Old Testament Hermeneutics Collection (18 vols.)

by David J. A. Clines; David M. Gunn; Alan J. Hauser; Athalya Brenner

and

20 more

Publishers:

JSOT Press; Sheffield Academic Press; T&T Clark; Almond Press

, 1982–2004

Overview

This collection is an in-depth presentation from prominent biblical scholars on Old Testament hermeneutics. Featuring a broad range of topics, each author focuses on interpretation and literary criticism. There are eighteen academic volumes with over thirty leading contributors. Some of the exegetical topics covered include social and historical contexts, the use of color in Biblical literature, ideologies of readers and writers, hermeneutical ethics, different kinds of literary criticism, and the use of rhetoric in readings of the Old Testament. There are also essays on art, culture, entertainment, and the impact of social sciences on Biblical interpretation.

Several of the volumes are in honor of influential Bible scholars; for example, James Flanagan, James Sanders, Ronald Clements, and David Clines. They contain essays by leading academics, as well as an introduction to the thinking of the premier scholar. There are also longer works by individual authors, which are more detailed. This is an essential collection for any student, professor, or anyone interested in scholarly interpretation of the Bible. Each of the volumes includes an extensive table of contents, indexes, and notes throughout the text.

Key Features

• Over thirty Biblical scholars contributing
• Covers a wide range of important topics in exegetical study
• Each volume includes extensive table of contents, indexes, and notes to aid study

Product Details

• Title: Old Testament Hermeneutics Collection (18 vols.)
• Volumes: 18
• Pages: 5,159

Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honour of James W. Flanagan

• Editors: David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Pages: 238

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The essays in this volume address the interface between biblical studies, archaeology, sociology and cultural anthropology, celebrating the pioneering work of James Flanagan. In particular, this collection explores various ways in which the real ancient world is constructed by the modern critical reader with the aid of various theoretical and practical tools. The contributors to this volume have all been involved with Flanagan and his projects during his academic career and the essays carry forward the important interdisciplinary agendas he has encouraged. Part One deals with his recent interest in spatiality and Part Two with social and historical constructs. This book in James Flanagan's honour represents a significant statement of research in an area of biblical and historical research that is increasingly important yet surprisingly under-represented.

David M. Gunn is A.A. Bradford Professor of Religion at the Texas Christian University.

Paula McNutt is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Canisius College, New York.

Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature

• Editors: Alan J. Hauser, David J. A. Clines, David M. Gunn
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2009
• Pages: 266

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Biblical authors were artists of language who created their meaning through their verbal artistry, their rhetoric. These twelve essays see meaning as ultimately inseparable from art and seek to understand the biblical literature with sensitivity to the writer's craft.

Colour Terms in the Old Testament

• Author: Athalya Brenner
• Publisher: JSOT Press
• Publication Date: 1982
• Pages: 306

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Athalya Brenner presents her studies on the role of color in Old Testament texts. Realizing that words themselves are only part of the overall context of Scripture, Brenner examines the literary and semantic significance of color in Hebrew texts. She also writes about development in culture, language, and vocabulary. Brenner looks at the mental associations we have with color and shades, and how they relate to Old Testament writings specifically, giving a in-depth discussion on the characteristics of color and language.

Athalya Brenner is Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Amsterdam, and Rosalyn and Manny Rosenthal Distinguished Professor-in-Residence of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas.

Culture, Entertainment, and the Bible

• Author: George Aichele
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Pages: 238

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This topical volume deals with the adoption of biblical language and narrative and the presentation of “biblical” images and themes in popular literature, art and mass media. The chapters, all written by experts in cultural studies of the Bible, explore how ideologies are produced, in various ways, when biblical texts are brought into play with each other, with other texts, and with the inevitable and continual demands for cultural and historical "translation"—or "recycling"—of the scriptures. The volume contains some theoretical reflections, but focuses on specific examples of cultural translation, and is directed primarily at advanced (graduate) students and scholars in biblical studies, popular studies, media studies, literature, and the arts, although some articles will also be of value and interest to introductory students and the general public. The contributors to this volume are Fiona Black, Susan Lochrie Graham, Chris Heard, Helen Leneman, Phyllis Silverman Kramer, Tina Pippin, Caroline Vader Stichele, Lori Rowlett, Erin Runions, Jan William Tarlin, and Richard Walsh.

