Song and Story in Biblical Narrative

Song and Story in Biblical Narrative
Author: Steven Weitzman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1997-10-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253114204

"... a book which asks and answers a new, interesting question, using a rich range of biblical and humanistic methodologies." -- Journal of Biblical Literature This book examines a literary form within the Bible that has slipped through the cracks of modern scholarship: the mixing of song and story in biblical narrative. Journeying from ancient Egyptian battle accounts to Aramaic wisdom texts to early retellings of biblical tales in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish-Hellenistic literature, and rabbinic midrash, Steven Weitzman follows the history of this form from its origins as a congeries of different literary behaviors to its emergence as a self-conscious literary convention.

Telling God's Story

Telling God's Story
Author: Preben Vang
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433680017

How well do you know His story? By the time a Christian reaches young adulthood, he is likely to be quite familiar with every major story in the Bible, but not from having studied them in any particular order. Ask an average Bible student to arrange certain characters and events chronologically, and the results are telling. Telling God’s Story looks closely at the Bible from its beginning in Genesis to its conclusion in Revelation. By approaching Scripture as one purposefully flowing narrative, emphasizing the inter-connectedness of the text, veteran college professors Preben Vang and Terry G. Carter reinforce the Bible’s greatest teachings and help readers in their own ability to share God’s story effectively with others. Ideal for classroom settings, this second edition of Telling God's Story now features all supporting charts, photographs, and illustrations in full color!

Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode

Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode
Author: Robert S. Kawashima
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2004-12-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253003201

Informed by literary theory and Homeric scholarship as well as biblical studies, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode sheds new light on the Hebrew Bible and, more generally, on the possibilities of narrative form. Robert S. Kawashima compares the narratives of the Hebrew Bible with Homeric and Ugaritic epic in order to account for the "novelty" of biblical prose narrative. Long before Herodotus or Homer, Israelite writers practiced an innovative narrative art, which anticipated the modern novelist's craft. Though their work is undeniably linked to the linguistic tradition of the Ugaritic narrative poems, there are substantive differences between the bodies of work. Kawashima views biblical narrative as the result of a specifically written verbal art that we should counterpose to the oral-traditional art of epic. Beyond this strictly historical thesis, the study has theoretical implications for the study of narrative, literature, and oral tradition. Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature -- Herbert Marks, General Editor

Telling God's Story

Telling God's Story
Author: Preben Vang
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2006-09
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780805432824

Bridging the gaps for those who've acquired their Bible knowledge in random order, professors Vang and Carter help readers comprehend the Bible as one cohesive story from beginning to end.

In the Beginning Were Stories, Not Texts

In the Beginning Were Stories, Not Texts
Author: C S Song
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2012-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 022790107X

According to Song, the Christian faith is deeply rooted in storytelling: stories are the most basic mode of human communication and, in the same idea, the Christian Bible is fundamentally a story. Though, Song regrets the fact that Christians, and above all Christian theologians, so often fail to express their faith in term of stories. Christian theology is most often expressed in terms of concepts, ideas, and systems. Following the conviction that this is the most appropriate way to express our faith, the proposal of this book is to speak of Christian faith and theology through stories rather than systems and texts.

The Art of Biblical Narrative

The Art of Biblical Narrative
Author: Robert Alter
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2011-04-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0465025552

From celebrated translator of the Hebrew Bible Robert Alter, the "groundbreaking" (Los Angeles Times) book that explores the Bible as literature, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Renowned critic and translator Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative has radically expanded our view of the Bible by recasting it as a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In this seminal work, Alter describes how the Hebrew Bible's many authors used innovative literary styles and devices such as parallelism, contrastive dialogue, and narrative tempo to tell one of the most revolutionary stories of all time: the revelation of a single God. In so doing, Alter shows, these writers reshaped not only history, but also the art of storytelling itself.

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs

Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Author: George Athas
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310491177

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike. Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story: LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story. EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting. LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students. — Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs— Commentators have derived a range of interpretations of the book of Ecclesiastes. For some, it's wholly in keeping with traditional biblical wisdom, while for others it is a radically unorthodox manifesto. Song of Songs has likewise been subject to a number of interpretations and challenges. Is it an allegory for God's love for his people, or is its intent plainer—an exposition of human love and sexuality? Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel

Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel
Author: Robert D. Miller II, OFS
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2011-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725246414

Providing a comprehensive study of "oral tradition" in Israel, this volume unpacks the nature of oral tradition, the form it would have taken in ancient Israel, and the remains of it in the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible. The author presents cases of oral/written interaction that provide the best ethnographic analogies for ancient Israel and insights from these suggest a model of transmission in oral-written societies valid for ancient Israel. Miller reconstructs what ancient Israelite oral literature would have been and considers criteria for identifying orally derived material in the narrative books of the Old Testament, marking several passages as highly probable oral derivations. Using ethnographic data and ancient Near Eastern examples, he proposes performance settings for this material. The epilogue treats the contentious topic of historicity and shows that orally derived texts are not more historically reliable than other texts in the Bible.

1 and 2 Samuel

1 and 2 Samuel
Author: Bill T. Arnold
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 654
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 031052072X

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative
Author: Danna Fewell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 657
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199967733

Comprised of contributions from scholars across the globe, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative is a state-of-the-art anthology, offering critical treatments of both the Bible's narratives and topics related to the Bible's narrative constructions. The Handbook covers the Bible's narrative literature, from Genesis to Revelation, providing concise overviews of literary-critical scholarship as well as innovative readings of individual narratives informed by a variety of methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks. The volume as a whole combines literary sensitivities with the traditional historical and sociological questions of biblical criticism and puts biblical studies into intentional conversation with other disciplines in the humanities. It reframes biblical literature in a way that highlights its aesthetic characteristics, its ethical and religious appeal, its organic qualities as communal literature, its witness to various forms of social and political negotiation, and its uncanny power to affect readers and hearers across disparate time-frames and global communities.