"This work examines the Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 40-48, arguing that it represents a reworking of these chapters in light of the book as a whole. The author applies Skopostheorie, a modern functional theory of translation, to understand the goals of translation in LXX Ezekiel 40-48, which include highlighting the distance and hence authority of the source text, suggesting solutions to problems posed by the text, and updating elements of the vision in light of Hellenistic culture. The goal of the translation was both to preserve the authority and to heighten the persuasive power of these chapters for his Hellenistic readers" --

How is the interpreter to approach Ecclesiastes? What is the message of the author? What is the genre of Ecclesiastes? Many scholars have posited varying interpretations of the message of Ecclesiastes and have observed the number of statements that appear to be conflicting or, at least, in tension with one another. Discussions about the argument and genre label(s) in Ecclesiastes have not fully considered the author's polemics against the apocalyptic beliefs of his day, 200 B.C.E. This book will propose that the author of Ecclesiastes utilizes a hybrid genre in his work--an "anti-apocalyptic genre"--in order to further his message of joy. Jerome Douglas explores how recognizing the presence of an anti-apocalyptic genre within the tapestry of Ecclesiastes assists the interpreter in understanding the book.

From the ancient Book of the Dead to Dante's Divine Comedy, the living have attempted to describe the world of the dead. Tours of Hell focuses on one form of that attempt: the tours of hell found in Jewish and Christian apocalypses of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Himmelfarb examines seventeen texts, preserved in five languages and spanning a thousand years of human history. These include Hebrew texts and Christian texts in Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, and Coptic, such as the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul family. Muslim texts, medieval visions, and other related literatures are also discussed. Himmelfarb details the common elements of the tour tradition, including such features as a hero or heroine figure, a heavenly revealer, and descriptions of the punishments awaiting those who arrive in hell. She convincingly refutes the accepted nineteenth-century critical view of the earliest of these tours, the Apocalypse of Peter, as a Christian form of an "Orphic-Pythagorean" descent to Hades. She place the work instead on the family tree of the tour apocalypse, a genre she traces back to the third century B.C.E. Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36). Linking the Apocalypse of Peter with later Jewish tours of hell, Himmelfarb reveals significant sin-and-punishment combinations that seem to point to a common source, which she theorizes to be a lost Jewish Tour work of the late Second Temple period. Rich and fascinating texts seldom before brought to light are treated in detail in this pioneering study. A comprehensive work on the apocalyptic tradition, Tours of Hell will be of great interest to scholars and students of religion, history, ancient and medieval literature, and Dante studies.