It has been hard to categorise and identify the 'Wisdom psalms' within the Psalter. Interpreters have produced different lists of wisdom psalms of greatly varying lengths, and individual scholars often change their choices over time. Cheung re-examines the issues at stake in identifying this group of psalms in order to better describe the configuration of this psalmic genre. Past scholarship has failed to settle this issue because of the use of unfit criteria and an ill-understood concept of genre. With the aid of the concepts of 'family resemblance' and 'prototypes', this book proposes to define 'wisdom psalms' as a psalm family which is characterised by a wisdom-oriented constellation of its generic features. Three such features are identified after a fresh assessment of the most typical characteristics of 'wisdom literature'. This proposed method is put to test in the extensive study of seven psalms (37, 49, 73, 128, 32, 39, and 19) and the three criteria are verified to be suitable descriptors of the 'wisdom psalm' family. Cheung also explores questions related to the wisdom-cult disparity, Joban parallels as wisdom indicators, and the wisdom-orientation of 'torah psalms'.

Study of the book of Isaiah has in recent times been strongly marked by a tension between synchronic and diachronic approaches. The first is favoured mainly by English-speaking, the second by German-speaking scholars. Berges's book attempts to mediate between the two poles, arguing that the final form analysis and the tracing of the development of that form are deeply interdependent. This new research paradigm is applied here to the entire text of the book of Isaiah. Berges works consistently from the synchronic to the diachronic and back again to the evolved synchronous final form. Features that have been repeatedly observed-the cross-connections, key word associations, resumption of themes, and especially the bracketing of the book by chaps. 1 and 66-are traces of a deliberate interweaving of various small compositions as well as of larger literary redactions. The paradigm most suited to the book of Isaiah in all its complexity is not that of one comprehensive overall structure or final redaction, but that of smaller compositions that build on one another, come into conversation with one another, and, each in its own way, bring into play specific contemporary problems. We should not force a common thematic denominator on the book, but it becomes clear that Jerusalem and Zion belong to the basic tenor of the book of Isaiah as it was developed and refashioned through the centuries. The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form is translated by Millard C. Lind from its German original, Das Buch Jesaja: Komposition und Endgestalt (Freiburg: Herder, 1998).

The book of Ruth is one of the Bible's most enduring and beloved stories. At first glance, the story appears to be a simple tale of hardship and good fortune, but a close reading of the short book yields wonderful new insights. Kirsten Nielsen's comments on the book of Ruth paint a rich and subtle portrait of the characters involved in the story. She carefully traces the many connections between this biblical book and the wider context of other biblical passages, including earlier stories such as the story of Judah and Tamar, and later adaptations such as the Targum to Ruth. Nielsen provides the reader an entry to this nuanced intertextual world.

Violence disturbs. And violent depictions, when encountered in the biblical texts, are all the more disconcerting. Isaiah 63:1-6 is an illustrative instance. The prophetic text presents the "Arriving One" in gory details ('trampling down people'; 'pouring out their lifeblood' v.6). Further, the introductory note that the Arriving One is "coming from Edom" (cf. v.1) may suggest Israel's unrelenting animosity towards Edom. These two themes: the "gory depiction" and "coming from Edom" are addressed in this book. Irudayaraj uses a social identity reading to show how Edom is consistently pictured as Israel's proximate and yet 'other'-ed entity. Approaching Edom as such thus helps situate the animosity within a larger prophetic vision of identity construction in the postexilic Third Isaian context. By adopting an iconographic reading of Isaiah 63:1-6, Irudayaraj shows how the prophetic portrayal of the 'Arriving One' in descriptions where it is clear that the 'Arriving One' is a marginalised identity correlates with the experiences of the "stooped" exiles (cf 51:14). He also demonstrates that the text leaves behind emphatic affirmations ('mighty' and 'splendidly robed' cf. v.1; "alone" cf. v.3), by which the relegated voice of the divine reasserts itself. It is in this divine reassertion that the hope of the Isaian community's reclamation of its own identity rests.

