Biblical Prose Prayer
Biblical Prose Prayer

Author: Moshe Greenberg

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13: 1556351119

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Some degree of spiritual enlightenment must be supposed to account for the overall tolerance, even receptivity, of the people; though they refused to comply with the prophets' uncompromising demands, and occasionally persecuted one or another of them, as a rule they allowed them to preach, and even spawned devotees who reverently preserved their speeches until canonization. Unsupported by power and wealth, the classical prophets can have persisted for centuries only because they were rooted in loamy spiritual soil. The populace constituting that soil deserves to be appreciated no less than the exotic flowers that towered above it. What was the spiritual loam that prepared Israel's soil so that prophecy could thrive in it? Any answer to this question must give due consideration to the popular life of prayer. For it was in extemporized praying that the Israelites experienced a nonmagical approach to God in which form was subordinate to content; here, in immediate contact with a God who searched the conscience and the heart, they were sensitized to sincerity in self-disclosure to God; and, finally, it was in prayer that they had constantly to face the issue of adjusting their ways to God's in order to obtain his favor. Greenberg finds in this rich life of private prayer a setting for the high religious ideas--and the scathing critique of worship--which characterized the genius of the prophets of the eighth and ninth centuries BC. This masterful evaluation of biblical prose prayer, a tradition independent of experts and special places, suggests an explanation for the unprecedented democratization of worship in postbiblical Judaism.

Biblical Prose Prayer
Biblical Prose Prayer

Author: Moshe Greenberg

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 1725222469

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Some degree of spiritual enlightenment must be supposed to account for the overall tolerance, even receptivity, of the people; though they refused to comply with the prophets' uncompromising demands, and occasionally persecuted one or another of them, as a rule they allowed them to preach, and even spawned devotees who reverently preserved their speeches until canonization. Unsupported by power and wealth, the classical prophets can have persisted for centuries only because they were rooted in loamy spiritual soil. The populace constituting that soil deserves to be appreciated no less than the exotic flowers that towered above it. What was the spiritual loam that prepared Israel's soil so that prophecy could thrive in it? Any answer to this question must give due consideration to the popular life of prayer. For it was in extemporized praying that the Israelites experienced a nonmagical approach to God in which form was subordinate to content; here, in immediate contact with a God who "searched the conscience and the heart," they were sensitized to sincerity in self-disclosure to God; and, finally, it was in prayer that they had constantly to face the issue of adjusting their ways to God's in order to obtain his favor. Greenberg finds in this rich life of private prayer a setting for the high religious ideas--and the scathing critique of worship--which characterized the "genius" of the prophets of the eighth and ninth centuries BC. This masterful evaluation of biblical prose prayer, a tradition independent of experts and special places, suggests an explanation for the unprecedented democratization of worship in postbiblical Judaism.

Prayer in the Hebrew Bible
Prayer in the Hebrew Bible

Author: Samuel E. Balentine

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 1993-05-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781451418071

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Balentine invites the reader to consider several aspects of prayer in the Hebrew Bible: prayer and the depiction of character, prayer and the characterization of God, prayers for divine justice, the lament tradition, sensible praise, prayer in Old Testament theology, and the motif of the church as "a house of prayer".

When Aseneth Met Joseph
When Aseneth Met Joseph

Author: Ross Shepard Kraemer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0190253991

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the study of an anonymous ancient work, usually called Joseph and Aseneth, which narrates the transformation of the daughter of an Egyptian priest into an acceptable spouse for the biblical Joseph, whose marriage to Aseneth is given brief notice in Genesis. Kraemer takes issue with the scholarly consensus that the tale is a Jewish conversion story composed no later than the early second century C.E. Instead, she dates it to the third or fourth century C.E., and argues that, although no definitive answer is presently possible, it may well be a Christian account. This critique also raises larger issues about the dating and identification of many similar writings, known as pseudepigrapha. Kraemer reads its account of Aseneth's interactions with an angelic double of Joseph in the context of ancient accounts of encounters with powerful divine beings, including the sun god Helios, and of Neoplatonic ideas about the fate of souls. When Aseneth Met Joseph demonstrates the centrality of ideas about gender in the representation of Aseneth and, by extension, offers implications for broader concerns about gender in Late Antiquity.

My People's Prayer Book
My People's Prayer Book

Author: Lawrence A. Hoffman

Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1879045818

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This momentous, critically acclaimed series is truly a people's prayer book, one that provides a diverse and exciting commentary to the traditional liturgy. It will help you find new wisdom and guidance in Jewish prayer, and bring the liturgy into your life. It also has received significant attention in the Christian world. The major sections of the prayer book each are covered in separate volumes in this series. My People's Prayer Book provides in each volume: The traditional Hebrew text A modern translation (designed to let people know exactly what the prayers actually say) Commentators from all perspectives of the Jewish world, some of today's most respected Jewish scholars and teachers, who cover the prayer book's connections to the Bible, history, traditional law, kabbalistic wisdom, feminism, modern developments and much more This stunning work, an important expression of the spiritual revival of our times, enables all worshipers to claim their connection to the heritage of the traditional Jewish prayer book. It rejuvenates Jewish worship in today's world, and makes its power accessible to all.

The Lure of Transcendence and the Audacity of Prayer
The Lure of Transcendence and the Audacity of Prayer

Author: Samuel E. Balentine

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2022-06-24

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 3161611039

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The discourse of prayer responds to the abiding lure of transcendence. From Gilgamesh to the primordial human beings in Eden to Odysseus, the quest for ultimate truths has summoned forth all manner of human effort - courageous, desperate, pious, impious, successful, failed, invited, forbidden - and like all such lures, one can never be certain whether the glimmer of transcendence is that of a bright and shining star that illuminates the shadows or only a shiny object that seduces one into an inescapable darkness (a fishing lure, for example). In this study, Samuel E. Balentine demonstrates how prayer's invocation of God transgresses the limits of human beings. The author shows how inviting, let alone commanding God to speak may be the "acme of bardic pretention," but in the ancient world such transgression characterizes the audacity of prayer.

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative

Author: Danna Nolan Fewell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 0199967725

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Comprised of contributions from scholars across the globe, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative is a state-of-the-art anthology, offering critical treatments of both the Bible's narratives and topics related to the Bible's narrative constructions. The Handbook covers the Bible's narrative literature, from Genesis to Revelation, providing concise overviews of literary-critical scholarship as well as innovative readings of individual narratives informed by a variety of methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks. The volume as a whole combines literary sensitivities with the traditional historical and sociological questions of biblical criticism and puts biblical studies into intentional conversation with other disciplines in the humanities. It reframes biblical literature in a way that highlights its aesthetic characteristics, its ethical and religious appeal, its organic qualities as communal literature, its witness to various forms of social and political negotiation, and its uncanny power to affect readers and hearers across disparate time-frames and global communities.

Pedagogy, Prayer and Praise
Pedagogy, Prayer and Praise

Author: Catherine Petrany

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2015-10-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9783161542725

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The presence of didactic, wisdom-like passages in the Book of Psalms presents a puzzle because it suggests a non-liturgical origin and pedagogical aim distinct from the more dominant psalmic language of lament and praise. Catherine Petrany argues for a literary and theological approach to the question of wisdom's role in the psalms that accounts for its meaningful integration with these other kinds of discourse. The unique contextualization of wisdom motifs in the psalms creates a pedagogical platform unique to the book, one related to but distinct from the pedagogies of the biblical wisdom corpus. Human wisdom speech in the psalms points beyond the classroom to the congregation and asks its hearers to become speakers, that is, to enter into conversation with the divine.