The Oxford Handbook Of The Psalms

An indispensable resource for students and scholars, The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms features a diverse array of essays that treat the Psalms from a variety of perspectives. Classical scholarship and approaches as well as contextual interpretations and practices are well represented. The coverage is uniquely wide ranging.

This Oxford Handbook is a serious resource for the study of the literature of the Writings (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel) of the Hebrew Bible, including its context and its scriptural/canonical shape and reception. A first section provides an overview of the post-exilic period in which much of the Writings was written, focusing on history, archeology, and the development of major literary traditions, all of which provide the context for understanding and interpreting this literature. A second section contains creative studies of the books in the Writings, focusing on structure, purpose, and distinctive characteristics of this very diverse literature. A third section looks at the Writings from larger and longer perspectives including the ancient Near East, developing Judaism and Christianity, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, music and the arts, and its canonization and reception by Judaism and Christianity. This handbook has a focus on the special character and shape of the Writings as scripture and canon, including the recurring issues of diversity and difference, dates of canonization, its special relationship to other scripture and canon (Torah, Prophets, New Testament), and its interpretation in religious and non-religious communities.

The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Biblical studies is a highly technical and diverse field. Study of the Bible demands expertise in fields ranging from Archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, and Linguistics through textual, historical, and sociological studies to Literary Theory, Feminism, Philosophy, and Theology, to name only some. This authoritative and compelling guide to the discipline will, therefore, be an invaluable reference work for all students and academics who want to explore more fully essential topics in Biblical studies.

A defining volume of essays in which leading international scholars apply an interdisciplinary approach to the long and evolving relationship between English Literature and Theology.

The nine essays in this volume originated in the discussions of the Psalms programme unit of the Society of Biblical Literature and a number were first presented as papers at the SBL meetings in 1989 and 1990. The volume documents the growing interest among scholars in understanding the book of Psalms not only as a collection of liturgical materials from ancient Israel and Judah but also as a coherent literary whole. Part I considers the nature and significance of this new approach; it contains essays by J.L. Mays, Roland E. Murphy, Walter Brueggemann, Gerald H. Wilson and David M. Howard, Jr. Part II illustrates the application of this approach and offers preliminary conclusions concerning the shape of the Psalter and its component books; it contains essays by Gerald H. Wilson, Patrick D. Miller, Jr, J. Clinton McCann, Jr. and David M. Howard, Jr.

In recent decades, reception history has become an increasingly important and controversial topic of discussion in biblical studies. Rather than attempting to recover the original meaning of biblical texts, reception history focuses on exploring the history of interpretation. In doing so it locates the dominant historical-critical scholarly paradigm within the history of interpretation, rather than over and above it. At the same time, the breadth of material and hermeneutical issues that reception history engages with questions any narrow understanding of the history of the Bible and its effects on faith communities. The challenge that reception history faces is to explore tradition without either reducing its meaning to what faith communities think is important, or merely offering anthologies of interesting historical interpretations. This major new handbook addresses these matters by presenting reception history as an enterprise (not a method) that questions and understands tradition afresh. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible consciously allows for the interplay of the traditional and the new through a two-part structure. Part I comprises a set of essays surveying the outline, form, and content of twelve key biblical books that have been influential in the history of interpretation. Part II offers a series of in-depth case studies of the interpretation of particular key biblical passages or books with due regard for the specificity of their social, cultural or aesthetic context. These case studies span two millennia of interpretation by readers with widely differing perspectives. Some are at the level of a group response (from Gnostic readings of Genesis, to Post-Holocaust Jewish interpretations of Job); others examine individual approaches to texts (such as Augustine and Pelagius on Romans, or Gandhi on the Sermon on the Mount). Several chapters examine historical moments, such as the 1860 debate over Genesis and evolution, while others look to wider themes such as non-violence or millenarianism. Further chapters study in detail the works of popular figures who have used the Bible to provide inspiration for their creativity, from Dante and Handel, to Bob Dylan and Dan Brown.

"The conceit in the title of this volume is that ritual, however expansively it may be defined, is ineluctably tethered to religion and worship. It has a primal connection to the idea that a transcendent order - numinous and mysterious, supranatural and elusive, divine and wholly other - gives meaning and purpose to life. The construction of rites and rituals enables humans to conceive and apprehend this transcendent order, to symbolize it and interact with it, to postulate its truths in the face of contradicting realities and to repair them when they have been breached or diminished. The focus of this Handbook is on ritual and worship from the perspective of biblical studies, particularly on the Hebrew Bible and its ancient Near Eastern antecedents. Within this context, attention will be given to the development of ideas in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinking, but only insofar as they connect with or extend the trajectory of biblical precedents. The volume reflects a wide range of analytical approaches to ancient texts, inscriptions, iconography, and ritual artifacts. It examines the social history and cultural knowledge encoded in rituals, and explores the way rituals shape and are shaped by politics, economics, ethical imperatives, and religion itself. Toward this end, the volume is organized into six major sections: Historical Contexts, Interpretive Approaches, Ritual Elements (participants, places, times, objects, practices), Underlying Cultural and Theological Perspectives, History of Interpretation, Social-Cultural Functions, and Theology and Theological Heritage"--

"This volume both reflects on the contested nature of the Wisdom Literature category and takes advantage of the opportunities it presents for reconsidering the concept of wisdom more independently from it. The first half explores wisdom as a concept, with essays on its relationship to skill, epistemology, virtue, theology, and order in the Hebrew Bible, its meaning in related cultures, from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Patristic and Rabbinic interpretation, and, finally, its continuing relevance the modern world, including in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought, and from feminist, environmental, and other contextual perspectives. The latter half considers "Wisdom Literature" as a category. Scholars address its relation to the Solomonic Collection, its social setting, literary genres, chronological development, and theology. Wisdom Literature's relation to other biblical literature (law, history, prophecy, apocalyptic, and the broad question of "Wisdom influence") is then discussed before separate chapters on the texts commonly associated with the category. Contributors take a variety of approaches to the current debates surrounding the viability and value of the Wisdom Literature category and its proper relationship to the concept of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. Though the organization of the volume highlights the independence of wisdom as concept from "Wisdom Literature" as category, seeking to counter the lack of attention given to this question in the traditional approach, the inclusion of both topics together in the same volume reflects their continued interconnection. As such, this handbook both represents the current state of Wisdom scholarship and sets the stage for future developments"--