The chapters in this volume clarify crucial aspects of Torah by exploring its relationship to sedaqa (righteousness). Observing the Torah is often considered to be the main identity-marker of Israel in the post-exilic period. However, sedaqa is also widely used as a force of group cohesion and as a resource for ethics without references to torah. The contributors to this volume explore these crucial themes for the post-exilic period, and show how they are related in the key texts that feature them. Though torah and sedaqa can have some aspects in common, especially when they are amended by aspects of creation, both terms are rarely linked to each other explicitly in the Old Testament, and if so, different relations are expressed. These are examined in this book. The opening of the book of Isaiah is shown to integrate torah-learning into a life of righteousness (sedaqa). In Deuteronomy sedaqa is shown to refer to torah-dictacticism, and in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah torah can be understood as symbol of sedaqa meaning the disposition of each individual to accept torah as prescriptive law. However, the chapters also show that these relationships are not exclusive and that sedaqa is not always linked to torah, for in late texts of Isaiah sedaqa is not realized by torah-observance, but by observing the Sabbath.

The Hebrew Bible discusses difficult and often ineffable subjects such as life, God, heaven and earth and frequently relies upon metaphor to do so. This volume of collected essays offers a new methodological approach to understanding metaphors as conceptualizing aspects of life. Articles provide close analysis of metaphors in various biblical books such as Psalms, Job, Judges, Chronicles, Isaiah, and Hosea.

Vorwort.- Teil 1: Thematische Querschnitte und UEberblicke.- Annaherung an eine widerspruchliche Figur.- "Und das Koenigreich war fest in der Hand Salomos".- Zwischen Weisheit, Grausamkeit und Komik: Das salomonische Urteil und seine Interpretationen.- Salomo und die vielen Gesichter der Weisheit.- Salomo im Kreis der Frauen.- Salomo als Liebender.- Salomo und das Hohelied in Literatur und Musik.- Verzeichnis der literarischen und musikalischen Werke.- Teil 2: Einzelstudien.- Auf der Suche /Sal(ao)mo.*/ - Digitale Methoden zur Identifikation und Interpretation eines biblischen Stoffs in historischen Textkorpora.- Koenig Salomo in den Oratorien des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Wandlungen und Umwandlungen der biblischen Erzahlung.- Salomo im Jahrhundert der Aufklarung - Transformation der Stoffbearbeitung und Entstehung des modernen Figurenparadigmas.- Koenig Salomo regiert den Boulevard (1802 - 1846) - Ein Beitrag zur Pariser Theatermode des 19. Jahrhunderts.- Else Torge, Das Urteil des Salomo.- Der Eisheilige und die Liebesheldin. Versuch uber Ernst Hardts Koenig Salomo (1915).- "Er liebt es zu thronen wie Salomo" - Die Verarbeitung des salomonischen Urteils und der Rolle Salomos als Richter in der Oper Die Frau ohne Schatten.- Die 'Figur Salomo' bei Hugo Wolf und in seiner Nachwelt: Distler - Flury - Hermann - Killmayer - A. Mendelssohn - Stein.

The chapters in this volume clarify crucial aspects of Torah by exploring its relationship to sedaqa (righteousness). Observing the Torah is often considered to be the main identity-marker of Israel in the post-exilic period. However, sedaqa is also widely used as a force of group cohesion and as a resource for ethics without references to torah. The contributors to this volume explore these crucial themes for the post-exilic period, and show how they are related in the key texts that feature them. Though torah and sedaqa can have some aspects in common, especially when they are amended by aspects of creation, both terms are rarely linked to each other explicitly in the Old Testament, and if so, different relations are expressed. These are examined in this book. The opening of the book of Isaiah is shown to integrate torah-learning into a life of righteousness (sedaqa). In Deuteronomy sedaqa is shown to refer to torah-dictacticism, and in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah torah can be understood as symbol of sedaqa meaning the disposition of each individual to accept torah as prescriptive law. However, the chapters also show that these relationships are not exclusive and that sedaqa is not always linked to torah, for in late texts of Isaiah sedaqa is not realized by torah-observance, but by observing the Sabbath.