, and is reflected in Israel's worsening situation throughout its narrative time.

Schneider also highlights the unifying themes in Judges. She emphasizes the role of gender, family relations, and theology expressed in the biblical narrative, and uses intertextuality to better understand the text of Judges and its context in the Deuteronomistic history and the Hebrew Bible.

"Tammi J. Schneider is assistant professor in the religion department at Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California. She received her BA in Hebrew language and literature from the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in ancient history from the University of Pennsylvania. She has excavated at a number of archaeological sites in Israel and is co-director of the excavation of Tel el-Fara' South in Israel. She is project director at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont and area editor for Ancient Near East for "Religious Studies Review." Her publications cover topics in Assyriology, ancient Near Eastern history, archaeology, and biblical studies."

All the Gospels recognize Jesus as a prophet, but it is above all in the Gospel of John that this dimension of his work is stressed. Cho explores the many elements in the Gospel that add up to what can rightly be called a prophetic christology. He shows that many of Jesus' words and some of his deeds are prophetic in character, and that Jesus is not just a prophet like the Old Testament prophets before him but the prophet like Moses expected for the times of the End. Identifying Jesus as a prophet, Cho goes on to argue, is important within the narrative of the Gospel of John: it is a way-station on a journey of discovery towards a more profound appreciation of Jesus' identity. Recognizing Jesus as prophet is for John an initial step in coming to faith, and, in the overall christology of the Gospel of John a significant element in attaining a balance but a high and a low christology. The construction of Jesus as prophet, though well evidenced in the Gospel, has received remarkably little attention in recent scholarly study, and Cho's work is a much-needed full-scale study of the theme.

This work is concerned with the influence of biblical and prophetic traditions on the author of the book of Revelation, and in particular his use of the prophecies of Isaiah. First, John's own prophetic consciousness and expression is compared with previous Israelite-Jewish and early Christian prophetic conventions. This is followed by an evaluation of John's use of the OT in general, including a discussion of methodology for isolating allusions, the question of the validity of the terms quotation and allusion in Revelation, and the presence of thematic patterns in the author's choice of Scripture. All this is foundational to the main portion of the work (Ch. III), where a detailed analysis is undertaken to determine the validity of all proposed allusions to Isaiah in the book of Revelation. Of the 72 suggested allusions treated, 40 were judged as certain or virtually certain, 24 were considered as unlikely or doubtful, and 8 were appraised as probable or possible. Those allusions which were accepted received further evaluation to see how and why they were used by John, with special attention given to the tradition-history of the passage used, and the possible interpretative techniques employed. A variety of exegetical and literary devices were uncovered, including the use of catchwords, inclusio, repetition of texts, exploitation of Hebrew parallelism, and the collection of texts around a central theme. Furthermore, John's use of Isaiah is concentrated in basic areas, with clusters of Isaiah texts appearing in specific sections of Revelation. The principal Isaian themes with which he is interested are holy war and the Day of the Lord, oracles against the nations, and salvation prophecies relating to the community of faith and the restored and glorified Jerusalem. It was concluded that on the whole, John's use of Isaiah is not random, and he does not use the OT texts merely as a visionary resource for language, phrases, structural patterns etc. But he consciously carries on the prophecies of his biblical predecessors and invokes their authority. The remnants and results of John's interpretation of Isaiah presuppose exegetical activity and application prior to the vision experience and it is likely that at least some of his intended readers were familiar not only with his theological concerns, but also with his methodological approach.

Whether the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians is a single document or a compilation of two or more, and the question of Paul's relations with the Corinthian church between the despatch of the First and the composition of the Second letter (or letters), have been matters of debate since the eighteenth century.Margaret Thrall's commentary engages with these and all the other issues associated with 2 Corinthians. There follows a detailed verse-by-verse exegesis of chapters 1-7, which attempts to understand the viewpoint of the original readers of the text as well as Paul's own.This volume covers many of Paul's writings which have evoked considerable scholarly interest in recent years. This is an exemplary addition to the ICC series.>

Underlying Exodus in its priestly redaction is a pilgrimage. Smith's new book starts by reviewing pilgrimage shrines, feasts and practices in ancient Israel. Next, it examines the two pilgrimage journeys in Exodus. In Exodus 1-15 Moses journeys to Mount Sinai, experiences God and receives his commission. In Exodus 16-40, Moses and the people together journey to Mount Sinai for the people's experience of God and their commission. Between lies Exodus 15, the fulcrum-point of the book: vv. 1-12 look back and vv. 13-18 look forward to Israel's journey to Sinai. Finally, the different meanings of torah in the book of Exodus are contrasted, and the book concludes with a consideration of Exodus's larger place in the Pentateuch.>

