In Lamentations, we read of the unbearable grief experienced by a group of believers. Leslie Allen suggests the book can be read as the script of a liturgy performed to help the people of God come to terms with the fall of Jerusalem and the national catastrophe it entailed. It reveals God's sometimes hidden support for those who grieve and for their caregivers.
In this unique commentary on Lamentations, respected Old Testament scholar and volunteer hospital chaplain Leslie Allen appropriates this oft-neglected book of the Bible to deal with a universal issue. Incorporating stories of pastoral encounters with hospital patients, Allen integrates Scripture and pastoral care to present a biblical model for helping those coping with grief. The book includes a foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff, author of "Lament for a Son."

What happened to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from paradise?
Where the biblical narrative fell silent apocryphal writings took up this intriguing question, notably including the Early Christian Latin text, the Life of Adam and Eve. This account describes the (failed) attempt of the couple to return to paradise by fasting whilst immersed in a river, and explores how they coped with new experiences such as childbirth and death.
Brian Murdoch guides the reader through the many variant versions of the Life, demonstrating how it was also adapted into most western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages and beyond, constantly developing and changing along the way. The study considers this development of the apocryphal texts whilst presenting a fascinating insight into the flourishing medieval tradition of Adam and Eve. A tradition that the Reformation would largely curtail, stories from the Life were celebrated in European prose, verse and drama in many different languages from Irish to Russian.

How can the struggles of a great biblical figure help you
to improve your life today?

To help us cope with the burdens of our own Egypts, author Levi Meier brings to life the struggles, failures, and triumphs that reveal the human side of Moses, a central figure in Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. Engaging, empowering and insightful, "Moses The Prince, the Prophet "shows how personal struggle and perseverance create a foundation for liberation and change while teaching us about ourselves our role in life, our struggles and our relationship with God.

More than a biography, "Moses The Prince, the Prophet "is a personal guide to growth for each of us. It explores a life intertwined with the story of a people from the Israelite Exodus from Egypt and the birth of a new nation, to the Divine revelation at Mount Sinai.

Author Levi Meier chaplain, clinical psychologist, and rabbi knows how people struggle for healing and meaning in their lives. He brings the drama of these events from biblical history into today to show the very human side of Moses a person who, like ourselves, experienced self-doubt, fear, suffering, failure and success.

Through examining Moses s experiences and the common threads they share with ours, we are taught lessons for our lives. Drawing on the stories in the Book of Exodus, "midrash" (finding contemporary meaning from ancient Jewish texts), the teachings of Jewish mystics, modern texts and psychotherapy, Meier offers new ways to create our own path to self-knowledge, self-fulfillment and self-actualization and face life s difficulties head-on.

This is an examination of Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Postcolonial interpretation and Empire Studies. "Israel and Empire" introduces students to the history, literature, and theology of the Hebrew Bible and texts of early Judaism, enabling them to read these texts through the lens of postcolonial interpretation. This approach should allow students to recognize not only how cultural and socio-political forces shaped ancient Israel and the worldviews of the early Jews but also the impact of imperialism on modern readings of the Bible. Perdue and Niang cover a broad sweep of history, from 1300 BCE to 72 CE, including the late Bronze age, Egyptian imperialism, Israel's entrance into Canaan, the Davidic-Solomonic Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Maccabean Empire, and Roman rule. Additionally the authors show how earlier examples of imperialism in the Ancient Near East provide a window through which to see the forces and effects of imperialism in modern history.

Jewish Theology Unbound challenges the widespread misinterpretation of Judaism as a religion of law as opposed to theology. James A. Diamond provides close readings of the Bible, classical rabbinic texts, Jewish philosophers, and mystics from the ancient, medieval, and modern period, which communicate a profound Jewish philosophical theology on human nature, God, and the relationship between the two. The study begins with an examination of questioning in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating that what the Bible encourages is independent philosophical inquiry into how to situate oneself in the world ethically, spiritually, and teleologically. It explores such themes as the nature of God through the various names by which God is known in the Jewish intellectual tradition, love of others and of God, death, martyrdom, freedom, angels, the philosophical quest, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel, all in light of the Hebrew Bible and the way it is filtered through the rabbinic, philosophical, and mystical traditions.

Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts is the first book-length work on personhood in ancient Israel. T. M. Lemos reveals widespread intersections between violence and personhood in both this society and the wider region. Relations of domination and subordination were incredibly important to the culture and social organization of ancient Israel often resulting in these relations becoming determined by the boundaries of personhood itself. Personhood was malleable-it could be and was violently erased in many social contexts. This study exposes a violence-personhood-masculinity nexus in which domination allowed those in control to animalize and brutalize the bodies of subordinates. Lemos argues that in particular social contexts in the contemporary "western" world, this same nexus operates, holding devastating consequences for particular social groups.

This book plays with the notion of the laughter of delight, and the way in which it has gone largely unheard in the Western interpretative tradition. The scope of the work stretches from the ancient to the modern, but it has a consistent leitmotif: the delighted laughter of the matriarch Sarah in the book of Genesis, when she gives birth to her son Isaac. This laughter is "heard" first through biblical commentaries, then through twentieth-century theorists of laughter; finally, contemporary feminist theorists are used to help realize the radical openness of the laughter of delight.

Telling Terror in Judges 19 explores the value of performing a 'reparative reading' of the terror-filled story of the Levite's pilegesh (commonly referred to as the Levite's concubine) in Judges 19, and how such a reparative reading can be brought to bear upon elements of modern rape culture. Historically, the story has been used as a morality tale to warn young women about what constitutes appropriate behaviour. More recently, (mainly male) commentators have tended to write the woman out of the story, by making claims about its purpose and theme which bear no relation to her suffering. In response to this, feminist critics have attempted to write the woman back into the story, generally using the hermeneutics of suspicion. This book begins by surveying some of the traditional commentators, and the three great feminist commentators of the text (Bal, Exum and Trible). It then offers a reparative reading by attending to the pilegesh's surprising prominence, her moral and marital agency, and her speaking voice. In the final chapter, there is a detailed comparison of the story with elements of modern rape culture.

This major work explores the message and meaning of Ezekiel, one of the longest and most difficult of the prophetic books. An introduction explains what is involved in reading a prophetic book, and how the book of Ezekiel was put together and structured. It looks at the form of speech used and discusses Ezekiel's author and those who transmitted, edited, and enlarged upon what he had to say. The destruction of Jerusalem is a primary concern, and attention is focused on the political and social situation of the time in order to provide a clear understanding of the political and religious crisis facing the prophet's contemporaries.

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.

The promise of land and progeny to the patriarchs-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-is a central, recurring feature of the Pentateuch. From the beginning of the story of Abraham to the last moment of Moses's life, this promise forms the guiding theological statement for each narrative. Yet literary and historical inquiries ascribe the promise texts to a variety of sources, layers, and redactions, raising questions about how the promise functioned in its original manifestations and how it can be used to understand the formation of the Pentateuch as a whole. Joel S. Baden reexamines the patriarchal promise in its historical and contemporaneous contexts, evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of both final-form and literary-historical approaches to the promise. He pays close attention to the methodologies employed in both documentary and non-documentary analyses and aims to bring source-critical analysis of the promise to bear on the understanding of the canonical text for contemporary readers. The Promise to the Patriarchs addresses the question of how the literary-historical perspective can illuminate and even deepen the theological meaning of the Pentateuch, particularly of the promise at the heart of this central biblical corpus.

What is at the heart of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs? A desire for life lived fully and well: life lived wisely; life lived purposefully; life lived in loving, joyful partnership with God and others. At the centre of this abundant life must be for God, for he desires all good things for us. He wants us to know his shalom - harmony, wholeness, health and peace. The wise sayings of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and the rich, sensual poetry of the Song of Songs remind us how to conduct ourselves with wisdom, and without folly and futility, in the knowledge that we are deeply loved. Using personal anecdote, a witty and lively style, and drawing on his considerable theological knowledge, John Goldingay takes us deep into the unfolding story of the Old Testament. And, as he guides us in our understanding of these time-honoured words and the ancient world they describe, he helps us to apply what we read to our lives.

