From The Reed Sea To Kadesh

Retrace the life of Moses from his modest birth and rescue as a baby to the courts of Pharaoh, from herding flocks in Midian to leading his people out of Egypt. Join Adam Hamilton as he travels from Egypt to Mt. Sinai, the Nile, the Red Sea and the wilderness exploring the sites of Moses' life. Using historical information, archaeological data, and biblical text, Hamilton guides us in the footsteps of this reluctant prophet who grew in his relationship with God and by the end of life had successfully fulfilled the role he was given. Turn your own reluctance into boldness as you examine the significant challenges facing Moses and how God shaped his character and life in powerful ways. Additional components for a six-week study include a comprehensive Leader Guide and a DVD featuring author and pastor Adam Hamilton. For a church-wide study, youth and children resources are also available.

Deuteronomy is a book about a community being prepared for a new life. Hardship and the wilderness lie behind; the promised land lies ahead. But in the present moment, there is a call for a new commitment to God and a fresh understanding of the nature of the community of God's people. Though the scene is set more than three thousand years in the past, Deuteronomy is still a book of considerable contemporary relevance. The book of Deuteronomy, however, is not only a book of contemporary relevance. It has been, and continues to be, one of the most important and debated works in modern biblical scholarship. - Author's preface.

This study concentrates on four narratives in the Old Testament in which books, especially the Book of the Torah, play a key role: Deuteronomy 9-10 and 31:24-26, 2 Kings 22-23, Jeremiah 36, and Nehemiah 8. This study is a major contribution to the theology of the Old Testament, because it demonstrates how a detailed literary analysis may lead to a better understanding of the structure of the canon.

Volume 1 of the Mercer Commentary on the Bible (MCB) comprises commentaries on Genesis -- Deuteronomy plus appropriate articles from the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (MDB). This convenient text is for the classroom and for anyone who wishes to focus on the study of the Pentateuch/Torah. Other fascicles in the series focus on other appropriate groups of canonical and deuterocanonical writings. Already available are volumes 4 (Prophets), 6 (Gospels), and 7 (Acts and Pauline Writings). Other volumes will follow in due course (see the list on p. vii). Each volume includes both MCB commentaries and appropriate articles from MDB. This fascicle edition of the massive Mercer Commentary on the Bible (1994/1995), with selections from the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (1990), is intended primarily for students in the classroom, and already is meeting the need for a convenient yet comprehensive text in classes on the Prophets, the Gospels, and so forth. Church study groups also are finding these volumes to be convenient and helpful curriculum pieces for ongoing study courses and in Sunday school or church school. Mercer University Press intends these texts to be available, appropriate, and helpful for Bible students both in and out of the classroom, and indeed for anyone seeking guidance in uncovering the abundant wealth of the Scriptures.

This volume describes how the rhetorical devices used in Judges inspire its readers to support a divinely appointed Judahite king who endorses the deuteronomic agenda to rid the land of foreigners, to maintain inter-tribal loyalty to YHWH's cult, and to uphold social justice. Matters of rhetorical concern interpreted here include the superimposed cycle-motif and tribal-political schemata, concerns reflected in the plot-layers of each hero story, the force of narrative analogy for characterization, the strategy of entrapment which foreshadows portrayals of Saul and David in 1 Samuel, and the relation between Judges' implied situation of composition and its compiler's intention. In addition to offering new insights into the rhetorical strategy of the Judges compiler, this book illustrates a new method for understanding how plot-layered stories work.

This book is a major contribution to the sociology of religion and to religious and biblical studies. Beginning from the classic work of Max Weber, the author analyses the origins of Judaism in the light of more recent scholarship. The result is a work that will become a standard point of reference in its field, and will be of great interest to the general reader as well as the specialist.