Perhaps that is partly because we have seen all too clearly the fallibility of those who judge. What many of us long for is not judgment but righteousness and deliverance from oppression. That is why the books of Judges and Ruth are so relevant today: Judges, because it reveals a God who employs very human deliverers but refuses to gloss over their sins and the consequences of those sins; and Ruth, because it demonstrates the far-reaching impact of a righteous character. Exploring the links between the Bible and our own times, Dr. K. Lawson Younger Jr. shares literary perspectives on the books of Judges and Ruth that reveal ageless truths for our twenty-first-century lives. Most Bible commentaries take us on a one-way trip from our world to the world of the Bible. But they leave us there, assuming that we can somehow make the return journey on our own. They focus on the original meaning of the passage but don't discuss its contemporary application. The information they offer is valuable--but the job is only half done! The NIV Application Commentary Series helps bring both halves of the interpretive task together. This unique, award-winning series shows readers how to bring an ancient message into our postmodern context. It explains not only what the Bible meant but also how it speaks powerfully today.

    What saved the City of David? The Bible credits divine intervention. Modern scholars have long speculated that a plague spread through the ranks of the Assyrian soldiers, forcing them to withdraw.Now, in this ground-breaking account, award-winning author Henry Aubin argues that it was the Kushites, the black Africans who formed Egypt’s 25th dynasty, who saved Jerusalem, the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In his powerful, wide-ranging analysis, Aubin shows how Western scholarship turned its back on the theory of black African involvement.The account of the long-forgotten African and Hebrew alliance that rescued Jerusalem will change the face of Jewish and African history and contribute to a fresh understanding of our world today.

    Its great themes, epochal events and towering figures set down vectors on which the biblical story is played out. The very shape of the rest of the Old Testament would collapse were the Penteteuch to be removed. The structure of New Testament thought would be barely intelligible without it. Here we meet the great ancestral figures of Israel--Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--and the towering figure of Moses, whose presence dominates four of these five books. The creative act of God, the paradisal garden, the exile of Adam and Eve, the judgment of the great flood, the call of Abraham from among the nations, the covenant of Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the law at Sinai, the plan of the tabernacle, the varied experiences of Israel in the wilderness, and the announcement of the covenant blessings and curses--all of these and more contribute to a work of world-formative power. This dictionary explores the major themes and contours of the Pentateuch. Behind and beneath the grandeur of the Pentateuch, issues of historicity have both puzzled and beckoned. But whereas in the mid-twentieth century many English-speaking scholars were confident of archaeological support for the patriarchal accounts, the climate has now changed. In the most extreme cases, some contemporary scholars have radically challenged the antiquity of the ancestral stories, arguing for their final composition even as late as the Hellenistic era. This dictionary examines and weighs the historical issues and poses possible solutions. The documentary hypothesis, the former reigning critical consensus, is now widely rumored to be on life support with no heir apparent. Meanwhile, conservative scholars reconsider what indeed a claim to Mosaic authorship should entail. This dictionary offers an assessment of the array of questions surrounding these issues and considers some possible ways forward for evangelical scholarship. At the same time, there has been a fruitful turning to the nature, message and art of the received text of the Pentateuch. Literary studies of brief episodes, sprawling sagas, complex narrative and even the fivefold composition of the Pentateuch itself have delivered promising and exciting results. This dictionary offers both appreciative panoramas and close-up assessments of these developments and their methods. TheDictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch is the first in a four-volume series covering the text of the Old Testament. Following in the tradition of the four award-winning IVP dictionaries focused on the New Testament and its background, this encyclopedic work is characterized by close attention to the text of the Old Testament and the ongoing conversation of contemporary scholarship. In exploring the major themes and issues of the Pentateuch, editors T. Desmond Alexander and David W.Baker, with an international and expert group of scholars, inform and challenge through authoritative overviews, detailed examinations and new insights from the world of the ancient Near East. TheDictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch is designed to be your first stop in the study and research of the Pentateuch, on which the rest of the Bible is built.

    As the author demonstrates in this compact and readable book, the Book of Jonah emerges as perhaps the most profoundly Christian of all the books in the Hebrew Bible, and the book that speaks with the most telling resonance for our own age. The Book's message is a serious and compelling one.

