This volume deals with the rhetoric, the formal and thematic framework, of Psalms 90-150 (the Fourth and Fifth Book of the Psalter). It is the conclusion of the Psalms Project started with Psalms 1-41, OTS 53 (2006) , and continued with Psalms 42-89, OTS 57 (2010). Formal and thematic devices demonstrate that the psalms are composed of a consistent pattern of cantos (stanzas) and strophes. The formal devices especially include quantitative balance on the level of the cantos in terms of verselines, verbal repetitions, and (on the level of the strophes) transition markers. The quantitative approach to a psalm in terms of verselines, cola and/or words in most cases clearly discloses a focal message. This massive study is rounded off by an updated introduction to the canto design of biblical poetry (including the book of Job, Lamentations, the Songs of Songs, Deutero-Isaiah and other major poems of the Hebrew Bible).

A quantitative structural approach also helps to identify the focal message of the poems."--Jacket.

Formal and thematic devices demonstrate that Hebrew poetry is composed of a consistent pattern of cantos (stanzas) and strophes. The formal devices include quantitative balance on the level of cantos in terms of the number of verselines, verbal repetitions and transition markers.

This volume deals with the poetic framework and material content of the Second and Third Books of the Psalter (Psalms 42-72 and 73-89). It is a continuation of the Psalms Project started in OTS 53 (2006). Formal and thematic devices demonstrate that the psalms are composed of a consistent pattern of cantos (stanzas) and strophes. The formal devices include quantitative balance on the level of cantos in terms of the number of verselines, verbal repetitions and transition markers. A quantitative structural approach also helps to identify the focal message of the poems. Introductions to the design of biblical poetry and the rhetorical centre of the psalms conclude this massive study. The third volume, dealing with the Fourth and Fifth Books of the Psalter (Psalms 90-106 and 107-151), is in preparation.

This is the first of a four-volume groundbreaking study of Christological origins. The fruit of twenty years research, Jesus Monotheism lays out a new paradigm that goes beyond the now widely held view that Paul and others held to an unprecedented "Christological monotheism." There was already, in Second Temple Judaism and in the Bible, a kind of "christological monotheism." But it is first with Jesus and his followers that a human figure is included in the identity of the one God as a fully divine person. Volume 1 lays out the arguments of an emerging consensus, championed by Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, that from its Jewish beginnings the Christian community had a high Christology and worshipped Jesus as a divine figure. New data is adduced to support that case. But there are weaknesses in the emerging consensus. For example, it underplays the incarnation and does not convincingly explain what caused the earliest Christology. The recent study of Adam traditions, the findings of Enoch literature specialists, and of those who have explored a Jewish and Christian debt to Greco-Roman Ruler Cult traditions, all point towards a fresh approach to both the origins and shape of the earliest divine Christology.

The Song of Songs, a lyric cycle of love scenes without a narrative plot, has often been considered as the Bible’s most beautiful and enigmatic book. The present study questions the still dominant exegetical convention that merges all of the Song’s voices into the dialogue of a single couple, its composite heroine Shulamit being a projection screen for norms of womanhood. An alternative socio-spatial reading, starting with the Hebrew text’s strophic patterns and its references to historical realia, explores the poem’s artful alternation between courtly, urban, rural, and pastoral scenes with their distinct characters. The literary construction of social difference juxtaposes class-specific patterns of consumption, mobility, emotion, power structures, and gender relations. This new image of the cycle as a detailed poetic frieze of ancient society eventually leads to a precise hypothesis concerning its literary and religious context in the Hellenistic age, as well as its geographical origins in the multiethnic borderland east of the Jordan. In a Jewish echo of anthropological skepticism, the poem emphasizes the plurality and relativity of the human condition while praising the communicative powers of pleasure, fantasy, and multifarious Eros.

It is all to common to find commentaries that miss the forest for the trees, commentaries that get so caught up in the minutiae of scholarly controversies that they miss what God is saying for His church today. This is especially evident when it comes to the book of Habakkuk. The Teleioteti Old Testament Commentaries series is an attempt to attain theological depth, to pay attention to the forest, without neglecting the details of the text, without missing the trees. To do this, a Teleioteti Old Testament Commentary seeks to bring scholarly rigour and thoughfulness together with faithful attention to the purpose and significance of each book for God's people today. It strikes a balance between technicality, working through the Hebrew text and its difficulties, and practicality, applying each major section of the text to contemporary needs. Habakkuk is a book that especially needs such an approach. After an extensive introduction discussing the significant issues and laying the groundwork for interpreting Habakkuk, this commentary walks through the text stanza by stanza and line by line. With a balance of theological reflection and exegetical depth, a wide variety of readers will find something to take away. Habakkuk is a book of discipleship, a book written to bring its reader to a deeper faith in Yahweh in the presence of His unthinkable deeds. In the midst of oppressive evil at the hands of their Judahite brothers, the righteous of Judah cry out to God for salvation. His response is the invasion of fearsome Chaldea. What appears to be horrid judgment is actually His plan to save those who trust in Him. All His people are called to extraordinary faith, to believe HIm when HIs deeds are unbelievable. In this way, and only this way, will they be delivered from their oppressors and enjoy God's blessings: only by faith can they have life.

Promotes a new understanding of the emergence of early Israel, founded on the previously ignored metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism.

Habakkuk is a book of discipleship, a book written to bring its reader to a deeper faith in Yahweh in the presence of His unthinkable deeds. Amidst oppressive evil at the hands of their Judahite brothers, the righteous of Judah cry out to God for salvation. His response is the invasion of fearsome Chaldea. What appears to be horrid judgment is actually his plan to save those who trust in Him. All His people are called to extraordinary faith, to believe Him even when His deeds are unbelievable. In this way, and only this way, will they be delivered from their oppressors and enjoy God's blessings; only by faith can they have life. Habakkuk is a challenging yet beautiful book that has much to teach the people of God. Its eloquent poetry and interpretive issues make it a suitable, even necessary, subject for Hebrew study. The goal of this commentary and reader is to facilitate theological, devotional, and pastoral engagement with the Hebrew text of Habakkuk alongside development in one's understanding of Hebrew. After an extensive introduction discussing the significant issues and laying the groundwork for interpreting Habakkuk, this commentary presents the Hebrew text juxtaposed with an English translation and with contextual glosses for Hebrew Words occurring less than thirty times in the Hebrew Bible. Each section has an introduction followed by the text and comments on textual, theological, and interpretative issues. With a balance of theological reflection, exegetical depth, and assistance with the Hebrew text, the Hebrew student will be equipped to wrestle with the text in its original language and develop their understanding of the language simultaneously.

Professor Maurice Gilbert SJ is widely acknowledged as one of the leading authorities on biblical wisdom literature, in particular the Book of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, on which he has produced many publications. This Festschrift, the third one in his honor, brings together twenty-four essays written by both established scholars who are friends and colleagues of Professor Gilbert and younger members of the field who wrote their doctoral dissertation under his guidance at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. There he was rector (1978–1984) and full professor until his retirement (1975–2011). The volume is divided into six main sections, focusing respectively on Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Psalms. Some essays display rigorous attention to textual and linguistic issues, whereas others deal with more theological questions (fear before God, joy in Qoheleth, arguments for justice in Wisdom of Solomon) or focus on the comparison between two books (for instance, Qoheleth and Sirach, Sirach and Genesis, Sirach and Tobit).