Hosea, along with Amos, opens the period of the Writing Prophets. He is the only man called to the office of prophet who both lived and prophesied in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This volume, no available in a new casebound edition, offers a verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Hosea. James Luther Mays gives the background to the book of Hosea: Hosea, the man; the time; the sayings; the message; and the contents of the book. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative reatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

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

Goulder and the Gospels is the first comprehensive response to the radical challenge Michael Goulder has posed for New Testament scholarship. Goulder dispenses with all hypothetical sources-Q, M and L and postulates highly creative evangelists who write in the light of the liturgy. In this penetrating critique, Goodacre provides a critical overview of Goulder's work, focusing on several key areas, the vocabulary of Q, the language of the Minor Agreements, the creativity of Luke and the lectionary theory. He does not simply assess the plausibility of Goulder's ideas but also develops new ways to test them. The theories are sometimes found to be wanting, but at the same time Goulder is reaffirmed as one of the most important and stimulating Biblical scholars of this generation.>

Hebrew Biblical narratives are notoriously sparing in their portrayal of character, leaving much to the reader. Here a number of scholars assume the identities of some familiar biblical characters, and use the clues in the text, their own exegetical skills and knowledge of the biblical world, and their readerly imagination to fill in the gaps of the biblical text. In doing so, they remove the point of view of biblical narratives from the narrator to one of the characters, allowing the ideology of the text to be affirmed, adjusted or challenged. Contributors to this volume include Francis Landy, Athalya Brenner, Yairah Amit, John Goldingay, Jonathan Magonet, Hugh Pyper, and Philip Davies, and the biblical characters include Rahab, Isaiah, Gomer, Eve, Delilah, Joseph, Jeremiah and Haman.

In this book, Cronauer proposes that a close source, composition, and redaction analysis of the Naboth material found in the books of Kings raises serious questions about the traditional interpretation of this material and of its dating to the time of Jehu. These questions have to do with the actual history behind this material, the history of the composition, redaction, transmission, and traditional dating of this material to the period of Jehu. He contends that there is sufficient evidence to challenge the traditional positions regarding these issues and to hypothesize a much more complex history of composition and redaction, and, a much latter dating for this material.

The book of Revelation has long intrigued, puzzled and even frightened its readers. Surely it is the most misunderstood book in the Bible. And some faulty interpretations of Revelation are so entrenched in the consciousness of Christians that they are regarded as "gospel truth" and provide riveting plot lines for end-time fiction. But behind the ancient multimedia show that is Revelation lies a message both simple and profound, told in a language and grammar of faith that was clearly understood by its first Christian audience. Much as a music video would scarcely have been understood by first-century citizens, though it is immediately understood by youthful audiences today, so we are puzzled by and misread Revelation. Paul Spilsbury has studied Revelation in the company of its best interpreters, those who have taken the time to enter the minds of the first-century Christians for whom it was originally written. And what has he found? Amid and within the central images of a throne, a lamb and a dragon lies the answer: the gospel clearly proclaimed. The nature of God awesomely illumined. The work of Christ memorably embodied. The nature of evil hauntingly disclosed. Here is a guide that will help us hear Revelation speak, once again inspiring grateful worship and calling us to costly discipleship.

This latest addition to the "Fortress Social-Science Commentaries on New Testament Writings" illuminates the values, perceptions, and social codes of the Mediterranean culture that shaped Paul and his interactions - both harmonious and conflicted - with others. Malina and Pilch add new dimensions to our understanding of the apostle as a social change agent, his coworkers as innovators, and his Gospel as an assertion of the honor of the God of Israel.

Since 1963, substantial objections have been raised against the traditional view of the Pauline doctrine of justification, mainly by New Testament scholars such as Krister Stendahl, E. P. Sanders and James D. G. Dunn. This book evaluates the "New Perspective on Paul" and finds it wanting. With appreciation for the important critique already offered by Donald Hagner, which is included in this volume, Peter Stuhlmacher mounts a forthright and well-supported challenge based on established and more recent scholarship concerning Paul's understanding of justification. In particular he argues that the forensic and mystical elements of Paul's doctrine of justification should not be played off against one another. Rather Paul's understanding can be faithfully rendered only within the context of his apostolic mission to Jews and Gentiles and the expectation of the coming kingdom of God. This book will be of interest to students and teachers of biblical studies, biblical theology and systematic theology, and to those engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue, Protestant-Roman Catholic conversation about the doctrine of justification, or discussions of rival views of justification within Protestantism.

