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This is the first of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament. It focuses on textual criticism of the ancient versions of the Old Testament, pointing out that no other ancient or modern text seems to be witnessed by so many diverse sources in a variety of languages, and has a transmission history so difficult to elucidate as the text of the Hebrew Bible. The essay offers a necessarily restricted survey of the early transmission history of the biblical text in manuscript form up to the crystallization of an incipient unified Hebrew text and the appearance of translations of the Hebrew original into other Semitic and non‐Semitic languages between c.200 bce and 300 ce; invariably, later secondary translations are not considered. Attention focuses on the early stages of the written transmission of the consonantal text with emphasis on a concise review of the information on its history, which can be obtained from two quite dissimilar groups of manuscript remains in respect to chronology and socio‐religious provenance: (a) the assemblage of biblical scrolls and scroll fragments (the Dead Sea Scrolls) brought to light since 1947 that the dissident ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant’ had deposited in caves near a site known by the modern Arabic name of Qumran; and (b) fragments found since the 1950s at other sites in the Judaean Desert—Masada, Wadi Murabba’at, Naḥal Ṣe‚elim (Wadi Seiyāl) , and Naḥal Ḥever, which represent the textual tradition of normative Judaism.

This is the fourth of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and focuses on the Hebrew prose narrative of the Old Testament. It starts by discussing the various definitions of the term narrative (as a mode of discourse; as a vehicle of narrative communication; as definable text) and the difficulties of determining which particular definable biblical texts are narrative texts, and notes that the attempt by the critic–reader to define so simple a thing as the narrative text is fraught with issues that have as much to do with the reader as with the text. The author notes that the title of the chapter and its placement within the ‘text’ part of the division of the book into parts on readers, text, and authors, might suggest a singular objective entity (the text) produced by authors, read by readers, and conceptually separable from both, but that the reality is more complicated. The Old Testament is described as a fuzzy‐edged concept, not a fixed object, and its text not as one but as beyond number; furthermore, the concept is ideologically loaded (i.e. reader‐oriented) and much of the essay is quite specifically not about the (Christian) Old Testament (which is why the hybrid term Hebrew Bible has been used). It is the author's understanding that there is no such thing as the text of the Old Testament apart from its readers and it is in this context that he gives an account (which he labels as partial) of biblical narrative and literary criticism over the past three decades; this is presented as an account not of what is in the biblical narratives, but of what some readers have claimed to find in these texts, and how they have gone about finding it.

This essay discusses how biblical texts that may reflect events of the ninth pre-Christian century may be used to reconstruct select ‘real’ events of that century. Using several examples, it reflects on method, namely, the problems that these texts present to the modern historian of ancient Israel. The modern historian of ancient history should approach the texts dealing with the ninth century in the same way he or she would approach earlier or later periods. This essay considers two types of texts: those that explicitly mark themselves as primarily didactic, and those that are marked as symbolic. The texts from the first group are from the Psalms, while Jonah, Job, and Ruth comprise the second group. There may be other sources beyond Kings that need to be considered for reconstructing the history of the ninth century, including Chronicles and the Pentateuch. Different Mesopotamian sources mention kings of Israel and Judah, usually in the context of the offering of tribute.

This is the fourth of five chapters on the Old Testament and the reader, and reviews feminist study of the Old Testament. It describes feminist criticism as one of the most significant intellectual developments of the twentieth century, and notes that biblical interpretation of this kind is not likely to be disinterested although feminist critics are more likely than most to admit their ideological presuppositions. These presuppositions, like those of other postmodern approaches, provide a compelling challenge to the dominant paradigms of ‘objective’ biblical scholarship through their recognition of the constructedness of history, gender, and self. Many and various examples of the vast and growing biblical feminist criticism are discussed through the chapter, looking, among other things, at the different methodological approaches taken, the strategies employed for getting at women's perspectives in androcentric texts, the search for traces of women's discourses in biblical texts, intertextual and cross‐cultural analysis, and gender studies.

This final chapter engages with the knotty problem of how, if at all, it is possible to derive contemporary ethics from biblical texts. It discusses the rise of interest in the ethics of the Old Testament over recent years. It then provides a brief summary of contemporary ethical principles, including the development of environmental ethics. Finally, the chapter explores connections that can be drawn between the ancient texts and contemporary environmental ethics, and proposes a new model for a biblical environmental ethic, one that integrates the intrinsic worth of all creation with human need for community and response to God.

