Rudolf Bultmann was the most significant New Testament scholar we have known in the twentieth century. This study approaches his work arguing that his theology can only be understood correctly as an interpretation of the New Testament. Naturally it is a twentieth-century interpretation involving complex hermeneutical questions. But it is the New Testament which provides the subject matter to be interpreted. Bultmann's theology, stemming from the conviction that the New Testament addresses the present age, offers important solutions to many problems for Christian theology in our materialistic, relativist, pluralistic age. The book introduces the reader to: Bultmann's theology; the problem of contemporary New Testament hermeneutics; the problems of New Testament theology; the question of the relation of New Testament theology to theology as such. It makes a necessary critique of simplistic modes of interpreting Bultmann, and shows a masterly hand in assessing his continuing significance.

The book of Hebrews has often been the Cinderella of the New Testament, overlooked and marginalized; and yet it is one of the most interesting and theologically significant books in the New Testament. A Cloud of Witness examines the theology of the book in the light of its ancient historical context. There are chapters devoted to the structure of Hebrews, the person of Jesus Christ, Hebrews within the context of Second Temple Judaism and the Greco-Roman empire and the role of Hebrews in early Christian thought.

This book deals with Bible translation and its development from Antiquity to the Reformation. Helen Kraus compares and analyses those translated passages in Genesis 1-4 that deal with the male-female dynamic, tracing linguistic and ideological processes and seeking to determine the extent of interaction between contemporary culture and translation. In response to the challenge of late 20th-century 'second wave' feminist scholarship, Kraus considers the degree and development of androcentricity in these passages in both Hebrew and translated texts. The study is therefore something of a hybrid, comprising exegesis, literary criticism and reception history, and draws together a number of hitherto discrete approaches. After an introduction to the problems of translation, and exegesis of the Hebrew text, five translations are examined: The Septuagint (the first Greek translation, thought to date from the 3rd century BCE), Jerome's 4th-century CE Latin Vulgate version, Luther's pioneering German vernacular Bible of 1523, the English Authorized Version (1611), and the Dutch State Bible (1637). A brief study of contemporary culture precedes each exegetical section that compares translation with the Hebrew text. Results of the investigation point to the Hebrew text showing significant androcentricity, with the Septuagint, possibly influenced by Greek philosophy, emphasizing the patriarchal elements. This trend persists through the Vulgate and even Luther's Bible - though less so in the English and Dutch versions - and suggests that the translators are at least partly responsible for an androcentric text becoming the justification for the oppression of women.

The Cambridge NKJV Topaz Reference Edition echoes the beauty and clarity of classic Cambridge Bible settings. Traditionally named,the Topaz answers the call for a larger format reference Bible of the highest quality, available in contemporary translations. Designed to suit private study and public reading, the Topaz edition is set in a comfortable-sized print and features an extensive concordance,comprehensive maps and an attractive family record section. The words of Christ appear in red-letter text as do the chapter and verse numbers, to aid navigation. The edition includes an elegant presentation page, making it ideal for gift-giving. The sleek and contemporary design of the Topaz is carefully printed on the finest India-style paper, and the Bibles are individually handbound using traditional binding techniques. This edition is bound in dark green goatskin and edge-lined for extra suppleness and strength. It features art-gilt edges and three high quality ribbons in varying shades of green.

In Hermeneutics and the Church, James A. Andrews presents a close reading of De doctrina christiana as a whole and places Augustine's text into dialogue with contemporary theological hermeneutics. The dialogical nature of the exercise allows Augustine to remain a living voice in contemporary debates about the use of theology in biblical interpretation. In particular, Andrews puts Augustine's hermeneutical treatise into dialogue with the theologians Werner Jeanrond and Stephen Fowl. Andrews argues on the basis of De doctrina christiana that the paradigm for theological interpretation is the sermon and that its end is to engender the double love of God and neighbor. With the sermon as the paradigm of interpretation, Hermeneutics and the Church offers practical conclusions for future work in historical theology and biblical interpretation. For Augustine scholars, Andrews offers a reading of De doctrina that takes seriously the entirety of the work and allows Augustine to speak consistently through words written at the beginning and end of his bishopric. For theologians, this book provides a model of how to engage theologically with the past, and, more than that, it offers the actual fruits of such an engagement: suggestions for the discipline of theological hermeneutics and the practice of scriptural interpretation.