George Aichele is a member of the Bible and Culture Collective, the collaborative author of The Postmodern Bible. He is also the author of Sign Text Scripture and The Control of Biblical Meaning and co-editor with Walsh of Screening Scripture.

Gift of God in Due Season: Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A. Sanders

• Editors: Richard D. Weis and David M. Carr
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Pages: 232

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This volume of essays addresses from a variety of vantage points the relation of scriptures and community that has been so central to the canonical critical work of James A. Sanders. The first part of the volume focuses on the formation of the Jewish and Christian canons and texts in them, while the second part looks at ancient and modern appropriations of canonical texts. Together these essays show the multiple potential links between canonical criticism and historical, literary, feminist and other approaches in contemporary biblical studies.

Richard Weis is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

David Carr is teaches at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, USA..

In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements

• Editor: Edward Ball
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1999
• Pages: 292

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The distinguished authors whose essays appear in this volume (marking the seventieth birthday of Ronald Clements, who until his retirement, was the Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies, King's College London) include John Barton, Walter Brueggemann, Brevard Childs, John Rogerson, Rolf Rendtorff, Hugh Williamson, the late Norman Whybray, Graeme Auld, and Richard Coggins. The theme of the volume reflects Clements's recent interest in “wisdom” as an interpretative framework, and the essays address the role of theology and hermeneutics in biblical exegesis, through an examination of methods and approaches as well as by application to specific Old Testament writings. While the volume ranges through issues of canon, biblical theology and literary criticism, with several essays on the prophetic books, it maintains a clear focus on the numerous issues and challenges facing the contemporary interpreter of the scriptures.

Edward Ball is Lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew, University of Nottingham, UK.

Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible

• Author: David. J.A. Clines
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1995
• Pages: 296

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Prominent Bible scholar David Clines presents a series of essays on the worldviews of both the authors and the readers of the Old Testament. He gives an introduction to ideological criticism, including his purpose in writing this volume and what the term “interested parties” means in terms of biblical studies. After setting out the foundation of his argument for ideological reading, he examines several passages and topics in the Old Testament. He covers the Ten Commandments, the Temple, the Prophets, the book of Job, the Pentateuch, and David. Clines focuses on interpretation as well as evaluation of the text in question. He includes indexes and a list of abbreviations.

David J.A. Clines is Professor of Biblical Studies and Head of Department in the University of Sheffield.

The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Symposium in Slovenia

• Editor: Joze Krasovec
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1998
• Pages: 1,913

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This monumental work documents the 1998 International Symposium. The opening speeches are included, as well as the contributions by international Biblical scholars. There are several documentations of new Bible translations, including Slavic, Czech, and Polish. Some of the topics covered are textual criticism, early Biblical interpretation, Messianism in the Septuagint, major Greek translations, and an update on translations around the world. It includes essays in several languages, including English, Slavic, and German. There is a list of contributors, as well as an extensive table of contents.

The Meanings We Choose: Hermeneutical Ethics, Indetermincy and the Conflict of Interpretations

• Editor: Charles H. Cosgrove
• Publisher: T&T Clark International
• Publication Date: 2004
• Pages: 272

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The Meanings We Choose is an engagement with responsible bible reading—Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament texts—for the past as well as for the present and future. Its stated perspectives are multi-denominational Christian but the implications of such readings go far beyond a specific confessional framework. In the present political climate the aware, responsible “personal” is meaningful for any community, confessedly religious as well as otherwise. While the articles collected in this volume, broadly speaking, can and perhaps should be compartmentalized as ideological criticism, their significance for reading ideologies “different” from their own is more than considerable.

