This critically acclaimed series provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The authors are scholars of international standing.

Nelson addresses the textual problems critical to a full understanding of Joshua and offers historical, literary, and theological insights in this balanced commentary.

Grab a cuppa and sink into a cosy chair as a father-daughter duo leads you into the celebration of Christmas through their art and reflections. Considering not only the story of Mary and Joseph journeying to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, but also our modern-day expressions of Christmas, they point to God's light and life during what can be a fraught and exhausting season. 'Daughter and father, wordsmith and artist, combine seamlessly to create a celebration of the warmth, love, promise and glory of Christ's birth on earth, and what that means for us today.' Pam Rhodes, broadcaster and writer

"Scribes and Translators is a critical reflection on the textual pluralism as reflected in the book of Kings.
The first part of the book examines the diverse texts transmitted by the manuscripts. Special attention is paid to the Antiochene text of the Septuagint that is being edited in Madrid. The second part is devoted to the analysis of Old Latin readings, transmitted by a Spanish family of Vulgate Bibles, with no support in any of the known manuscripts. Finally, the whole evidence is discussed in the frame of the plurality of texts confirmed by the Qumran documents for those books.
Based on Old Latin material recently published it sheds light on the text transmission of Kings and on the translation techniques and the history of the Biblical texts in general.

These essays are written in honour of John D.W. Watts, formerly Professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky and Old Testament editor of the Word Biblical Commentary, well known for his contributions, especially to scholarship on the prophetic books. Accordingly, the essays here address the literary, redactional and canonical questions posed by the Hebrew Bible's prophetic literature. The prophetic books have defied easy classification according to genre or facile explanation of their historical development. With a special focus on the books of Isaiah and of the Twelve Prophets, the nature and formation of prophecy as literature is probed from a variety of methodological standpoints, including textual criticism, synchronic literary analysis, tradition history and redaction criticism.>

This book investigates Paul's effort to combat factionalism by his use of the Greco-Roman rhetoric of 'the common advantage' to overcome socio-ethical problems caused by the improper exercise of 'private advantage' in Corinth. Chang examines 'the common advantage', first, as a fundamental principle that defined human and societal relationships in the Greco-Roman world. He explores how the neglect and misunderstanding of this principle lay at the root of relational and societal breakdowns. The book further examines Paul's use of the term and demonstrates that, when properly understood and appropriated, the principle of 'the common advantage' is pivotal to keeping societies and relationships dynamic and healthy. Conversely, when common advantage is not functioning and, concomitantly, private advantage is wrongly emphasized at its expense, relational, societal and ecclesiastical breakdowns occur. The book culminates in demonstrating that, for Paul, 'the common advantage' carries missional and salvific implications that override and subvert socio-ethnic boundaries. In this way, otherwise hostile social groups will realize a healthy symbiosis.

(Per)mutations of Qohelet explores the question, Who is Qohelet? Rather than peering behind or through the text to answer this question in terms of authorship, Koosed analyzes the identity that is created through the words on the page. The text is not a transparent medium connecting reader with author; instead, it is an opaque body - it has weight, substance, skin. Koosed begins with an analysis of the ways in which words construct identities and the reasons why words can affect us so profoundly, relying primarily on the work of Judith Butler and Elaine Scarry. She then explores autobiography and how the genre of autobiography - as reconfigured by Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida - relates to Qohelet. These two chapters then set the framework for what follows: an analysis of the various bodily organs and sensations contained within the book of Qohelet. The body is embedded in the text through the naming of body parts (eye, hand, heart). And this same body is encoded in form, structure, and syntax, so that the text becomes a body with organs, systems, and even a life of its own. The book is a body and the book speaks of bodies. It speaks of the body's organs and senses; it concerns itself with the pleasures and pains of the body, the gendered body, the dying body. Finally, the ritual body is highlighted in the final passage of this enigmatic book.

In this original work, Stone studies the structure and social presuppositions of several narratives from the Deuteronomistic History in which sexual activity plays a significant role. Both narratological and anthropological tools are utilized in the textual analysis. Stone interestingly notes the link between sexual activity, gender and prestige structures; the emphasis on male contest and female chastity discussed by anthropologists of honour and shame; and the role of the exchange of women in relations between men. In each story, sexual practice is primarily related to male struggles for honour and power.>

Recent years have seen a remarkable surge in interest in the book of Genesis - the first book of the Bible - and a foundational text of Western culture. In this new commentary, Thomas Brodie offers a complete and accessible overview of Genesis from literary, theological, and historical standpoints. Brodie's work is organized around three main ideas: the first is that the primary subject of Genesis is human existence - while full of historical echoes, it is primarily a sophisticated portrayal of the progress and pitfalls of human life. His second thesis is that Genesis' basic organizational unity is binary, or diptych: building on older insights that Genesis is somehow dialogical, he argues that the entire book is composed of diptychs - accounts which, like some paintings, consist of two parts or panels. Finally, Brodie contends that many of Genesis' sources still exist, and can be identified and verified.

This critically acclaimed series provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The authors are scholars of international standing.

'The followers of Jesus are to be different,' writes John Stott, 'different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture. Here is a Christian value-system, ethical, standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, lifestyle and network of relationships - all of which are totally at variance with those in the non-Christian world. And this Christian counter-culture is the life of the Kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.' In his careful exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, John Stott accurately expounds the biblical text and relates it to life today. Above all, the author says, he wants to let Christ speak this sermon again, this time to the modern world.

