'Incest' refers to illegal sexual relations between family members. Its precise contours, however, are culturally specific. Hence, an illegal incestuous union in one social context may be a legal close-kin union in another. First-degree sexual unions, between a parent and child, or between siblings, are most widely prohibited and abhorred. This book discusses all overt and covert first-degree incest relations in the Hebrew Bible and also probes the significance of gaps and what these imply about projected sexual and social values. As the dominant opinion on the origin of first-degree incest continues to be shaped, new voices such as those of queer and post-feminist criticism have joined the conversation. It navigates not only the incest laws of Leviticus and the narratives of Lot and his daughters and of Amnon and Tamar but pursues subtler intimations of first-degree sexual unions, such as between Adam and his (absent but arguably implied) mother, Haran and Terah's wife, Ham and Noah. In pursuing the psycho-social values that may be drawn from the Hebrew Bible regarding first-degree incest, this book will provide a thorough review of incest studies from the early 20th century onward and explain and assess the contribution of very recent critical approaches from queer and post-feminist perspectives.

Offers a history of the interpretation of Chronicles in theology, worship, music, literature and art from the ancient period to the present day, demonstrating its foundational importance within the Old Testament * Explores important differences between the same topics and stories that occur in Chronicles and other biblical books such as Genesis and Kings, including the pious depiction of David, the clear correlation between moral behavior and divine reward, and the elevation of music in worship * Examines the reception of Chronicles among its interpreters, including rabbis of the Talmud, Jerome, Martin Luther, Johann Sebastian Bach, Cotton Mather, and others, * Features broad yet comprehensive coverage that considers Jewish and Christian, ancient and modern, and secular and pop cultural interpretations * Organizes discussions by verse to illuminate each one s changing meaning across the ages

A political crisis erupts when the Persian government falls to fanatics, and a Jewish insider goes rogue, determined to save her people at all costs. God and Politics in Esther explores politics and faith. It is about an era in which the prophets have been silenced and miracles have ceased, and Jewish politics has come to depend not on commands from on high, but on the boldness and belief of each woman and man. Esther takes radical action to win friends and allies, reverse terrifying decrees, and bring God's justice into the world with her own hands. Hazony's The Dawn has long been a cult classic, read at Purim each year the world over. Twenty years on, this revised edition brings the book to much wider attention. Three controversial new chapters address the astonishingly radical theology that emerges from amid the political intrigues of the book.

This volume examines how gender relations were regulated in ancient Near Eastern and biblical law. The textual corpus examined includes the various pertinent law collections, royal decrees and instructions from Mesopotamia and Hatti, and the three biblical legal collections. Peled explores issues beginning with the wide societal perspective of gender equality and inequality, continues to the institutional perspective of economy, palace and temple, the family, and lastly, sex crimes. All the texts mentioned or referred to in the book are given in an appendix, both in the original languages and in English translation, allowing scholars to access the primary sources for themselves. Law and Gender in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible offers an invaluable resource for anyone working on Near Eastern society and culture, and gender in the ancient world more broadly.

Inscriptions discovered since 1980 and fresh epigraph research have revealed much about the Archaeminid period in the Levant (533-332 BCE). Andre Lemaire concentrates on three areas where new data has shed light on the societies living in the largest empire that the world had known to that date. Phoenicia played a vital political and economic role in the empire because Persian kings had to rely on the Phoenician navy in their wars against Greece and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean. Newly discovered inscriptions from Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, as well as the results of research into coins, have illuminated the chronology, history and extent of the Phoenician kingdoms, as well as their influence in Palestine. New inscriptions have added to our knowledge of the Judean Diaspora in Babylonia, Egypt and Cyprus. The main indirect information about the Exiles previously available to us was in the book of Ezekiel. Now, epigraphic data has revealed not only many names of Exiles but how and where they lived and more about their relationship with Jerusalem. The third region described is the Persian provinces of Samaria, Judaea and Idumaea, especially during the 4th century BCE. The publication of various, mainly Aramaic, contemporary inscriptions on papyri, ostraca, seals, seal-impressions and coins, sheds new light on the daily life and religion of these provinces. The insciptions help us to understand something of the chronology, society and culture of these three different provinces as well as several Biblical texts in their historical and economic contexts. With over 90 inscriptions illustrated and fully transcribed, this book provides new insight into a period that has proved difficult to study.

