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.

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.

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.

When the Jews were carried off into exile in Babylon, most people assumed that it was the end of the story. In reality, God was just getting started. As senior figures in the Babylonian and Persian Empires, Daniel and Esther would discover that there is no foreign ground for God. Their faithful obedience would, in fact, lead their oppressive captors to faith in the God of Israel. God inspired the Bible for a reason. He wants you read it and let it change your life. If you are willing to take this challenge seriously, then you will love Phil Moore's devotional commentaries. Their bite-sized chapters are punchy and relevant, yet crammed with fascinating scholarship. Welcome to a new way of reading the Bible. Welcome to the Straight to the Heart series.

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 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.

Luke, the eponymous author of the gospel that bears his name as well as the book of Acts, wrote the largest portion of the New Testament. Luke is generally thought to be a gentile. This book addresses a question raised by Jesus's disciples at the very beginning of Acts: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" The question is freighted with political and national significance as it inquires about the restoration of political sovereignty to the Jewish people. This book investigates Luke's perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel's eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration. Luke's Jewish Eschatology builds upon the appreciation of the Jewish character of early Christianity in the decades after the Holocaust, which has witnessed the reclamation of the Jewishness of the historical Jesus and even Paul.

The Psalms have resulted in controversies between Jews and Christians over the centuries and it is only from the mid twentieth century onwards that the two traditions have worked side by side in the academy at least. This is one of the very few volumes on the psalms to incorporate scholarship from both these traditions for nearly a century, and the result is a rich celebration of these extraordinary ancient songs. This innovative essay collection draws together internationally renowned Jewish and Christian scholars of the Psalms, with one tradition responding to the other, in areas as diverse as Qumran studies, Medieval Jewish interpretation, Reception History, Liturgical Psalters and Chagall's Church Windows and more recent Literary Studies of the Psalter as a Book. The range of topics chosen will be of interest not only to those specializing in the Psalms but also to others interested more generally in biblical studies. Several musical and artistic representations of selected psalms are also included and the book includes a colour plate section which illustrates several of the chapters.

This concise volume introduces readers to the three main sections of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and to the biblical books found in each. It is organized around two primary "stories": the story that scholars tell about the Old Testament and the story the literature itself tells. Concluding with a reconsideration of the Old Testament as more like poetry than a story, three main chapters cover: The Pentateuch (Torah) The Prophets (Nevi'im) The Writings (Ketuvim) With key summaries of what the parts of the Old Testament "are all about," and including suggestions for further reading, this volume is an ideal introduction for students of and newcomers to the Old Testament.

Ezekiel is one of the few books of the Ethiopic Old Testament of which no critical edition has hitherto existed, and the aim of this work is to fill that gap. It provides a critical edition of the oldest accessible text of the Geez version and is based on a collation of fifteen manuscripts. The Ethiopic version is a daughter version of the Septuagint, and the work sheds light on the character of the original translation and on its subsequent history. The latter included the revision of the translation in the early mediaeval period, which was in part influenced by a Syriac-based Arabic version, and a further revision of the translation based on the Masoretic text.

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.

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.

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.

Most readers do not know about the Bible used almost universally by early Christians, or about how that Bible was birthed, how it grew to prominence, and how it differs from the one used as the basis for most modern translations. Although it was one of the most important events in the history of our civilization, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the third century BCE is an event almost unknown outside of academia. Timothy Michael Law offers the first book to make this topic accessible to a wider audience. Retrospectively, we can hardly imagine the history of Christian thought, and the history of Christianity itself, without the Old Testament. When the Emperor Constantine adopted the Christian faith, his fusion of the Church and the State ensured that the Christian worldview (which by this time had absorbed Jewish ideals that had come to them through the Greek translation) would leave an imprint on subsequent history. This book narrates in a fresh and exciting way the story of the Septuagint, the Greek Scriptures of the ancient Jewish Diaspora that became the first Christian Old Testament.

The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Overview of Commentary Organization Introduction-covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology. Each section of the commentary includes: Pericope Bibliography-a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope. Translation-the author's own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English. Notes-the author's notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation. Form/Structure/Setting-a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here. Comment-verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research. Explanation-brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues. General Bibliography-occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliography contains all sources used anywhere in the commentary.

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.

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.

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.

A reprint of a classic exposition of the understanding of the Old Testament. Rowley brings the Old Testament back to the forefront of Scholarship and finds rich meaning in much of what has previously been buried. Increasingly men are turning their thoughts to the deeper message of the Old Testament, and finding richer meaning in the light of all work that has been done. The Old Testament need not to be buried beneath the weight of scholarship, but may rather stand on the foundation of scholarship, sustained by it and firmly upheld before men - from the Preface.

Abram to Abraham explores the Abraham saga (11:27-22:24) through a literary lens, following the legendary figure of Abraham as he navigates the arduous odyssey to nationhood. Rather than overlook the textual discrepancies, repetitions and contradictions long noted by diachronic scholars, this study tackles them directly, demonstrating how many problems of the ancient text in fact hold the key to deeper understanding of the narrative and its objectives. Therefore, the book frequently notes the classic division of the text according to primary sources, but offers an alternative, more harmonious reading based on the assumption that the narrative forms a single, intentionally designed unit. The narrative's artistic design is especially evident in its arrangement of the two halves of the story around the protagonists' change of name. The stories of Abram and Sarai in the first half of the cycle (11:27-16:16) are parallel to the stories of Abraham and Sarah in the second half (18:1-22:24). A close reading of this transformation in the biblical narrative illuminates the moral and theological values championed by the figure of Abraham as luminary, soldier, family man, and loyal subject of God.

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.

* Explores and explains the approaches of a wide range of interpreters - both ancient and modern