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The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. BZAW welcomes submissions that make an original and significant contribution to the field; demonstrate sophisticated　engagement with the relevant secondary literature; and are written in readable, logical, and engaging prose.

In Anbetracht einer anstehenden Revision der bisherigen Trauagenden nimmt ein Beitrag deren historische Traditionen, die Begriffe Verlobung und Trauung, das Verhältnis von staatlichem und kirchlichem Handeln, die theologischen Verständnisse von Ehe ebenso wie die Vermittlung von Tradition und Situation in den Blick. Schulgottesdienst und geistliches Leben am Lern- und Lebensort evangelischer Schulen unter Berücksichtigung der sechsten Kirchenmitgliedschaftsuntersuchung sind Thema des zweiten liturgischen Beitrags. Der Autor fragt nicht nur danach, was Religionsunterricht leisten kann und was nicht, sondern fragt auch nach den Besonderheiten und dem Auftrag evangelischer Schulen. Die hymnologischen Beiträge befassen sich mit Leben und Werk von Daniel Herrnschmidt, dem Autor des heute noch gesungenen Liedes Lobe den Herren, o meine Seele, mit den Liedern in den Gottesdiensten Friedrich Schleiermachers 1830–1834, dem Berner Gesangbuch von 1853 und seiner Vorgeschichte, einer Legende über die Entstehung des Liedes Macht hoch die Tür und dem Berliner Gesangbuch von 1657/58 innerhalb der reformierten Tradition. Literaturberichte zur Liturgik und Hymnologie sowie Strophen- und Personenregister runden das Jahrbuch ab.

In this refreshing exploration of Judah's identity formation, the emphasis is placed on the psychological underpinnings of Judah's sentiments towards Israel, aiming to illuminate the significance of Judah's appropriation of Israel. Richly contextual, this book draws parallels observed in Asian contexts, notably those of North and South Korea, and China with its marginal Others. Central to the thesis is that Judah's perceived inferiority to Israel played a crucial role in its quest to appropriate Israel's legacy and identity. Adopting a functionalist lens, Judah's rewriting of Israel's ancestral past is examined. The Abraham and Jacob traditions are understood as competing'identity narratives,'serving as critical discursive tools to construct their pasts. The study scrutinizes how the southern Abraham tradition fundamentally reoriented the Jacob tradition, North Israel's standalone ancestral myth. Set against the broader canvas of continued efforts to redefine and embody'Israel'within the history of Judeo-Christian religions, this exploration underscores how Judah's pivotal appropriation of Israel has established a paradigm for all future endeavors of'becoming Israel.'

Joanna G. Kline explores the use of narrative analogy in the biblical story of King David (1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 2) and the narratives about Jacob, Judah, and Joseph (Genesis 25-50). In her analysis, the author demonstrates that parallels in plot, structure, language, and motif function to develop characterization and to reinforce significant themes in these texts, including sibling rivalry and reconciliation, measure-for-measure punishment, and divine providence. By examining the genetic relationship between Samuel and Genesis, she provides evidence of mutual influence and shows that the analogical links between David and Jacob, Judah, and Joseph were strengthened as these texts were composed and transmitted over time.

Intertextuality is a valuable interpretive tool that provides a rich understanding of Isaiah in its complex relationship with the larger witness of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. With essays by leading and upcoming scholars, this volume moves sequentially through the tri-partite Hebrew canon to showcase the interconnections between Isaiah and books within the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. It becomes evident that Isaiah is like a?prism? that refracts strands of tradition in ways that neither supersede nor exhaust the riches of the prior tradition and that are neither superseded by nor exhausted by the subsequent uses of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah employs these traditions for its own rhetorical purposes, offering a message that is both unique in comparison with and interrelated to the wider web of biblical, textual traditions. Isaiah is to be read as a book amid Israel?s Scriptures.

Offering not only state-of-the-art introductions from Biblical, historical, and constructive theologians, this volume also fosters an inter-disciplinary and cross-confessional conversation, reclaiming the idea of election as a central notion for any retelling of the biblical narrative. Several essays explore the variety of ways in which election is spoken about in the Scripture, drawing on research from the last twenty years that offers a more sophisticated framework than the traditionally theological categories of “elect” and “reject”. The historical part of the volume covers new analyses of Medieval and post-Reformation Catholic and Protestant debates on predestination, while the book's constructive part contributes to contemporary conversations on the relationship between Trinity, Christology, and election, the development of a post-supersessionist understanding of Israel's chosenness, as well as voices from contextual struggles in South America, Palestine, and South Africa.