An analysis of Augustine's works written before 403 shows that his primary citations of John in all cases follow an Old Latin text-type. This is particularly notable in De diuersis quaestionibus 64 and De trinitate 1; the latter is based on a different biblical codex from the rest of the work. Readings unique to Augustine, several of which form part of his mental text, are already in evidence in this early period. In Contra Faustum and Contra Adimantum, Augustine reproduces distinctive features from the text of his opponents; this is also true of his work against Petilianus the Donatist.

This chapter investigates the so-called ‘canon formula’ found in Deut 13:1. The prohibitions against disloyalty in Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (VTE § 10) have previously been recognized as an influence upon the Deuteronomic apostasy series (Deut 13:2-12). A similar origin for the canon formula of Deut 13:1 is proposed as part of the larger project of creative literary reworking. The implication of this model is that the canon formula, in form-critical terms, represents part of the adjuration to loyalty found in the literary model of the adê.

This chapter examines the current state of investigation into targum. It explains that targum is the term used to describe the ancient Aramaic versions of books of the Hebrew Bible which incorporate, in varying degrees, explanations of the biblical text. It describes the available manuscripts and printed editions of the targum. The findings reveal that recent scholarly work on the Aramaic Targumim has shown itself less willing than earlier research to identify historical information preserved in the extant texts, and to make use of that information either to comment on the date and provenance of the Targumim, or to supplement our historical knowledge.

Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam), who lived in northern France in the 12th century, was a consistent and perhaps radical exponent of peshat exegesis. He insisted on reading the biblical text in its “plain” sense and in its context, and he eschewed midrashic readings that are not textually anchored. But is the pashtan, the exegete dedicated to the “plain” meaning, always the most careful reader of the biblical text? Logically one would think so. However, the history of medieval Jewish exegesis shows that that was not always the case. Many examples show that some peshat exegesis from this period purposely and self-consciously avoids “close reading” of the biblical text. Rashbam's Sephardic younger contemporary, Abraham Ibn Ezra, argued passionately against “close reading” of texts. In a long tirade in his introduction to the Decalogue and in other passages, Ibn Ezra argues that word choice in the Hebrew Bible is not always of significance, that authors will choose to express themselves differently on different occasions for no particular reason. Rashbam wrote a biblical commentary that does not attempt to “teach” Judaism.

Marguerite Shuster explores the intuitively likely thesis that the doctrine of the Trinity has been given short shrift in the preaching of the church, by analysing the sermons in the thirteen‐volume 20 Centuries of Great Preaching and in forty‐three volumes of the journal Pulpit Digest. Few sermons (only twenty) explicitly on the Trinity appear. Furthermore, these sermons show marked doctrinal imprecision and largely fail to deal carefully with the biblical texts on which they are formally based. Shuster suggests that especially in an era of widespread ignorance of Christian fundamentals, preachers need to attend much more than most do to doctrinal preaching. For such preaching to be responsible, seminaries and churches must demand more precise basic knowledge of Christian theology from clergy and ministerial candidates.

Quakers renounced war, killing, and the use of weapons – a set of principles of nonviolence that they termed the peace testimony. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the English Quaker leadership enunciated the peace testimony on behalf of the collective body of Quakers in two documents: the “Declaration and Information” and the “Declaration of 1660.” Early English Quakers grounded their peace principles in biblical texts, especially the admonition to love one's enemies. They relied upon this spirit of the gospel wherein the purity of one's motives was as essential as one's behavior. The early peace testimony rested on the foundation of maintaining the purity of one's soul in order to remain in the Kingdom of God; later, the emphasis would shift to a concern for the victims of violence and to an interest in worldly justice.

St. Shenoute is the major Coptic writer of the late 4th and 5th centuries. The idea of producing texts in Coptic was not his invention, but he brought the language to a peak of literary quality which subsequent writers would struggle to attain. The centrality of Scripture for Shenoute's language, style, and argumentation cannot be overestimated, and in particular the creative appropriation of the biblical text shows the consummate rhetorical skill of this monastic writer. This chapter demonstrates this skill, examining two passages from one of Shenoute's collections of works on monastic life: Canon 6. It aims to show how Shenoute skillfully uses biblical quotations not only to support his own arguments, but also to deflect attacks by opponents; to present an instance where we can grasp a struggle within the monastic community about the correct interpretation of Scripture in the framework of a disagreement about a point of monastic discipline; and to show how the careful examination of rhetorical strategies can complement codicological and philological strategies aimed at the reconstruction of the original sequence of works in a codex and the restitution of the argument.