Appearing in tandem with the first publication of an authoritative text of the 1667 first edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost, these insightful essays by ten Miltonists establish the significant differences in the text, context, and effect of the first edition of Paradise Lost from those of the now-standard second edition of 1674. In bringing together essays by various hands, editors Lieb and Shawcross seek to map what may be termed a new frontier in Milton studies, that which acknowledges the importance of what Milton himself considered to be the work of a lifetime when he offered Paradise Lost to the world in 1667. While the scholars writing here do not claim that the first edition of Milton's epic is to be viewed as supplanting the second and later editions, they do seek to demonstrate the importance of coming to terms with the original 10-book edition both as an epic with its own identity and value and as a work that provides fundamental insight into the nature of the editions that would follow in its wake. As these scholars demonstrate, Paradise Lost is a work that cannot be fully understood without an awareness of the dynamic and ever-changing nature of the forces through which it made its first and subsequent appearances in the world at large.

This authoritative text of the first edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost transcribes the original 10-book poem, records its textual problems and numerous differences from the second edition, and discusses in critical commentary the importance of these issues.

With full attention to the classical, medievel, and Renaissance traditions that constituted the milieu in which Milton wrote, Lieb explores the sacral basis of Milton's thought. He argues that Milton's responsiveness to the holy as the most fundamental of experiences caused his outlook to transcend immediate doctrinal concerns. Acccordingly, Lieb contends that the consecratory impulse not only underlined Milton's point of view but infused all aspects of his work.
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Are Milton's Paradise Lost, Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense program, our culture's fascination with UFOs and alien abductions, and Louis Farrakhan's views on racial Armageddon somehow linked? In Children of Ezekiel Michael Lieb reveals the connections between these phenomena and the way culture has persistently related the divine to the technological. In a work of special interest at the approach of the millennium, Lieb traces these and other diverse cultural moments-all descended from the prophet Ezekiel's vision of a fiery divine chariot in the sky-from antiquity to the present, across high and low culture, to reveal the pervasive impact of this visionary experience on the modern world. Beginning with the merkabah chariot literature of Hebrew and Gnostic mysticism, Lieb shows how religiously inspired people concerned with annihilating their heretical enemies seized on Ezekiel's vision as revealing the technologically superior instrument of God's righteous anger. He describes how many who seek to know the unknowable that is the power of God conceive it in technological terms-and how that power is associated with political aims and a heralding of the end of time. For Milton, Ezekiel's chariot becomes the vehicle in which the Son of God does battle with the rebellious angels. In the modern age, it may take the form of a locomotive, tank, airplane, missile, or UFO. Technology itself is seen as a divine gift and an embodiment of God in the temporal world. As Lieb demonstrates, the impetus to produce modern technology arises not merely from the desire for profit or military might but also from religious-spiritual motives. Including discussions of conservative evangelical Christian movements, Reagan's ballistic shooting gallery in the sky, and the Nation of Islam's vision of the "mother plane" as the vehicle of retribution in the war against racial oppression, Children of Ezekiel will enthrall readers who have been captivated, either through religious belief or intellectual interests, by a common thread uniting millennial religious beliefs, racial conflict, and political and militaristic aspirations.

In recent decades, reception history has become an increasingly important and controversial topic of discussion in biblical studies. Rather than attempting to recover the original meaning of biblical texts, reception history focuses on exploring the history of interpretation. In doing so it locates the dominant historical-critical scholarly paradigm within the history of interpretation, rather than over and above it. At the same time, the breadth of material and hermeneutical issues that reception history engages with questions any narrow understanding of the history of the Bible and its effects on faith communities. The challenge that reception history faces is to explore tradition without either reducing its meaning to what faith communities think is important, or merely offering anthologies of interesting historical interpretations. This major new handbook addresses these matters by presenting reception history as an enterprise (not a method) that questions and understands tradition afresh. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible consciously allows for the interplay of the traditional and the new through a two-part structure. Part I comprises a set of essays surveying the outline, form, and content of twelve key biblical books that have been influential in the history of interpretation. Part II offers a series of in-depth case studies of the interpretation of particular key biblical passages or books with due regard for the specificity of their social, cultural or aesthetic context. These case studies span two millennia of interpretation by readers with widely differing perspectives. Some are at the level of a group response (from Gnostic readings of Genesis, to Post-Holocaust Jewish interpretations of Job); others examine individual approaches to texts (such as Augustine and Pelagius on Romans, or Gandhi on the Sermon on the Mount). Several chapters examine historical moments, such as the 1860 debate over Genesis and evolution, while others look to wider themes such as non-violence or millenarianism. Further chapters study in detail the works of popular figures who have used the Bible to provide inspiration for their creativity, from Dante and Handel, to Bob Dylan and Dan Brown.

This extraordinary volume of "Milton Studies" assembles essays by eight major Miltonists on "Samson Agonistes", the dramatic poem that present-day commentators perceive as the most vexed and vexing work in the author's canon. The contributors identify and engage the major controversial issues surrounding this work - whether the godhead is present in or absent from "Samson Agonistes"; the appropriation and adaptation of biblical analogues, prosody and versification; the secret of Samson's strength; the interrelation of Milton's dramatic poem and Restoration drama; the bearing of mid-17th-century radicalism on the ethos of "Samson Agonistes"; and ways and means of misreading Milton's dramatic poem. Undoubtedly, this volume should be profoundly influential, frequently cited and often debated.