Volume 11 in the sixteen-volume Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, Ecumenical, Academic, and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932, provides a comprehensive translation of Bonhoeffers important writings from 1931 to 1932, with extensive commentary about their historical context and theological significance. This volume covers the significant period of Bonhoeffer's entry into the international ecumenical world and the final months before the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship. It begins with Bonhoeffer's return to Berlin in June 1931 after his year of study in the United States. In the crucial period that followed, Bonhoeffer continued his preparations for the ministry, began teaching at Berlin University, and became active at international ecumenical meetings. His letters and lectures, however, also document the economic and political turbulence on the European and world stage, and Bonhoeffer directly addresses the growing threat of the Nazi movement and what it portends not only for Germany, but for the world. Several of the documents in this volume, particularly the student notes of his university lecture on "The Nature of the Church" and his lectures on Christian ethics, give important insights into his theology at this point. His ecumenical lectures and reports are significant documents for understanding the ecumenical debates of this period.

The period 1928 to 1931, which followed completion of his dissertation, was formative for Bonhoeffer's personal and pastoral and theological direction. Almost all of these nine hundred pages of writings appear in English here for the first time. They document the intense four-year period that included preparation of his postdoctoral thesis; a vicarage in Barcelona; occasional lectures; his postdoctoral academic year at Union Theological Seminary; travel around the United States, Cuba, and Mexico; and his re-entry into the German academic and ecclesial scene.

The first of the chronological volumes in this acclaimed critical edition of Bonhoeffer's work gathers his one hundred earliest letters and journals from after the First World War through his graduation from Berlin University. It also contains his early theological writings up to his dissertation. These seventeen works include, for example, works on the patristic period for Adolf von Harnack, on Luther's moods for Karl Holl, on biblical interpretation for Professor Reinhold Seeberg, as well as essays on the church and eschatology, reason and revelation, Job, John, and even joy. Rounding out this picture of Bonhoeffer's nascent theology are his sermons from the period, along with his lectures on homiletics, catechesis, and practical theology. In translation for the first time, these writings show Bonhoeffer as pastor and theologian alert to his times and developing the formative themes of his religious worldview.

"Then came the crisis of 1933." This is Bonhoeffer's own phrase in a letter that documents a turning point in his own life as well as that of the nation. Of Bonhoeffer's own life at this time, his biographer writes, "The period of learning and roaming" from 1928 until 1931 "had come to an end" as the young lecturer, age 26, began to teach "on a faculty whose theology he did not share" and to preach "in a church whose self-confidence he regarded as unfounded." Bonhoeffer was becoming part of a society "that was moving toward political, social, and economic chaos." Events moved quickly at the onset of 1933 in Berlin. In only one hundred days the path was cleared by the German Parliament and the Nazi Party for the establishment of the fascist dictatorship. These one hundred days, as well as the preceding and succeeding months, are reflected in the materials in this volume: in letters, in sermons, in Bonhoeffer's university teaching, in manifestos and a church confession, and in his proactive engagement in the developing church struggle. The vast majority of these are translated here for the first time.

"God revealed himself in Jesus Christ!" Christian faith has confessed and proclaimed this message for nearly two thousand years. But what does it really mean? In God the Revealed, Michael Welker delves into this declaration and shows how it offers genuine insight into Christian faith. He asks "Who is Jesus Christ for us today?" and approaches the answer from five different angles - the historical Jesus, the resurrection, the cross, the reign of Christ, and eschatology. Uniquely, Welker argues for the need to place historical Jesus research in a Christology and proposes a "Fourth Quest" for the historical Jesus.

Volume XII of the highly respected Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament expands the scope of this fundamental reference tool for biblical studies. Ranging from pasah, pesah (-Passover-) toqum (-stand, rise-), these eighty-six articles include thorough etymological analysis of the Hebrew roots and their derivatives within the context of Semitic and cognate languages, diachronically considered, as well as Septuagint, New Testament, and extracanonical usages. Among the articles of primary theological importance included in Volume XII are these: par'oh (-Pharaoh-), pasa, pesa' (-sin, offense, crime-), seba'ot (-Sabaoth-), sadaq, sedeq, sedaqa (-[be] righteous, righteousness-), qds, qodes (-holy-), and qahal (-congregation-). Each article is fully annotated and contains an extensive bibliography with cross-references to the entire series.

This book contains the first study of the musical culture of ancient Israel/Palestine based primarily on the archaeological record. Noted musicologist Joachim Braun explores the music of the Holy Land region of the Middle East, tracing its form and development from its beginning in the Stone Age to the fourth century A.D.

This is not a study of music in the Bible or music in biblical times but a unique, in-depth investigation of the historical periods and cultures that influenced the music of the region and its people. Braun combines significant archaeological findings -- musical instruments, terra cotta and metal figures, etched stone illustrations, mosaics -- with evidence drawn from written (mainly biblical) texts and anthropological, sociological, and linguistic sources.

The portrait Braun assembles of this past musical world is both fascinating and innovative, suggesting a reconsideration of many views long accepted by tradition. Enhanced with numerous illustrations and photographs that bring the archaeological evidence to life, this exceptional work will be a valued resource for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the history of music, biblical studies, Jewish studies, and the cultures of the ancient Near East.