Library of Hebrew Bible/OT Studies: JSOTS Old Testament Monographs (7 Vols.)

Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible

• Francis Landy
• 432 pages | 01 Mar 2001
• Vol. 312 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

This book is a collection of Landy's studies on the poetics of the Hebrew Bible. The Song of Songs is featured alongside the prophetic voices of Amos, Hosea and Isaiah, and essays on the Binding of Isaac and on the book of Ruth. The emphasis throughout is on the subversiveness, richness and ambiguity of the text, but above all its (often enigmatic) beauty. The thread of psychoanalysis and its metaphorical technique draws together this collection from one of the Bible's most sensitive and distinctive literary critics.

Francis Landy is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

Signs of Weakness: Juxtaposing Irish Tales and the Bible

• Varese Layzer
• 248 pages | 01 Mar 2001
• Vol. 321 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

Are early Irish stories influenced by the Bible or transcriptions of pre-Christian Celtic lore? Layzer explores the practical and theoretical difficulties of determining “influence” in ancient writing, and the relationship between the oral and the written, literacy and literature and the disciplines of Irish Studies and Biblical Studies.

Varese Layzer received her doctorate from the University of Aberdeen and lives in New York.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

The Land that I Will Show You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honor of J. Maxwell Miller

• J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham, eds.
• 320 pages | 01 Apr 2002
• Vol. 343 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

A collection of seventeen articles by colleagues and former students of Professor J. Maxwell Miller who taught at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University. The papers deal with the history, chronology, geography, archaeology and epigraphy of ancient Israel and its setting in the Levant, and range from broad methodological discussions of historiography to focused analyses of individual texts or historical issues. A review of Miller's career and a select bibliography of his publications are also included.

J. Andrew Dearman is Academic Dean, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas, USA and Visiting Professor, Department of Old Testament, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

M. Patrick Graham is Margaret A. Pitts Associate Professor of Theological Bibliography at Candler School of Theology, and Director of Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

The Origin of the History of Israel: Herodotus' Histories as Blueprint for the First Books of the Bible

• Jan-Wim Wesselius
• 224 pages | 01 Jul 2002
• Vol. 345 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

This book demonstrates that Primary History, the historical work contained in the first nine books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis-2 Kings), was written as one unitary work, in deliberate emulation of the Greek-language Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (completed c. 440 BCE). The diversity of its books and sections is largely a literary device. The work was most likely written in the period 440-420 BCE, in the period of reform usually associated with the name of Nehemiah.

Though this thesis does not directly affect questions of historicity, understanding the literary nature of primary history promises to open new vistas for research into the history of Israel, the Hebrew Bible in general and the history of the Hebrew language.

Wesselius' suggestion is the most exciting development within Old Testament studies since the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis itself.
— Patrick Madigan, The Heythrop Journal

Dr. Jan-Wim Wesselius is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Semitic Studies in the Theological University of Kampen, The Netherlands.

Table of Contents: 1

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

The Image, the Depths and the Surface: Multivalent Approaches to Biblical Study

• Susan Gillingham
• 160 pages | 01 Sep 2002
• Vol. 354 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

The purpose of this book is to illustrate that reading is a subjective process which results in multivalent interpretations. This is the case whether one looks at a text in its historical contexts (the diachronic approach) or its literary contexts (the synchronic approach). Three representative texts are chosen from the Law (Genesis 2-3), the Writings (Isaiah 23) and the Prophets (Amos 5), and each is read first by way of historical analysis and then by literary analysis. Each text provides a number of variant interpretations and raises the question--is any one interpretation superior? What criteria do we use to measure this? Or is there value in the complementary nature of many approaches and many results?

Susan Gillingham is Fellow and Tutor in Theology, Worcester College, Oxford and University Lecturer in Old Testament at Oxford University.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

'Every City Shall Be Forsaken': Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East

• Lester Grabbe and Robert D. Haak, eds.
• 232 pages | 01 Oct 2001
• Vol. 330 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

Urbanism in ancient society has now become an important topic for both classical and ancient Near Eastern scholars. Equally, the question of prophecy as social institution and literary corpus has been increasingly problematized. The essays in this volume bring together these crucial aspects of modern biblical research, the scope ranging from methodological issues about sociology and urbanism to Assyrian prophecies and specific biblical texts. An introductory chapter surveys recent anthropological study on urbanism, summarizes the essays, and places the different contributions in context.

Lester Grabbe, MA(Pasadena), PhD(Claremont), DD(Hull), is Professor Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull.

Robert D. Haak is Professor of Religion, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3

The Whirlwind: Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in Memory of Jane Morse

• Stephen Cook, Corrine Patton and James Watts, eds.
• 215 pages | 01 Feb 2002
• Vol. 336 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series

This collection of essays focuses on the book of Job, exploring the complex interplay of methodology and hermeneutics. There are two major parts: approaches that are primarily historical, i.e. the recovery of what the text 'meant'; and those that are contextual, i.e. that take seriously the context of reading. Both approaches engage the theological issue of how this reading helps us to better appropriate what the text 'means'. Contributors include the editors and Mark S. Smith, Douglas J. Green, Victoria Hoffer, Ellen F. Davis and Claire Matthews McGinnis. An introductory essay surveys the contents and outcomes of the various contributions and proposes new directions for the question of integrating methods.

Stephen Cook is an Associate Professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia.

Corrine Patton is Associate Professor at the University of St Thomas, St Paul, Minnesota.

James Watts is Associate Professor of Religion at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents: 1 | 2

Sample pages: 1 | 2 | 3