Charles H. Cosgrove is Professor of New Testament Studies and Christian Ethics at the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Illinois.

Myth and History in the Bible

• Author: Giovanni Garbini
• Publisher: T&T Clark International
• Publication Date: 2005
• Pages: 160

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The Old Testament, and biblical scholarship itself, distinguishes between mythical and historical. This book argues that only historical thing in the Bible is the Bible itself, a superb product of Jewish thought.

While Garbini’s (effect-cause) formula is readily apparent in each chapter, his work is anything but formulaic. Once the reader has accommodated to Garbini’s perspective on myth and history, his discussion never fails to intrigue, his philology to impress, nor his conclusions to provoke. Clearly, we have here the work of a seasoned scholar who has ruminated long and read wide.

—David Bergend, University of Calgary, Journal of Hebrew Scripture

Giovanni Garbini is Lecturer of Semitic Philology at the University Di Roma "La Sapienza."

The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible

• Editors: J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1993
• Pages: 280

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This is a collection of essays by a variety of Biblical scholars, using different literary approaches on major Biblical themes and passages. The authors use deconstruction, reader-response, ideological criticism, and historiography. They cover topics in the Old Testament, including: Moses, David, Fathers and Daughters, and the prophets. Each author not only interprets the text, but goes to in-depth criticism. Because of the wide assortment of essays and topics, the volume symbolizes the broad range of critical readings of the Old Testament. The authors include: Alice Bach, Robert P. Carroll, David J.A.Clines, J. Cheryl Exum, Francisco O. García-Treto, David Jobling, Francis Landy, Stuart Lasine, Peter D. Miscall, Robert Palzin, Hugh S. Pyper, and Illona N. Rashkow.

J. Cheryl Exum is Professor of Biblical Studies at Sheffield University.

David J.A. Clines is Professor of Biblical Studies and Head of Department in the University of Sheffield.

Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday

• Editors: John C. Reeves and John Kampen
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Pages: 434

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The themes of this volume encompass the lifelong interests of one of the most eminent and learned Jewish scholars of our time: Qumran, Hellenism, Rabbinics and chronography. The contributors, leading scholars in these fields, have produced what is a benchmark of modern scholarship of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period.

John Reeves is Associate Professor of Religion at Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina.

John Kampen is Academic Dean and Professor of Bible at Payne Theological Seminary, Wilberforce, Ohio.

Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J. A. Clines

• Editors: J. Cheryl Exum and H.G. M. Williamson
• Publisher: T&T Clark International
• Publication Date: 2003
• Pages: 480

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Thirty-seven essays from established scholars around the world cover topics including the Pentateuch prophecy, wisdom, ancient Israelite history, Greek tragedy and the ideology of biblical scholarship make up this interesting and varied collection in honor of David J.A. Clines. Several of the contributors interact with ideas prominent in the work of David J.A. Clines of the University of Sheffield, to whom the volume is dedicated. The authors include Graeme Auld, James Barr, Hans Barstad, John Barton, Willem Beuken, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Walter Brueggermann, Brevard Childs, Richard Coggins, Philip Davies, John Emerton, Tamara Eskenazi, Cheryl Exum, Michael Fox, John Goldingay, Norman Gottwald, Robery Gordon, Lester Grabbe, David Gunn, Walter Houston, Sara Japhet, Michel Knibb, Joze Krasovec, Francis Landy, Bernhard Lang, Burke Long, Patrick Miller, Johannes de Moor, Carol Newsom, Rolf Rendtorff, Alex Roft, John Rogerson, John Sawyer, Keith Whitelam, Hugh Williamson, Ellen van Wolde and Erich Zenger.

J. Cheryl Exum is Professor of Biblical Studies at Sheffield University.

H.G.M. Williamson is Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Oxford, and Student of Christ Church.

