The world's foremost authority on the Bible's book of Ezekiel, covers its central chapters in this second of his three-volume Anchor Bible Commentary. Ezekiel's confusing language and visionary images become crystal clear as Greenberg walks readers through Ezekiel's son of Man passages, prophecies against Israel and the nations, predictions of judgment, lamentations, and the famous valley of dry bones.

The Anchor Bible offers new, book-by-book translations of the Old and New Testarnents and Apocrypha, with commentary. This volume on "The Wisdom of Solomon" as been prepared by David Winston, Professor of Hellenistic and Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. "The Wisdom of Solomon" is a long and subtly poetic work placed in the mouth of "wise" King Solomon. It blends biblical thought and Middle Platonism. David Winston thoroughly analyzes the book, presenting the philosophical situation clearly and putting forth evidence to suggest that the work was written later than is commonly supposed, during the reign of Caligula (A.D. 37-41), and by a single author. Because of its exclusion from the canon of scripture used by Jews and Protestant Christians, "The Wisdom of Solomon" has been neglected by biblical scholars in general. Dr. Winston's commentary is the first to thoroughly cover both previous research and recent developments such as the Qumran scrolls, papyrus discoveries in Egypt, and new knowledge of ancient Iranian religion. It is a major contribution to the study of the apocryphal literature of the Bible.

Ezekiel was and is perhaps the most misunderstood and challenging Hebrew prophet. His prophecies and visions transport us to almost indescribable realms, completely uncharted territory this side of heaven. But as one of Israel's three major prophets, the words and symbolic actions of this mouthpiece of God were directed to a people weighed down by the realities of human experience. In this long-awaited and eagerly anticipated second volume of his commentary on the Book of Ezekiel, Moshe Greenberg exhibits the characteristic care and special sensitivity of a world-renowned scholar. He translates the text into a flowing English that captures the richness and subtleties of the problematic Hebrew original. Using illustrations from a vast array of literature on Ezekiel, Greenberg brings the book's prophecies and people alive for modern readers.

The current state of scholarship on the book of Ezekiel, one of the three Major Prophets, is robust. Ezekiel, unlike most pre-exilic prophetic collections, contains overt clues that its primary circulation was as a literary text and not a collection of oral speeches. The author was highly educated, the theology of the book is "dim," and its view of humanity is overwhelmingly negative. In The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel, editor Corrine Carvalho brings together scholars from a diverse range of interpretive perspectives to explore one of the Bible's most debated books. Consisting of twenty-seven essays, the Handbook provides introductions to the major trends in the scholarship of Ezekiel, covering its history, current state, and emerging directions. After an introductory overview of these trends, each essay discusses an important element in the scholarly engagement with the book. Several essays discuss the history of the text (its historical context, redactional layers, text criticism, and use of other Israelite and near eastern traditions). Others focus on key themes in the book (such as temple, priesthood, law, and politics), while still others look at the book's reception history and contextual interpretations (including art, Christian use, gender approaches, postcolonial approaches, and trauma theory). Taken together, these essays demonstrate the vibrancy of Ezekiel research in the twenty-first century.

It's obvious that Jesus fulfilled prophecies about the promised Messiah - or so the gospels make it seem. But the real story is more complex, and more compelling. In hindsight we can see that Jesus had help fulfilling prophecy. The gospel writers skillfully manipulated prophecies - carefully lifting them out of context, creatively reinterpreting them, even rewriting them - to match what Jesus would do in fulfilling them. The evangelists also used the prophecies themselves to shape the very stories that show their fulfillment. This book describes in detail how Christian authors helped Jesus fulfill prophecy. Studies of Greek oracles, the Dead Sea Scrolls, translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek and Aramaic, and the writings of Josephus explore the interpretive techniques that paved the way for the New Testament's manipulation of prophecy. This book analyzes how the belief that Jesus fulfilled prophecy became an argument to justify a new notion: the view that Christians had replaced Jews as God's chosen people. An aggressive anti-Judaism is analyzed in chapters on patristic theologians such as Justin Martyr and Augustine, who embedded it into the argument from prophecy. The book concludes with an ethical argument for whyChristians should retire the argument from prophecy.

