In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

This book offers a succinct yet thorough introduction to 131 of the most intriguing, courageous, inspiring Christians who ever lived. It tells how they lived, what they believed, and how their faith affected the course of world history. Includes a timeline with a historical context for each individual, key quotes from or about each personality, and more than 60 photos.

Biblical scholarship today is divided between two mutually exclusive concepts of the emergence of monotheism: an early-monotheistic Yahwism paradigm and a native-pantheon paradigm. This study identifies five main stages on Israel's journey towards monotheism. Rather than deciding whether Yahweh was originally a god of the Baal-type or of the El-type, this work shuns origins and focuses instead on the first period for which there are abundant sources, the Omride era. Non-biblical sources depict a significantly different situation from the Baalism the Elijah cycle ascribes to King Achab. The novelty of the present study is to take this paradox seriously and identify the Omride dynasty as the first stage in the rise of Yahweh as the main god of Israel. Why Jerusalem later painted the Omrides as anti-Yahweh idolaters is then explained as the need to distance itself from the near-by sanctuary of Bethel by assuming the Omride heritage without admitting its northern Israelite origins. The contribution of the Priestly document and of Deutero-Isaiah during the Persian era comprise the next phase, before the strict Yahwism achieved in Daniel 7 completes the emergence of biblical Yahwism as a truly monotheistic religion.

Knowable Word offers a foundation on why and how to study the Bible. Through a running study Genesis 1, this new edition illustrates how to Observe, Interpret, and Apply the Scripture-and gives the vision behind each step.

Why is God's beauty often absent from our theology? Rarely do theologians take up the theme of God's beauty—even more rarely do they consider how God's beauty should shape the task of theology itself. But the psalmist says that the heart of the believer's desire is to behold the beauty of the Lord. In The Beauty of the Lord, Jonathan King restores aesthetics as not merely a valid lens for theological reflection, but an essential one. Jesus, our incarnate Redeemer, displays the Triune God's beauty in his actions and person, from creation to final consummation. How can and should theology better reflect this unveiled beauty? The Beauty of the Lord is a renewal of a truly aesthetic theology and a properly theological aesthetics.

Life and Death: Social Perspectives on Biblical Bodies explores some of the social, material, and ideological dynamics shaping life and death in both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel and Judah. Analysing topics ranging from the bodily realities of gestation, subsistence, and death, and embodied performances of gender, power, and status, to the imagined realities of post-mortem and divine existence, the essays in this volume offer exciting new trajectories in our understanding of the ways in which embodiment played out in the societies in which the texts of the Hebrew Bible emerged.

Numerous useful books on Old Testament theology are now available. However, they often give too much information - or too little. Some can seem large, and daunting to the ordinary student or pastor, and because of their layout, information may be hard to access. Others take a more introductory approach and do not deal with many of the theological issues and questions that the Old Testament raises. Robin Routledge's aim is to bridge this gap. He provides a substantial overview of the central issues and themes in Old Testament theology in the main body of the text, with more detailed discussion and references for further reading in the footnotes. His purpose is to examine the theological significance of the various texts in their wider canonical context, noting unity and coherence within the Old Testament (and to some extent between the Old and New Testaments), whilst also being aware of diversity. A brief outline of the relationship between exegesis and biblical theology within the overall task of interpreting and applying biblical material is given in the first chapter. His hope as a Christian minister is that, while this volume has grown out of a teaching context, and is intended for students, it will also be of benefit to others who want to take the theological content of the Old Testament seriously, and to apply its message to the life and ministry of the church today.