Who are the mothers in the biblical text? What do they do? What kinds of power do they have? Issues of identity, authority, violence, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, sexual exploitation and rape-marriage, murder, and relation to God have haunted the characters and representations of motherhood from Eve to Mary and beyond. For better or for worse, these images speak potent messages even today. To explore biblical mothers and their relationships with their daughters and sons, the contributors to this volume participate in a comparative analysis between biblical mothers and mothers in popular media, history, literature, and the arts. The diversity of methods they employ prompts a rich discussion on the deconstruction of motherhood, offering new ways of envisioning both biblical and contemporary motherhood.The contributors are Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan and Tina Pippin, Madeline McClenney-Sadler, Wil Gafney, Brian Britt, Frank M. Yamada, Mignon R. Jacobs, Linda S. Schering, Mark Roncace and Deborah Whitehead, Andrew M. Mbuvi, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Brenda Wallace, Margaret Aymer, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Alison Jasper.

Volume 2 of "History of Biblical Interpretation" deals with the most extensive period under examination in this four-volume set. It begins in Asia Minor in the late fourth century with Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia, the founder of a school of interpretation that sought to accentuate the literal meaning of the Bible and thereby stood out from the tradition of antiquity. It ends with another outsider, a thousand years later in England, who by the presuppositions of his thought stood at the end of an era: John Wyclif. In between these two interpreters, this volume presents the history of biblical interpretation from late antiquity until the end of the Middle Ages by examining the lives, works, and interpretive practices of Didymus the Blind, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Alcuin, John Scotus Eriugena, Abelard, Rupert of Deutz, Hugo of St. Victor, Joachim of Fiore, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Nicolas of Lyra. Translation of: Reventlow, Henning Graf. Epochen der Bibelauslegung. Munchen, C. H. Beck.

This volume reexamines and reconstructs the relationship between the Deuteronomic History and the book of Chronicles, building on recent developments such as the Persian-period dating of the Deuteronomic History, the contribution of oral traditional studies to understanding the production of biblical texts, and the reassessment of the relationship of Standard Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew. These new perspectives challenge widely held understandings of the relationship between the two scribal works and strongly suggest that they were competing historiographies during the Persian period that nevertheless descended from a common source. This new reconstruction leads to new readings of the literature.

"Interpreting Exile" considers forced displacement and deportation in ancient Israel and comparable modern contexts in order to offer insight into the realities of war and exile in ancient Israel and their representations in the Hebrew Bible. Introductory essays describe the interdisciplinary and comparative approach and explain how it overcomes methodological dead ends and advances the study of war in ancient and modern contexts. Following essays, written by scholars from various disciplines, explore specific cases drawn from a wide variety of ancient and modern settings and consider archaeological, anthropological, physical, and psychological realities, as well as biblical, literary, artistic, and iconographic representations of displacement and exile. The volume as a whole places Israel s experiences and expressions of forced displacement into the broader context of similar war-related phenomena from multiple contexts. The contributors are Rainer Albertz, Frank Ritchel Ames, Samuel E. Balentine, Bob Becking, Aaron A. Burke, David M. Carr, Marian H. Feldman, David G. Garber Jr., M. Jan Holton, Michael M. Homan, Hugo Kamya, Brad E. Kelle, T. M. Lemos, Nghana Lewis, Oded Lipschits, Christl M. Maier, Amy Meverden, William Morrow, Shelly Rambo, Janet L. Rumfelt, Carolyn J. Sharp, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, and Jacob L. Wright.

Priestly functionaries occupy a paramount position in the study of the Hebrew Bible. Despite more than a century of critical research, questions still abound regarding social location and definitions of the various priestly groups, the depictions of their origins, their ritual functions, the role of the laity and family religion, the relationship between prophecy and the priesthood, and the dating of texts. Making use of cross-disciplinary approaches, this volume provides a representative look at the state of current research into various aspects of priesthood in ancient Israel.