Redirected Travel: Alternative Journeys and Places in Biblical Studies

• Authors: Roland Boer and Edgar W. Conrad
• Publisher: T&T Clark International
• Publication Date: 2003
• Pages: 164

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What if Biblical scholars traveled to the Antipodes for an international conference instead of to Europe or North America? The essays in this volume, originally written for such a conference, explore the implications for Biblical studies of such a change in direction. In fact, they travel in a host of different directions, exploring the alternative journeys and places of biblical studies, developing connections in the rhizomatic fashion (as delineated famously by Deleuze and Guattari). The vehicles used in such travel include post-colonialism, feminism, Marxism, gay theory, semiotics, political theory and post-structuralism.

Roland Boer is Associate Professor in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at Monash University, Australia.

Edgar W. Conrad is Director of Postgraduate Studies in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland.

Rethinking Contexts, Rereading Texts: Contributions from the Social Sciences to Biblical Interpretation

• Editor: Mark Daniel Carroll
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Pages: 280

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This volume brings together ten essays on the various contexts for texts that social-scientific approaches invoke. These contexts are: the cultural values that inform the writers of texts, the relationship between the text and the reader or community of readers, and the production of texts themselves as social artifacts. In the first, predominantly theoretical, section of the book, John Rogerson applies the perspective of Adorno to the reading of biblical texts; Mark Brett advocates methodological pluralism and deconstructs ethnicity in Genesis; and Gerald West explores the “graininess”of texts. The second part contains both theory and application: Jonathan Dyck draws a “map of ideology” for biblical critics and then applies an ideological critical analysis to Ezra 2. M. Daniel Carroll R. reexamines “popular religion” and uses Amos as a test case; Stanley Porter considers dialect and register in the Greek of the New Testament, then applies it to Mark's Gospel. This is an original as well as wide-ranging exploration of important social-scientific issues and their application to a range of Biblical materials.

Mark Daniel Carroll is Professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary and Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at El Seminario Teologico Centroamericano in Guatemala City.

Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation

• Authors: Dale Patrick and Allen Scult
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1990
• Pages: 171

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In this volume, two scholars from two different fields join to create a new theory of rhetorical Biblical interpretation. Patrick and Scult present their studies on Old Testament traditions and communications. They believe that a holistic reading of the Old Testament can be found in a combination of analysis and contextual reading. Focusing on the “oneness” of God, they synthesize literary strategies and biblical studies, forming a concrete methodology.

Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric

• Author: Roland Meynet
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 1998
• Pages: 392

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The analysis of biblical rhetoric has been developed only in the last 250 years. The first half of this book outlines the history of the method known as rhetorical analysis in biblical studies, illustrated by numerous texts. The work of Lowth (who focused on parallelism), Bengel (who drew attention to chiasmus), Jebb and Boys (the method's real founders at the turn of the nineteenth century) and Lund (the chief exponent in the mid-twentieth century) are all discussed, as is the current full blooming of rhetorical analysis. The second half of the book is a systematic account of the method, testing it on Psalms 113 and 146, on the first two chapters of Amos, and many other texts, especially from Luke. Translated by Luc Racaut.

Roland Meynet is Professor of Biblical Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.

Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll

• Editors: Alastair G. Hunter and Philip R. Davies
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Publication Date: 2002
• Pages: 505

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In this collection of studies to the memory of Robert Carroll, and reflecting his interests in prophecy, ideology and reception history, are contributions from Graeme Auld, John Ashton, Alice Bach, Hans Barstad, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Athalya Brenner, David Clines, Johann Cook, Robert Davidson, Philip Davies, Sean Freyne, Norman Gottwald, Lester Grabbe, John Halligan, Alastair Hunter, David Jasper, William Johnstone, Gabriel Josipovici, Francis Landy, Heather McKay, Stephen Prickett, Hugh Pyper, Stefan Reif, John Sawyer, Robert Setio, Yvonne Sherwood, Carol Smith and Johanna Stiebert.

Philip R. Davies is Professor of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield, UK.

Alastair G. Hunter is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK.