This book spotlights the Old Testament’s “supporting cast,” the vast array of nameless characters wedged in the margins of biblical stories. Often categorized as literary props or aspects of scenery, these anonymous figures (“laborers,” “a creditor,” “the crowd,” “servants,” “elders,” “a midwife,” etc.) frequently shoulder the burden of a story that is never theirs. Grounded in literary theory, Gina Hens-Piazza sets forth a new taxonomy for these often anonymous characters.
For every Hamlet, there is a supporting cast; for every Mrs. Dalloway, an entire realm of subordinate portraits. Yet if literary criticism cares at all about significant detail, emergent patterns, and the subtleties in narrative, flat and minor characters are crucial to an understanding of the fictional process itself. Beginning with E. M. Forster's landmark study of flat and round characters, this book is both a critical and writerly examination of the species: Why are certain minor characters so salient in readers' minds, and why are flat characters often so comic? Is a name enough to create a character, and if so, what is the vanishing point of characterization? The walking allegory, the narrator, the disrupter, the doppelg&änger&—how are they used, and to what effect? The Supporting Cast first explores the theoretical limits of character, from structuralist taxonomies to reader-response concerns, with examples culled from a wide range of literature. The author then applies these concepts, in chapters of sustained analysis, to works of Conrad, Forster, and Woolf. The work also provides comments on flat and minor characters in other media and a full-scale character index of Woolf's Jacob's Room.
The annual Review of Biblical Literature presents a selection of reviews of the most recent books in biblical studies and related fields, including topical monographs, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, and dictionaries. RBL reviews German, French, Italian, and English books and offers reviews in those languages.
In Prophet, Intermediary, King: The Dynamics of Mediation in the Biblical World and Old Babylonian Mari, Julie B. Deluty investigates the mediation of prophecy for kings in biblical narratives and the Old Babylonian corpus from Mari. In many cases, the prophet’s message is delivered through a third party—sometimes a royal official or family member—who may exercise a degree of autonomy in the transmission of the words. Drawing on social network theory, the book highlights the importance of third-party intermediaries in the process of communication that lies at the core of biblical and ancient Near Eastern prophecy. Recognition of the place of non-prophetic intermediaries in a monarchic system offers a new dimension to the study of prophecy in antiquity.
Deborah Sawyer discusses this crucial yet unresolved question in the context of contemporary and postmodern ideas about gender and power, based on fresh examination of a number of texts from Hebrew and Christian scripture. Such texts offer striking parallels to contemporary gender theories (particularly those of Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler), which have unravelled given notions of power and constructed identity. Through the study of gender in terms of its application by biblical writers as a theological strategy, we can observe how these writers use female characters to undermine human masculinity, through their 'higher' intention to elevate the biblical God. God Gender and the Bible demonstrates that both maleness and femaleness are constructed in the light of divine omnipotence. Unlike many approaches to the Bible that offer hegemonist interpretations, such as those that are explicitly Christian or Jewish, or liberationist or feminist, this enlightening and readable study sustains and works with the inconsistencies evident in biblical literature.
This book comprises essays honoring the life and work of Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan, S.J., who died unexpectedly on May 19, 2015, at the end of his first year as a member of the faculty in the Department of Theology at Marquette University. The editors intend to commemorate Chan’s brief but productive career by furthering the critical conversations he started. The essays included thus touch on aspects of the brilliant young Jesuit’s wide-ranging work in the fields of scriptural research, moral theology, and systematic theology. Each essay either engages Chan’s scholarship directly or seeks to advance his design to bridge the disciplinary gaps between scriptural research and constructive theology. This book includes contributions by noted Roman Catholic theologians James F. Keenan, S.J., Bryan N. Massingale, and John R. Donohue, S.J., as well as two original poems by his Marquette colleagues dedicated to Lúcás.
The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto was one of the most widely read and disseminated Greek hagiographic texts during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. To this day it remains, alongside Athanasius' Life of Antony, one of the core primary sources for fourth-century Egyptian monasticism as well as one of the most fascinating, yet perplexing, pieces of monastic hagiography to survive from the entire patristic period. However, until now it has not received the intensive and sustained scholarly analysis that a monograph affords. In this study, Andrew Cain incorporates insights from source criticism, stylistic and rhetorical analysis, literary criticism, and historical, geographical, and theological studies in an attempt to break new ground and revise current scholarly orthodoxy about a broad range of interpretive issues and problems.
Don’t keep asking God for forgiveness. Do judge one another. And you’re not going to heaven for all eternity! How have we misunderstood the teachings of Jesus? Often His message to the leaders and disciples was: You’re getting this wrong! Somewhere along the way you got confused, lost, way off track. Would He have the same assessment of us today? In Reading the Bible, Missing the Gospel, pastor and author Ben Connelly shows us how to recover God’s original intentions in light of the story of redemption. Connelly helps us celebrate and understand how Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are truly good news for the tangible situations in our everyday lives. Biblical misunderstandings can lead to a small view of God—but truth overturns that. It expands our hearts for God and enables us to truly love others! Using theology, humor, and practical examples the author reveals shockingly common ways we get the Bible wrong. Connelly invites Christians to see themes and teachings with new eyes—or, rather, with old eyes—on topics like confession and forgiveness . . . what it means to be blessed or happy . . . whether we’re commanded to or prohibited from passing judgement. How does the gospel inform our understanding and answer these questions? Connelly gives readers a new gospel-focused lens that addresses common frustrations and helps them see with renewed hope, clarity, and courage.
The poetry, imagery, speeches, and emotions readers encounter in texts like Job, Psalms, and Jeremiah are abundant resources for articulating the painful experiences of the human condition. These compositions are sacred scripts that normalize and articulate the anxiety, loneliness, and despair that mark life on earth. In Vast as the Sea, Samuel Hildebrandt presents an accessible, exegetical study of these scripts that demonstrates how the Bible's ancient poetry speaks today. In conversation with current psychological research, Hildebrandt's poetic analyses invite readers to discover the personal and expressive contours of the biblical text, as well as its liberating and healing potential. Vast as the Sea models an approach to the Old Testament that navigates a critical and creative balance between ancient contexts and contemporary life. Hildebrandt joins these two worlds together by maintaining a conscious focus on poetic language. By reflecting on individual words, engaging selected metaphors, and unpacking expressions and their underlying worldviews, Vast as the Sea gifts to its readers a reservoir of language for putting the pain of being human into words. The world, woe, and wonder of Old Testament poetry is a vast yet overlooked resource for readers who are left speechless by the tumults of life and who struggle to reconcile such experiences with their faith. Promoting emotional literacy and wrestling with the tensions between confession and experience, Vast as the Sea will become a long-held, treasured resource for scholars and everyday readers of the Bible, as well as for practitioners in psychology and pastoral counseling.
