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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > The Bible
This book maps the relationship between Matthew's Gospel and the
Didache. No consensus regarding the nature of this relationship has
yet been achieved, neither has serious consideration been given to
the possibility that Matthew depended directly on the Didache. If
it may be shown that such was the case, then this infamously
enigmatic text may finally be used to answer a series of
tantalizing questions: what is the pattern of the Synoptic
relationships? How did the earliest Jewish Christians incorporate
Gentiles? What was the shape of Eucharistic worship in the first
century?
"What is the lesson of that other, newly sprung tree (the cross) in
whose bark Mark has carved his Gospel (for this is a book that
bleeds)? Is it that Jesus's body, grafted onto the cross, became
one with it, and thus became tree, branch, book, and leaf,
inscribed with letters of blood, can now at last be read, no longer
an indecipherable code but an open codex? And that in its (now)
re(a)d(able) ink, lately invisible, the message that was scratched
into the fig tree is transcribed: outside the gates, but only just,
the summer Son is shining in full strength?"--Stephen D. Moore In
this book Stephen D. Moore offers a dazzling new reading of the
Gospels of Mark and Luke, applying the poststructuralist techniques
of Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault to illuminate these texts in a way
that no one has done before. Written with wit and a sensitivity to
words--and wordplay--that is reminiscent of Moore's fellow
countryman James Joyce, the book is also deeply learned, impressive
in its detailed knowledge of previous scholarship as well as in the
challenges it presents to that scholarship. Moore argues that
whereas the language of the Gospels is concrete, pictorial, and
often startling, the language of modern gospel scholarship tends to
be propositional and abstract. Calling himself a New
Test-what-is-meant scholar, he approaches the Gospels of Mark and
Luke as though they were pictograms or dreamwork to decipher and
interpret, writing a response that is no less visceral and
immediate than the biblical texts themselves.
Paying special attention to chapters 56-66, David Baer analyses the
labour that resulted in the Greek Isaiah. He compares the Greek
text with extant Hebrew texts and with early biblical versions to
show that the translator has approached his craft with homiletical
interests in mind. This earliest translator of Isaiah produces a
preached text, at the same time modifying his received tradition in
theological and nationalistic directions which would reach their
full flower in Targumic and Rabbinical literature. In basic
agreement with recent work on other portions of the Septuagint, the
Greek Isaiah is seen to be an elegant work of Hellenistic
literature whose linguistic fluidity expresses the convictions and
longings of a deeply Palestinian soul.>
In this challenging new work, Nielsen compares Herodotus with Old
Testament historiography as represented by the so-called
Deuteronomistic History. He finds in the Old Testament evidence of
a tragic form like that encountered in Herodotuss Histories.
Nielsen begins by outlining Herodotuss Greek context with its roots
in Ionic natural philosophy, the epic tradition and Attic tragedy,
and goes on to analyse in some detail the outworking of the
Herodotean tragedy. Against that background, the Deuteronomistic
History is to be viewed as an ancient Near Eastern historiographic
text in the tragic tradition.
Vain Rhetoric explores how Ecclesiastes manipulates various
strategies from the arsenal of ambiguity to communicate the
strengths and limitations of both private insight and public
knowledge. The Book of Ecclesiastes, like many ancient and modern
first-person discourses, generates ambivalent responses in its
readers. The book's rhetorical strategy produces both acceptance
of, and suspicion towards, the major positions argued by the
author. 'Vain rhetoric' aptly describes the persuasive and
dissuasive properties of the narrator's peculiar characterization.
It also describes how the Book of Ecclesiates, with its abundant
use of rhetorical questions, constant gapping techniques, and other
strategies from the arsenal of ambiguity, is a stunning testimony
to the power of the various strategies of indirection to
communicate to the reader something of his or her own rhetorical
liabilities and limitations, as well as those of the religious
community in general.
As against traditional cultic and sociological interpretations of
the 'I' Psalms, this original study stresses the 'I' as a literary
figure. Yet on the other hand, the historical interest of the
traditional models is retained, here with emphasis on 'original'
function and intent. There is a common set of central motifs
related to the 'I'-figure, most easily discernible when referring
to categories of locality. The 'I' is depicted in a sacred
landscape of contrasting localities-'Sheol' and 'Temple' connected
by the concept of 'Way'. This motif structure deploys an
ideological language in which the 'I' figure is an embodiment of a
religious paradigm, that attests a process of actualization and
integration. The religiosity of these texts is of a mystical
character, pointing to some religious practice of intense personal
character aimed at experience of a divine reality. No doubt the
social location of such experience was among the elite, but some
texts hint at a possible 'democratization' of the religious
practice they portray.>
For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have
had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together
all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual,
archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the
reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New
Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new
evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are
applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No
attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical
approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for
their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one
school of thought.