No extant text gives so vivid a glimpse into the experience of an ancient prisoner as Paul's letter to the Philippians. As a letter from prison, however, it is not what one would expect. For although it is true that Paul, like some other ancient prisoners, speaks in Philippians of his yearning for death, what he expresses most conspicuously is contentment and even joy. Setting aside pious banalities that contrast true joy with happiness, and leaving behind too heroic depictions that take their cue from Acts, Abject Joy offers a reading of Paul's letter as both a means and an artifact of his provisional attempt to make do. By outlining the uses of punitive custody in the administration of Rome's eastern provinces and describing the prison's complex place in the social and moral imagination of the Greek and Roman world, Ryan Schellenberg provides a richly drawn account of Paul's nonelite social context, where bodies and their affects were shaped by acute contingency and habitual susceptibility to violent subjugation. Informed by recent work in the history of emotions, and with comparison to modern prison writing and ethnography provoking new questions and insights, Schellenberg describes Paul's letter as an affective technology, wielded at once on Paul himself and on his addressees, that works to strengthen his grasp on the very joy he names. Abject Joy: Paul, Prison, and the Art of Making Do by Ryan S. Schellenberg is a social history of prison in the Greek and Roman world that takes Paul's letter to the Philippians as its focal instance-or, to put it the other way around, a study of Paul's letter to the Philippians that takes the reality of prison as its starting point. Examining ancient perceptions of confinement, and placing this ancient evidence in dialogue with modern prison writing and ethnography, it describes Paul's urgent and unexpectedly joyful letter as a witness to the perplexing art of survival under constraint.

The psalms have been at the center of Christian faith and piety for centuries. Now, one of the foremost interpreters of the psalms explores how they can still claim that place today. In this commentary, James L. Mays sets forth what the psalms say about God, creation, humanity, and the life of faith. Mays proceeds with an awareness that the psalms were originally composed for worship, and so he provides an understanding of the psalms as praise and prayer. Individual psalms are treated in one of two ways: either in a concise, descriptive fashion or in the form of expository essays. Those receiving fuller treatment consist of psalms that are prominent in the practice of worship, those that are used in the New Testament, those that are most important to the theology of the church, and those that shed the most light on the Psalter as a whole. One of the few single-volume commentaries on the Book of Psalms, this commentary should remain a standard reference for pastors and teachers for years to come.

Psalms, part of the Bringing the Bible to Life series, a companion to Zondervan's NIV Application Commentary, explores both the historical meaning of the biblical text and its contemporary significance. Psalms provides a journey through a selection of Psalms, ten sessions with discussion questions, and a closing section that assists you and your group in responding to God's Word together or individually.

A quick, on-the-ground guide to the Old Testament of the Bible. This rich and practical handbook-an abridged edition of the bestselling book An Introduction to the Old Testament-makes Old Testament scholarship accessible to the everyday reader. Renowned Bible scholar Tremper Longman III gathers the best in historical research and literary analysis to lead you through each book of the Old Testament-from Genesis to Malachi. Most significantly, Longman explores the meaning of each book in light of its cultural setting. Features include: A chapter on each book of the Old Testament with orientating data on what that book is about, key points to understand, when and why it was written, and references to key passages. A section in each chapter about how that book of the Bible anticipates the Gospel. End-of-chapter questions for group discussion or personal reflection. A bibliography of further resources. Introducing the Old Testament makes the words, history, and culture of biblical times come alive for readers. Laypersons as well as church leaders will gain a solid understanding of the historical background and theological message of the Old Testament and be inspired to apply biblical truths to their lives.

The first in a major new series of guides to the books of the Old Testament written in an accessible and anecdotal style. The series is suitable for personal or group use and the format is also appropriate for daily study. 'In the beginning God created . . .' This gripping opening line draws attention to the irresistible creative nature of God - the One who is able to bring something out of nothing. There is no more fitting way to introduce us to the first and most obvious indication of God s goodness and greatness. The book of Genesis goes on to tell stories (both exciting and commonplace), offer profound mysteries, and engage us in the biggest issues of all: who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Using personal anecdote, a witty and lively style, and drawing on his considerable theological knowledge, John Goldingay takes us deep into the unfolding story. He explores the character and nature of the God we meet so powerfully in that opening line, the God we can encounter daily on the journey through this revelatory book. And, as Professor Goldingay guides us in our understanding of these time-honoured words and the ancient world they describe, he helps us to apply what we read to our lives. This series offers a natural progression from the successful 'For Everyone' series of New Testament translations and commentaries.

Are we able to identify and compare the philosophical perspectives and questions that must be postulated as having been somehow present in the language, ideas and worldviews of the Biblical authors? This book sets out an approach to something that has been generally considered impossible: a philosophical theology of the Old Testament. It demonstrates and addresses the neglect of a descriptive and comparative philosophical clarification of concepts in Old Testament theology, and in so doing treads new ground in Biblical studies and philosophical theology. Recognizing the obvious problems with, and objections to, any form of interdisciplinary research combining philosophical and Biblical theology, this study presents itself as introductory and experimental in nature. The methodology opted for is limited to a philosophical clarification of concepts already found in Old Testament theology, while the findings are presented via the popular thematic approach found in analytic philosophical theologies; with no attempted justification or critique of the textual contents under investigation. These approaches are combined by primarily looking at the nature of Yahweh in the Old Testament. This book offers a new vision of Biblical and philosophical theology that brings them closer together in order that we might understand both more broadly and deeply. As such, it will be vital reading for scholars of Theology, Biblical Studies and Philosophy.