The theme of this volume in honour of Eep Talstra is 'Tradition and Innovation in Biblical Interpretation', with an emphasis on the innovative role of computer-assisted textual analysis. It focusses on the role of tradition in biblical interpretation and of the innovations brought about by ICT in reconsidering existing interpretations of texts, grammatical concepts, and lexicographic practices. Questions addressed include: How does the role of exegesis as the 'clarification of one's own tradition, in order to understand choices and preferences' (Talstra) relate to the critical role which Scripture has towards this tradition? How does the indebtedness to tradition of computer-driven philology relate to its innovative character? And how does computer-assisted analysis of the biblical texts lead to new research methods and results?

Working from the conviction that Genesis can be read as a coherent whole, this commentary foregrounds the sophistication of Hebrew narrative art, in particular its depiction of plot and character, and the interpretative possibilities raised by its intertextuality. Apparently simple and independent episodes emerge as complex and interconnected, constantly challenging readers to readjust their assessments of characters and expectations of plot development. Approaching the text predominantly from a 'first-time' reader's perspective, the narrative's surprises, ironies and innovations are underscored.

"The Book of Job in Form" presents to the reader a platform for a personal and intensive encounter with a great work of art. Its bilingual centre offers the text in Hebrew and English, and shows the forty poems in their original form, in 412 strophes and 165 stanzas. The commentary points out how these proportions and the remarkable precision of the poet (who counted syllables on all text levels) affect the thematics of the book, so that the portrait of the hero can be redrawn; his stubbornly defended integrity meets vindication and his last words, generally misunderstood, require a positive understanding. The poetry and its slim framework in prose are a unified composition which deserves a synchronic approach.

This book discusses the ethically problematic passages of the Hebrew Bible and the way scholars have addressed aspects of the bible generally regarded as offensive and unacceptable. In this work Eryl W. Davies sums up a career's worth of in-depth reflection on the thorny issue of biblical ethics examining the bible's, at times problematic, stance upon slavery, polygamy and perhaps its most troublesome aspect, the sanctioning of violence and warfare. This is most pertinent in respect to "Joshua" 6-11 a text which lauds the 'holy war' of the Israelites, anihiliting the native inhabitants of Canaan, and a text which has been used to legitimise the actions of white colonists in North America, the Boers in South Africa and right-wing Zionists in modern Israel. Davies begins with an introductory chapter assessing all these aspects, he then provides five chapters, each devoted to a particular strategy aimed at mitigating the embarrassment caused by the presence of such problematic texts within the canon. In order to focus discussion each strategy is linked by to "Joshua" 6-11. A final chapter draws the threads of the arguments together and suggests the most promising areas for the future development of the discipline.

Given the dearth of non-messianic interpretations of Psalm 110:1 in non-Christian Second Temple Jewish texts, why did it become such a widely used messianic prooftext in the New Testament and early Christianity? Previous attempts to answer this question have focused on why the earliest Christians first began to use Ps 110:1. The result is that these proposals do not provide an adequate explanation for why first century Christians living in the Greek East employed the verse and also applied it to Jesus's exaltation. I contend that two Greco-Roman politico-religious practices, royal and imperial temple and throne sharing-which were cross-cultural rewards that Greco-Roman communities bestowed on beneficent, pious, and divinely approved rulers-contributed to the widespread use of Ps 110:1 in earliest Christianity. This means that the earliest Christians interpreted Jesus's heavenly session as messianic and thus political, as well as religious, in nature.

The biblical-theological approach Boda takes in this work is canonical-thematic, tracing the presentation of the theology of sin and its remedy in the canonical form and shape of the Old Testament. The hermeneutical foundations for this enterprise have been laid by others in past decades, especially by Brevard Childs in his groundbreaking work. But A Severe Mercy also reflects recent approaches to integrating biblical understanding with other methodologies in addition to Childs's. Thus, it enters the imaginative space of the ancient canon of the Old Testament in order to highlight the "word views" and "literary shapes" of the "texts taken individually and as a whole collection." For the literary shape of the individual texts, it places the "word views" of the dominant expressions and images, as well as various passages, in the larger context of the biblical books in which they are found. For the literary shape of the texts as a collection, it identifies key subthemes and traces their development through the Old Testament canon. The breadth of Boda's study is both challenging and courageous, resulting in the first comprehensive examination of the topic in the 21st century.

