Wealthwatch

The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions, its acquisition and protection, deprivation and slavery, corruption and hedonism, and even relations between management and labor. Focusing on Torah (the Pentateuch), it interprets this "great text" against other "great texts" in its literary-historical environment, including some epic poems from Mesopotamia, some Jewish texts from Syro-Palestine, and some Nazarene parables from the Greek New Testament.

Like the first volume in this series (WealthWatch, Pickwick, 2011) this book attempts to do two things: (a) examine the primary socioeconomic motifs in the Bible from a comparative intertextual perspective, and (b) trace the trajectory formed by these motifs through Tanak into early Jewish and Nazarene texts. Where WealthWatch focuses on Torah, WealthWarn focuses on the single largest section of the Bible—the Prophets. Where the ancient Near Eastern texts surveyed in WealthWatch include the Epic of Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and the Epic of Erra, the texts examined here include Inanna's Descent, the Babylonian Creation Epic (enūma elish), the Disappearance of Telipinu, and the Ba`al Epic. Where the Jewish texts surveyed in WealthWatch include historical and sectarian texts, the texts studied here include Ezra-Nehemiah, the Epistle of Jeremiah and Tobit. Where the Nazarene texts in WealthWatch focus on the stewardship parables found in the Gospel of Luke, the texts examined here focus on several prophetic vignettes from the Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles.

This book is a collection of revised-and-updated essays about the Hebrew Bible written by a North American scholar over a period of several decades. Subdivided into three parts--Torah, Prophecy/Apocalyptic, and Wisdom--these seventeen essays attempt to model for younger scholars and students what the discipline of biblical interpretation can look like, attending carefully to literary, historical, canonical, and comparative intertextual methods of investigation.

The purpose of this book is to introduce the Pentateuch to (under)graduate students by approaching it from the perspective of five theological polarities: chaos-creation (Genesis), slavery-freedom (Exodus), defilement-holiness (Leviticus), wilderness-homeland (Numbers), and conflict-covenant (Deuteronomy). It examines these polarities in light of other great texts from the ancient Near East (and Qur'an) in the hope of ushering the reader into a deeper understanding of the one God revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Like the first two books in this series (WealthWatch and WealthWarn), this volume attempts to do two things: (a) examine the primary socioeconomic motifs in the Bible from a comparative intertextual perspective, and (b) trace the trajectory formed by these motifs through Tanak into early Jewish and Nazarene texts. Where WealthWatch focuses on Torah and WealthWarn focuses on the Prophets, WealthWise focuses on wisdom literature. The texts examined here include the Instructions of Shuruppak, Codex Hammurabi, the Poem of the Pious Sufferer (Ludlul bel nemeqi), the Babylonian Theodicy, the Shamash Hymn, the Dialogue of Pessimism, various Hittite texts, the Proverbs of Ahiqar, 4QInstruction, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, and the Wisdom of Solomon, plus Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” and the Epistle of James.

Description: The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions, basing itself on the presumption that (a) nobody can understand themselves apart from some recognition of their spiritual roots, and (b) that these roots sink deeper into the pages of the Bible than most Westerners realize. Focusing upon that part of the Bible most widely recognized to be its ideological core--that which is called Torah by some, Pentateuch by others--it interprets this ""great text"" against other ""great texts"" in its literary-historical environment, including (a) some epic poems from Mesopotamia, (b) some Jewish texts from Syria-Palestine, and (c) some Nazarene parables from the Greek New Testament. Endorsements: ""This remarkable book by Michael Moore asks what the Bible and other ancient texts have to say about important socioeconomic questions involving wealth: its acquisition and protection; deprivation and slavery; corruption and hedonism; and even relations between management and labor. This is a thoughtful and eminently readable study that nicely lays out the big problems entailed by wealth and looks at how ancient literature offers critiques of wealth practices and related social problems. Moore offers insights and wisdom from the Bible and other ancient classics to anyone trying to think about and evaluate modern values in a culture that all too often seems sadly obsessed with money."" -Mark S. Smith Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies New York University ""Michael Moore has written an extraordinarily wide-ranging, widely-read, lively, swashbuckling, and illuminating book on a topic of huge importance in our world--indeed (as he shows) in any world. It will give you new understanding of the Bible, it will not bore you, and the footnotes alone are an education."" -John Goldingay David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament Fuller Theological Seminary ""A thoroughly researched review of socioeconomic conflicts in the Bible and its contemporary world in continuity with present conflicts, featuring corruption, addiction, and our ongoing (debt-) slavery, prompted by the breakdown of the family economic unit (divorce) and catastrophic medical bills. Drawing upon familiar Biblical stories and motifs-including the emphasis on sharing and the rejection of sheer acquisitiveness-Moore challenges present-day readers and leads them to change their perceptions and actions."" -Herbert Huffmon Professor of Old Testament Studies Drew University About the Contributor(s): Michael S. Moore is a faculty associate at Arizona State University and Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Balaam Traditions (1990) and Faith Under Pressure (2003).

In Wealth, Virtue, and Moral Luck, Kate Ward addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics, arguing that our individual life circumstances affect our ability to pursue virtue and showing how Christians and Christian communities should respond to create a world where it is easier for people to be virtuous.

Presents a balanced synthesis of the scholarship, enabling readers to interpret Scripture for a complex and pluralistic world. This book discusses the dramatic challenges that have shaped contemporary interpretation of the Old Testament and Apocrypha.