This book examines migration and colonialism in the ancient Near East in the late second millennium BCE, with a focus on the Levant. It explores how the area was shaped by these movements of people, especially in forming the new Iron Age societies. The book utilises recent sociological studies on group identity, violence, migration, colonialism and settler colonialism in its reconstruction of related social and political changes. Prime examples of migrations that are addressed include those involving the Sea Peoples and Philistines, ancient Israelites and ancient Arameans. The final chapter sets the developments in the ancient Near East in the context of recent world history from a typological perspective and in terms of the legacy of the ancient world for Judaism and Christianity. Altogether, the book contributes towards an enhanced understanding of migration, colonialism and violence in human history. In addition to academics, this book will be of particular interest to students of this period in the Ancient Near East, as well anyone working on migration and colonialism in the ancient world. The book is also suitable to the general public interested in world history.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility - almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible-for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh's Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don't live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer's polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer's tragic world - an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad - one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have - especially between disciplines - about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

A Redactional Study of the Book of Isaiah 13-23 argues that a series of programmatic additions were made to the oracles concerning the nations in Isaiah 13-23 during the late-exilic period by the same circle of writers who were responsible for Isaiah 40-55. These additions were made to create continuity between the ancient oracles against the nations from the Isaiah tradition and the future fate of the same nations as the late-exilic redactor(s) foresaw. The additions portray a two-sided vision concerning the nations. One group of passages depicts a positive turn for certain nations while the other group of passages continues to pronounce doom against the remaining nations. This double-sided vision is set out first in Isaiah 14 surrounding the famous taunt against the fallen tyrant. 14:1-2, before the taunt, paints the broad picture of the future return of the exiles and the attachment of the gentiles to the people of Israel. After the taunt and other sayings of YHWH against his enemies, 14:26-27 extends the sphere of the underlying theme of 14:4b-25a, namely YHWH's judgement against boastful and tyrannical power(s), to all nations and the whole earth. The two sides of this vision are then applied accordingly to the rest of the oracles concerning nations in chapters 13-23. To the nations that have experienced similar disasters as the people of Israel, words of hope in line with 14:1-2 were given. To the nations that still possessed some prominence and reasons to be proud, words of doom in line with 14:26-27 were decreed.

The impact of Gilles Deleuze on critical thought in the opening decades of the twenty-first century rivals that of Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault on critical thought in the closing decades of the twentieth. The "Deleuze and..." industry is in overdrive in the humanities, the social sciences, and beyond, busily connecting Deleuzian philosophy to everything from literature to architecture, metaphysics to mathematics, ethics to physics, sexuality to technology, and ecology to theology. What of Deleuze and the Bible? What does the Bible become when it is plugged into the Deleuzian corpus? An immense affective assemblage, among other things. And what does biblical criticism become in the process? A practice of close reading that is other than interpretation and renounces the concept of representation. Not just for those already familiar with the work of Deleuze, the book begins with an extended introduction to Deleuzian thought. It then proceeds to unexegetical explorations of five successive themes: Text (how to make yourself a Bible without Organs, and why); Body (why there are no bodies in the Bible, and how to read them anyway); Sex (a thousand tiny sexes, a trillion tiny Jesuses); Race (Jesus and the white faciality machine); and Politics (democracy, despots, pandemics, ancient prophets). Cumulatively, these explorations limn the fluid contours of a Bible after Deleuze.