Lieu examines theological and historical issues within the Johannine tradition.

In this book Barbara Green demonstrates how David is shown and can be read as emerging from a young naive, whose early successes grow into a tendency for actions of contempt and arrogance, of blindness and even cruelty, particularly in matters of cult. However, Green also shows that over time David moves closer to the demeanor and actions of wise compassion, more closely aligned with God. Leaving aside questions of historicity as basically undecidable Green's focus in her approach to the material is on contemporary literature. Green reads the David story in order, applying seven specific tools which she names, describes and exemplifies as she interprets the text. She also uses relevant hermeneutical theory, specifically a bridge between general hermeneutics and the specific challenges of the individual (and socially located) reader. As a result, Green argues that characters in the David narrative can proffer occasions for insight, wisdom, and compassion. Acknowledging the unlikelihood that characters like David and his peers, steeped in patriarchy and power, can be shown to learn and extend wise compassion, Green is careful to make explicit her reading strategies and offer space for dialogue and disagreement.

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The Peshitta is the Syriac translation of the Old Testament made on the basis of the Hebrew text during the second century CE. Much like the Greek translations of the Old Testament, this document is an important source for our knowledge of the text of the Old Testament. Its language is also of great interest to linguists. Moreover, as Bible of the Syriac Churches it is used in sermons, commentaries, poetry, prayers, and hymns. Many terms specific to the spirituality of the Syriac Churches have their origins in this ancient and reliable version of the Old Testament. The present edition, published by the Peshitta Institute in Leiden on behalf of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, is the first scholarly one of this text. It presents the evidence of all known ancient manuscripts and gives full introductions to the individual books. This volume contains Apocalypse of Baruch and 4 Esdras.

The Book of Job functions as literature of survival where the main character, Job, deals with the trauma of suffering, attempts to come to terms with a collapsed moral and theological world, and eventually re-connects the broken pieces of his world into a new moral universe, which explains and contains the trauma of his recent experiences and renders his life meaningful again. The key is Job's death imagery. In fact, with its depiction of death in the prose tale and its frequent discussions of death in the poetic sections, Job may be the most death-oriented book in the bible. In particular, Job, in his speeches, articulates his experience of suffering as the experience of death. To help understand this focus on death in Job we turn to the psychohistorian, Robert Lifton, who investigates the effects on the human psyche of various traumatic experiences (wars, natural disasters, etc). According to Lifton, survivors of disaster often sense that their world has "collapsed" and they engage in a struggle to go on living. Part of this struggle involves finding meaning in death and locating death's place in the continuity of life. Like many such survivors, Job's understanding of death is a flashpoint indicating his bewilderment (or "desymbolization") in the early portions of his speeches, and then, later on, his arrival at what Lifton calls "resymbolization," the reconfiguration of a world that can account for disaster and render death - and life - meaningful again.

Considering the importance of pneumatological themes for interpreting Paul's argument of Galatians, Grant Buchanan explores how Paul draws from Jewish traditions of creation and the Spirit and presents a fresh cosmogony to the Galatian church. He suggests that Galatians outlines an epistemological shift in how Paul sees past, present, and future reality in light of Christ and the presence of the Spirit in the lives of the believers. Central to this new cosmogony is the centrality of the Spirit in Paul's argument in Galatians 3:1-6:17, with Buchanan's exegesis revealing that the Spirit, the Galatians' identity as children of God and the new creation motif are not merely elements of Paul's argument but central to it. Examining Galatians through a pneumatological lens, Buchanan demonstrates that Paul renders Jewish and Gentile identities no longer valid, instead revealing that God's favour and election is already with them by stating that those who have the promised Spirit are all children of God. He examines Jewish biblical and Second Temple extra-biblical texts that explicitly connect the Spirit to creation themes, including Genesis, Ezekiel, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Wisdom of Solomon. Taking Galatians 6:11-17 as the body-closing of the letter, the new creation motif directly implies the activity of the Spirit in the creation of Christian identity. Analysing 6:15 from this pneumatological perspective, Buchanan argues that the new creation motif represents a key aspect of Paul's generative cosmogony and pneumatology, denoting a far broader socio-cosmic transformation than previously assumed and becomes a key to understand Paul's argument.