Catherine McDowell presents a detailed and insightful analysis of the creation of adam in Gen 2:5-3:24 in light of the Mesopotamian mis pi pit pi ("washing of the mouth, opening of the mouth") and the Egyptian wpt-r (opening of the mouth) rituals for the creation of a divine image. Parallels between the mouth washing and opening rituals and the Eden story suggest that the biblical author was comparing and contrasting human creation with the ritual creation, animation, and installation of a cult statue in order to redefine selem 'elohim as a human being-the living likeness of God tending and serving in the sacred garden. McDowell also considers the explicit image and likeness language in Gen 1:26-27. Drawing from biblical and extrabiblical texts, she demonstrates that selem and demut define the divine-human relationship, first and foremost, in terms of kinship. To be created in the image and likeness of Elohim was to be, metaphorically speaking, God's royal sons and daughters. While these royal qualities are explicit in Gen 1, McDowell persuasively argues that kinship is the primary metaphor Gen 1 uses to define humanity and its relationship to God. Further, she discusses critical issues, noting the problems inherent in the traditional views on the dating and authorship of Gen 1-3, and the relationship between the two creation accounts. Through a careful study of the toledot in Genesis, she demonstrates that Gen 2:4 serves as both a hinge and a "telescope": the creation of humanity in Gen 2:5-3:24 should be understood as a detailed account of the events of Day 6 in Gen 1. When Gen 1-3 are read together, as the final redactor intended, these texts redefine the divine-human relationship using three significant and theologically laden categories: kinship, kingship, and cult. Thus, they provide an important lens through which to view the relationship between God and humanity as presented in the rest of the Bible.

Attempts to reconstruct the compositional history of the book of Isaiah confine themselves mainly to chapters 1-12 and 28-39, supposed to shroud the basic core of any early collection of Isaianic texts. Other investigations which verge on the group of prophecies concerning the nations in Isa 13-23 rarely delve into exegetical details to the extent that the reader of Isaiah would feel convinced to stand here on familiar grounds. Even others, overtly restricted to a small pericope inside Isa 13-23, often neglect the significance of this larger context. This book provides a thorough analysis of Isaiah 18-20, concerned with Egypt and Kush, from the earliest stages to their final contextualisation within the developing corpus of the Isaianic prophecies regarding the nations.

In Hebrew Lexical Semantics and Daily Life in Ancient Israel, Kurtis Peters hitches the world of Biblical Studies to that of modern linguistic research. Often the insights of linguistics do not appear in the study of Biblical Hebrew, and if they do, the theory remains esoteric. Peters finds a way to maintain linguistic integrity and yet simplify cognitive linguistic methods to provide non-specialists an access point. By employing a cognitive approach one can coordinate the world of the biblical text with the world of its surroundings. The language of cooking affords such a possibility - Peters evaluates not only the words or lexemes related to cooking in the Hebrew Bible, but also the world of cooking as excavated by archaeology.

The eighty lexical entries exemplify a diachronic investigation of Late Biblical Hebrew, which reflects the transition period from the Hebrew Bible to Talmudic literature. Together with relevant bibliography for each entry, the Lexicon serves as an indispensable tool for understanding the emergence and development of Late Biblical Hebrew neologisms.

The biblical book of Job is a timeless text that relates a story of intense human suffering, abandonment, and eventual redemption. It is a tale of profound theological, philosophical, and existential significance that has captured the imaginations of auditors, exegetes, artists, religious leaders, poets, preachers, and teachers throughout the centuries. This original volume provides an introduction to the wide range of interpretations and representations of Job-both the scriptural book and its righteous protagonist-produced in the medieval Christian West. The essays gathered here treat not only exegetical and theological works such as Gregory's Moralia and the literal commentaries of Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Lyra, but also poetry and works of art that have Job as their subject.