    Designed as a thorough and durable reference work for all engaged in the study of the Bible and the Ancient Near East, and involving many of the world's outstanding scholars in the field, it provides reliable access to a broad, balanced and representative collection of Ancient Near Eastern texts that have some bearing on the interpretation of the Bible. Translations of recently discovered texts are included, alongside new translations of better-known texts and in some cases the best existing translations of such texts. The substantial three-volume work, with its specially designed page layout and large format, features full cross-referencing to comparable Bible passages, and new, up-to-date bibliographical annotations with judicious commentary. Its many distinct advantages over other collections will ensure the place of The Context of Scripture as a standard reference work for the 21st century. Volume 3, Archival Documents from the Biblical World, provides a generous selection from the vast number of legal, commercial and private documents preserved from pre-classical antiquity. These courtcases, contracts, accounts and letters, so often slighted or underrepresented in older anthologies, throw a bright light on the daily life of ordinary human beings as recorded by their contemporaries. In addition, exhaustive indices to all three volumes identify and classify all proper names and many of the themes struck throughout the work. With this third Volume The Context of Scripture is completed.

    Providing much more than dictionary-style entries, Brueggemann acknowledges the deep interconnectedness of these themes as he explores their depth, complexities, and interrelationships. By reading across the entries, readers will sense the dynamism of the faith of ancient Israel. Each entry states the consensus reading, identifies what is at issue in the interpretive question, and discusses the practical significance of the issue for the church today--in part by suggesting contemporary connections to the ancient texts. Reverberations of Faith will be a great resource for both students and laity.

    Most expositors merely skim the surface for messages on tithing or sabbath-keeping. Yet Leviticus is one of the most important books of the Old Testament; it not only describes the complete religious system of ancient Israel, it also lays the theological foundation for the Christian gospel.In Holiness to the Lord, Allen P. Ross enables preachers and teachers to mine the riches of Leviticus and deliver them to a contemporary audience. Following the same practical method he used in the acclaimed Creation and Blessing, Ross first carefully sites Leviticus within its context in the ancient world. Then he traces the development of God's plan of salvation-how Leviticus' laws, rituals, symbols, and events prepared for the complete revelation in Jesus Christ. Finally, unlike traditional commentaries, Ross offers helpful ideas for correlating Leviticus to New Testament teachings (particularly Romans, Hebrews, and Peter) and for applying the material in relevant expository form.Holiness to the Lord is every expositor's indispensable guide for interpreting the Law for the church and for elucidating Leviticus in practical, biblical messages about worship, sanctification, and obedience.

    Spiral Bound. REVISED EDITION

    to the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E. is an enigma to many students of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. This era has often been overlooked as unimportant or been the victim of strongly confessional overgeneralizations. Christians have often touted the absolute uniqueness of their faith as something that replaced a jaded, outmoded Jewish religion. Jews, on the other hand, have often tended to identify Christianity as something entirely unique, a phenomenon totally unrelated to Judaism. However, the Second Temple period was one of the most prolific and creative in all of Israel's history. It was a time of unparalleled literary and theological diversity that gave rise to the powerful religious movements of Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. The Internal Diversification of Second Temple Judaism provides a broad overview of the history, constituent communities, and theological innovations of the Second Temple period.

    This annotated bibliography introduces readers to more than 500 of the most essential works for students of the Pentateuch.

    Yet, through the Holy Spirit, these honest, sometimes brutal words return to us as the Word of God. Their agonies and exaltations reflect more than the human condition in which they were created. Within the context of the canonical Psalter, they become the source of divine guidance, challenge, confrontation, and comfort. However, it is possible to misapply them. How can we use the Psalms in a way that faithfully connects God’s meaning in them and his intentions for them with our circumstances today? Drawing on over twenty years of study in the book of Psalms, Dr. Gerald H. Wilson reveals the links between the Bible and our present times. While he considers each psalm in itself, Wilson goes much further, examining whole groups of psalms and, ultimately, the entire Psalter, its purpose, and its use from the days of Hebrew temple worship onward through church history. In so doing, Wilson opens our eyes to ageless truths for our twenty-first-century lives. Most Bible commentaries take us on a one-way trip from our world to the world of the Bible. But they leave us there, assuming that we can somehow make the return journey on our own. They focus on the original meaning of the passage but don’t discuss its contemporary application. The information they offer is valuable—but the job is only half done! The NIV Application Commentary Series helps bring both halves of the interpretive task together. This unique, award-winning series shows readers how to bring an ancient message into our postmodern context. It explains not only what the Bible meant but also how it speaks powerfully today.

