Political Satire in the Bible

Political Satire in the Bible PDF

Author: Zeev Weisman

Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13:

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"From epigrams and name calling to sophisticated proverbs, fables and taunt-songs, Weisman provides a nuanced introduction to this multifaceted and fascinating subject. The author spends equal time looking at the historical (political) and literary (satirical) aspects of the subject, well aware that context matters and that sometimes "you have to be there" to get the joke. An excellent contribution to the emerging interest in biblical humor."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

God Mocks

God Mocks PDF

Author: Terry Lindvall

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2015-11-13

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1479883824

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Winner of the 2016 Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. Lindvall finds that there is a method to the madness of these mockers: true satire, he argues, is at its heart moral outrage expressed in laughter. But there are remarkable differences in how these religious satirists express their outrage.The changing costumes of religious satirists fit their times. The earthy coarse language of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More during the carnival spirit of the late medieval period was refined with the enlightened wit of Alexander Pope. The sacrilege of Monty Python does not translate well to the ironic voices of Soren Kierkegaard. The religious satirist does not even need to be part of the community of faith. All he needs is an eye and ear for the folly and chicanery of religious poseurs. To follow the paths of the satirist, writes Lindvall, is to encounter the odd and peculiar treasures who are God’s mouthpieces. In God Mocks, he offers an engaging look at their religious use of humor toward moral ends.

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament PDF

Author: G. K. Beale

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 1280

ISBN-13: 1441210520

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Readers of the New Testament often encounter quotes or allusions to Old Testament stories and prophecies that are unfamiliar or obscure. In order to fully understand the teachings of Jesus and his followers, it is important to understand the large body of Scripture that preceded and informed their thinking. Leading evangelical scholars G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson have brought together a distinguished team to provide readers with a comprehensive commentary on Old Testament quotations, allusions, and echoes that appear from Matthew through Revelation. College and seminary students, pastors, scholars, and interested lay readers will want to add this unique commentary to their reference libraries. Contributors Craig L. Blomberg (Denver Seminary) on Matthew Rikk E. Watts (Regent College) on Mark David W. Pao (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) and Eckhard J. Schnabel (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) on Luke Andreas J. Köstenberger (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) on John I. Howard Marshall (University of Aberdeen) on Acts Mark A. Seifrid (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) on Romans Roy E. Ciampa (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) and Brian S. Rosner (Moore Theological College) on 1 Corinthians Peter Balla (Károli Gáspár Reformed University, Budapest) on 2 Corinthians Moisés Silva (author of Philippians in the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) on Galatians and Philippians Frank S. Thielman (Beeson Divinity School) on Ephesians G. K. Beale (Wheaton College Graduate School) on Colossians Jeffrey A. D. Weima (Calvin Theological Seminary) on 1 and 2 Thessalonians Philip H. Towner (United Bible Societies) on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus George H. Guthrie (Union University) on Hebrews D. A. Carson (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) on the General Epistles G. K. Beale (Wheaton College Graduate School) and Sean M. McDonough (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) on Revelation

Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible

Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible PDF

Author: Carolyn J. Sharp

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2008-12-23

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 025300344X

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Was God being ironic in commanding Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of wisdom? Carolyn J. Sharp suggests that many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures may be ironically intended. Deftly interweaving literary theory and exegesis, Sharp illumines the power of the unspoken in a wide variety of texts from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. She argues that reading with irony in mind creates a charged and open rhetorical space in the texts that allows character, narration, and authorial voice to develop in unexpected ways. Main themes explored here include the ironizing of foreign rulers, the prostitute as icon of the ironic gaze, indeterminacy and dramatic irony in prophetic performance, and irony in ancient Israel's wisdom traditions. Sharp devotes special attention to how irony destabilizes dominant ways in which the Bible is read today, especially when it touches on questions of conflict, gender, and the Other.

Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes

Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes PDF

Author: E. Randolph Richards

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0830843795

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The Bible was written within collectivist cultures. When Westerners, immersed in individualism, read the Bible, it's easy to misinterpret important elements—or miss them altogether. In any culture, the most important things usually go without being said. So to read Scripture well we benefit when we uncover the unspoken social structures and values of its world. We need to recalibrate our vision. Combining the expertise of a biblical scholar and a missionary practitioner, Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes is an essential guidebook to the cultural background of the Bible and how it should inform our reading. E. Randolph Richards and Richard James explore deep social structures of the ancient Mediterranean—kinship, patronage, and brokerage—along with their key social tools—honor, shame, and boundaries—that the biblical authors lived in and lie below the surface of each text. From Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to Peter's instructions to elders, the authors strip away individualist assumptions and bring the world of the biblical writers to life. Expanding on the popular Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, this book makes clear how understanding collectivism will help us better understand the Bible, which in turn will help us live more faithfully in an increasingly globalized world.