This study considers the relationship of Deuteronomy 28 to the curse traditions of the ancient Near East. It focuses on the linguistic and cultural means of the transmission of these traditions to the book of Deuteronomy. Laura Quick examines a broad range of materials, including Old Aramaic inscriptions, attempting to show the value of these Northwest Semitic texts as primary sources to reorient our view of an ancient world usually seen through a biblical or Mesopotamian lens. By studying these inscriptions alongside the biblical text, Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition increases our knowledge of the early history and function of the curses in Deuteronomy 28. This has implications for our understanding of the date of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy, and the reasons behind its production. The ritual realm which stands behind the use of curses and the formation of covenants in the biblical world is also explored, arguing that the interplay between orality and literacy is essential to understanding the function and form of the curses in Deuteronomy. This book contributes to our understanding of the book of Deuteronomy and its place within the literary history of ancient Israel and Judah, with implications for the composition of the Pentateuch or Torah as a whole.

This guide to Ezra and Nehemiah showcases the latest developments and most up-to-date scholarship on these important texts. Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the people in Yehud in the 6th and the 5th centuries BCE. This was a time of economic hardship. The people living in and around Jerusalem were scratching out a living in a land that had been devastated by war. It was also a time of soul searching. Having lost their political autonomy and national identity, the people in Yehud had to find new ways of understanding and shaping their identity. Ezra and Nehemiah provide glimpses of these issues by way of an assortment of narratives, lists, letters, and other types of records. The readers encounter different voices and different opinions. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer provides an overview of the various texts and the topics, concerns, and disputes that they reflect. The guide also zooms in on select key issues pertaining to the development of the text, its historical background(s), the quest for identity, and its afterlife in Jewish and Christian traditions.

Basics of Ancient Ugaritic is a teaching grammar of this ancient language, one of vital importance for understanding the wider world and culture surrounding the Old Testament text. It begins with the alphabet, and each new lesson builds on the ones before it. It is not, therefore, a synthetic Ugaritic grammar-these types of texts often prove to be overwhelming for students. Instead, Basics of Ancient Ugaritic can be used for learning the language by individuals on their own or in a classroom setting. Each chapter concludes with a set of exercises allowing students to know whether they are grasping the fundamentals of the language. In short, Basics of Ancient Ugaritic represents an ideal first text for entering the larger world of Semitic languages.

This collection of leading scholars presents reflections on both wisdom as a general concept throughout history and cultures, as well as the contested nature of the category of Wisdom Literature. The first half of the collection explores wisdom more generally with essays on its relationship to skill, epistemology, virtue, theology, and order. Wisdom is examined in a number of different contexts, such as historically in the Hebrew Bible and its related cultures, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as in Patristic and Rabbinic interpretation. Additionally, wisdom is examined in its continuing relevance in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought, as well as from feminist, environmental, and other contextual perspectives. The second half of the volume considers "Wisdom Literature" as a category. Scholars address its relation to the Solomonic Collection, its social setting, literary genres, chronological development, and theology. Wisdom Literature's relation to other biblical literature (law, history, prophecy, apocalyptic, and the broad question of "Wisdom influence") is then discussed before separate chapters on the texts commonly associated with the category. Contributors take a variety of approaches to the current debates surrounding the viability and value of Wisdom Literature as a category and its proper relationship to the concept of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. Though the organization of the volume highlights the independence of wisdom as concept from "Wisdom Literature" as a category, seeking to counter the lack of attention given to this question in the traditional approach, the inclusion of both topics together in the same volume reflects their continued interconnection. As such, this handbook both represents the current state of Wisdom scholarship and sets the stage for future developments.

This volume contains the proceedings of a Symposium "Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah", arranged by the Edinburgh Prophecy Network in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, 11-12 May 2007. Prophetic studies are undergoing radical changes at the moment, following the breakdown of a methodological consensus in humanities and biblical studies. One of the challenges today concerns the question how to deal with history in a "post-modern" age. The French Annales School and narrative theory have contributed toward changing the intellectual climate of biblical studies dramatically. Whereas the "historical Jeremiah" was formerly believed to be hidden under countless additions and interpretations, and changed beyond recognition, it was still assumed that it would be possible to recover the "real" prophet with the tools of historical critical methods. However, according to a majority of scholars today, the recovery of the historical Jeremiah is no longer possible. For this reason, we have to seek new and multimethodological approaches to the study of prophecy, including diachronic and synchronic methods. The Meeting in Edinburgh in 2007 gathered specialists in prophetic studies from Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the USA, focusing on different aspects of the prophet Jeremiah. Prophetic texts from the whole Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern prophecy are taken into consideration.

