"If earlier scholarship on apocalyptic literature was once described as "clueless about apocalypticism, " it was due in part to a focus on questions of definition, literary genre, and theological eccentricity. Richard A. Horsley takes a different approach, letting the language of the apocalypses themselves reveal their chief concern: the expanding domination by foreign empires and the form that popular defiance should take. Most telling are the traces where Judean scribes wrote themselves into their texts - and thus into God's purposes in history."--Jaquette du livre.

The Revolt of the Scribe in Modern Italian Literature offers a perceptive re-assessment of Italian literary culture, focusing on the nature of modernity through the literature of those who revolt against established norms and expectations. By exploring selected works from authors such as Deledda, Foscolo, Ungaretti, Bertolucci, and Valeri, Thomas E. Peterson considers the categories of vatic poetry, the feminine voice, and the writings of those situated on Italy's cultural periphery. As practitioners of literary Italian, Peterson argues that these authors are conscious of their role in preserving both language and tradition during a period of great upheaval and national transformation. At the same time, they use their writings to move towards change, combat alienation, and reconfigure the self in relation to the community. In treating the act of authorship in terms of its cultural and didactic significance, Peterson successfully bridges the gap between traditional literary critical monographs and the trend toward cultural studies.

A new perspective on essential aspects of Esther’s plot and characters for students and scholars Empire and Gender in LXX Esther foregrounds and highlights empire as the central lens in this provocative new reading of Esther. This book provides a unique synchronic reading of LXX Esther with the Additions, allowing the presence and negotiation of imperial power to be further illuminated throughout the story’s plot. Stone explores and demonstrates how performances of gender are inextricably intertwined with the exertion and negotiation of imperial power portrayed in LXX Esther and offers examples of connections to the range of imperial power experienced by Jewish people during the late Second Temple period. Features: An exploration of the tenets and methodology of imperial-critical approaches Focused attention to the final form of LXX Esther Construction of early audiences for LXX Esther in first-century BCE Ptolemaic Alexandria and Hasmonean Judea

In this innovative study, Horsley builds on his earlier works concerning the problematic and misleading categories of "magic" and "miracle" to examine in-depth the meaning and importance of the narratives of healing and exorcism in the Gospels. Incorporating his work on oral performance and turning to important works in medical anthropology, a new image emerges of how these narratives help us re-evaluate Jesus's place in first-century Galilee and Judea. In his exorcisms and healings, Jesus-in-interaction was empowering the villagers in their struggles for renewal of personal and communal dignity in resistance to invasive Roman rule.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series, 291

A highly regarded expert on the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, John J. Collins has written extensively on the subject. Nineteen of his essays written over the last fifteen years, including previously unpublished contributions, are brought together for the first time in this volume. Its thematic essays organized in five sections, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy complements and enriches Collins’s well-known book The Apocalyptic Imagination.

Economic justice is the core of the biblical tradition. In this innovative volume, Horsley takes the reader deep in examining how Jesus’ economic project was shaped in opposition to the Roman imperial order and how Paul’s development of communities around the Mediterranean was part of creating an alternative society among those subject to Rome. This analysis sets in the foreground the fundamental issues of food security, access to resources, and liberation. These movements emerged in opposition to Roman violence, political oppression, and economic extraction. This ultimately leads the author to consider how these issues are more relevant than ever in confronting the most recent form of empire in global capitalism. While we are not living in a Roman imperial world, we must strategize to confront the ways in which the new empire uses violence, oppression, and extraction to the detriment of the vast majority in the world, but especially those who are most vulnerable.

In der Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) erscheinen Arbeiten zu sämtlichen Gebieten der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Im Zentrum steht die Hebräische Bibel, ihr Vor- und Nachleben im antiken Judentum sowie ihre vielfache Verzweigung in die benachbarten Kulturen der altorientalischen und hellenistisch-römischen Welt. Die BZAW akzeptiert Manuskriptvorschläge, die einen innovativen und signifikanten Beitrag zu Erforschung des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt leisten, sich intensiv mit der bestehenden Forschungsliteratur auseinandersetzen, stringent aufgebaut und flüssig geschrieben sind.

In Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine, Richard A. Horsley offers one of the most comprehensive critical analyses of Jesus of Nazareth's mission and how he became a significant historical figure. Horsley brings a fuller historical knowledge of the context and implications of recent research to bear on the investigation of the historical Jesus. Breaking with the standard focus on isolated individual sayings of Jesus, Horsley argues that the sources for Jesus in historical interaction are the Gospels and the speeches of Jesus that they include, read critically in their historical context. This work challenges the standard assumptions that the historical Jesus has been presented primarily as a sage or apocalyptic visionary. In contrast, based on a critical reconsideration of the Gospels and contemporary sources for Roman imperial rule in Judea and Galilee, Horsley argues that Jesus was fully involved in the conflicted politics of ancient Palestine. Learning from anthropological studies of the more subtle forms of peasant politics, Horsley discerns from these sources how Jesus, as a Moses- and Elijah-like prophet, generated a movement of renewal in Israel that was focused on village communities. This paperback edition is updated with a new preface, bibliography, and indexes.

We often hear that we are living in apocalyptic times. Wars like those in the Middle East are just more signs that the end is near. That, however, is a misunderstanding of the message of the Bible and the Qur’an. The basic meaning of “apocalypse” is disclosure, revelation, bringing to light what is happening now and what has happened throughout all of history. The “apocalypse” is not about making predictions about the future but about determining who bears responsibility for injustice in the world. In that sense, all times—including ours—are “apocalyptic,” though in a different way than what is usually thought. Since the devastating Greek conquest of the world by Alexander the Great, there have been apocalyptic insights and “revelatory” readings of the whole Hebrew Bible. The same is true of the New Testament with “Rome” as the world power then. The same apocalyptic message is confirmed by the Qur’an when the Byzantines and the Persians fought for mastery of the world. The apocalyptic message is that God will put an end to the unjust dominion of violence, money, and lies. God’s kingdom will certainly arrive, but not through violence—after all, there “is no violence in God” (Diognetus).