The Political Consequences of Thinking

The Political Consequences of Thinking PDF

Author: Jennifer Ring

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 143841739X

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In this book, Jennifer Ring offers a wholly new interpretation of Hannah Arendt's work, from Eichmann in Jerusalem, with its bitter reception by the Jewish community, to The Life of the Mind. Departing from previous scholarship, Ring applies the perspectives of gender and ethnicity to investigate the extent to which Arendt's identity as a Jewish woman influenced both her thought and its reception. Ring's analysis of Zionist and assimilationist responses to century-old antisemitic sexual stereotypes leads her to argue that Arendt's criticism of European Jewish leadership during the Holocaust was bound to be explosive. New York and Israeli Jews shared a rare moment of unity in their condemnation of Arendt, charging that she had betrayed the Jewish community—the kind of charge, Ring contends, often leveled against women who dare to speak out publicly against prominent men in their own cultural or racial groups. The book moves from a feminist analysis of the Eichmann controversy to a discussion of Jewish themes in the structure and content of Arendt's major theoretical works. Ring makes a powerful contribution to an understanding of Arendt, and of multiculturalism, demonstrating that Arendt's most sustained philosophical work was influenced as much by her Jewish heritage as by her German education.

Everyday Life and the Sacred

Everyday Life and the Sacred PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-11-06

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 9004353798

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Everyday Life and the Sacred offers gender sensitive interdisciplinary perspectives from the fields of feminist theology and religious studies on the everyday and the sacred. The volume aims to re-configure the current domain of religion and gender studies.

Revelations

Revelations PDF

Author: Elaine Pagels

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-03-06

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 110157707X

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A startling exploration of the history of the most controversial book of the Bible, by the bestselling author of Beyond Belief. Through the bestselling books of Elaine Pagels, thousands of readers have come to know and treasure the suppressed biblical texts known as the Gnostic Gospels. As one of the world's foremost religion scholars, she has been a pioneer in interpreting these books and illuminating their place in the early history of Christianity. Her new book, however, tackles a text that is firmly, dramatically within the New Testament canon: The Book of Revelation, the surreal apocalyptic vision of the end of the world . . . or is it? In this startling and timely book, Pagels returns The Book of Revelation to its historical origin, written as its author John of Patmos took aim at the Roman Empire after what is now known as "the Jewish War," in 66 CE. Militant Jews in Jerusalem, fired with religious fervor, waged an all-out war against Rome's occupation of Judea and their defeat resulted in the desecration of Jerusalem and its Great Temple. Pagels persuasively interprets Revelation as a scathing attack on the decadence of Rome. Soon after, however, a new sect known as "Christians" seized on John's text as a weapon against heresy and infidels of all kinds-Jews, even Christians who dissented from their increasingly rigid doctrines and hierarchies. In a time when global religious violence surges, Revelations explores how often those in power throughout history have sought to force "God's enemies" to submit or be killed. It is sure to appeal to Pagels's committed readers and bring her a whole new audience who want to understand the roots of dissent, violence, and division in the world's religions, and to appreciate the lasting appeal of this extraordinary text.

Comedy and Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible

Comedy and Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible PDF

Author: Melissa Jackson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-07-26

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0191630764

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Comedy is both relative, linked to a time and culture, and universal, found pervasively across time and culture. The Hebrew Bible contains comedy of this relative, yet universal nature. Melissa A. Jackson engages the Hebrew Bible via a comic reading and brings that reading into conversation with feminist-critical interpretation, in resistance to any lingering stereotype that comedy is fundamentally non-serious or that feminist critique is fundamentally unsmiling. Dividing comic elements into categories of literary devices, psychological/social features, and psychological/social function, Jackson examines the narratives of a number of biblical characters for evidence of these comic elements. The characters include the trickster matriarchs, the women involved in the infancy of Moses, Rahab, Deborah and Jael, Delilah, three of David's wives (Michal, Abigail, Bathsheba), Jezebel, Ruth, and Esther. Nine particularly instructive points of contact between comedy and feminist interpretation emerge: both (1) resist definition, (2) exist amidst a self/other, subject/object dichotomy, (3) emphasise and utilise context, (4) promote creativity, (5) acknowledge the concept of distancing, (6) work towards revelation, (7) are subversive, (8) are concerned with containment and control, and (9) enable survival. The use of comedy as an interpretive lens for the Hebrew Bible is not without difficulties for feminist interpretation. While maintaining an uncomfortable, even painful, awareness of the hold patriarchy retains on the Hebrew Bible, feminist critics can still choose to allow comedy's revelatory, subversive, survivalist nature to do its work revealing, subverting, and surviving.