Recognizing that human experience is very much influenced by inhabiting bodies, the past decade has seen a surge in studies about representation of bodies in religious experience and human imaginations regarding the Divine. The understanding of embodiment as central to human experience has made a big impact within religious studies particularly in contemporary Christian theology, feminist, cultural and ideological criticism and anthropological approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Within the sub-field of theology of the Hebrew Bible, the conversation is still dominated by assumptions that the God of the Hebrew Bible does not have a body and that embodiment of the divine is a new concept introduced outside of the Hebrew Bible. To a great extent, the insights regarding how body discourse can communicate information have not yet been incorporated into theological studies.

Recognizing that human experience is very much influenced by inhabiting bodies, the past decade has seen a surge in studies about representation of bodies in religious experience and human imaginations regarding the Divine. The understanding of embodiment as central to human experience has made a big impact within religious studies particularly in contemporary Christian theology, feminist, cultural and ideological criticism and anthropological approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Within the sub-field of theology of the Hebrew Bible, the conversation is still dominated by assumptions that the God of the Hebrew Bible does not have a body and that embodiment of the divine is a new concept introduced outside of the Hebrew Bible. To a great extent, the insights regarding how body discourse can communicate information have not yet been incorporated into theological studies.

This is the second volume of a two-volume set of essays devoted to the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The essays take as their foundation the exegetical methodology developed by Rolf P. Knierim at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, California. The exegetical foundations of Knierim's methodology pay special attention to the literary forms and conceptual underpinnings of biblical texts. The result is an interpretive method that combines a close reading of biblical texts with contextual criticism to understand the theological perspective from which the biblical texts were written. The sixteen essays in this volume apply the method outlined in volume one to several biblical texts ranging from Joshua 1-12 and its theology of extermination to Leviticus 15 and its contrasting conceptual associations about women. The contributors hope that their exegetical work and theoretical reflection will continue to guide the course of Hebrew Bible studies in the twenty-first century. Editors: Wonil Kim is Assistant Professor of Old Testament Studies at La Sierra University. Deborah Ellens is an independent scholar. Michael Floyd is Professor of Old Testament at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University.