This second volume of studies by members of the SBL Seminar on Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of Christian Origins reassesses the agenda of modern scholarship on Paul and the Corinthians. The contributors challenge the theory of religion assumed in most New Testament scholarship and adopt a different set of theoretical and historical terms for redescribing the beginnings of the Christian religion. They propose explanations of the relationship between Paul and the recipients of 1 Corinthians; the place of Paul s Christ-myth for his gospel; the reasons for a disinterest in and rejection of Paul s gospel and/or for the reception and attraction of it; and the disjunction between Paul s collective representation of the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians and the Corinthians own engagement with Paul in mythmaking and social formation, including mutual (mis)translation and (mis)appropriation of the other s discourse and practices. The contributors are Ron Cameron and Merrill P. Miller, Jonathan Z. Smith, Burton L. Mack, William E. Arnal, Stanley K. Stowers, Richard S. Ascough, and John S. Kloppenborg.

Your youth will go on a scavenger hunt through the Bible and read it in its entirety over six 12-week legs. How many times have you wished your youth knew more of the Bible? Sure, they can give you a rundown of the some familiar stories; but when was the last time they looked at the Bible as a scavenger-hunt, digging and searching for new discoveries to open up their faith? The Amazing Bible Race was created with that in mind. Teams will work together to solve weekly challenges, encourage one another, and build community as you all race toward this goal. The Amazing Bible Race is less like a sprint and more like a marathon, building knowledge, endurance, and faith with every chapter read. Groups accrue points and at the end of the official Race the top ten point getters receive $500 toward a mission organization of their choice or towards their youth missions program. The Amazing Bible Race is a 6-volume scavenger hunt through the Bible for youth groups. The race has six legs through different sections of the Bible and promises excitement and new discoveries as youth live into the sacred stories. Each leg includes a daily reader for every runner and a CD-Rom leader's guide with everything a "race director" needs, including website registration. Runners will be assigned to teams and will support one another in the daily readings and work together to complete "Weekly Challenges," "Fast Forwards," and "Hurdles." The program includes a web component, with both administration and publicity features. Administration tools help youth workers manage the race, coordinate weekly challenge turn-in, send e-mail reminders, and tally points. Publicity tools help build excitement, allow teams to check their standings against other youth groups, upload photos of teams "running" the race; and it allows teams to challenge another youth group for a one-on-one race. Teams get points for daily reading, completing the Weekly Challenge, accomplishing any Fast Forwards, and jumping over any Hurdles. Points are turned in and tallied on the website. Race directors are encouraged to celebrate the "finish line" of each leg with a party and a recognition of the winning team. The six legs of the race are Leg 1 Law: Genesis Deuteronomy Leg 2 History: Joshua Esther Leg 3 Wisdom: Job Song of Solomon Leg 4 Prophets: Isaiah Malachai Leg 5 Gospel and the Early Church: Matthew Acts Leg 6 Letters and Prophecy: Romans Revelation
Check out the race at www.amazingbiblerace.com. "

Life in ancient times was a struggle for survival, many times removed from the relaxed, comfortable existence most of us enjoy today. For women especially, simply living often meant enduring a harsh society that viewed women as voiceless entities more like property than persons. Still, faith blossomed and thrived. Explore the bold, yet inspirational lives of Old Testament women such as Hannah, Hagar, Abigail, and others.

This Leader's Guide is for the fourth 6-week video study in the Sisters Bible Study series.

Each study group member will need to purchase a participant s workbook separately.

The format of each study session is: -A session introduction by the series host with a 7-8 minute presentation of the session material to the group by the study presenter, a small group discussion (i.e., 4-6 women) facilitated by the study presenter after viewing the video, and the remaining 60-90 minutes spent discussing the session material.

For more information about Sisters, go to www.sisters.cokesbury.com."

This volume explores the language and poetic structure of the seven non-Masoretic poems preserved in the Dead Sea Scroll labeled 11Q5 or 11QPsa. It presents fresh readings of the Hebrew poems, which were last studied intensively almost fifty years ago, stressing their structural and conceptual coherence and incorporating insights gained from the scholarship of recent decades. Each chapter addresses a single poem and describes its poetic structure, including its use of parallelism and allusion to scripture, as well as specific problems related to the poem s interpretation. In addition, the book considers these poems in relation to what they reveal about the development of Hebrew poetry in the late Second Temple period.

