New Books in Biblical Studies

What does it mean to be the people of God? Is it possible for Jewish and Christian people to engage in fruitful dialogue about their faiths, with integrity and mutual respect? Despite, or perhaps because of, the bitterly tragic history between them, especially of the ill-treatment of Jewish people under the false guise of Christianity, ongoing efforts toward charitable understanding and friendship are to be especially treasured.Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism (Cascade Books, 2021) is the dogmatic sequel to Levering’s Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage, in which he argued that God’s purpose in creating the cosmos is the eschatological marriage of God and his people. God sets this marriage into motion through his covenantal election of a particular people, the people of Israel. Central to this people’s relationship with the Creator God are their Scriptures, exodus, Torah, Temple, land, and Davidic kingship. As a Christian Israelology, this book devotes a chapter to each of these topics, investigating their theological significance both in light of ongoing Judaism and in light of Christian Scripture (Old and New Testaments) and Christian theology. Tune is as we speak with Matthew Levering about his recent book, Engaging the Doctrine of Israel.Matthew Levering is the James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology at Mundelein Seminary, in Mundelein, Illinois. He is the author of over thirty books, including four previous volumes in his Engaging the Doctrine dogmatic series. He is the co-editor of two quarterly journals, Nova et Vetera and International Journal of Systematic Theology.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Come and Read: Interpretative Approaches to the Gospel of John (Fortress Academic, 2019) is a unique volume that both introduces numerous interpretive approaches to the Bible and includes examples in action with contributions from top scholars in the field. The book takes up three different passages throughout John’s Gospel—John 1:1–18, John 10, and John 20—and sets four different approaches to each passage side-by-side. The three selected texts move readers through the Gospel story and represent the three major sub-genres featured in the Gospel. John’s Prologue (1:1–18) is written in poetic style; John 10 represents a major discourse; and John 20 takes the form of dramatic narrative prose. Each section of the book includes readings on the focus passage from the same four interpretive perspectives: intertextual, sociocultural, rhetorical, and narrative. These approaches are broadly conceived to showcase varieties present even within approaches and how these ways of reading are connected to and benefit from one another. Overall, this book provides insight into current interpretive practices on the Gospel of John, and the rest of the Bible. It demonstrates how to use these methods effectively, illustrating not only the value of using a variety of approaches for interpretation, but also how methods impact the interpretations rendered.Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Did the ideas of Deuteronomy influence the prophecies of Ezekiel? Jason Gile says Yes. His recent monograph argues that Deuteronomy's ideas influenced Ezekiel's response to the crisis surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile in significant ways, shaping how he saw Israel's past history of rebellion against Yahweh, present situation of divine judgment, and future hope of restoration.Tune in as we speak with Jason Gile about his recent book, Ezekiel and the World of Deuteronomy.Jason Gile serves as Dean of Program Development and Innovation, as well as Affiliate Professor of Old Testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

During the mid-19th century, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner sparked an impulse toward German cultural renewal and social change that drew on religious myth, metaphysics, and spiritualism. The only problem was that their works were deeply antisemitic and entangled with claims that Jews were incapable of creating compassionate art. By looking at the works of Jewish composers and writers who contributed to a lively and robust biblical theatre in fin de siècle Vienna, Caroline A. Kita's Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna: Composing Compassion in Music and Biblical Theater (Indiana UP, 2019) shows how they reimagined myths of the Old Testament to offer new aesthetic and ethical views of compassion. These Jewish artists, including Gustav Mahler, Siegfried Lipiner, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Stefan Zweig, and Arnold Schoenberg, reimagined biblical stories through the lens of the modern Jewish subject to plead for justice and compassion toward the Jewish community. By tracing responses to antisemitic discourses of compassion, Kita reflects on the explicitly and increasingly troubled political and social dynamics at the end of the Habsburg Empire.Lea Greenberg is a scholar of German studies with a particular focus on German Jewish and Yiddish literature and culture; critical gender studies; multilingualism; and literature of the post-Yugoslav diaspora. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Willi Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins: Towards an Anthropocentric Study of Religion (Equinox, 2020)  constitutes an extended argument for an anthropocentric, human-focused study of religious practices. Part I presents the basic premise of the argument, which is that there is nothing special or extraordinary about human behaviors and constructs that are claimed to have uniquely religious status and authority. Instead, they are fundamentally human, and so the scholar of religion is engaged in nothing more or less than studying humans across time and place in all their complex existence-which includes creating more-than-human beings and realities. As an extended and detailed example of such an approach, Part II addresses practices, rhetoric, and other data in early Christianities within Greco-Roman cultures and religions. The underlying aim is to insert studies of the New Testament and non-canonical texts, most often presented as "biblical studies," into the anthropocentric study of religion proposed in Part I. How might we approach the study of "sacred texts" if they are nothing more or less than human documents deriving from situations that were themselves all too human? Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins addresses that question with clarity and insight.Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Covenant Theology: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Perspectives (Crossway Books, 2020) explores the biblical covenants and how they form the structure of the Bible and inform the Christian life. Featuring contributions from twenty-seven scholars, this monumental work in reformed scholarship is biblically grounded, systematically conveyed, and historically connected.Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Shawn Wilhite is author of this outstanding new commentary on one of the most important early Christian documents. We don't know who wrote the Didache, when it was written, or who it was written for, but Wilhite's work demonstrates how the text sets out teaching about ethics, sacraments and eschatology that seemed so authoritative that some readers briefly regarded the book as canonical. As the initial volume of a series of commentaries on the apostolic fathers, Wilhite's The Didache (Cascade Books, 2019) sets a superb standard of scholarly engagement and promises to greatly advance scholarly and popular understanding of this most significant early Christian writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

