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This book reevaluates modern scholarly approaches to ancient Jewish cultic rituals, arguing that sacrifice in particular has been long misunderstood. Various religious and cultural ideologies (especially supersessionist ones) have frequently prevented scholars from seeing the Jerusalem temple as a powerful source of meaning and symbolism to those ancient Jews who worshiped there. Such approaches are exposed and countered by reviewing the theoretical literature on sacrifice and taking a fresh look at a broad range of evidence concerning ancient Jewish attitudes toward the temple and its sacrificial cult. Starting with the Hebrew Bible, this work argues for a symbolic understanding of a broad range of cultic practices, including both purity rituals and sacrificial acts. The prophetic literature is also reexamined, with an eye toward clarifying the relationship between the prophets and the sacrificial cult. Later ancient Jewish symbolic understandings of the cult are also revealed in sources including Josephus, Philo, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. A number of ancient Jews certainly did believe that the temple was temporarily tainted or defiled in some fashion, including the Dead Sea sectarians and Jesus. But they continued to speak of the temple in metaphorical terms, and — like practically all ancient Jews — believed in the cult, accepted its symbolic significance, and hoped for its ultimate efficacy.

What was once taboo — faith at work — is increasingly accepted in corporate America. From secretaries to CEOs, growing numbers of businesspeople today want to bring their faith to work. Yet they wrestle with how to do this effectively and appropriately in a pluralistic corporate setting. For help they turn not to their clergy, but to their peers and to a burgeoning cottage industry on spirituality at work. They attend conferences and seminars, participate in Bible study and prayer groups, and read books, blogs, and eNewsletters. They see their faith as a resource for ethical guidance and to help find meaning and purpose in their work. This book looks at how this Faith at Work movement developed and considers its potential value for business and society. Done well, the integration of faith and work has positive implications at the personal level, as well as for corporate ethics and the broader economic sphere. At the same time, increasing expressions of religion and spiritual practices at work also present the threat of divisiveness and discrimination.

The first Schweich Lectures were given by Professor S. R. Driver of Oxford University in 1908 and the British Academy celebrated the centenary of the lectures with a single lecture in 2008. This book is an amplified version of that lecture, with each of its three chapters developing a theme relevant to the occasion. The lectures, on aspects of the study of antiquity in its relationship to the Bible, were established by a gift from Constance Schweich (later Mrs Goetze) in memory of her late father, Leopold Schweich. The first chapter of this book brings together biographical information (including some previously unpublished documents) about the Schweichs, who were originally a German Jewish family with close connections to the distinguished chemist and industrialist Ludwig Mond. The donation was the first major benefaction received by the British Academy, which had been founded in 1901 but initially had no government funding. The second chapter uses archival and published sources to reconstruct the circumstances and the history of the lectureship. An Appendix lists the names of all the lecturers, their subjects, and details of the publication of their lectures. The final chapter, ‘Archaeology and the Bible — A Broken Link?’, examines broader questions about ‘biblical archaeology’, which arose in the later twentieth century in the light of developments in archaeological theory and biblical scholarship, and considers whether there is still a future for collaboration between the two disciplines. The book provides a glimpse into Jewish philanthropy in England in the Edwardian era.

Many books have been published on Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), widely regarded as the greatest American theologian. Some are by experts who typically write only for fellow specialists. Others are by popular authors who are unaware of recent scholarly discoveries. This book contains chapters based on the latest research on the subject of Edwards and the result is an introduction to North America’s most important religious mind on subjects he considered vitally important: revival, Bible, typology, aesthetics, literature, preaching, philosophy, and world religions. It also includes a survey of his life and career, extended reflections on his relevance to today’s church and world, and much more.

During the Enlightenment, scholars guided by a new vision of a post-theological age did not simply investigate the Bible, they remade it. In place of the familiar scriptural Bibles that belonged to Christian and Jewish communities, they created a new form: the academic Bible. This book examines the creation of the academic Bible. Beginning with the fragmentation of biblical interpretation in the centuries after the Reformation, it shows how the weakening of scriptural authority in the Western churches altered the role of biblical interpretation. In contexts shaped by skepticism and religious strife, interpreters increasingly operated on the Bible as a text to be managed by critical tools. These developments prepared the way for scholars to formalize an approach to biblical study shaped by classical philology and oriented toward the statist vision of the new universities and their sponsors. Focusing on a renowned German scholar of the period, Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) of Göttingen, this book explores the ways that critics reconceived the role of the Bible. The founders of modern biblical criticism preserved the cultural authority of the Bible, yet they did so by pushing scriptural Bibles and religious reading to the margins of academic discourse. This book offers a new account of the origins of biblical studies, illuminating the relation of the Bible to churchly readers, theological exegesis, and academic criticism. It explains why, in an age of religious resurgence, modern biblical criticism may no longer be in a position to serve as the Bible’s disciplinary gatekeeper.

This book is an initial response to the call of the World Council of Churches for renewed theological reflection on the biblical roots of ordination to strengthen the vocational identity of the ordained and to provide a framework for ecumenical dialogue. It is grounded in the assumption that the vocation of ordination requires an understanding of holiness and how it functions in human religious experience. The goal is to construct a biblical theology of ordination, embedded in broad reflection on the nature of holiness. The study of holiness and ministry interweaves three methodologies. First, the history of religions describes two theories of holiness in the study of religion — as a dynamic force and as a ritual resource — which play a central role in biblical literature and establish the paradigm of ordination to Word and Sacrament in Christian tradition. Second, the study of the Moses in the Pentateuch and the formation of the Mosaic office illustrate the ways in which the two views of holiness model ordination to the prophetic word and to the priestly ritual. And, third, canonical criticism provides the lens to explore the ongoing influence of the Mosaic office in the New Testament literature.

Although many refer to the American South as the “Bible Belt”, the region was not always characterized by a powerful religious culture. In the 17th century and early 18th century, religion was virtually absent from southern culture. The late 18th century and early 19th century, however, witnessed the astonishingly rapid rise of evangelical religion in the Upper South. Within just a few years, evangelicals had spread their beliefs and their fervor, gaining converts and building churches throughout Virginia and North Carolina and into the western regions. This book argues that early evangelicals successfully negotiated the various challenges of the 18th-century landscape by creating churches that functioned as civil as well as religious bodies. As the era experienced substantial rifts in the relationship between church and state, the disestablishment of colonial churches paved the way for new formulations of church-state relations. The evangelical churches were well-positioned to provide guidance in uncertain times, and their multiple functions allowed them to reshape many of the central elements of authority in southern society. They assisted in reformulating the lines between the “religious” and “secular” realms, with significant consequences for both religion and the emerging nation-state.

The past in the Hebrew Bible is a represented past, not the past itself. This book argues that the biblical portrayal of the past consists of a complex interplay of historical memory, folklore, cultural self-definition, and literary brilliance. The chapters of this book attempt to survey and, to the degree possible, untangle these various layers, concentrating on the foundational narratives of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the united monarchy. The biblical sense of the past combines traits that we separate into different genres — myth, epic, and history — but form a seamless synthesis in the biblical conception.

Both the Hebrew Bible and Christian scriptures equate the Spirit of God with power. Power is a diverse phenomenon in human experience; several instances of power are examined here with the help of social scientific and psychological analysis. The book then relates the divine Spirit power to each of these instances of power: force and violence, fear, official and religious authority, law, wealth, images and symbols, language, teaching, sexuality, friendship and love. Finally, as a synthesizing metaphor to help gain insight into the divine outreach, i.e. the Spirit of God, the author uses the experience of a human embrace, examining this with a phenomenological hermeneutic and correlating it to the various forms of power studied.

This book deals with Bible translation and its development from Antiquity to the Reformation. Taking the Hebrew Masoretic Text of Genesis as Old Testament Vorlage, it examines corresponding verses from five translations: Septuagint, Vulgate, Luther's Bible, Tyndale and the Authorized Version, and the Dutch State Translation. The context is the challenge mounted by feminist scholarship, particularly those scholars of the ‘second wave’, who have tried and convicted Scripture of androcentricity and misogyny. Translated passages in Genesis 1–4 that deal with the male‐female dynamic are subjected to detailed analysis, tracing linguistic and ideological processes and seeking to determine the extent of interaction between contemporary culture and translation. The degree and development of androcentricity in these passages in both Hebrew and translated texts are likewise taken into account. Each chapter dealing with a specific translation consists of two parts: the historical/cultural background of period and translator(s), particularly with regard to women, and a close exegesis of the verses in question. Results point to the Hebrew text revealing significant androcentricity, with the Septuagint, possibly influenced by Greek philosophy, emphasizing the patriarchal elements. This trend persists through the Vulgate and even Luther's Bible — though less so in the English and Dutch versions — and suggests that the translators must be at least partly responsible for an androcentric text becoming the justification for the oppression of women. Each section dealing with textual analysis is sub‐divided into the same groups of verses: male and female (1:26–28), man (2:7,9,15–17), woman (2:18–25), seeing (3:1–13), consequences (3:14–24), generation (4:1–2,17,25).