All scholars recognize that Scripture plays a vital role in the theology and rhetoric of the apostle Paul. They disagree, however, about how best to make sense of the many marked and unmarked references to Scripture that permeate his letters. This book aims to move the discussion forward by examining the reasons behind these scholarly differences. The essays are united by a concern to show how scholarly opinions concerning Paul's use of Scripture have been influenced by the application of divergent methods and conflicting presuppositions regarding Paul, his audiences, and the role of biblical references in his letters.The book also seeks to extend the boundaries of the discussion by applying the insights of deconstruction, postcolonial theory, and feminist criticism to the study of Paul's use of Scripture. Together these essays show what can be accomplished when scholars take the time to discuss their differences and try out new approaches to old problems. Paperback edition to this title is available from the Society of Biblical Literature.

This 4 session study of the book of Philippians is part of the Bible Readers Series which is designed for adult study groups wishing to explore a particular book of the Bible for a limited number of sessions using the NRSV.

Sessions in this study of Philippians call us to live a life worthy of the name of Christ. Then, realizing that decisions are based on the example seen in those claiming to be children of God, Paul's words encourage us to continue pressing forward, focusing on the positives of a relationship with Christ, to the fulfillment of God's perfect will. (separate leader's guide #0687051630)
To see another adult Bible study offered by Cokesbury, go to the Adult Bible Studies website.

What has hermeneutics to do with ecology? What texts, if any, come to mind when you consider what the scriptures might say about environmental ethics? To help readers think critically and clearly about the Bible's relation to modern environmental issues, this volume expands the horizons of biblical interpretation to introduce ecological hermeneutics, moving beyond a simple discussion about Earth and its constituents as topics to a reading of the text from the perspective of Earth. In these groundbreaking essays, sixteen scholars seek ways to identify with Earth as they read and retrieve the role or voice of Earth, a voice previously unnoticed or suppressed within the biblical text and its interpretation. This study enriches eco-theology with eco-exegesis, a radical and timely dialogue between ecology and hermeneutics. The contributors are Vicky Balabanski, Laurie Braaten, Norman Habel, Theodore Hiebert, Cameron Howard, Melissa Tubbs Loya, Hilary Marlow, Susan Miller, Raymond Person, Alice Sinnott, Kristin Swenson, Sigve Tonstad, Peter Trudinger, Marie Turner, Elaine Wainwright, and Arthur Walker-Jones. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

"Images of the Word: Hollywood's Bible and Beyond" is a collection of essays by leading international scholars in the field of Bible and film. Recognizing the increasingly global nature of both media and religion, the volume focuses on the ways in which the Bible is interpreted and visualized not only within Hollywood but also far beyond it. Cutting-edge analysis of films from France, Canada, Sweden, India, and elsewhere reveals that the Bible's visualization is culturally rooted and contributes to the shaping of a particular culture, including its perception of the Bible itself.Essays range across the canon from "Exodus" to "Ecclesiastes" to "Revelation", interacting with films of various national traditions and periods from Blackton's "Life of Moses" (1909) to "Karunamayudu" (1978) to Cronenberg's "eXistenZ" (1999). The volume engages the breadth of current scholarly interest in this interdisciplinary field, including the critical reading of 'Bible films', the exploration of biblical motifs and themes within contemporary cinema, and concluding responses to the essays from both a biblical scholar and a film scholar. Paperback to this edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature.

This volume employs a text-centered, literary-rhetorical, and audience-oriented method to demonstrate how the implied audience of Philippians are persuaded and exhorted by the dynamic progression of the letter s chiastic structures to rejoice along with Paul and other believers in being conformed, with all of the broad implications of such conformity, to Christ. This reading assumes that Philippians is a single, unified letter written to be read and heard in a public setting as an oral performance substituting for the personal presence of the imprisoned Paul, and it proposes new chiastic structures for the entire letter as a key to understanding it.

This work examines the Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 40 48, arguing that it represents a reworking of these chapters in light of the book as a whole. The author applies Skopostheorie, a modern functional theory of translation, to understand the goals of translation in LXX Ezekiel 40 48, which include highlighting the distance and hence authority of the source text, suggesting solutions to problems posed by the text, and updating elements of the vision in light of Hellenistic culture. The goal of the translation was both to preserve the authority and to heighten the persuasive power of these chapters for Hellenistic readers of LXX Ezekiel.

Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

The essays in this volume develop the highly suggestive insights and theory of James C. Scott-especially those related to patterns of domination and subordination, the role of religion in supporting or opposing the powerful, and the "arts of resistance" by the subordinated-to tackle key issues in the interpretation of Jesus and Paul. All the contributors implicitly or explicitly assume a stance sympathetic with subordinated peoples of the past and present. While all pursue primarily critical literary, historical, and social analysis on New Testament texts in historical contexts, some also examine illuminating historical or contemporary comparative materials. In addition, some even find Scott useful in critical self-examination of scholarly motives, stances, and approaches in relation to texts and their uses. The contributors are Allen Dwight Callahan, Warren Carter, Neil Elliott, Susan M. Elliott, Erik Heen, William R. Herzog II, Richard A. Horsley, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, and Gerald West. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).

This volume celebrates the discovery of "The Dead Sea Scrolls", their contents, the community that wrote and preserved them, and new scientific issues that arise from Scrolls studies. The essays, in four sections, explore the origins and text of scripture, the interpretation of scripture in Second Temple Judaism, the identity and practices of the movement associated with Qumran and the Scrolls, and the extensive contributions of Canadian projects and scholarship. Eight color plates are included in the volume. The contributors are Eileen Schuller, Jason Kalmon and Jaqueline S. du Toit, Jean Duhaime, Andrew B. Perrin, Benjamin H. Parker, Peter W. Flint and Kyung S. Baek, Eugene Ulrich, Manuel Jinbachian, Martin G. Abegg Jr., Emanuel Tov, Steve Mason, Daniel K. Falk, Wayne McCready, Ian W. Scott, Chad Martin Stauber, Ted M. Erho, Robert David with the collaboration of Eric Bellavance, Francis Daoust, Marie-France Dion, Dorothy M. Peters, Hindy Najman, C. J. Patrick Davis, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Cecilia Wassen, and Craig A. Evans.

"Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets" offers a new theological reading of the book of Lamentations by putting the female voice of chapters 1-2 into dialogue with the divine voice of prophetic texts in which God represents the people Israel as his wife and indicts them/her for being unfaithful to him. In Lam 1-2 we hear the "wife" talk back, and from her words we get an entirely different picture of the conflict showcased through this marriage metaphor. Mandolfo thus presents a feminist challenge to biblical hegemony and patriarchy and reconstrues biblical authority to contribute to the theological concerns of a postcolonial world. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

Women have been thoughtful readers and interpreters of scripture throughout the ages, yet the standard history of biblical interpretation includes few women's voices. To introduce readers to this untapped source for the history of biblical interpretation, this volume analyzes forgotten works from the nineteenth century written by women-including Christina Rossetti, Florence Nightingale, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others-from various faith backgrounds, countries, and social classes engaging contemporary biblical scholarship. Due to their exclusion from the academy, women's interpretive writings addressed primarily a nonscholarly audience and were written in a variety of genres: novels and poetry, catechisms, manuals for Bible study, and commentaries on the books of the Bible. To recover these nineteenth-century women interpreters of the Bible, each essay in this volume locates a female author in her historical, ecclesiastical, and interpretive context, focusing on particular biblical passages to clarify an author's contributions as well as to explore how her reading of the text was shaped by her experience as a woman. The contributors are Amanda Benckhuysen, Elizabeth Davis, Christiana de Groot, Rebecca G. S. Idestrom, Donna Kerfoot, Bernon P. Lee, Marion Taylor, Heather Weir, and Lissa M. Wray Beal. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

This volume offers a meeting between genre theory in biblical studies and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, who continues to be immensely influential in literary criticism. Here Bakhtin comes face to face with a central area of biblical studies: the question of genre. The essays range from general discussions of genre through the reading of specific biblical texts to an engagement with Toni Morrison and the Bible. The contributors are John Anderson, Roland Boer, Martin J. Buss, Judy Fentress-Williams, Christopher Fuller, Barbara Green, Bula Maddison, Carleen Mandolfo, Christine Mitchell, Carol A. Newsom, David M. Valeta, and Michael Vines. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)