The Priestly Blessing found in Numbers 6:24-26 left a deep imprint upon Jewish and Christian religious practice and tradition. The various ways in which the blessing was incorporated into these liturgical traditions, for example, are well documented in a variety of written sources from the past two thousand years. Rabbinic literature demonstrates that the blessing held a central place in early Jewish traditions, especially as part of the development of the Amidah and other liturgical prayers. Christian tradition also attests to a rich diversity of applications of the blessing in Byzantine and Medieval Christian practice. While the Priestly Blessing's development and significance in Judaism and early Christianity are well documented, considerably less is known about its earliest history in the ancient world. The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture breaks new ground in the study of the origins and early history of the blessing by examining its appearance on two Iron Age amulets discovered at the site of Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem. Jeremy Smoak provides a comprehensive description of the two amulets and compares the inscriptions on their surfaces with several Phoenician and Punic inscribed amulets. He argues that the blessing's language originated within a wider tradition of protective words, which were often inscribed on metal amulets as protection against evil. He contends that the Priestly writers of the biblical texts incorporated the specific words into the blessing's formulations precisely due to their wide popularity and appeal as protective words in the eastern Mediterranean world. Smoak's argument represents an important departure from earlier studies on the background of the blessing's language in the ancient Near East, and it sheds significant new light on the history of their use within early Judaism and Christianity.

The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Overview of Commentary Organization Introduction—covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology. Each section of the commentary includes: Pericope Bibliography—a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope. Translation—the author’s own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English. Notes—the author’s notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation. Form/Structure/Setting—a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here. Comment—verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research. Explanation—brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues. General Bibliography—occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliographycontains all sources used anywhere in the commentary.

A monumental work in scope and content, Aloys Grillmeier's Chirst in the Christian Tradition offers students and scholars a comprehensive exposition of Western writing on the history of doctrine. Volume Two covers the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590-604), with Part Four focusing on the Church of Alexandria.

This text offers a presentation of faith in Jesus Christ as it developed between the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) and the advance of Islam in the Nile region. The period begins in Alexandria, leading to Ethiopia, where we see an extraordinary example of a synthesis of Judaism and Christianity. The book covers a variety of theological work by poets, exegetes, philosophers and others, offering the reader a vivid picture of the state of Christian faith in the Nile and beyond before the Islamic conquest. Particular attention is paid to Jewish influence in pre-Islamic Arabia and to recent discoveries of literary texts and religious art.

This collection of essays by Carol A. Newsom explores the indispensable role that rhetoric and hermeneutics play in the production and reception of biblical and Second Temple literature. Some of the essays are methodological and programmatic, while others provide extended case studies. Because rhetoric is, as Kenneth Burke put it, "a strategy for encompassing a situation," the analysis of rhetoric illumines the ways in which texts engage particular historical moments, shape and reshape communities, and even construct new models of self and agency. The essays in this book not only explore how ancient texts hermeneutically engage existing traditions but also how they themselves have become the objects of hermeneutical transformation in contexts ranging from ancient sectarian Judaism to the politics of post-World War I and II Germany and America to modern film criticism and feminist re-reading.

The suffering and vindicated king The Psalter evinces meaningful arrangement. When psalms are read with attentiveness to their textual context, striking connections emerge. In The Arrival of the King: The Shape and Story of Psalms 15–24, Carissa Quinn approaches these psalms as a compositional unity. When read as a unit, Psalms 15–24 tell the story of God's kingdom, established through the suffering and deliverance of his Davidic king. Quinn interprets Psalms 15–24 as a sequence and a chiasm, revealing provocative links in adjacent and parallel psalms. These psalms have a sense of progress, beginning with the question of who may ascend the holy hill and culminating in the divine king's own ascent. They also display recursion, as themes in one psalm are developed in its chiastic parallel. At the peak of the chiasm is Psalm 19, where the king praises God's creation and Torah and prays for righteousness. The Arrival of the King establishes and explores the rewards of approaching the Psalms as a carefully arranged literary work.

In The “God of Israel” in History and Tradition, Michael Stahl examines the historical and ideological significances of the formulaic title “god of Israel” (’elohe yisra’el) in the Hebrew Bible using critical theory on social power and identity.