Paul and Ancient Views of Sexual Desire refutes the argument put forward by some biblical scholars that Paul, in his sexual ethics, is in partial agreement with a current of thought in the Graeco-Roman world that condemns sexual desire and advocates the elimination of such desire from marital sex. Ellis argues not only against this line of thought but also the attendant notion that this way of thinking underlies Paul's comments on homosexual activity in Romans 1. Through close analysis of numerous ancient passages relating to sexual desire, Ellis demonstrates that ancient thinkers tend to condemn not sexual desire in itself but excessive sexual desire and lack of self-control and, furthermore, that ancient auditors would have been unlikely to see condemnation of sexual desire in Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 4 or 1 Corinthians 7.

This study argues that the gist and movement of the prophecy in the book of Amos can be attributed to Amos himself, who composed a coherent cycle of poetry. His dire predictions came after the Fall of Samaria but before the Fall of Jerusalem. Writing a century later, the author of the book preserved but updated Amos' text by fitting it into a developing literary, historical and prophetic tradition. Amos is used as a test case to show that prophecy originated in the performing arts but was later transformed into history and biography. The original prophecy is a song Amos recited at symposia or festivals. The book's interest focusses on the performer and his times.

Burkett offers a new viewpoint on the much-debated Synoptic Problem. He contends that each theory regarding the Synoptic Problem is problematic. Each presents a case for the mutual dependence of one source upon another - for example, Matthew and Luke depend primarily on Mark, but use each other where they report the same story not contained already in Mark. Neither Mark nor Matthew nor Luke served as the source for the other two, but all depended on a set of earlier sources now lost. The relations between the Synoptic Gospels are more complex than the simpler theories have assumed.

This reading of Hosea explores the book from a feminist, psychoanalytical and poetic perspective. What is God doing with a prostitute? How does the theme of prostitution relate to the abjection of the woman as the other, and the fantasy of sexual ecstasy, precisely because she escapes patriarchal order? Where is the prophet situated in the dialectic of rage and desire that both seduces and condemns Israel? His voice is both masculine and feminine, and poetically embodies the sensuality of wayward Israel. The ambiguity of voice is also that of the prophet's role, which is both to nurture Israel, as on its Exodus from Egypt, and to be the trap that destroys it. The problematic of voice and prophetic function is evident in the vivid dissection of Israel's social institutions, whose disintegration is inversely related to the centrality of the discussion in the structure of the book, and in the violent swings from despair to impossible hope. The focus on immediate and uncontrollable entropy, manifest in extended tangled metaphors, that occupies the centre of the book, is framed in the outer chapters by intertextual references to Israel's primordial vision, and the romantic distantiation of the Song of Songs, in which the erotic and poetic contradictions of the book find their perhaps ironic resolution.>

This detailed examination of the "Torah" (the first five books of the Bible) lays particular emphasis on the role and character of the Torah's transcendent God, as its central protagonist. Viewing both the 'Torah' and its God as purely human creations, humanist Jordan Jay Hillman seeks in no way to devalue this hugely influential book. His aim instead is to reinterpret it as a still vital text that used theistic means appropriate to its time to inspire people toward their worthiest human purposes. It is thus for its 'timeless themes' rather than its 'dated particularities' (including its model of a transcendent God) that we should honour the 'Torah' in our time as both the wellspring of Judaic culture and a major influence on Christian and Islamic ethics and morals. From his humanist perspective and his background as a lawyer and professor of law at North-western University (now emeritus), Hillman offers many insights into the narrative and wide-ranging legal code of "Genesis", "Exodus", "Leviticus", "Numbers", and "Deuteronomy"- including their many contradictions and anomalies. His analysis draws on a broad scholarly consensus regarding the 'Documentary Theory', as it bears on the identities and periods of the Torah's human sources. This thorough explication of an often misunderstood ancient text will help humanists, and many theists alike, to appreciate the rich moral, ethical, and cultural heritage of the 'Torah' and its enduring relevance to our time.

This collection of essays focuses on the book of Job, exploring the complex interplay of methodology and hermeneutics. There are two major parts: approaches that are primarily historical, i.e. the recovery of what the text 'meant'; and those that are contextual, i.e. that take seriously the context of reading. Both approaches engage the theological issue of how this reading helps us to better appropriate what the text 'means'. Contributors include the editors, Mark S. Smith, Douglas J. Green, Victoria Hoffer, Ellen F. Davis and Claire Matthews McGinnis.An introductory essay surveys the contents and outcomes of the various contributions and proposes new directions for the question of integrating methods.