Behind The Scenes Of The Old Testament

This authoritative volume brings together a team of world-class scholars to cover the full range of Old Testament backgrounds studies in a concise, up-to-date, and comprehensive manner. With expertise in various subdisciplines of Old Testament backgrounds, the authors illuminate the cultural, social, and historical contexts of the world behind the Old Testament. They introduce readers to a wide range of background materials, covering history, geography, archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern textual and iconographic studies. Meant to be used alongside traditional literature-based canonical surveys, this one-stop introduction to Old Testament backgrounds fills a gap in typical introduction to the Bible courses. It contains over 100 illustrations, including photographs, line drawings, maps, charts, and tables, which will facilitate its use in the classroom.

The authoritative new account of the BibleÕs origins, illuminating the 1,600-year tradition that shaped the Christian and Jewish holy books as millions know them today. The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories, as well as the underappreciated contest between them, from which the Bible arose. Recent scholarship has overturned popular assumptions about IsraelÕs past, suggesting, for instance, that the five books of the Torah were written not by Moses but during the reign of Josiah centuries later. The sources of the Gospels are also under scrutiny. Konrad Schmid and Jens Schršter reveal the long, transformative journeys of these and other texts en route to inclusion in the holy books. The New Testament, the authors show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. Rather the two evolved in parallel, in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing mutual influence of Jewish and Christian traditions. Indeed, Schmid and Schršter argue that Judaism may not have survived had it not been reshaped in competition with early Christianity. A remarkable synthesis of the latest Old and New Testament scholarship, The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet told of the worldÕs best-known literature, revealing its buried lessons and secrets.

Paul Barnett traces the church from the Gospels to Revelation, anchoring events recorded in the New Testament within the historical, political and social context of the Roman Empire.

The Making of the Old Testament is one of three books accompanying the volumes of commentary in the Old Testament and Apocrypha series of Cambridge Bible Commentaries on the New English Bible. This volume is concerned with the formation of the books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha in the context of the ancient Near Eastern World, and with the ways in which these books have come down to us through the Jewish and Christian communities. Individual chapters discuss other literary documents contemporary with events in the Old Testament; the style of and critical approaches to the Old Testament books; other Jewish writing (Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha); the development of the Old Testament canon; the development of the modern English text from the various earlier versions; and the place of the Old Testament in modern Judaism and Christianity. Each of the chapters is followed by suggestions for further reading.

Although the book of Esther contains no direct references to God, his fingerprints can be found all over it. In God Behind the Scenes, Wayne K. Barkhuizen helps us trace the unseen hand of God throughout the Esther narrative, while pointing out how the book is still relevant today. As we walk through the book, we’ll see how God was indeed active in preserving the people through whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would one day come.

We think of the Hebrew Bible as the Book--and yet it was produced by a largely nonliterate culture in which writing, editing, copying, interpretation, and public reading were the work of a professional elite. The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and in this book Karel van der Toorn tells their story for the first time. His book considers the Bible in very specific historical terms, as the output of the scribal workshop of the Second Temple active in the period 500-200 BCE. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn clearly details the methods, the assumptions, and the material means of production that gave rise to biblical texts; then he brings his observations to bear on two important texts, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the literate elite who held the key to the production as well as the transmission of texts. Van der Toorn's account of scribal culture opens a new perspective on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how the individual books of the Bible and the authors associated with them were products of the social and intellectual world of the scribes. By taking us inside that world, this book yields a new and arresting appreciation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

This work is an essential companion for understanding each book of the New Testament in its cultural context. It provides information and analysis on each biblical book, covering its cultural and historical background including the author and fresh outline of each biblical book. From the life of Jesus in the Gospels, to the life of Paul in Acts, you'll find the answers you are looking for here. Cultural and archaeological discoveries are provided throughout, helping to bring the Bible alive for any reader. It is beautifully illustrated with over 200 colorful, maps, timelines, charts, photographs, and illustrations. A helpful glossary defines technical terms, and extensive footnotes with hundreds of commentaries and books listed in the For Future Study section, as well as an extensive bibliography, provide an invaluable resource to readers seeking further study. An engaging resource intended for laypeople who want to know more about the New Testament, whether in seminary courses, college classrooms, church groups or personal study.