'Give thanks to YHWH, for he is good, for his covenant faithfulness endures for ever'(Ps 136:1).There are now numerous models that seek to explain how the biblical covenants relate to one another. In an attempt to evaluate these models, James Hely Hutchinson mines the rich seams of the book of Psalms in this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume.After covering the key data on covenant relationships in Books 1–3 of the psalter, Hutchinson considers the perplexity expressed in the pivotal Psalm 89: in the face of the exile, the promises to David appear to be null and void. The building blocks of the solution lie with the first five books of the Bible, chiefly with the inviolable character of the promises to Abraham. However, if the Abrahamic covenant is to reach fulfilment, the problem of sin must be dealt with once and for all, and a glorious new-covenant regime must be established in which a host of covenants converge in their fulfilment. Central to this regime, which lies beyond the exile, is the eternal rule of David's superior, righteous seed and son who is also a perpetual priest and a suffering servant.Identifying new-covenant newness as'eschatological satisfaction (fulfilment)'and'transcendent inauguration,'Hutchinson tackles a range of matters that contribute to our understanding of the contours of redemptive history, with the overall aim to enhance readers'grasp of God's breathtaking salvation plan, ability to handle Scripture aright, and worship of the Master.Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson and Benjamin L. Gladd, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

The Psalms as Christian Scripture. Reading the Psalms Theologically presents rich biblical-theological studies on the Psalter. - Reading the Psalter as a Unified Book: Recent Trends (David M. Howard and Michael K. Snearly) - The Macrostructural Design and Logic of the Psalter: An Unfurling of the Davidic Covenant (Peter C. W. Ho) - David's Biblical Theology and Typology in the Psalms: Authorial Intent and Patterns of the Seed of Promise (James M. Hamilton) - A Story in the Psalms? Narrative Structure at the'Seams'of the Psalter's Five Books (David'Gunner'Gunderson) - Does the Book of Psalms Present a Divine Messiah? (Seth D. Postell) - The Suffering Servant in Book V of the Psalter (Jill Firth) - Excavating the'Fossil Record'of a Metaphor: The Use of the Verb nasa'as'to forgive'in the Psalter (C. Hassell Bullock) - The Art of Lament in Lamentations (May Young) - The Psalms of Lament and the Theology of the Cross (Rolf A. Jacobson) -'In Sheol, who can give you praise?'Death in the Psalms (Philip S. Johnston) - Psalm 32: More Accurately a Declarative Praise than Penitential Psalm (Daniel J. Estes) - Theology of the Nations in the Book of Psalms (Ryan J. Cook) - Psalm 87 and the Promise of Inclusion (Jamie A. Grant) - YHWH Among the Gods: The Trial for Justice in Psalm 82 (Andrew J. Schmutzer) - Reclaiming Divine Sovereignty in the Anthropocene: Psalms 93–100 and the Convergence of Theology and Ecology (J. Clinton McCann) - A Theology of Glory: Divine Sanctum and Service in the Psalter (Jerome Skinner) - Perceptions of Divine Presence in the Levitical Psalms of Book 2: The Paradox of Distance and Proximity (J. Nathan Clayton) - Psalm 110, Jesus, and Melchizedek (David C. Mitchell) The essays interpret the Psalms as a carefully-composed book. Each study focuses on a biblical or theological topic, drawing insights from past interpreters and current scholarship.

Before the Scrolls traces the media history of the biblical prophetic corpus to propose a material approach to biblical literature. Although scholars understand that the material of composition was the scroll rather than the codex, they persist in imagining the form as a single textual object. This assumption pervades centuries of scholarship and drives many of the questions asked about biblical composition. Nathan Mastnjak raises the question of the original physical format of biblical texts and argues that many of the literary works that would eventually become the Bible's prophetic books were not written initially as books. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were originally composed on loosely organized collections of multiple short papyrus scrolls and sheets. Though rarely considered in scholarship, the realia of a text's form, format, production, and material substance have a profound influence on the meaning of the text. Unlike works committed to single book-scrolls, these collections did not have predetermined orders of reading and were susceptible to multiple arrangements. Only in the Hellenistic era were these compositions edited, organized, and copied into single volume book-scrolls such as those known from the Dead Sea. By investigating the relationship between form and meaning and the transition from the collection to the book, Mastnjak suggests novel solutions to classic problems in biblical scholarship, such as the relationships between the MT and LXX of Jeremiah and that between First and Second Isaiah. The failure to account for the materiality of the prophetic corpus has led scholarship to occasionally ask the wrong questions of these compositions and has blinded it to the vital role that Hellenistic bookmakers played in the creation of the Bible as we know it. Reconceiving much Judean literature on a collection-model rather than book-model has significant implications for our understanding of how the Bible itself was composed and read.