Adultery, though not an umbrella concept for all the sexual prohibitions in the Hebrew Bible, enjoys a certain pride of place. Remarkably, it is the one sexual prohibition attested in all biblical genres, which makes it very representative in the Hebrew Bible. It is the only Hebrew biblical sexual prohibition explicitly mentioned in the Decalogue. A solid understanding of Hebrew biblical adultery, therefore, is an important step towards grasping the vital role of human sexuality in the Hebrew Bible, both in terms of inter-human relationships and the relationship between the human and the divine. Without prejudice to the contents of the Hebrew biblical lexicons and theological dictionaries, this work aims at providing a comprehensive understanding of adultery in the Hebrew Bible: its meaning, punishments and the implications thereof. Among others, it corrects some wrong assumptions about the concept of adultery in the Hebrew Bible, and provides a balanced and unbiased Hebrew biblical conception of adultery and the implications thereof for todays couples.

One hundred taxis lined up on Church Street in Oslo on November 26, 1942, deployed in order to round up the city's Jews and send them to Auschwitz. This reality anchors God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense: it is theology from a Holocaust perspective. The brash Elihu excoriating Job for his insistence that he is owed an explanation for the calamities that have befallen him. This is the book's opening salvo. Job speaking of a God of sense, Elihu and Job's three friends inaugurating a tradition of non-sense: this is the existential and theological predicament. The problem of finite suffering in this life addressed in the theological tradition with the prospect of infinite, endless suffering, in this book described as a key element in Traditions of Non-Sense. Back to the millions of Jews, among them 188 women and 42 children from Oslo, deported, gassed, and cremated--in God of Sense this is not seen as a problem that defeats belief, but as the reality that demands a religious and theological account of human existence.

In The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text, Paul Mandel presents a comprehensive study of the words darash and midrash from the Bible until the early rabbinic periods (3rd century CE). In contrast to current understandings in which the words are identified with modes of analysis of the biblical text, Mandel claims that they refer to instruction in law and not to an interpretation of text. Mandel traces the use of these words as they are associated with the scribe (sofer), the doresh ha-torah in the Dead Sea scrolls, the “exegetes of the laws” in the writings of Josephus and the rabbinic “sage” (ḥakham), showing the development of the uses of midrash as a form of instruction throughout these periods.

The Reader's Guide to Judaism is a survey of English-language translations of the most important primary texts in the Jewish tradition. The field is assessed in some 470 essays discussing individuals (Martin Buber, Gluckel of Hameln), literature (Genesis, Ladino Literature), thought and beliefs (Holiness, Bioethics), practice (Dietary Laws, Passover), history (Venice, Baghdadi Jews of India), and arts and material culture (Synagogue Architecture, Costume). The emphasis is on Judaism, rather than on Jewish studies more broadly.

In the course of a long and noteworthy career, Dr Andrew Macintosh has trained a large number of students in the language and literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Some of these have gone on to achieve recognition as leading biblical scholars, while others have occupied positions of influence in education and religion. All have been shaped by the honorand's unquenchable enthusiasm for the Hebrew language and its employment in texts ancient, medieval, and modern. In addition to his own estimable scholarly publications, Dr Macintosh has been a valued and appreciated colleague to others in his field. A select number of those colleagues-some of whom learned Hebrew as the honorand's pupils- present cutting-edge essays on the language, literature, and context of the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament as a gesture of respect to their friend, mentor, and colleague. From drunken Noah to behind closed doors in the Davidic monarchy, from the biblical genesis of humanity to the biblical lexicon of wine-making, senior scholars here present discerning essays that address the wide range of biblical studies which characterizes the career and contribution of their colleague A.A.Macintosh.