Christianson uses a variety of methods from art criticism to Todorov''s actantial model to sketch a compr ehensive picture of some hitherto neglected narrative elemen ts in Qoheleth''s text. '

This latest volume in the Readings series offers a helpful guide to the shortest, and arguably the most personal, as well as enigmatic, of Paul's letters. It surveys the range of interpretations put forward over the years, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses in the traditional reading of Philemon as addressing the estrangement that has arisen between Paul's friend Philemon and his runaway slave Onesimus. Recent alternatives to this reading are assessed, with particular attention to the light they shed on Paul's own attitude to slavery and his understanding of reconciliation. Historically, the Letter to Philemon has been the focus of much debate between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates, and the use made of the Letter in the 18th and 19th centuries is here uniquely chronicled. In addition, the story of Onesimus and Philemon, as traditionally conceived, had a great appeal to writers of historical fiction, and a number of examples of that genre are summarized. The book also highlights the way in which Philemon has featured in filmic treatments of Paul's life, including a new and fascinating film in Arabic entitled The Runaway (2006). The volume offers an excellent introduction, not only to the main historical and critical issues raised by Philemon, but also to the rich legacy that the Letter has created for subsequent generations of readers who remain fascinated by the subtlety of its depiction of human relationships.

Slater presents a study of the three major christological images of Revelation and their meanings for the original audience. Employing both historical criticism and elements of sociology of knowledge, Christ and Community explores the social functions of 'one like a son of man', the Lamb, and the Divine Warrior, identifying both similarities and dissimilarities. The study argues, on the one hand, that the religious laxity found in Revelation 2-3 reflects attempts by some Christians to accommodate to provincial social pressures, while, on the other hand, Revelation 4-19 reflect the low status of Christians in the cities of Asia Minor.

The Asaph psalms (50, 73-83) are a unity. They often call God 'Elohim' and 'El', and the people 'Joseph', as Amos does; they appeal to Israelite history, the exodus and the covenant; they are written in the face of military catastrophe. In this suggestive and brilliant work, Goulder argues that they were composed in Bethel in the 720s for use as the psalmody for the autumn festival. This gives us vital new evidence for the history of the Pentateuch: there was at Bethel a historical tradition from at least the time of the oppression in Egypt to the Solomonic Empire; the Asaphites took this tradition to Jerusalem and their descendants were the Deuteronomists.>

This exciting new study of the prophet Jeremiah attributes to him a pivotal significance in the historical period of Josiah's reign. He was, so Leuchter argues, one of the central agents of Josiah's propaganda machine and was intimately involved with the king's political agenda. Jeremiah, himself originally a member of the scribal school that composed the Deuteronomistic literature, encouraged the Shilonites of Anathoth to become active in Josiah's programme in the North following the waning of Assyrian power. Dismayed by the Shilonites' rejection of him and Josiah, and by the king's death at Megiddo, Jeremiah came to a radically new understanding of the divine purpose, encapsulated in the famous Temple sermon of Jeremiah 7 and evidenced in the prophet's debates with the political establishment in Jerusalem in the years that followed.

Hosea and the Hosean tradition play an important role in the internal Israelite dispute about the nature of God and his relation to the world and Israel. Hosea refers to traditions of the past in which the interdependence between Yahweh and Israel, and in particular Yahweh's care for his people, are recurrent themes. The prophet can presuppose that certain portions of these traditions, both "historical" and "theological", are known to his audience, but it is his claim that what is not known to Israel is the demand that is inherent in Yahweh's past dealings with his people, the demand for exclusive worship of Yahweh. In his "historical" retrospections, Hosea enphasizes time after time that Israel has been chosen, not for a life of passive retreat, but to serve Israel's God alone. This he proclaims as the true knowledge of God.

The phrase 'works of the law' occurs only in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in Paul, but it has a different connotation in each corpus. At Qumran, the 'works of the law' are deeds of obedience to God's law, and are ultimately inspired by God. They function as a means of atonement, whether for the individual who performs them or for the sins of others. For Paul, on the other hand, the 'works of the law' are quintessentially the works of Abraham. Though they are indeed good deeds, Abraham himself was a sinful man, and so his deeds could not make atonement for himself or for others. In fact, Paul is reacting against the idea of Abraham as a redeemer figure that was held by some of his contemporaries. The phrase 'works of the law' thus takes on a negative coloration in Paul, as a deceptively false means of salvation. Against Qumran, Paul's position is that justification must be effected 'apart from works of the law', and thus by Jesus Christ. Abraham is no 'second Adam', as some were thinking, and his good deeds, epitomized in his sacrifice of Isaac, had no atoning value. This closely reasoned study makes an important contribution to the study of New Testament theology; it undertakes to settle some long-standing debates about Paul's soteriology by proposing an alternative both to traditional interpretation of Paul and to the 'New Perspective on Paul'.

In this challenging book, Craig Smith propounds the novel thesis that the famous lines in 2 Timothy 4 where 'Paul' announces that the time of his departure has come have been misunderstood. This is no farewell speech, Smith avers, and Paul is not intending to pass on the baton to his younger colleague, Timothy. Deploying epistolary analysis and rhetorical criticism, Smith shows that these verses (4.1-8) do not have the literary structure or the vocabulary of a testament or a farewell; rather, they are a 'charge', an authoritative command, comprised of five specific formal elements. This charge form is found also in the exorcism command and in some magical texts, Christian and non-Christian. From this perspective, Paul's being poured out as a libation is his experience of preaching to the Gentiles at his first trial, his 'departure' is the imminent release from prison that he is expecting, the fight he has fought and the race he has finished are his trial that he has withstood. Far from appointing Timothy as his successor, he is contemplating a continued companionship and collegiality as they continue their ministry together.