Books published by Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd

Simulating Aichele pays tribute to the title of George Aichele's 2011 book, Simulating Jesus. In contemporary biblical scholar-ship, Aichele is a notable leader whose writings explore the prob¬lems of meaning and referentiality in the Bible and in bibli¬cal texts found in non-biblical contexts. His close readings of canonical texts alongside 'the fantastic' in film, television and literature reveal the relationships between texts and inter-texts. Such juxtapositions expose gaps and liberate strange voices in the Bible and break the stranglehold of canonical ideolo¬gies. Aichele shows how the afterlives of biblical texts simul¬taneously produce present and past realities by simulat-ing both. These afterlives not only pull ancient texts into the pre¬sent but in the process also change the precursor text(s).This Festschrift presents some of the afterlives of Aichele's re-search in Bible, film, culture and theory. Exercises in intertextual¬ity and textual liberation include Yvonne Sher-wood's reading of Jacob and Esau alongside a Sierra Leone twin story 'Kanu and the Book'; Richard Walsh's pairing of Je-sus' final lament in Mark with Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony'; Tina Pippin's exploration of the afterlives of Jesus' baptism in Mark; Gary A. Phillips's ethical imagining of Martha as the Levinasian Other; and Scott S. Elliott's interpretation of 1 Corin¬thians 9 in light of Roland Barthes' 'Neutral'. Other con¬tributors explore Bible and film. Robert Paul Seesengood and Jennifer L. Koosed review recent apocalyptic films; Fred W. Burnett analyses the greatest contemporary slacker, the Dude, from The Big Lebowski; and Erin Runions compares the panoptic desire for complete knowledge found in 1 Corinthi-ans and A Scanner Darkly. Finally, Roland Boer looks at the unex¬pected afterlives of Hebrew and Christian scriptures in Lenin's speeches, and Stephen D. Moore offers a retrospective es¬say on postmodernism and biblical studies.

Publication of Meir Lubetski (pages 265-268).

Authority and violence exhibit a close and complex relationship in the social worlds depicted in biblical narratives as well as in ancient and modern societies. The perceived legitimacy or illegitimacy of authority and violence can hinge upon a number of factors. In the stories of Gideon and Abimelech in Judges 6-9, lethal actions are depicted as justified, regrettable, or reproachful based, in part, on assumptions regarding kinship, honor, and justice. These narratives form an intriguing interlude within Judges as they directly broach, for the first time in the flow of biblical history, the 'reality' of dynastic kingship within Israel while telling a tale of deadly and divinely motivated reversals of power.An interdisciplinary approach that blends social-scientific analysis driven by Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of social field, habitus, capital, and doxa with a close narrative analysis recommends new ways of understanding the biblical characters' motivations, skills, and social capital; the linguistic capital of the text's creators; and the social worlds from which the narratives emerged. By examining the narrated relations of power through a sociological lens, the study discerns and describes how political and religious power is attained, preserved, transmitted, resisted, endorsed, disguised, or divinized. Building upon this basis, concentration on narrated violence suggests how the stories might be purposed to endorse, legitimate, or resist authority in the ancient context. The study concludes with a synthesis of its results and a survey of scribalism in order to recommend historical settings for the origination of the narratives. The study demonstrates how the biblical text, as a cultural product, can both knowingly and unknowingly communicate information about a society's social relations, values, and concerns.This is the second volume in the sub-series The Bible and Social Science.

Eugene V. Gallagher, Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College, writes: 'In a context where the general value of the Humanities has increasingly come under question by those who see a college education as necessarily being directly tied to the first job that students will have after they graduate, an ability to make a vigorous case about the contribution of studying the Bible to any college student's education is crucial for any teacher'.¿This second collection of essays edited by Jane Webster and Glenn Holland seeks not only to promote the role of biblical studies in an undergraduate liberal arts education, but also to suggest strategies and approaches for teaching the Bible in a range of academic situations. Combining the theoretical and the practical, this volume will be another useful source of guidance and support for teachers of biblical studies at any point in their professional careers.

Eugene V. Gallagher, Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecti¬cut College, writes: 'In a context where the general value of the Humani¬ties has increasingly come under question by those who see a college educa¬tion as necessarily being directly tied to the first job that students will have af¬ter they graduate, an ability to make a vigorous case about the contribution of study¬ing the Bible to any college student's education is crucial for any teacher'.This second collection of essays edited by Jane Webster and Glenn Hol¬land seeks not only to promote the role of biblical studies in an un¬dergraduate lib¬eral arts education, but also to suggest strategies and approaches for teaching the Bible in a range of academic situa-tions. Combining the theoretical and the practi¬cal, this volume will be another useful source of guidance and support for teachers of bibli¬cal studies at any point in their professional careers.

ARTPhilip F. Esler, Pacino di Bonaguida's Tree of Life: Interpreting the Bible in Paint in Early Fourteenth-Century ItalyCatherine C. Taylor, The Pignatta Sarcophagus: Late Antique Iconography and the Memorial Culture of Salvation Yaffa Englard, The Sixth Day of Creation: Literal Problems, Visual Expressions, and Theological InterpretationsJohn Byron, Who Killed Cain? Interpretive Solutions to a Theological ProblemDan Rickett, The Art of Separation: Visual and Textual Exegesis of the Separation of Abram and Lot Kalle Lundahl, The Bible in Paintings by Mario Schifano and Vincent van GoghDavid Tollerton, Divine Violence Caught on Camera: Negotiating Text and Photography in Broomberg and Chanarin's Holy BibleChristopher Meredith, Civic Bible as Civil Breach: Reading Doris Salcedo's ShibbolethLITERATUREMikael Larsson, Model of Modesty? Sexual Politics and/in/after the Book of RuthMUSICValérie Nicolet-Anderson, Leonard Cohen's Use of the Bible: Transformations of the SacredRECEPTIONHolly Morse, What's in a Name? Analysing the Appellation 'Reception History' in Biblical StudiesElisabeth Birnbaum and Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, The Wise King's Vanity: The ¿¿¿ Motif in the Reception of King Solomon Agnethe Siquans, Origen's Fifth Homily on Exodus: A Narratological Approach to Ancient Biblical Interpretation Arie Versluis, The Early Reception History of the Command to Exterminate the Canaanites