The Talmud ‘is the central pillar supporting the entire spiritual and intellectual edifice of Jewish life’—so wrote Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz. Not only did Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz publish an English translation and commentary of the entire Talmud in 42 volumes, The Noé Edition Koren Talmud Bavli, he also published a guide for studying the Talmud, titled The Essential Talmud, and a Reference Guide to the Talmud, and Talmudic Images, which presents the life and historical context of 13 key Talmudic sages.Join us as we speak with Rabbi Meni Even-Israel about his father’s lifelong work of Talmudic scholarship, as published with Koren Publishers.Rabbi Meni Even-Israel serves as the Executive Director of the Steinsaltz Center, which oversees the teachings and publications of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, and has recently put out the app, Steinsaltz Daily Study.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865), known by his Hebrew acronym Shadal, was the leading Italian Jewish scholar of the 19th century. A linguist, educator, and religious thinker, he devoted his talents above all to the interpretation of the Bible. As a master of Hebrew grammar and usage, he focused on the plain meaning of the text. Although he was a devout believer in the divinity, unity, and antiquity of the Torah, Shadal approached the text in a remarkably free spirit of inquiry, drawing upon a wide variety of sources, ancient and contemporary, Jewish and non-Jewish. As a result, his interpretations may strike even the modern reader as fresh and novel.Shadal's treatment of the books of the Torah consisted of his Italian translation of the text and his Hebrew-language commentary. Here, for the first time, is an all-English version of both the text translation and the unabridged commentary. Daniel A. Klein, translator and editor of Luzzatto's commentaries, has supplied copious explanatory notes and a list identifying the sources cited. Through Kodesh Press, Daniel Klein has translated Shadal's commentaries on Genesis (2019), Exodus (2015), and Leviticus (2020).Join us as we speak with Daniel Klein about Luzzatto's life and commentaries on the Torah!Daniel A. Klein is an attorney and legal writer, and a graduate of Yeshiva University and New York University School of Law. His study of Italian as a youthful hobby led to a fascination with Italian Jewish culture and, in particular, the works of Shadal (Samuel David Luzzatto).He and his wife live in Rochester, New York, where he has taught Judaic studies at elementary, high school, and adult levels.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Angelic beings can be found throughout the Hebrew Bible, and by late antiquity the archangels Michael and Gabriel were as familiar as the patriarchs and matriarchs, guardian angels were as present as one’s shadow, and praise of the seraphim was as sacred as the Shema prayer. Mika Ahuvia recovers once-commonplace beliefs about the divine realm and demonstrates that angels were foundational to ancient Judaism. Ancient Jewish practice centered on humans' relationships with invisible beings who acted as intermediaries, role models, and guardians. Drawing on non-canonical sources—incantation bowls, amulets, mystical texts, and liturgical poetry—Ahuvia shows that when ancient men and women sought access to divine aid, they turned not only to their rabbis or to God alone but often also to the angels. On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture (U California Press, 2021) spotlights these overlooked stories, interactions, and rituals, offering a new entry point to the history of Judaism and the wider ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world in which it flourished. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies