Studies in Modern German and Austrian Literature publishes research and scholarship devoted to German and Austrian literature of all forms and genres from the eighteenth century to the present day. The series promotes the analysis of intersections of literature with thought, society and other art forms, such as film, theatre, autobiography, music, painting, sculpture and performance art.

The book of Genesis portrays the character Jacob as a brazen trickster who deceives members of his own family: his father Isaac, brother Esau, and uncle Laban. At the same time, Genesis depicts Jacob as YHWH’s chosen, from whom the entire people Israel derive and for whom they are named. These two notices produce a latent tension in the text: Jacob is concurrently an unabashed trickster and YHWH’s preference. How is one to address this tension? Scholars have long focused on the implications for the character and characterization of Jacob. The very question, however, at its core raises an issue that is theological in nature. The Jacob cycle (Gen 25–36) is just as much, if not more, a text about God as it is about Jacob, a point startlingly absent in a great deal of Genesis scholarship. Anderson argues for the presence of what he has dubbed a theology of deception in the Jacob cycle: YHWH operates as a divine trickster who both uses and engages in deception for the perpetuation of the ancestral promise (Gen 12:1–3). Through a literary hermeneutic, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between how the text means and what the text means, and a keen eye to the larger task of Old Testament theology as literally “a word about God,” Anderson examines the various manifestations of YHWH as trickster in the Jacob cycle. The phenomenon of divine deception at every turn is intimately tethered in diverse ways to YHWH’s unique concern for the protection and advancement of the ancestral promise, which has cosmic implications. Attention is given to the ways that the multiple deceptions—some previously unnoticed—evoke, advance, and at times fulfill the ancestral promise. Anderson’s careful and thoughtful interweaving of trickster texts and traditions in the interest of theology is a unique contribution of this important volume. Oftentimes, scholars who are interested in the trickster are unconcerned with the theological ramifications of the presence of material of this sort in the biblical text, while theologians have often neglected the vibrant and pervasive presence of the trickster in the biblical text. Equally vital is the necessity of viewing the Old Testament’s image of God as also comprising dynamic, subversive, and unsettling elements. Attempts to whitewash or sanitize the biblical God fail to recognize and appreciate the complex and intricate ways that YHWH interacts with his chosen people. This witness to YHWH’s engagement in deception stands alongside and paradoxically informs the biblical text’s portrait of YHWH as trustworthy and a God who does not lie. Anderson’s Jacob and the Divine Trickster stands as a stimulating and provocative investigation into the most interesting and challenging character in the Bible, God, and marks the first true comprehensive treatment of YHWH as divine trickster. Anderson has set the stage to continue the conversation and investigation into a theology of deception in the Hebrew Bible.

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she travels from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep, Jacob's Cane captures the rich texture of life on several continents as New's family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. A fascinating history of one family's story of progress, innovation, and struggle, Jacob's Cane will change the way we think about the Jewish American experience.

In this coming-of-age book, you follow Jacob, a thirteen-year-old orphan. Jacob is one of the last seven direct descendants of Joseph and Mary. Because of this, he is granted the power to defend himself and fight back against unspeakable evil. Follow him and his friends as they are forced into a war that has been ongoing for thousands of years. Jacob will face the fallen archangels and their legion of evil. When push comes to shove, he and his fellow descendants must find strength to fight a battle that mankind alone isn’t able to. With the aid of their inheritance promised by God, the group finds that the real power comes from their bond to one another. For more about The Jacob Hunter Series, visit www.jplewisbooks.com

Jacob-Israel God's Man Of Faith And Power Loved by God and chosen while still in the womb, Jacob was born reaching out to claim the high calling of God on his life. His role in the Plan of Redemption was to father the nation through whom God would speak to a lost creation. It is time someone spoke a good word for Jacob-Israel, whose descendants changed the world! This book offers a refreshingly different view of this spiritual forefather of our faith. Over-emphasis on his morals has largely obscured his faith in God's promises which made him a channel of blessing to all people. Believers in every age who are used by God to further His Plan are, like Jacob, often misunderstood. An examination of his heart and motives explores the reasons why God's chosen instruments often suffer. Do we always reap what we sow? Are life's trials always the result of our personal sins? An avid Bible student from early youth, Frances developed a lifelong love of God's Word which has inspired her to write this book about her favorite Bible character. Frances lives in Springdale, AR near her 2 grown daughters; she also has a son in Houston.

The biblical author had to demonstrate that the founding fathers of the model civilization-envisioned in Mosaic legislation intended as a model for emulation by other peoples and nations-were recognizably human-flawed as all humans are. One can empathize with Isaac or Jacob who are seen to be human with their faults and frailties-which one cannot do with a superhuman being. These stories illustrate dramatically there are no characters of mythic proportions, no superheroes, only normal people living in dysfunctional families, erring, doing acts that are occasionally senseless, and often embarrassing. Yet, these same people passed on an intellectual and spiritual heritage that will ultimately find full expression in the teachings found in the remaining books of the Pentateuch. The Ordeals of Isaac and Jacob focuses on what the biblical texts are telling us-explicitly and implicitly-about these men, the world in which they lived, and how they managed to preserve the covenantal heritage left to them by Abraham. Since biblical texts are not as clear as one might imagine, scholars have struggled for two millennia to comprehend what the texts are actually stating and attempting to convey to the reader. In re-examining these Texts, the author has consulted a wide range of commentaries and studies which approach the biblical narratives from a variety of perspectives, and offers some novel insights of his own.

Naomi's impression of Jacob was not all that pleasant. He came across as rude, selfish, and downright cold. The entire village realized that he was a bit of a troublemaker. When Naomi's father requires some extra help around the farm, he reaches out for Jacob's help at his father's recommendation, much to Naomi's dismay. She spends her days avoiding him and being infuriated by him. She becomes so angry that she starts to notice when her sister starts to act and think the same way. And just before winter hits, her father needs even more help around the farm, Naomi steps up to help. One of the family horses is rowdy and unruly, and Naomi has difficulty controlling her. Narrowly avoiding an accident, she discovers something unexpected about Jacob, something that could change the way she sees him for the rest of her life. A standalone short story, with no cliff-hangers.

Experience love and healing in these two Amish tales A Wife for Jacob by Rebecca Kertz Jacob Lapp has loved Annie Zook since childhood. But she's never seen him that way. Annieis intent on marrying someone older, more established—someone the opposite of Jacob. Canhe ever break down the walls she's forged around her fragile heart and prove to her thathe's the perfect man for her? Buried Sins by Marta Perry When the youngest Hampton sister, Caroline, returns to Amishcountry and her family inn, she hides a frightening secret. The dangerous husband she'dsecretly married—and supposedly lost—might be alive. Police Chief Zach Burkhalter knowsmore about her past than she expects and is watching her every move. Daring her to trusthim with all of the truth.

'What do we seek through millions of pages? Still hopefully turning the pages — oh, here is Jacob's room.' Who is Jacob Flanders? Virginia Woolf's third novel, published in 1922 alongside James Joyce's Ulysses and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, follows this elusive title character from a sunlit childhood on the Cornwall coast to adventures in Cambridge, London, and Athens. Women fall in love with Jacob; young men desire his company and conversation. But Woolf keeps her scornful, charming protagonist at a distance, enveloping Jacob in mystery as he enters adulthood and the Great War thunders across Europe. A daring work that reimagines every element of the traditional novel, Jacob's Room tells a new story for a new century. In 1922, Lytton Strachey pronounced Jacob's Room 'a most wonderful achievement—more like poetry, it seems to me, than anything else, and as such I prophesy immortal.' One hundred years after its publication, Woolf's first full-length work of experimental fiction pulls us into the inexhaustible mysteries of intimacy and mortality.

For readers of Richard Paul Evans and Melody Carlson comes, Jacob's Bell, a heartwarming Christmas story about how an unlikely friendship between an old man and a little girl saved a family. Sometimes the road to forgiveness and restoration can be a rocky one. Set in Chicago and Baltimore in 1944 with flashbacks to the 1920s, Jacob's Bell follows Jacob MacCallum on his arduous journey to redemption. At one time, Jacob had it all: wealth, a wonderful family and a position as one of the most respected businessmen in Chicago. Then he made some bad decisions and all that changed. For the past twenty years he lived in an alcohol-induced haze, riddled with guilt for the dreadful things he had done to his family and his role in the untimely death of his wife. Estranged from his children and penniless, he was in and out of jail, on the street and jumping freight trains for transportation. Realizing he needed a drastic change, Jacob embarked on a journey to find his children, seek their forgiveness, and restore his relationship with them. Befriended by a pastor at a Salvation Army mission, he struggled to transform his life. Yet finally he overcame his demons, but not without a fair number of setbacks. Jacob became a Salvation Army Bell Ringer at Christmastime. While ringing his bell on a street corner one snowy day, he met a young girl who, through a series of strange coincidences, led him back to his children and facilitated Jacob's forgiveness just in time for Christmas. Author John Snyder pens a story of love, hardship, and reconciliation that will leave readers filled with Christmas joy.