Death and Closure in Biblical Narrative

Death and Closure in Biblical Narrative
Author: Walter B. Crouch
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2000
Genre: Bibles
ISBN:

Inherent in every story is a view of death that reflects the human struggle of ending well, a Freudian thanatos inscribed within narrative. As a story draws to a close, the view of death found within the structure of the story's narrative will influence the ending that is produced. To examine the view of death and the closing strategies employed within a narrative, this study proposes a literary category called «narrative mortality.» Narrative mortality compares the degree of finality given to death with the amount of closure the reader experiences within the narrative. The narrative mortality of three differing biblical stories are studied within this work: The Gospel of John, the Book of Job, and the Book of Jonah. Each story employs a differing rhetorical strategy that reflects its own unique view of death and narrative closure.

Closure in Biblical Narrative

Closure in Biblical Narrative
Author: Susan Zeelander
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2011-12-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900421822X

Multiple and sometimes unexpected forms of closure in biblical narratives bring their stories to satisfactory close. Knowledge of these conventions and how they affect their stories is valuable to students of Bible and of narrative.

Scientific Theology: Theory

Scientific Theology: Theory
Author: Alister E. McGrath
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2007-01-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567031241

The third volume of an extended and systematic exploration of the relation between Christian theology and the natural sciences, focussing on the origins and place of theory in Christian theology

A Conclusion Unhindered

A Conclusion Unhindered
Author: Troy M. Troftgruben
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2010
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161504532

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009.

The Completion of Judges

The Completion of Judges
Author: David J. H. Beldman
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1575064979

The last five chapters of the book of Judges (chs. 17-21) contain some shocking and bizarre stories, and precisely how these stories relate to the rest of the book is a major question in scholarship on the book. Leveraging work from literary studies and hermeneutics, Beldman reexamines Judges 17-21 with the aim of discerning the "strategies of ending" that are at work in these chapters. The author identifies and describes a number of strategies of ending in Judges 17-21, including the strategy of completion, the strategy of circularity, and the strategy of entrapment. The temporal configuration of Judges and especially the nonlinear chronology that chapters 17-21 expose also receive due attention. All of this offers fresh insights into the place and function of Judges 17-21 in the context of the whole book.

Death and Survival in the Book of Job

Death and Survival in the Book of Job
Author: Dan Mathewson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2006-06-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567171906

The Book of Job functions as literature of survival where the main character, Job, deals with the trauma of suffering, attempts to come to terms with a collapsed moral and theological world, and eventually re-connects the broken pieces of his world into a new moral universe, which explains and contains the trauma of his recent experiences and renders his life meaningful again. The key is Job's death imagery. In fact, with its depiction of death in the prose tale and its frequent discussions of death in the poetic sections, Job may be the most death-oriented book in the bible. In particular, Job, in his speeches, articulates his experience of suffering as the experience of death. To help understand this focus on death in Job we turn to the psychohistorian, Robert Lifton, who investigates the effects on the human psyche of various traumatic experiences (wars, natural disasters, etc). According to Lifton, survivors of disaster often sense that their world has "collapsed" and they engage in a struggle to go on living. Part of this struggle involves finding meaning in death and locating death's place in the continuity of life. Like many such survivors, Job's understanding of death is a flashpoint indicating his bewilderment (or "desymbolization") in the early portions of his speeches, and then, later on, his arrival at what Lifton calls "resymbolization," the reconfiguration of a world that can account for disaster and render death - and life - meaningful again.

Critical Companion to the Bible

Critical Companion to the Bible
Author: Martin H. Manser
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438108745

Presents selections of literary criticism devoted to the Bible.

Tragedy and Biblical Narrative

Tragedy and Biblical Narrative
Author: J. Cheryl Exum
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1996-05-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521565066

Using insights about ancient and modern tragedy, this study offers challenging and provocative new readings of selected Biblical narratives: the story of Israel's first king, Saul, rejected for his disobedience to God and driven to madness; the story of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter in fulfillment of his vow to offer God a sacrifice in return for military victory; and the story of Israel's most famous king, David, whose tragedy lies in the burden of divine judgement that falls on his house as a consequence of his sins. The book discusses how these narratives handle such perennial tragic issues as guilt, suffering and evil.

Job 38-42, Volume 18B

Job 38-42, Volume 18B
Author: David J. A. Clines
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 898
Release: 2017-12-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310586801

The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Overview of Commentary Organization Introduction—covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology. Each section of the commentary includes: Pericope Bibliography—a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope. Translation—the author’s own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English. Notes—the author’s notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation. Form/Structure/Setting—a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here. Comment—verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research. Explanation—brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues. General Bibliography—occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliographycontains all sources used anywhere in the commentary.