'Give thanks to YHWH, for he is good, for his covenant faithfulness endures for ever'(Ps. 136:1; a.t.) There are now numerous models that seek to explain how the biblical covenants relate to one another. In an attempt to evaluate these models, James Hely Hutchinson mines the rich seams of the book of Psalms. After covering the key data on covenant relationships in Books 1-3 of the psalter, Hely Hutchinson considers the perplexity expressed in the pivotal Psalm 89: in the face of the exile, the promises to David appear to be null and void. The building blocks of the response lie with the first five books of the Bible, and chiefly with the inviolable character of the promises to Abraham (Book 4 of the psalter). However, if the Abrahamic covenant is to reach fulfilment, the problem of sin must be dealt with once and for all, and a glorious new-covenant regime must be established in which a host of covenants converge in their fulfilment. Central to this regime, which lies beyond the exile, is the eternal rule of David's superior, righteous seed and son who is also a perpetual priest and a suffering servant (Book 5). Identifying new-covenant newness as'eschatological satisfaction (fulfilment)'and'transcendent inauguration', Hely Hutchinson tackles a range of matters that contribute to our understanding of the contours of redemptive history. The overall aim is to enhance readers'grasp of God's breath-taking salvation plan, ability to handle Scripture aright and worship of the Master.

Scripture, Texts, and Tracings in Galatians and 1 Thessalonians advances the interpretation of these letters by exploring how the Apostle Paul quotes, alludes to or'echoes'the Jewish Scriptures and other ancient materials. Comparative wording is at the forefront, whether in relation to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, or prophecies and promises from Genesis, Habakkuk, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Psalms, or other texts such as Philo. Issues and controversies include such topics as faith (ἐκ πίστεως), the Torah, the Holy Spirit, holiness, suffering, eschatology, allegorical interpretation, identity of the Israel of God, Zion and the return from exile, Roman piety, imperialism, and hidden transcripts.

The essays in this volume, which has emerged from the Persian Period Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature, explore biblical and comparative evidence to show how the Iron Age institutions of monarchy and temple shifted in both form and function in the Persian period. The weight given to the Davidic monarchy and Jerusalem temple in the historiography of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament invites a new examination of attitudes towards the same in Achaemenid Yehud in comparative perspective. The essays uncover new attitudes relating to the monarchy and cultic site as well as the influence, but also rejection of, Persian ideas and contribute to scholarly interest in the extent of Persian influence on the literature of ancient/biblical Israel. As such, the volume participates in, lays the groundwork for, and also shapes discussions of Persian period Yehud and its literature.

A revised view of the Pentateuch with consequences for the broader literary history of the Bible This collection of thirty-one studies on the Pentateuch represents more than twenty years of Konrad Schmid's research and publications advocating for a new view of the Pentateuch's formation. Schmid's essays present the case for a Persian period Priestly document that provided a basic narrative thread to the Torah, which included separate, pre-Priestly components of narratives in Genesis and the Moses story. Schmid's open discussion includes evidence from various fields, such as literary history, comparative cultural history, historical linguistics, epigraphy, and archaeology. The essays are divided into eight sections usefully structured around the themes of the Pentateuch in the Enneateuch, the history of scholarship, the formation of the Torah, Genesis, the Moses story, the Priestly document, legal texts, and the Pentateuch in the history of ancient Israel's religion.

El lector tiene entre sus manos una guía para adentrarse en la riqueza contenida en los libros proféticos de la Biblia, verdadero patrimonio de la humanidad. Sin ellos, difícilmente se entiende nuestra religión, cultura y sociedad. Quien se deje conducir por sus páginas, descubrirá el origen de la gran aportación de la Biblia a la historia de la civilización: el monoteísmo. Se encontrará con la voz de Dios, mediada por la voz de sus profetas, de su pueblo, especialmente el pueblo humilde y sufriente, y de su creación, que goza con la luz de la Palabra y gime cuando se cierne sobre ella el velo de la violencia y la injusticia. Sentirá cómo esas voces le interpelan y le inquietan, le comprometen y le estimulan, le dan esperanza y sentido. Encuentros, sensaciones, vivencias… Todo ello gracias, también, a la amplia experiencia docente e investigadora de los autores de esta obra, que con rigor y actualidad guían a sus lectores por el apasionante mundo del profetismo bíblico.

The book of Hosea is a labyrinth of juxtaposed images for God and God's people, with such disparate metaphors as God the devouring lion and God the reviving dew. In Hosea's God: A Metaphorical Theology, Mason D. Lancaster demonstrates that recent advances in metaphor theory help untangle these divergent portrayals of God. He analyzes fifteen metaphor clusters in Hosea 4–14 individually, then discerns patterns and reversals between the clusters. Finally, respecting the ancient value for emphasizing individual aspects of a depiction over a homogenized picture of the whole, the book identifies five characteristics of God prominent among the metaphors of Hosea. Based on this analysis, Lancaster asserts that Hosea's metaphorical depiction of Yahweh ultimately derives from the primacy of Yahweh's fidelity to Israel.

Biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea and the Cairo Genizah have added immeasurably to our knowledge of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The papers collected in this volume compare the evidence of the biblical DSS with manuscripts from the Vienna Papyrus Collection, connected with the Cairo Genizah, as well as late ancient evidence from diverse contexts. The resulting picture is one of a dialectic between textual plurality and fixity: the eventual dominance of the consonantal Masoretic Text over the textual plurality of the Second Temple period, and the secondary diversification of that standardized text through scribal activity.

How did New Testament authors use Israel's Scriptures? Use, misuse, appropriation, citation, allusion, inspiration—how do we characterize the manifold images, paraphrases, and quotations of the Jewish Scriptures that pervade the New Testament? Over the past few decades, scholars have tackled the question with a variety of methodologies. New Testament authors were part of a broader landscape of Jewish readers interpreting Scripture. Recent studies have sought to understand the various compositional techniques of the early Christians who composed the New Testament in this context and on the authors'own terms. In this landmark collection of essays, Matthias Henze and David Lincicum marshal an international group of renowned scholars to analyze the New Testament, text-by-text, aiming to better understand what roles Israel's Scriptures play therein. In addition to explicating each book, the essayists also cut across texts to chart the most important central concepts, such as the messiah, covenants, and the end times. Carefully constructed reception history of both testaments rounds out the volume. Comprehensive and foundational, Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings will serve as an essential resource for biblical scholars for years to come. Contributors: Garrick V. Allen, Michael Avioz, Martin Bauspiess, Richard J. Bautch, Ian K. Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jaime Clark-Soles, Michael B. Cover, A. Andrew Das, Susan Docherty, Paul Foster, Jörg Frey, Alexandria Frisch, Edmon L. Gallagher, Gabriella Gelardini, Jennie Grillo, Gerd Häfner, Matthias Henze, J. Thomas Hewitt, Robin M. Jensen, Martin Karrer, Matthias Konradt, Katja Kujanpää, John R. Levison, David Lincicum, Grant Macaskill, Tobias Nicklas, Valérie Nicolet, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, George Parsenios, Benjamin E. Reynolds, Dieter T. Roth, Dietrich Rusam, Jens Schröter, Claudia Setzer, Elizabeth Evans Shively, Michael Karl-Heinz Sommer, Angela Standhartinger, Gert J. Steyn, Todd D. Still, Rodney A. Werline, Benjamin Wold, Archie T. Wright

This volume investigates the question of how both Assyria and Judah could remember the war of 701 BCE as their respective victory. Whilst surveying available evidences for historical reconstructions, Paul S. Evans compares the Sennacherib's Third Campaign with the War of 1812 between Canada and the USA as an example of disputed victory from military history. Evans examines Assyrian and biblical texts to evaluate the conflict and argues that rather than being intentionally deceptive in their accounts of the events, both sides had reasons to perceive the war as a victory. This examination of military narratives also illustrates how the fluctuating support for wartime leaders in 1812 is analogous to positive and negative oracles regarding Jerusalem's leadership during the war years. With differing opinions regarding the success of the Sennacherib's Third Campaign, this book presents an interesting discussion of the events and demonstrates how our understanding of the war between Assyria and Judah can be illuminated by military history.