Originally published in 1927, this book presents an account regarding the Latin texts of the Heptateuch. It is divided into four main chapters: 'The vocabulary of the old Latin Heptateuch'; 'The relations of the MSS to the quotations in the Fathers'; 'The Greek text underlying the old Latin version'; and 'The style of the MSS and their place in the old Latin version'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in biblical studies and the Heptateuch.

This book explores the story of the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf in its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim contexts, from ancient Israel to the emergence of Islam. It focuses in particular on the Qur'an's presentation of the narrative and its background in Jewish and Christian retellings of the episode from Late Antiquity. Across the centuries, the interpretation of the Calf episode underwent major changes reflecting the varying cultural, religious, and ideological contexts in which various communities used the story to legitimate their own tradition, challenge the claims of others, and delineate the boundaries between self and other. The book contributes to the ongoing reevaluation of the relationship between Bible and Qur'an, arguing for the necessity of understanding the Qur'an and Islamic interpretations of the history and narratives of ancient Israel as part of the broader biblical tradition. The Calf narrative in the Qur'an, central to the qur'anic conception of the legacy of Israel and the status of the Jews of its own time, reflects a profound engagement with the biblical account in Exodus, as well as being informed by exegetical and parascriptural traditions in circulation in the Qur'an's milieu in Late Antiquity. The book also addresses the issue of Western approaches to the Qur'an, arguing that the historical reliance of scholars and translators on classical Muslim exegesis of scripture has led to misleading conclusions about the meaning of qur'anic episodes.

In many corners of the world these days the climate of hostility hangs over any overt Christian faith commitment. Any kind of Christian commitment is now assumed to imply intolerance and often prompts reactions that range from a low-grade hostility and exclusion in the West to the vicious and murderous assaults on Christian believers in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Syria and Iraq and elsewhere. Such issues are not new. Christians have faced them ever since Nero's lions, and even before that. Jews also have faced the same questions all through their history, most tragically sometimes enduring horrendous persecution from states claiming to be Christian. So it is not surprising that the Bible gives a lot of attention to these questions. The book of Daniel tackles the problem head on, both in the stories of Daniel and his friends, and in the visions he received. A major theme of the book is how people who worship the one, true, living God-the God of Israel-can live and work and survive in the midst of a nation, a culture, and a government that are hostile and sometimes life-threatening. What does it mean to live as believers in the midst of a non-Christian state and culture? How can we live "in the world" and yet not let the world own us and squeeze us into the shape of its own fallen values and assumptions? The book was written to encourage believers to keep in mind that the future, no matter how terrifying it may eventually become, rests in the hands of the sovereign Lord God-and in that assurance to get on with the challenging task of living in God's world for the sake of God's mission.

Can anyone say anything that has not already been said about the most scrutinized text in human history? In one of the most radical rereadings of the opening chapters of Genesis since The Zohar, David Kishik manages to do just that. The Book of Shem, a philosophical meditation on the beginning of the Bible and the end of the world, offers an inspiring interpretation of this navel of world literature. The six parts of the primeval story-God's creation, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the first covenant, and the Tower of Babel-come together to address a single concern: How does one become the human being that one is? By closely analyzing the founding text of the Abrahamic religions, this short treatise rethinks some of their deepest convictions. With a mixture of reverence and violence, Kishik's creative commentary demonstrates the post-secular implications of a pre-Abrahamic position. A translation of the Hebrew source, included as an appendix, helps to peel away the endless layers of presuppositions about its meaning.