Esther Ruth Jonah Deciphered

"In the Book of ESTHER, the Jews of the Persian Empire are threatened with death but given eleven months' notice of their day of destruction, is that credible? Can this really be believed? Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg gives rational answers to these and other difficult questions and in doing so, forces the reader to re-think many of his pre-conceived notions about these books, no matter how many times he has read them or how well he thinks he understands their meaning.

Attempts to unravel the unexplained mysteries which are central to each of these three books--such as the swallowing and spewing back of Jonah by a whale--not on the basis of belief, but by using modern-day historical, archaeological and textual tools.

This beautifully illustrated volume embeds the biblical Hebrew text of the Ruth, Esther, and Jonah in the context of the evocative, full-color illustrations of Keith Neely. This innovative presentation will help students of biblical Hebrew to immediately distinguish narrative from dialogue and to observe visual cues of action, tension, and emotion. This book belongs to the GlossaHouse Illustrated Hebrew-English Old Testament (GIHEOT) series. Biblical Hebrew will no longer be thought of as a "dead" language in the minds of students-codes to be deciphered into usable English; instead Biblical Hebrew will come alive as a languages of actual communication, a vehicle used by ancient authors to express their stories in the idiom of their own hearts. Whether you are a beginning student of biblical languages, or a seasoned scholar, you will find a fresh presentation of the ancient texts that will ignite your imagination and turn the world of these words into an expansive, multicolored landscape in your mind's eye.

"If history is narrative, than Ezra-Nehemiah is only partly history. Well over half of Ezra-Nehemiah is not a narrative but rather a patchwork of cited texts that are frequently intervening in the story. The capacity of citations in Ezra-Nehemiah to offend the historiographical, aesthetic, and theological sensibilities of scholars in the last century invites us to renew the question of what citation accomplishes in this context. In this book, I label the citation style in Ezra-Nehemiah, "archival historiography." I argue that the act of citation in Ezra-Nehemiah forms an alternative site of archiving in Ezra-Nehemiah and this hybrid literary form prioritizes the assembly and organization of documents over the production of a seamless narrative. I begin this argument by comparing this literary form with archival institutions and practices across the landscape of the ancient Near East, contending that Ezra-Nehemiah adapts the symbolic power of these ancient collections. I then identify the role of the imperial archive within the narrative of Ezra-Nehemiah, where it surfaces as an axial and ambivalent source of political power. By reviewing the cited documents in Ezra-Nehemiah, this book argues that the act of citation is not, as has been commonly argued, solely or even primarily in the business of authorizing this account or symbolizing the fulfillment of prophetic promises. Rather, citation in Ezra-Nehemiah is aimed at reestablishing a community by organizing memory into retrievable texts. Archival historiography thus constitutes an essential act of communal recovery. Creating an archive within the pages of Ezra-Nehemiah represents the cultural vitality of the Judean community after the losses of exile and while living in the long shadow of imperial rule." --

This is a book of short essays on interesting people, events and themes in the Hebrew scriptures. An earlier book by the same author is New Testament People – A Rabbi’s Notes.

Darya does not remember how she came to be a slave or who she was before she was bought by an army captain for his motherless daughter in the ancient Persian city of Susa. Protected and nurtured by the housekeeper and her daughter, Darya has as good a life as a slave can have, even acquiring the rare skill of reading and writing, which she learns alongside her young mistress. When the captain dies and the household is broken up, this skill proves to be her lifeline. She becomes the seventh handmaiden to the mysterious Esther, who is being housed at the Royal Palace while in contention to be King Xerxes’ new Queen. However, life in Ancient Persia is precarious for women and outsiders, wherever they are in the hierarchy. When the king appoints a new prime minister called Haman, Darya and Esther are drawn into his murderous conflict with the Judean community and Mordechai, their leader, who lives just outside the palace gates. In a world of discord and uprising, Darya seeks to fix the world around her and protect her friends, while also trying to unravel the mysteries surrounding who she is and how she became a slave. As she grows from childhood to womanhood she grapples with her own identity, her aspirations and desires and begins to understand the true meaning of both slavery and freedom.