Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies is a multivolume series that seeks to introduce key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Each volume will feature introductory essays to the corpus, followed by articles on the relevant texts. Each article will address introductory matters, provenance, summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance. Neither too technical to be used by students nor too thin on interpretive information to be useful for serious study of the New Testament, this series provides a much-needed resource for understanding the New Testament in its first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman context. Produced by an international team of leading experts in each corpus, Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies stands to become the standard resource for both scholars and students. Volumes include: Apocrypha and the Septuagint Old Testament Pseudepigrapha The Dead Sea Scrolls The Apostolic Fathers Philo and Josephus Greco-Roman Literature Targums and Early Rabbinic Literature Gnostic Literature New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
This book is an examination of characters in the books of Kings; showing how understanding and interpretation of key characters affects readings of the story. The volume begins with more general pieces addressing how the study of characters can shed light on the composition history of Kings and on how characters and characterization can be considered with respect to ethics, particularly with respect to the moral complexity of biblical characters. Contributors then consider key characters within the Kings narrative in depth, such as Nathan, Bathsheba, Solomon and Jezebel. The contributors use their own specific expertise to analyze these characters and more, drawing on insights from literary theory and considering such approaches as questioning our view of a particular character with based on the character within the text with whom we identify. Contributors also assess whether or not characters as portrayed in the biblical text necessarily match up to their possible counterparts in history.
Targum Chronicles and Its Place Among the Late Targums heralds a paradigm shift in the understanding of many of the Jewish-Aramaic translations of individual biblical books and their origins. Leeor Gottlieb provides the most extensive study of Targum Chronicles to date, leading to conclusions that challenge long-accepted truisms with regard to the origin of Targums. This book’s trail of evidence convincingly points to the composition of Targums in a time and place that was heretofore not expected to be the provenance of these Aramaic gems of biblical interpretation. This study also offers detailed comparisons to other Targums and fascinating new explanations for dozens of aggadic expansions in Targum Chronicles, tying them to their rabbinic sources.
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.
The value and significance of the targums—translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, the language of Palestinian Jews for centuries following the Babylonian Exile—lie in their approach to translation: within a typically literal rendering of a text, they incorporate extensive exegetical material, additions, and paraphrases that reveal important information about Second Temple Judaism, its interpretation of its bible, and its beliefs. This remarkable survey introduces critical knowledge and insights that have emerged over the past forty years, including targum manuscripts discovered this century and targums known in Aramaic but only recently translated into English. Prolific scholars Flesher and Chilton guide readers in understanding the development of the targums; their relationship to the Hebrew Bible; their dates, language, and place in the history of Christianity and Judaism; and their theologies and methods of interpretation. “With clear presentation of current research and the issues involved, including the Targums and the New Testament, and a rich bibliography, this is the most complete—and up-to-date—introduction to the Targums. An outstanding, highly recommended achievement.” Martin McNamara, Emeritus Professor of Scripture, Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland
Bible scholar Christian Brady, an expert on Old Testament lament, was as prepared as a person could be for the death of a child—which is to say, not nearly well enough. When his eight-year-old son died suddenly from a fast-moving blood infection, Brady heard the typical platitudes about accepting God's will and knew that quiet acceptance was not the only godly way to grieve. With deep faith, knowledge of Scripture, and the wisdom that comes only from experience, Brady guides readers grieving losses and setbacks of all kinds in voicing their lament to God, reflecting on the nature of human existence, and persevering in hope. Brady finds that rather than an image of God managing every event and action in our lives, the biblical account describes the very real world in which we all live, a world full of hardship and calamity that often comes unbidden and unmerited. Yet, it also is a world into which God lovingly intrudes to bring comfort, peace, and grace.
"This work examines the Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 40-48, arguing that it represents a reworking of these chapters in light of the book as a whole. The author applies Skopostheorie, a modern functional theory of translation, to understand the goals of translation in LXX Ezekiel 40-48, which include highlighting the distance and hence authority of the source text, suggesting solutions to problems posed by the text, and updating elements of the vision in light of Hellenistic culture. The goal of the translation was both to preserve the authority and to heighten the persuasive power of these chapters for his Hellenistic readers" --
In this work Daniel Prokop examines the description of the pillars in 1 Kgs 7, 15-22. He analyzes extrabiblical parallels, Greek and Hebrew textual witnesses as well as iconography and archaeological finds and asks about the symbolic meaning of the columns.
If Greek was the language by which Palestinian Jews talked to the Empire, then Aramaic and Hebrew were the languages by which they talked to themselves. In this context, what resulted when they translated the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic? Moments of the inner Jewish conversation about the meaning and relevance of Hebrew Scriptures frozen in Aramaic renditions. The scholars in this volume use these Aramaic translations, known as the Targums, like dioramas, peering through them to glimpse these moments in the development of Judaism and its theology. Dedicated to Ernest G. Clarke, the essays explore the variety of interpretations preserved in the different Targums from the Second Temple and post-Temple periods during which they were composed.