The KJV Giant Print Standard Bible offers the classic King James
Version in giant print with a thematic Scripture verse finder, one-year
Bible reading plan, full-color maps, a handy concordance,
cross-referencing, the words of Christ in red and a presentation page,
making it a Bible to be treasured for years to come.
• Giant Print 14-point font size
"The Bible in the Latin West" is the first volume in a series that
addresses the codicology of texts. In considering how and why the
appearance of a manuscript changes over the centuries, Margaret T.
Gibson introduces students to the study of manuscripts and to the
wider range of information and expertise that can be brought to
bear on the study of manuscripts as historical objects as well as
texts. Here Gibson surveys the changes in the most important book
in the western world, the Latin Bible. She begins the survey in
late antiquity, discussing the volumes of the great senatorial
houses of the 4th century and how they influenced the early great
Bibles of northern Europe. The discussion then moves through the
Carolingian period, with its increased interest in commentary to
early vernacular versions, and goes on to reveal how in the 11th
and 12th centuries the growing numbers of monastic and university
readers made new demands on the texts which led to the inclusion of
glosses and other scholarly apparatus. Later, the combined
influences of increased literacy and growing wealth among the
population called for vernacular translations and devotional aids
such as Books of Hours. Gibson completes the survey with a look at
early printed Bibles. A useful volume for anyone being introduced
to the firsthand study of texts and their transmission, as well as
for graduate students in history, English, modern languages,
classics, and religious studies. "The Bible in the Latin West"
contains an introductory survey.
An internationally respected expert on the Second Temple period
provides a fully up-to-date introduction to this crucial area of
Biblical Studies. This introduction, by a world leader in the
field, provides the perfect guide to the Second Temple Period, its
history, literature, and religious setting. Lester Grabbe
magisterially guides the reader through the period providing a
careful overview of the most studied sources, the history
surrounding them and the various currents within Judaism at the
time. This book will be a core text for courses on the Apocrypha
and Pseudepigrapha, as well as Qumran, Intertestamental Literature
and Early Judaism.
Virtue amidst Vice represents an attempt to probe a relatively
obscure portion of a relatively obscure New Testament document. 2
Peter reflects a social setting that presents a most daunting
pastoral challenge. The danger confronting the Christian community
is a lapse in ethical standards and a return-whether by mere
forgetfulness or in wholesale apostasy-to the former way of life. 2
Peter's prophetic and paraenetic response borrows from the moral
grammar of contemporary moral philosophers in exhorting the readers
to recall-and validate through virtuous living-the faith they have
received. The theme of the moral life runs throughout 2 Peter, with
the various components of the author's literary arsenal
subordinated to this thematic development. It is the function of
the catalogue of virtues (1.5-7) both to introduce and to anchor
the author's call to repel moral scepticism and reinvigorate the
moral life.
This study shows that Mark, Matthew and Luke present the worldwide
expansion of the Christian message as a necessary consequence of
Jesus' activity in Israel. The relationship between Jesus and the
non-Jewish nations is examined here by a synchronic analysis of the
relevant texts of the Synoptic Gospels, as well as of their
compositional inner-relationships and theological classification.
Departing from the same approaches for the most part, the Synoptics
diverge primarily in the question of what relationship to each
other Israel and the nations are placed through God's act of
redemption in Jesus Christ.
Through exegetical studies of 1 Corinthians and Galatians, John
Lewis shows how Paul synthesises theology and ethics - which
interpreters frequently separate - as integrated aspects of
Christian thinking and living. This fusion becomes evident in
Paul's complex process of theological, moral reasoning that lies
beneath the surface of his letters for which we have coined the
phrase 'theo-ethical reasoning'. The book also examines how Paul
encourages his churches to apply this theo-ethical reasoning in the
community practice of spiritual discernment - a dialogical,
comparative process of reasoned reflection on behaviour and
experience. Through this practice of looking for life, community
members are led by the Spirit as they reason together, attempting
to associate the manifestations of new life with conduct that
faithfully portrays Christ's self-giving pattern. This correlation
of conduct with experience grounds Paul's own proclamation of Jesus
Christ in word and deed. It also becomes the foundation for
believers' faith and hope as they come to know Christ and
experience the power of God. Thus, the book concludes that the
practice of spiritual discernment by means of theo-ethical
reasoning lies at the centre of Paul's religion.
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