Explores more than 100 Old Testament themes. 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.--

Second Samuel includes some of the most well-known and theologically layered episodes in the Old Testament, such as the Lord’s establishment of an eternal covenant with David, David’s sin with Bathsheba, and the subsequent account of Absalom’s rebellion. In this second part of an ambitious two-volume commentary on the books of Samuel, David Toshio Tsumura elucidates the rich text of 2 Samuel with special attention to literary and textual issues. Tsumura interprets the book in light of the meaning of the original composition, and he provides a fresh new translation based on careful analysis of the Hebrew text.

J. J. M. Roberts was graduated from Harvard University, taught at The Johns Hopkins University, and then spent the bulk of his teaching career at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he influenced and was well loved by several generations of students. Here, 21 colleagues and former students contribute essays that reflect Roberts' core interests.

In this innovative work, Mowinckel employs the phenomenology of religion to investigate how religion was lived and experienced in ancient Israel and Judah. Using his considerable expertise, he draws important comparisons between the religious practices in the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern religions, Christianity, and tribal religions from around the world.

Understanding the Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Three Abrahamic Religions analyzes the historical, social and theological factors which have resulted in Jerusalem being considered a holy place in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It also surveys the transmission of the religious traditions related to Jerusalem. This volume centralizes both the biblical background of Jerusalem’s pivotal role as holy place and its later development in religious writings; the biblical imagery has been adapted, rewritten and modified in Second Temple Jewish writings, the New Testament, patristic and Jewish literature, and Islamic traditions. Thus, all three monotheistic religions have influenced the multifaceted, interpretive traditions which help to understand the current religious and political position of Jerusalem in the three main Abrahamic faiths.

This study analyzes several passages in the Former Prophets (2 Sam 19:12-44; 2 Kgs 2:1-18; Judg 8:4-28) from a literary perspective, and argues that the text presents Transjordan as liminal in Israel’s history, a place from which Israel’s leaders return with inaugurated or renewed authority. It then traces the redactional development of Samuel-Kings that led to this literary symbolism, and proposes a hypothesis of continual updating and combination of texts, beginning early in Israel’s monarchy and continuing until the final formation of the Deuteronomistic History. Several source documents may be isolated, including three narratives of Saul’s rise, two distinct histories of David’s rise, and a court history that was subsequently revised with pro-Solomonic additions. These texts had been combined already in a Prophetic Record during the 9th c. B.C.E. (with A. F. Campbell), which was received as an integrated unit by the Deuteronomistic Historian. The symbolic geography of the Jordan River and Transjordan, which even extends into the New Testament, was therefore not the product of a deliberate theological formulation, but rather the accidental by-product of the contingency of textual redaction that had as its main goal the historical presentation of Israel’s life in the land.