Perspectives On The Formation Of The Book Of The Twelve

The formation of the Book of the Twelve is one of the most vigorously debated subjects in Old Testament studies today. This volume assembles twenty-four essays by the world’s leading experts, providing an overview of the present state of scholarship in the field. The book’s contributors focus on questions of method, history, as well as redactional and textual history.

In antiquity, the twelve books of the Minor Prophets were transmitted as a single volume known as the Book of the Twelve. This 1994 Duke dissertation uses manuscript discoveries from the Judean Desert and a fresh re-appraisal of the Greek translation of the Minor Prophets to argue for the existence of three versions of the Book of the Twelve in ancient Judaism. The differences between these versions illustrate the role that ancient biblical interpretation played in the shaping of the canonical prophetic literature. Among its other contributions, the book marshalls textual evidence for the integrity and chronological priority of the Hebrew text of the Septuagint Minor Prophets as compared to the Masoretic textual tradition. -- Back Cover.

In The Book of the Twelve: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, an international group of biblical scholars discuss different aspects of the formation, interpretation, and reception of the Book of the Twelve as a literary unity.

This volume explores the themes of theodicy and hope in both individual portions of the Twelve (books and sub-sections) and in the Book of the Twelve as a whole, as the contributors use a diversity of approaches to the text(s) with a particular interest in synchronic perspectives. While these essays regularly engage the mostly redactional scholarship surrounding the Book of Twelve, there is also an examination of various forms of literary analysis of final text forms, and engagement in descriptions of the thematic and theological perspectives of the individual books and of the collection as a whole. The synchronic work in these essays is thus in regular conversation with diachronic research, and as a general rule they take various conclusions of redactional research as a point of departure. The specific themes, theodicy and hope, are key ideas that have provided the opportunity for contributors to explore individual books or sub-sections within the Twelve, and the overarching development (in both historical and literary terms) and deployment of these themes in the collection.

Past decades have witnessed an increasing interest in the Book of the Twelve. James Nogalski and Paul House had been at the forefront of research in this regard in presenting approaches that account for the book as a whole. Meanwhile others like Ehud Ben Zvi have some reservations. This collection of essays discusses the hermeneutical, exegetical and theological significance of these opposing perspectives and explores venues for future research. The impact on reading and reflecting on individual books is of particular interest to the various essays. Die Entstehung des Dodekapropheton wird seit einigen Jahren engagiert diskutiert. Alternativen stehen sich teilweise unversöhnlich gegenüber. Einerseits werden die einzelnen Prophetenbücher klar voneinander abgegrenzt, andererseits liegen verbindende Elemente vor. Auch die Auslegungsgeschichte geht immer wieder von einem Buch aus. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes lenken die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Frage, welchen Unterschied die verschiedenen Entstehungsszenarien für die Auslegung der einzelnen Bücher und des gesamten Korpus haben. Diese Fragestellung, die bisher wenig Beachtung fand, wird aus hermeneutischer, exegetischer und theologischer Perspektive diskutiert.

Visions of the Holy is a collection of essays by Marvin A. Sweeney on the study of biblical and postbiblical theology and literature. The volume includes previously published and unpublished essays related to the developing field of Jewish biblical theology; historical, comparative, and reception-critical studies; and the reading of texts from the Pentateuch, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets, and Ketuvim. Additional essays examine Asian biblical theology, the understanding of Shabbat, intertextuality in Exodus–Numbers, Samuel, Isaiah, and the Twelve in intertextual perspective, and the democratization of messianism in modern Jewish thought. The volume is an excellent resource for scholars, students, and clergy interested in theological readings of the Hebrew Bible.

In The Non-Israelite Nations in the Book of the Twelve Daniel Timmer surveys the nations-theme in the Minor Prophets in terms of its conceptual coherence, noting its contours in each individual book and across the collection as a whole.

In the new Hermeneia volume, the Jonah translation and commentary, renowned biblical scholar Susan Niditch encourages the reader to investigate challenging questions about ancient conceptions of personal religious identity. Jonah's story is treated as a complex reflection upon the heavy matters of life and death, good and evil, and human and divine relations. The narrative probes an individual's relationship with a demanding deity, considers vexing cultural issues of "us versus them," and examines the role of Israel's god in a universal and international context. The author examines the ways in which Jonah prods readers to contemplate these fundamental issues concerning group- and self-definition. In her technical study of Jonah's language, style, structure, content, and context, Niditch examines the text through the comparative lens of international folklore. The thread of appropriations of Jonah by post-biblical writers and artists is explored, and special attention is paid to rabbinic midrash, medieval Jewish manuscript illuminations, and Christian art of late antiquity. And in the tradition of Hermeneia volumes, the commentary evaluates and incorporates the insights of a long legacy of scholars who have explored this venerable text from varied perspectives.