Here is a compact study of how Mark's Gospel meditates on time. It examines how the Gospel's contemporary setting in ordinary time defines its genre, and how Mark uses the Hebrew scriptures to remember and recall past teachings, prophecies and histories. The suspended time narratives, Mark's 'intercalations', on the other hand, interrupt the narrative of the critical time present. Finally, by bringing the eternal horizon into the events of the present, Mark's 'mythic time' reveals the crisis events as a momentary interruption of ordinary time. Similarly, during the 'ritual time', the Gospel narrative breaks with its own historical setting in order to unravel the dead-endedness of the crisis story by symbolically taking it outside time.>

The stories of Elisha the prophet have received scant attention in recent years, perhaps because they are so enigmatic. This study places the Elisha material firmly within the narrative of Genesis-2 Kings, and examines the effect these stories have on the reader's perception of the role of the 'prophet'. Using the narratological theories of Mieke Bal, David Jobling and others, Bergen shows that the Elisha stories present prophetism in a negative light, confining prophets to a rather limited scope of action in the narrative world.>

The narrative of the book of Ruth is a drama of ordinary human life, but the drama unfolds against a background of the providence and purposes of God. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld has written a commentary that makes very clear why the book of Ruth has such great importance as literature and as Scripture.

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

This volume of essays, dedicated to the late Raymond B. Dillard, addresses the question, 'Was the Chronicler a Historian?' It includes profiles of the diverse kinds of material found in Chronicles, and assesses their value for the reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel. This collection represents the best of recent scholarship on a subject that is generating intense discussion in biblical research.>

Ezra-Nehemiah has been neglected in biblical studies, but it is important as one of the few windows into the Persian period of Israel's history, the setting for so much of the final shape of the Hebrew Bible. To know this period is to know what influenced these redactors. In "Ezra and Nehemiah" Gordon Davies provides that knowledge using rhetorical criticism, a methodology that reveals the full range and progress of the book's ideas without hiding its rough seams and untidy edges.

The purpose of rhetorical criticism is to explain not the source but the power of the text as a unitary message. This approach does not look at plot development, characterization, or other elements whose roughness makes Ezra-Nehemiah frustrating to read. Instead, it examines the three parts of the relationship - the strategies, the situations, and the effects - between the speaker and the audience. Rhetorical criticism's scrutiny of the audience in context favors the search for the ideas and structures that are indigenous to the culture of the text.

Rhetorical criticism is interested in figures of speech as means of persuasion. Therefore, to apply it to Ezra-Nehemiah, Davies concentrates on the public discourse - the orations, letters, and prayers - throughout its text. In each chapter he follows a procedure that: (1) where it is unclear, identifies the rhetorical unit in which the discourse is set; (2) identifies the audiences of the discourse and the rhetorical situation; (3) studies the arrangement of the material; (4) studies the effect on the various audiences; (5) reviews the passage as a whole and judges its success. In the conclusion, Davies explains that Ezra-Nehemiah makes theological sense on its own terms, by forming a single work in which a range of ideas is argued.

Biblical scholars as well as those interested in literary criticism, communication studies, rhetorical studies, ecclesiology, and homiletics will find Ezra and Nehemiah enlightening.

Chapters are Ezra 1:1-6," "Ezra 4:1-24," "Ezra 5:1-6: 15," "Ezra 7," "Ezra 9-10," "Nehemiah 1- 2," "Nehemiah 3-7," and "Nehemiah 8-10."

"Gordon F. Davies is associate professor of Old Testament and dean of students at St. Augustine's Seminary of Toronto.""

This study explores the interplay between the commendation of enjoyment and the injunction to fear God in Ecclesiastes. Previous studies have tended to examine these seemingly antithetical themes in isolation from one another. Seeing enjoyment and fear to be positively correlated, however, enables a fresh articulation of the booka (TM)s theology. Enjoyment of life lies at the heart of Qoheleta (TM)s vision of piety, which may be characterized as faithful realism, calling for an authentic engagement with both the tragic and joyous dimensions of human existence. Winner of the 2007 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise

In The Time That Remains, Agamben seeks to separate the Pauline texts from the history of the Church that canonized them, thus revealing them to be the fundamental mession nic texts of the West. He argues that Paul's letters are concerned not with the foundation of a new religion but rather with the messianic abolition of Jewish law. Situating Paul's texts in the context of early Jewish messianism, this book is part of a growing set of recent critiques devoted to the period when Judaism and Christianity were not yet fully distinct, placing Paul in the context of what has been called Judaeo-Christianity. Agamben's philosophical exploration of the problem of messianism leads to the other major figure discussed in this book, Walter Benjamin. Advancing a claim without precedent in the vast literature on Benjamin, Agamben argues that Benjamin's philosophy of history constituies a repetition and appropriation of Paul's concept of remaining time. Through a close reading and comparison of Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History and the Pauline Epistles, Agamben discerns a number of striking and unrecognized parallels between the two works. Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics