Books in the Studies in Biblical Literature series

A Biblical Theology of Gerassapience

Modern Christian theology has been problematic with schism between Bible and theology, and between biblical studies and systematic theology. This title analyzes Brevard Springs Childs' concept of theological exegesis in biblical canons. He demonstrates forcefully the inadequacies of the historical-critical method in practicing biblical theology.

This book is an analysis of inner-biblical exegesis which ordinarily involves examination of the intertextual relationship between two texts within the biblical corpus. The direction of dependence between texts of this kind is not as important in the present study as the direction in which these texts were meant to be read by those who gave them their final shape.

Peace and Peacemaking in Paul and the Greco-Roman World compares the Apostle Paul's understanding of peace with various conceptions of peace in the Greco-Roman thought world of the first century. The author seeks to clarify how the Greeks defined peace and then to show how their conception of war and peace established the ethos that ultimately defined them as a people.

Liberation from Empire investigates the phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark. The Marcan narrator writes from an anti-imperialistic point of view with allusions to, yet never directly addressing, the Roman Empire.

The key to a balanced and accurate understanding of the book of Ecclesiastes lies in the inter-dependent relationships between the prominent motifs within the book. An Analysis of the Inter-Dependency of the Prominent Motifs Within the Book of Qohelet explores this dynamic.

In fact, the Gospel of Matthew was the most Jewish of the Synoptic Gospels, and Matthew's paradigm was the needed transition for understanding the role of the new community post-70 AD. This book examines how Matthew used Jewish concepts as paradigmatic utterances for the Matthean community.

Contends the New Testament quotations from the Twelve presuppose knowledge of the larger whole and cannot be understood correctly apart from awareness of the compositional strategy of the Twelve.

Attempts to link common messianic issues found in some Dead Sea Scrolls with the "Gospel of John". These messianic issues are studied in relation to the political situation facing the Johannine community in dealing with the Roman empire. This book is designed to deal intelligently with that difficult era in Christian history.

Axis of Glory

A Psycho-Spiritual View on the Message of Jesus in the Gospels

From John of Apamea to Mark's Gospel: Two Dialogues with Thomasios: A Hermeneutical Reading of Horao, Blepo, and Theoreo combines two theological fields of investigation. The first is related to the Patristic theology of Eastern Syrian Christianity and the second resides in the field of Biblical theology.

This book breaks fresh ground in the interpretation of the Apocalypse with an interdisciplinary methodology called aural-performance criticism that assesses how the first-century audience would have heard the Apocalypse.

The (Im)Polite Jesus is an informed, focused, deep and creative analysis of the topic of (im)politeness applied to Jesus in Matthew's Gospel with in-depth conclusions and analysis about the Matthean Jesus' (im)politeness.

In this book, Hye Kyung Park examines the functions and roles of the women who appear in the Elijah and Elisha narratives. This book elaborates upon the critical meaning of women's voices through a close interpretation of the roles and functions attributed to women in 1 Kings 17:8-24; 2 Kings 4:8-37, 5, and 8:1-6.

This book investigates the Matthean use of bread and the breaking of bread in light of cognitive conceptual metaphor, which are not only intertwined within Matthew's narrative plots but also function to represent Matthew's communal identity and ideological vision.

For hundreds of years, scholars have debated the meaning of Jesus' central theological term, the 'kingdom of God'. Most of the argument has focused on its assumed eschatological connotations and Jesus' adherence or deviation from these ideas. Within the North American context, the debate is dominated by the work of Norman Perrin, whose classification of the kingdom of God as a myth-evoking symbol remains one of the fundamental assumptions of scholarship. According to Perrin, Jesus' understanding of the kingdom of God is founded upon the myth of God acting as king on behalf of Israel as described in the Hebrew Bible. Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth challenges Perrin's classification, and advocates the reclassification of the kingdom of God as metaphor. Drawing upon insights from the cognitive theory of metaphor, this study examines all the occurrences of the 'God is king' metaphor within the literary context of the Hebrew Bible. Based on this review, it is proposed that the 'God is king' metaphor functions as a true metaphor with a range of expressions and meanings. It is employed within a variety of texts and conveys images of God as the covenantal sovereign of Israel; God as the eternal suzerain of the world, and God as the king of the disadvantaged. The interaction of the semantic fields of divinity and human kingship evoke a range of metaphoric expressions that are utilized throughout the history of the Hebrew Bible in response to differing socio-historical contexts and within a range of rhetorical strategies. It is this diversity inherent in the 'God is king' metaphor that is the foundation for the diversified expressions of the kingdom of God associated with the historical Jesus and early Christianity.