Where is God in the Megilloth?

Where is God in the Megilloth?
Author: Brittany Melton
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2018-05-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004368957

In Where is God in the Megilloth? Brittany N. Melton constructs a dialogue among Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs centred on this question, in an effort to settle the debate about whether God is present or absent in these books. Their juxtaposition in the Hebrew Bible highlights their shared theme of apparent divine absence, but, paradoxically, traces of God’s presence are unearthed as well. By examining various aspects of this theme, including the literary absence of God, divine abandonment, God-talk, allusive language, God’s providence, and divine silence, it becomes clear that the ambiguity of divine presence and absence in the Megilloth presents a significant challenge to current conceptualizations of divine presence and absence in the Hebrew Bible.

Conspicuous in His Absence

Conspicuous in His Absence
Author: Chloe T. Sun
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830854894

In the biblical canon, two books lack any explicit reference to the name of God: Song of Songs and Esther. What is the nature of God as revealed in texts that don't use his name? Exploring the often overlooked theological connections between these two Old Testament books, Chloe T. Sun takes on the challenges of God's absence and explores how we think of God when he is perceived to be silent.

The Compilational History of the Megilloth

The Compilational History of the Megilloth
Author: Timothy J. Stone
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2013-11-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161523755

"Are the books of the 'Megilloth' an anthology of unrelated writings? Timothy J. Stone explores the canonical shape of the third part of the Hebrew canon, the Writings, and concludes that the codification of the 'Megilloth' into a collection is integral to the canonical process."--Back cover.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes
Author: John Goldingay
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725273160

Ecclesiastes is the most surprising book in the Scriptures. It challenges its readers to reconsider what they think life is about and how far it is possible to understand God’s involvement in the world. This commentary seeks to help people enter the world of Ecclesiastes and see how it can increase their understanding of God and of themselves.

The Book of Esther between Judaism and Christianity

The Book of Esther between Judaism and Christianity
Author: Isaac Kalimi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2023-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009266098

The book of Esther is one of the most challenging books in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, not only because of the difficulty of understanding the book itself in its time, place, and literary contexts, but also for the long and tortuous history of interpretation it has generated in both Jewish and Christian traditions. In this volume, Isaac Kalimi addresses both issues. He situates 'traditional' literary, textual, theological, and historical-critical discussion of Esther alongside comparative Jewish and Christian interpretive histories, showing how the former serves the latter. Kalimi also demonstrates how the various interpretations of the Book of Esther have had an impact on its reception history, as well as on Jewish-Christian relations. Based on meticulous and comprehensive analysis of all available sources, Kalimi's volume fills a gap in biblical, Jewish, and Christian studies and also shows how and why the Book of Esther became one of the central books of Judaism and one of the most neglected books in Christianity.

Divine Doppelgängers

Divine Doppelgängers
Author: Collin Cornell
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-05-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646020936

The Bible says that YHWH alone is God and that there is none like him—but texts and artwork from antiquity show that many gods looked very similar. In this volume, scholars of the Hebrew Bible and its historical contexts address the problem of YHWH’s ancient look-alikes, providing recommendations for how Jews and Christians can think theologically about this challenge. Sooner or later, whether in a religion class or a seminary course, students bump up against the fact that God—the biblical God—was one among other, comparable gods. The ancient world was full of gods, including great gods of conquering empires, dynastic gods of petty kingdoms, goddesses of fertility, and personal spirit guardians. And in various ways, these gods look like the biblical God. Like the God of the Bible, they, too, controlled the fates of nations, chose kings, bestowed fecundity and blessing, and cared for their individual human charges. They spoke and acted. They experienced wrath and delight. They inspired praise. All of this leaves Jews and Christians in a bind: how can they confess that the God named YHWH was (and is) the true and living God, in view of this God’s profound similarities to all these others? The essays in this volume address the theological challenge these parallels create, providing reflections on how Jews and Christians can keep faith in YHWH as God while acknowledging the reality of YHWH’s divine doppelgängers. It will be welcomed by undergraduates studying religion; seminarians and graduate students of Bible, theology, and the ancient world; and adult education classes.

The Identity of Israel’s God in Christian Scripture

The Identity of Israel’s God in Christian Scripture
Author: Don Collett
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2021-01-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0884144720

A broad, sweeping volume that breaches the walls separating biblical and theological disciplines Biblical scholars and theologians engage an important question: Who is Israel’s God for Christian readers of the Old Testament? For Christians, Scripture is the Old and New Testament bound together in a single legacy. Contributors approach the question from multiple disciplinary vantage points. Essays on both Testaments focus on figural exegesis, critical exegesis, and the value of diachronic understandings of the Old Testament’s compositional history for the sake of a richer synchronic reading. This collection is offered in celebration of the life and work of Christopher R. Seitz. His rich and wide-ranging scholarly efforts have provided scholars and students alike a treasure trove of resources related to this critical question.

Reading Lamentations Intertextually

Reading Lamentations Intertextually
Author: Heath A. Thomas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2021-11-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567699595

This book addresses intertextual connections between Lamentations and texts in each division of the Hebrew Bible, along with texts throughout history. Sources examined range from the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern Shoah literature, allowing the volume's impact to reach beyond Lamentations to each of the 'intertexts' the chapters address. By bringing together scholars with expertise on this diverse array of texts, the volume offers a wide range of exegetical insight. It also enables the reader to appreciate the varying intertextual approaches currently employed in Biblical Studies, ranging from abstract theory to rigid method. By applying these to a focused analysis of Lamentations, this book will facilitate greater insight on both Lamentations and current methodological research.

Theologies of Human Agency

Theologies of Human Agency
Author: Megan Fullerton Strollo
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2022-12-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978713819

This book examines the relationship between divine in/activity and human agency in the five books of the Megilloth—the books of Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther. As works of literature dating to the early Second Temple period (ca. 6th–3rd centuries BCE), these books and the implicit interpretation of these particular themes reflect the diverse cultural and theological dynamics of the time. Megan Fullerton Strollo contends that the themes themselves as well as the correlation between them should be interpreted as implicit theology insofar as they represent reflective interpretation of earlier theological traditions. With regard to divine in/activity, she argues that the Megilloth presents a certain level of skepticism or critical analysis of the Deity. From doubt to protest, the books of the Megilloth grapple with received traditions of divine providence and present experiences of absence, abandonment, and distance. As a correlative to divine in/activity, human agency is presented as consequential. In addition, the portrayal of human agency serves as a theological response insofar as the books advance the theme through specific references to and reevaluations of earlier theocentric traditions.

Esther against Joseph’s Backdrop

Esther against Joseph’s Backdrop
Author: Gabriel Fischer Hornung
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2024-08-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3111216837

An examination of MT Esther’s relationship to the Joseph story, this study employs recent advances in author-oriented biblical intertextuality to address the debate concerning the religious purpose of the Scroll. While previous scholarship has seen Esther’s divine silence indicating God’s hidden hand, the characters’ or readers’ quiet faiths, or the secular concerns of an ancient Jewish nationalism, key aspects of Esther’s allusive character illustrate how the book purposefully constructs a theology of divine absence. As good-looking Israelites continue to rise in foreign courts to deliver themselves and their people from imminent dangers, the patterns God initiated in the Egyptian past are shown to extend into the Persian present even when the divine remains out of sight. Since this diachronically-oriented analysis suggests this theological interest was developed by Esther’s authors, it engages with Esther’s ancient Greek witnesses to demonstrate that the MT redactors altered an earlier version of the Scroll to position the Hebrew Megillah alongside Joseph’s instructive backdrop. By attending to these historical and interpretive issues, this work thus speaks to both Scroll scholarship and the study of inner-biblical allusions.