An accessible introduction to the historical and theological developments between the Old and New Testament.

Bridging the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New Testament period, this book surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel's post-exilic history: the Persian Era (539-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (332-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were four hundred years of prophetic silence before Jesus.

Bridging the Testaments outlines the political and social developments of these four periods, with particular focus on their impact upon Judeans and Samarians. Using a wide range of biblical and extra-biblical sources, George Athas reconstructs what can be known about the history of Judah and Samaria in these eras, providing the framework for understanding the history of God's covenant people, and the theological developments that occurred at the end of the Old Testament period, leading into the New Testament. In doing so, Athas shows that the notion of a supposed period of four hundred years of prophetic silence is not supported by the biblical or historical evidence. Finally, an epilogue sketches the historical and theological situation prevailing at the death of Herod in 4 BC, providing important context for the New Testament writings.

In this way, the book bridges the Old and New Testaments by providing a historical and theological understanding of the five centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus, tracking a biblical theology through them, and abolishing the notion of a four-century prophetic silence.

This work completes Billingham’s performance reading of selected passages in the book of Jeremiah, following two previous volumes: The Great Drama of Jeremiah: A Performance Reading and A Distraught Prophet and Other Performance Readings in Jeremiah. Employing her established methodology that includes rhetorical analyses of her own translations, she discusses ten scenes selected from Chaps. 34-52 according to their scripts, actors, audiences, settings, and improvisations of traditional narratives and customs. Ancient Near Eastern historical accounts are enlivened as they are viewed as dramas.

– In a life and death struggle between the word of Yhwh and the king, the scroll is read and burnt by King Jehoiakim. However, the divine word is indestructible as it is recomposed by Jeremiah and rewritten by Baruch to produce an enhanced version.

– During the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah is incarcerated in various prisons. However, he is rescued from a dungeon by the Ethiopia eunuch Ebed Melech. The unexpected and unsolicited kindness he experiences provides a hopeful paradigm for Yhwh’s care for the exilic community.

– The Oracles against the Nations demonstrate Yhwh’s international power and covenantal commitment to Judah.

– In a sign-act Jeremiah ties Yhwh’s judgment oracle to a stone and flings it into the Euphrates River in the heart of Babylon. There, as a silent symbol, it awaits Yhwh’s fulfilment, providing hope for the captive Judeans.

– A tale of two kings and the toppling temple embody the dismantling of Judah’s royal-priestly support structures.

– The conclusion of the book remains open-ended, allowing for the possibilities of survival, return to Judah, and faith in God. While empires fall, Yhwh reigns.

Billingham’s set of performance readings in Jeremiah provide illuminating resources for students, teachers and clergy alike.

In Whispers of Revolution, renowned biblical scholar Michael Bird forges a path through the tangle of conspiracy theories, older hypotheses, and scholarly debates to propose a compelling idea: The historical Jesus was driven by the conviction that through his words and work, his mission and message, God was unveiling his kingship in a way that would rescue Israel and eventually restore the whole world.

This careful and concise scholarly work covers a wide range of topics related to the historical Jesus and his context. Bird studies Jesus in light of archaeology, Judean history, and apocalypticism. He scrutinizes sayings of Jesus and stories about Jesus, challenging many scholarly paradigms to offer a portrait of Jesus that avoids both sensationalism and pious simplification. The result is a story of Jesus that puts him firmly in the world of ancient Galilee and Judea and explains how this man, crucified by the Romans, became the catalyst for a movement that would defy and then consume the Roman Empire.

This important contribution will appeal to scholars, students, and all readers looking for a fresh examination of the life of Jesus.

This edited collection, from world-leading philologist and lexicographer of Classical Hebrew, David J.A. Clines (1938–2022), demonstrates how his motivations for philological and lexicographical work sat in contrast to each other. These articles and papers, published and unpublished, show Clines’s efforts in each direction.

As Clines explains a “philologian is a ‘lover of words’ […] a hunter, imbued with the spirit of the chase […]. A lexicographer is by contrast a shepherd, gathering a flock together […], big words and little words, common words and rare words […]. To the lexicographer, all words are equally deserving of respect and nurture; a lexicographer cannot afford favourite love objects. […] A philologian can polish off an article in 50 or 100 hours—or less–but a lexicographer must be long-lived, immune to boredom, and possessed of an addictive personality.”