    Saul. David. Goliath. Jonathan. When we think of 1 & 2 Samuel, these names and the stories that make them memorable generally come to mind. But these narratives are more than mere history.Peter Leithart offers here a typological reading of 1 & 2 Samuel as a unified book. By giving careful attention to the book's literary structures and its patterns of types and antitypes, Leithart unveils the symbolic world of Samuel's cumulative and cohesive story. His reading enhances our understanding of New Testament Christology while at the same time giving us a framework for applying the Old Testament to our own lives.

    Pentiuc probes carefully and thoroughly into the many problems of interpretation Hosea poses, grammatical and textual, historical, literary, and theological. And he does so drawing on a very wide acquaintance with the ancient sources, both Biblical and non-Biblical, and with classical and modern scholarship, all in a variety of languages. Particularly valuable, indeed a distinctive contribution of Pentiuc’s work, is the extensive use of the commentaries of the ancient Church Fathers on Hosea. As Pentiuc shows, these remain fresh and provocative, offering readers a rich array of insights, especially into the meaning of Hosea for the nature of God and His ways with humanity. (Peter Machinist)

    

    Training students to use the reference grammars so that their learning of Hebrew can continue independently is particularly difficult. It is with this in mind that "Hebrew Reader for Ruth "was created."Hebrew Reader for Ruth "presents the complete Hebrew text of the book of Ruth, a verse-by-verse translation, and an analysis of every word, including morphology, meaning, and syntax. Further, utilizing all of the standard reference grammars, Vance references every discussion of Ruth found in them, usually including the discussion itself in quotation or in summary.The book of Ruth makes an excellent first text for students of Classical Hebrew, with its interesting story and standard grammar (including a number of feminine verb forms), and "Hebrew Reader for Ruth "is intended for classroom and personal study. Worksheets are also available to facilitate and reinforce learning by providing space for students to parse each form and translate each verse.

    With the saga of the Israelites entering and possessing their promised land, Origen unfolds the story of the Christian life from baptism to resurection. He exhorts his hearers to persevere in their own struggles to overcome the enemies of their souls and obtain their own inheritence. As he exhorted, others wrote down his words, words he had asked the people to pray for and the Spirit to supply. Most of the original writings in Greek were lost during the centuries when Origen was offically defamed. What we have today is the Latin translation by Rufinus, the basis of the translations in this volume. In the introduction Bruce duscusses and affirms the reliability of the Latin text, and briefly looks at Origen's minstry, his concept of the nature of Scripture and his method of interpretation.

    In addition to verse-by-verse commentary, the author provides a systematic overview of the entire Book of Isaiah. This "introduction" to Isaiah covers: the book and the text, the formation of Isaiah 1-39, the prophet Isaiah and his religious roots, the theology of post-Isaianic materials, language and forms of speech in Isaiah, and a listing of recent Isaiah scholarship.

    

    Dr. Avraham Gileadi reveals the Book of Isaiah as the key to these two seemingly incompatible books of scripture, taking both to an unprecedented level of understanding. Hitherto unseen literary features change the rules for interpreting the prophecy of Isaiah, showing it to be an allegory of the end of the world. Isaiah's "good news" teaches us God's higher law and how God enables us to ascend to heaven. By living God's law, we are reborn on ever higher levels of a spiritual "ladder" until we are privileged to pass through heaven's gate. For centuries, people have tried to make sense of Isaiah's writings, not realizing that sophisticated literary structures both conceal and reveal a major prophecy about our time. Now, decades of scriptural analysis by Avraham Gileadi, a leading Bible scholar, are simplified for the lay reader in Isaiah Decoded.