This volume fills an important lacuna in the study of the Hebrew Bible by providing the first comprehensive treatment of intertextuality in Job, in which essays will address intertextual resonances between Job and texts in all three divisions of the Hebrew canon, along with non-canonical texts throughout history, from the ancient Near East to modern literature. Though comprehensive, this study will not be exhaustive, but will invite further study into connections between Job and these texts, few of which have previously been explored systematically. Thus, the volume's impact will reach beyond Job to each of the 'intertexts' the articles address. As a multi-authored volume that gathers together scholars with expertise on this diverse array of texts, the range of discussion is wide. The contributors have been encouraged to pursue the intertextual approach that best suits their topic, thereby offering readers a valuable collection of intertextual case studies addressing a single text. No study quite like this has yet been published, so it will also provide a framework for future intertextual studies of other biblical texts.

The Book of Psalms is often seen as an anthology of prayers and hymns from which the reader may extract a selection as need or interest dictates. However, a recent development in Psalms scholarship has been a discussion of whether the collection of psalms has some overall structure. Is the whole of the Book of Psalms greater than the sum of its individual parts? This commentary argues that it is and presents a continuous reading of the Book of Psalms. Moreover, the long-standing tradition, found within both Judaism and Christianity, of associating the psalms with David is used as a reading strategy. In this volume, the Psalms are presented sequentially. Each has its place in the collection but thirty-five are treated at greater length. They are read, at least in the first two books (Psalms 1-72), as if they were David's words. Beyond that a more complex and developed association between David and the Psalms is demanded. David becomes a figure of hope for a different future and a new royal reign reflecting the reign of Yahweh. Throughout, David remains a model of piety for all who seek to communicate with God in prayer. It is in light of this that later disasters in the life of Israel, especially the Babylonian Exile, can be faced. In the Book of Psalms, the past, in terms of both David's life and the history of Israel, is the key to future well-being and faithfulness.

In The Antiochene Crisis and Jubilee Theology in Daniel's Seventy Sevens, Dean R. Ulrich explores the joint interest of Daniel 9:24-27 in the Antiochene crisis of the second century B.C.E. and the jubilee theology conveyed by the prophecy's structure. This study is necessary because previous scholarship, though recognizing the jubilee structure of the seventy sevens, has not sufficiently made the connection between jubilee and the six objectives of Daniel 9:24. Previous scholarship also has not adequately related the book's interest in Antiochus IV to the hope of jubilee, which involves the full inheritance that God has promised to his people but that they had lost because of their compromises with Antiochus IV.

The current consensus amongst critical scholars is that the book of Daniel is a work of fiction. In Historical Issues in the Book of Daniel Thomas Gaston reviews and re-appraises the historical evidence for the events recorded in the book of Daniel, as well as considering several other connected textual and theological issues. Through scrupulous academic argument Gaston concludes that the book of Daniel stands up to historical scrutiny.

In the last several decades, interest in the Exilic and Postexilic periods of ancient Israel's history has grown, especially as this era has been recognized to be important for the formation of the Hebrew Bible. One of the scholars at the forefront of interest in this period is Sara Japhet, now Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor Emeritus in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This volume, which is based on Japhet's 1973 Ph.D. dissertation at the Hebrew University (published in Hebrew in 1978), was first published in English in 1989 and rapidly was recognized as a major distillation of the themes underlying the ideology of the book of Chronicles. The book of Chronicles, written at the end of the fourth century B.C.E., relates the history of Israel from its beginnings with the creation of man to the return from exile with the declaration of Cyrus. The historical and theological points of departure of the Chronicler's description are to be found in the realities of his own day. Through this historical composition, he attempts to imbue with new meaning the two components of Israel's life: the past, which through its sublimation and transformation into a norm was in danger of becoming remote and irrelevant, and the present, which is granted full legitimization by demonstrating its continuity with this past. The one is interpreted in terms of the other. Japhet's study strives to reveal the Chronicler's views and perspectives on all the major issues of Israel's history and religion, unveiling his role as a bridge between biblical and postbiblical faith. The book has been out of print for a number of years; this edition, which has been completely retypeset (so that it is more readable), makes an important contribution to the growing body of literature that explores the development of Israelite religion during the time of the formation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Japhet's ground-breaking work continues to make a lasting contribution to our understanding of the historical and theological position of the Chronicler.