In the first section, Philology, there are eight chapters, mostly on individual words. In the second section, Lexicography, there are eighteen chapters, dealing first with Clines’s Dictionary of Classical Hebrew in general (Chapters 9-14), then with features of the Dictionary that call for exposition and justification (Chapters 15-21), and finally with some individual studies arising from the lexicographical work (Chapters 22-26).

Via these articles and papers, Clines seeks to counter the lack from editors of earlier Hebrew dictionaries, which left scholars with little explanation of their methods and procedures. By explaining himself Clines wishes that present and future users of the Dictionary would know the conception of his intentions for the project. This Clinesian imperative means his views are explained, in general, about byforms, synonyms, semantic fields, definitions and suchlike, so readers are not left with only his conclusions.

David J.A. Clines’s memoir, spanning eight decades, lets readers journey with him from a childhood in Sydney, Australia, to a prominent place as an eminent Hebrew Bible professor in Sheffield, England. It provides telling vignettes which encapsulate Clines’s academic life, transformed by the provincialness of his settings, his scholarly endeavours and international encounters.

Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies is a multivolume series that seeks to introduce key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament.

Each volume will feature introductory essays to the corpus, followed by articles on the relevant texts. Each article will address introductory matters, provenance, summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance.

Neither too technical to be used by students nor too thin on interpretive information to be useful for serious study of the New Testament, this series provides a much-needed resource for understanding the New Testament in its first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman context. Produced by an international team of leading experts in each corpus, Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies stands to become the standard resource for both scholars and students.

Is there a hidden story within Matthew's Gospel? Could this Gospel contain clues about the death of Jacob (known to followers of Jesus as "the Lord's Brother") in Jerusalem in 62 C.E.? Revered as "the Righteous," Jacob was publicly executed within the temple precincts; yet why did he die at this particular Passover? Through a careful study of key passages, this book uncovers evidence that Matthew's Gospel preserves the background to this little-known story.

Jairus’s Daughter and the Female Body in Mark demonstrates that ubiquitous and significant depictions of children in the literature and material culture of the first century CE shaped the mindsets of the Gospel of Mark’s original audience. Through a detailed analysis of the story of Jairus’s daughter in Mark 5 and of the archaeological remains depicting female children, Janine E. Luttick reveals how ancient hearers of this story encountered an image of a female child that communicated ideas of hope to Jesus’s followers and in turn how readers today can understand the authority of Jesus, the domestic structures of early Christianity, and the suffering and loss experienced by some early Christians.

Reading the Bible in Australia invites reflection about how the Bible matters to Australia. Contributors probe intersections between vital debates about Australian identity (who we have been, are, and aspire to become) and the Bible, bringing a range of perspectives to critical themes--indigeneity, colonization, and migration; landscape, biodiversity, and climate; gender and marginality; economics, ideology, and rhetoric. Each chapter explores the past and present influence of a biblical text or theme. Some offer fresh contextually and ethically informed readings. All interrogate the wider outcomes of reading the Bible in different ways. Given the tragic consequences of how it has been used historically, and sometimes still is, some Australians would exclude the Bible and its interpreters from public debate. Yet, as Meredith Lake's The Bible in Australia demonstrates, "a degree of biblical literacy--along with critical skill in evaluating how the Bible has been taken up and interpreted in our history--can only help Australians grapple well with the choices Australia faces." Love it or hate it, there is no getting around the reality that the Bible, and how it is read, still matters.

An engaging and accessible introduction to the life and world of Paul

In this fresh and engaging survey, Frank Thielman introduces readers to the life and world of the apostle Paul. Drawing on the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s canonical letters as well as noncanonical sources and archaeological records, Thielman constructs a vivid picture of the complex historical period and fascinating cultures in which Paul worked. At the same time, Thielman guides readers toward a deeper understanding of who Paul was, what he believed, and how he carried out his ministry.

Solidly grounded in Paul’s own writings as well as scholarly research, the book explores a wide range of compelling questions: What drove Paul to endure often treacherous journeys of hundreds of miles to establish like-minded communities around the world as he knew it? What spurred him to recruit a network of co-workers who were willing to help him in this vast project? What kept him at the task even when it landed him in prison? What prompted him to produce a body of letters to these communities of such depth that millions of people still read them with profit today? Addressing these questions through careful and conservative research, Paul, Apostle of Grace is a worthy successor to F. F. Bruce’s classic study and an essential resource for scholars and students of the Bible today.