The widely accepted view of exile in the Book of Daniel is that it was an ongoing reality which went beyond the initial return of the Babylonian golah (based on Dan. 9). James Seung-Hyun Lee's study, however, reaches deeper to tread the insufficiently explored territory of how the book reconceptualizes exile and how this informs the self-identity of the Danielic group, the final editors of the book. Proposing that for the Danielic group, exile is a place of privilege and a locus of God's revelation and presence, the author shows how this creates a middle space for them that provides a unique historical perspective that both embraces and critiques Babylon and Jerusalem. By identifying themselves with those remaining in exile, the Danielic group claims the legitimacy of their prophetic identity and teaching during the Antiochene persecution.

La construction du Pentateuque manifeste l'identite anti-egyptienne d'Israel en s'appuyant sur l'element fondateur qu'est la sortie d'Egypte. En compensation, le cycle de Joseph presuppose des rapports moins conflictuels avec l'Egypte. Le peuple d'Israel est sauve de la famine par les Egyptiens. De ce fait, l'identite exodique du peuple d'Israel est mise en question par le cycle de Joseph anti-exodique. Par ailleurs, il ressort que les deux chapitres, Gn 38 et Gn 49, n'entrent pas naturellement dans le cadre de l'histoire du personnage de Joseph. Ils se rapportent a un autre personnage - Juda - et leur interet reside dans l'evocation de Canaan. Or, ils expriment deux visions totalement differentes du personnage de Juda : Gn 38 contient une critique de la reticence de ce dernier a entrer en relation avec les etrangers, alors que Gn 49 se concentre sur les douze fils d'Israel, parmi lesquels Juda prend une place preeminente. Gn 38, comme histoire de Joseph en Egypte (Gn 39• et les chapitres suivants), prone l'ouverture aux etrangers. Au contraire, Gn 49 met l'accent sur l'identite specifique d'Israel. Ces deux chapitres se presentent comme une relecture du cycle de Joseph effectuee a un moment particulier de l'histoire d'Israel, probablement entre la conquete de l'Egypte par l'Empire perse (VIe a Ve s. av. J.-C.) et la perte de controle de celle-ci (premiere moitie du IVe s. av. J.-C.). Cette relecture portant sur l'insertion du cycle de Joseph dans le Pentateuque permet de cerner et d'interpreter l'opposition de ces deux courants theologiques : ouverture a l'etranger et identite specifique d'Israel.

The nine essays that make up this volume provide cutting-edge studies of how sacred tradition is given new expression through vision and interpretation. The first four essays focus on the expansion of the sacred tradition primarily through vision. The evolution of the Solomon legacy, from wise king to healer and exorcist, is explored, as well as its contribution to the demonology of the desert fathers, especially as it concerns eroticism and sexual temptation. The varied receptions of the Revelation of the Magi and Shepherd of Hermas are also considered. The remaining five essays address important questions relating to polemic and violence in the Pseudepigrapha. How does the author of the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum justify God's alternating judgment and favor? How does Enoch's Animal Apocalypse make use of the Exodus tradition in its expression of deliverance? On what basis can the author of Qumran's War Scroll confidently predict Israel's vindication? And finally, what accounts for the appearance of the tradition of Gehenna, in which the wicked will meet their fiery end?

This Festschrift assembles 32 contributions devoted to K. Lawson Younger, Jr. by his colleagues and students from North America, Israel and Europe. In accordance with significant topics of his own scholarly oeuvre the articles focus on Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern studies. Among many other topics the relations of'Deuteronomy 13 and the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon'are explored as well as'Rituals in the Gideon Narrative (Judges 6-8)','Deities in the Ammonite Personal Names'and'the textual evidence for'The'Priests'of Ugarit'. Archaeological contributions focus on-to list just a few-'The Carmel in the Bronze and Iron Ages','Deer Antlers in Iron Age I Cultic Contexts at Tel Abel Beth Maacah'and the'Archaeological Evidence of Priests and Priesthood in Iron Age Israel and Judah'. Linguistic and cultural studies evaluate recent studies of Amorite and examine'East as Symbolic Space'and raise the question of'Aramaean Identity'in Iron Age Syria.