This volume explores multiple dimensions of prophetic texts and their violent rhetoric, providing a rich and engaging discussion of violent images not only in prophetic texts and in ancient Near Eastern art but also in modern film and receptions of prophetic texts. The volume addresses questions that are at once ancient and distressingly-modern: What do violent images do to us? Do they encourage violent behavior and/or provide an alternative to actual violence? How do depictions of violence define boundaries between and within communities? What readers can and should readers make of the disturbing rhetoric of violent prophets? Contributors include Corrine Carvahlo, Cynthia Chapman, Chris Franke, Bob Haak, Mary Mills, Julia O'Brien, Kathleen O'Connor, Carolyn Sharp, Yvonne Sherwood, and Daniel Smith-Christopher.
At the 2006 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Prophetic Texts in their Ancient Contexts section devoted a session to the theme "The Aesthetics of Violence." Participants were invited to explore multiple dimensions of prophetic texts and their violent rhetoric. The results were rich-- engaging discussion of violent images in ancient Near Eastern art and in modern film, as well as advancing our understanding of the poetic skill required for invoking terror through words. This volume collects those essays as well as others especially commissioned for its creation. As a collection, they address questions that are at once ancient and distressingly-modern: What do violent images do to us? Do they encourage violent behavior and/or provide an alternative to actual violence? How do depictions of violence define boundaries between and within communities? What readers can and should readers make of the disturbing rhetoric of violent prophets? Contributors include Corrine Carvahlo, Cynthia Chapman, Chris Franke, Bob Haak, Mary Mills, Julia O'Brien, Kathleen O'Connor, Carolyn Sharp, Yvonne Sherwood, and Daniel Smith-Christopher.
This volume explores historical, literary, and ideological dimensions of the books of the Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve - along with Daniel. The prophetic books comprise oracles, narratives, and vision reports from ancient Israel and Judah spanning several centuries. Analysis of these texts sheds light on the cultural norms, theological convictions, and political disputes of Israelite and Judean communities in the shadow of the empires of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia.
This final volume in the Feminist Companion to the Bible Second series is a sparkling collection. These essays revisit the figure of the Goddess, redefine female prophet-(esse)s, consider Yahweh as a violent husband, explore various aspects or eroticism in prophetic literature and discuss how to say no to a prophet. In the section on Daniel the Obtuse Foreign Ruler is viewed from the perspective of both feminism and humor, while Belshazzar's mother is proposed as another wise queen. Contributors include Judith Hadley, Esther Fuchs, Renate Jost, Rainer Kessler, Gerlinde Baumann, Mary Shields, Erin Runions, Tamar Kamlonkowski, Ulrike Sals, Julia M. O'Brien, Mayer Gruber, H. von Deventer, and Emily Sampson.
In Violence in the Hebrew Bible scholars reflect on texts of violence in the Hebrew Bible, as well as their often problematic reception history. Authoritative texts and traditions can be rewritten and adapted to new circumstances and insights. Texts are subject to a process of change. The study of the ways in which these (authoritative) biblical texts are produced and/or received in various socio-historical circumstances discloses a range of theological and ideological perspectives. In reflecting on these issues, the central question is how to allow for a given text’s plurality of possible and realised meanings while also retaining the ability to form critical judgments regarding biblical exegesis. This volume highlight that violence in particular is a fruitful area to explore this tension.
Olivia Stewart Lester examines true and false prophecy at the intersections of interpretation, gender, and economics in Revelation, Sibylline Oracles 4-5, and contemporary ancient Mediterranean texts. With respect to gender, these texts construct a discourse of divine violence against prophets, in which masculine divine domination of both male and female prophets reinforces the authenticity of the prophetic message. Regarding economics, John and the Jewish sibyllists resist the economic actions of political groups around them, especially Rome, by imagining an alternate universe with a new prophetic economy. In this economy, God requires restitution from human beings, whose evil behavior incurs debt. The ongoing appeal of prophecy as a rhetorical strategy in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4-5, and the ongoing rivalries in which these texts engage, argue for prophecy's continuing significance in a larger ancient Mediterranean religious context.
The Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets provides a clear and engaging one-volume guide to the major interpretative questions currently engaging scholars of the twelve Minor Prophets by collecting 40 essays by both established and emerging scholars who explore a wide range of methodological perspectives. Divided into four sections, the first group of essays is devoted to historical studies which consider the manuscript evidence for these books and overview debates about how, when, and by whom they were composed. Essays dealing with literary explorations consider the genres and rhetorical style of the material, key themes, and intertextual connections with other sections of the Jewish and Christian canons. A large section on the history of interpretation traces the ways in which past and present confessional communities, scholars, and artists have understood the Minor Prophets. In the final section, essays on individual books of the twelve Minor Prophets explore the structure, themes, and contested issues of each book.
This volume brings gender studies to bear on Micah’s powerful rhetoric, interpreting the book within its ancient and modern contexts. Julia M. O’Brien traces resonances of Micah’s language within the Persian Period community in which the book was composed, evaluating recent study of the period and the dynamics of power reflected in ancient sources. Also sampling the book’s reception by diverse readers in various time periods, she considers the real-life implications of Micah’s gender constructs. By bringing the ancient and modern contexts of Micah into view, the volume encourages readers to reflect on the significance of Micah’s construction of the world. Micah’s perspective on sin, salvation, the human condition, and the nature of YHWH affects the way people live—in part by shaping their own thought and in part by shaping the power structures in which they live. O’Brien’s engagement with Micah invites readers to discern in community their own hopes and dreams: What is justice? What should the future look like? What should we hope for? From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God’s vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.
This volume seeks to guide students in religious or literary studies or other interested readers toward understanding and appreciation of biblical prophetic poetry. Each of the three sections of the book includes a chapter examining one of the literary features with brief examples from prophetic texts, followed by another chapter of applied criticism of a full prophetic poem (Joel 2 on parallelism, Jeremiah 4 on voice, and Isaiah 24 on design). Among the distinct features of the book are diagrams of parallel lines, promoting two-dimensional, “binocular” reading of the poems. Of all the literature of the Bible, prophetic poetry has probably been least accessible to the modern reader. Language is dense, images are obscure, and logical development of ideas seems almost inaccessible. Reading Prophetic Poetry seeks to help readers appreciate the luminous beauty of the language and the austere power and surprising relevance of the ideas in these relatively obscure biblical texts. It introduces an accessible approach to prophetic poetry which invites readers to turn to the biblical texts on their own with new ideas for appreciating the riches of these ancient poems.
This powerful collection of essays focuses on the representation of God in the Book of Ezekiel. With topics spanning across projections of God, through to the implications of these creations, the question of the divine presence in Ezekiel is explored. Madhavi Nevader analyses Divine Sovereignty and its relation to creation, while Dexter E. Callender Jnr and Ellen van Wolde route their studies in the image of God, as generated by the character of Ezekiel. The assumption of the title is then inverted, as Stephen L. Cook writes on 'The God that the Temple Blueprint Creates', which is taken to its other extreme by Marvin A. Sweeney in his chapter on 'The Ezekiel that God Creates', and finds a nice reconciliation in Daniel I. Block's chapter, 'The God Ezekiel Wants Us to Meet.' Finally, two essays from Christian biblical scholar Nathan MacDonald and Jewish biblical scholar, Rimon Kasher, offer a reflection on the essays about Ezekiel and his God.