Calvin's Old Testament Exegesis in Context Calvin in Context Jean Calvin, the reformer and pastor of Geneva, is renowned as one of the most important figures in what came to be known as the Reformed and Presbyterian branch of the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps less well known is the fact that he devoted the bulk of his creative efforts to prea- ing, lecturing, and commenting on the Bible. Calvin envisioned a program of reform in Geneva in which the Bible, properly interpreted, would shape the minds and morals of the Genevan populace. The people of Geneva, whom Calvin viewed as a precise spiritual reincarnation of the "sti- necked, intractable Hebrews" of the Old Testament, were in need of some serious remedial education, and it was his duty as their chief minister to provide the requisite training in doctrine and godliness. Despite Calvin's emphasis on preaching and producing biblical c- mentaries, however, scholars have often portrayed him as "a man of one 1 book"-that one book being the Institutes of the Christian Religion. In so - ing, they have produced a one-dimensional and consequently incomplete view of Calvin's theological work. Scholars have tended to study Calvin's theology exclusively from the perspective of his Institutes, without taking into account his work of biblical interpretation and preaching, or the re- tionship of those efforts to the Institutes.

The dramatic accounts in the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth take us from the cusp of Israel's entering the Promised Land to the eve of the founding of its monarchy. The high adventure (Joshua), horror (Judges) and love (Ruth) in these three books illustrate the spectrum of Israel's relationship with God: faithfulness and victory; sin and redemption; and loyalty and blessing. Using personal anecdote, a witty and lively style, and drawing on his considerable theological knowledge, John Goldingay takes us deep into the unfolding story of the Old Testament. And, as he guides us in our understanding of these time-honoured words and the ancient world they describe, he helps us to apply what we read to our lives.

As inheritors of Platonic traditions, many Jews and Christians today do not believe that God has a body. God is instead invisible and incorporeal, and even though Christians believe that God can be seen in Jesus, God otherwise remains veiled from human sight. In this ground-breaking work, Brittany E. Wilson challenges this prevalent view by arguing that early Jews and Christians often envisioned God as having a visible form. Within the New Testament, Luke-Acts in particular emerges as an important example of a text that portrays God in visually tangible ways. According to Luke, God is a perceptible, concrete being who can take on a variety of different forms, as well as a being who is intimately intertwined with human fleshliness in the form of Jesus. In this way, the God of Israel does not adhere to the incorporeal deity of Platonic philosophy, especially as read through post-Enlightenment eyes. Given the corporeal connections between God and Jesus, Luke's depiction of Jesus's body also points ahead to future controversies concerning his divinity and humanity in the early church. Indeed, questions concerning God's body are inextricably linked with Christology and shed light on how we are to understand Jesus's own visible embodiment in relation to God. In The Embodied God, Wilson reframes approaches to early Christology within New Testament scholarship and calls for a new way of thinking about divine-and human-bodies and embodied experience.

Although disability imagery is ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible, characters with disabilities are not. The presence of the former does not guarantee the presence of the later. While interpreters explain away disabilities in specific characters, they celebrate the rhetorical contributions that disability imagery makes to the literary artistry of biblical prose and poetry, often as a trope to describe the suffering or struggles of a presumably nondisabled person or community. This situation contributes to the appearance (or illusion) of a Hebrew Bible that uses disability as a rich literary trope while disavowing the presence of figures or characters with disabilities.
Isaiah 53 provides a wonderful example of this dynamic at work. The "Suffering Servant" figure in Isaiah 53 has captured the imagination of readers since very early in the history of biblical interpretation. Most interpreters understand the servant as an otherwise able bodied person who suffers. By contrast, Jeremy Schipper's study shows that Isaiah 53 describes the servant with language and imagery typically associated with disability in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literature. Informed by recent work in disability studies from across the humanities, it traces both the disappearance of the servant's disability from the interpretative history of Isaiah 53 and the scholarly creation of the able bodied suffering servant.