What are Christians saying when they call the Bible the Word of God? How is that statement to be understood in relation to postmodernity's suspicion of meaning? This book tackles these questions by bringing postmodern theory into critical dialogue with the often-neglected doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. The notion of the ‘sufficiency’ of a text, and the contrasting idea of the ‘supplement(s)’ which texts carry with them, together provide a sharp critical tool for analysing a variety of contemporary hermeneutical and doctrinal positions. Brought into this discussion are Derrida, from whom the idea of ‘supplement’ is borrowed; Barth, Frei, Fish, Hirsch, Hauerwas, Gadamer, Bakhtin, Fowl, Wolterstorff, Vanhoozer, Childs, and Warfield. Building especially on descriptions of language as action, the book critically reconstructs ‘the sufficiency of Scripture’ as both a concept and a doctrine which must remain central to Christian theology and practice.

This book takes its cue from Augustine's theory of the liberal arts to explore the larger question of how the Bible became the focus of medieval culture in the West. Augustine himself became increasingly aware that an ambivalent attitude towards knowledge and learning was inherent in Christianity. By facing the intellectual challenge posed by this tension he arrived at a new theory of how to interpret the Bible correctly. One of the topics investigated here is Augustine's changing relationship with the ‘disciplines’ as he moved from an attempt at their Christianisation (in the philosophical dialogues of Cassiciacum) to a radical reshaping of them within a Christian world-view (in the De Doctrina Christiana and Confessions). The book also considers the factors that prompted and facilitated his change of perspective and the ways in which Augustine's evolving theory reflected contemporary trends in Christian pedagogy.

This volume examines the relationship between the history of scholarship and the history of Christianity in the early modern period. Leading British, American and continental scholars explore the ways in which erudition contributed to—or clashed with—the formation of confessional identities in the wake of the Reformation, at individual, institutional, national and international levels. Covering Catholics and Protestants in equal measure, the essays assess biblical criticism; the study of the church fathers; the ecclesiastical censorship of scholarly works; oriental studies and the engagement with Near Eastern languages, texts and communities; and the relationship between developments in scholarship and other domains, including practical piety, natural philosophy, and the universities and seminaries where most intellectual activity was still conducted. One of the volume’s main strengths is its chronological coverage. It begins with an unprecedentedly detailed and comprehensive review of the scholarly literature in this field and proceeds with case studies ranging from the early Reformation to the eighteenth century. The volume also features the publication of a remarkable new manuscript detailing Isaac Newton’s early theological studies in 1670s Cambridge. It will be of interest not only to early modern intellectual and religious historians, but also to those with broader interests in religious change, the reception of oriental and classical sources and traditions, the history of science, and in the sociology of knowledge.

Since 1980, epigraphic discoveries and researches have thrown new light on the Levant during the Achaemenid period (533-332 BCE). As an epigrapher who published many new Phoenician, Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions André Lemaire shows how these inscriptions illuminate the history and daily life of the Persian period Phoenicians, Israelites and Idumeans. Thanks to them, it is now possible to know more precisely the history of the four Phoenician kingdoms (Aradus, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre) and of the Cisjordan provinces (Samaria, Judaea and Idumaea) as well as the way of life of Judean groups in the Diaspora (Babylonia, Egypt, Cyprus); they also provide new light on several aspects of the Biblical literary tradition. Profusely illustrated, the book shows how important these various inscriptions are for Biblical Studies and historical researches on the Levant during a period still too often qualified as ‘obscure’ but more and more illuminated now by contemporary documents

The Antichrist, though mentioned a mere four times in the Bible, and then only obscurely, has exercised a tight hold on popular imagination throughout history. This has been particularly true in the United States, states this book, where Americans have tended to view their nation as uniquely blessed by God—a belief that leaves them especially prone to demonizing their enemies. This book takes us on a fascinating journey through the dark side of the American religious psyche, from the earliest American colonists right up to contemporary fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson and Hal Lindsey.