Ezra • Nehemiah

1965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob M. Myers
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Jigsaw Puzzle ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
The Bible ◽  
National Reconstruction ◽  
Spiritual Reform

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, treated here as one larger work, continue the story of Israel's experience begun in the biblical books of I and II Chronicles. In the wake of Persia replacing Babylon as the ruling empire in the ancient Near East, the Judahites exiled in Babylon find reason to hope again. Their hope is rooted in the fulfillment of the prophetic promises that they would one day return to their homeland. Not only do the exiles return from Babylon with the support of the Persian ruler, but they renew their commitment to God. Two remarkable personalities – with strikingly different approaches to the same objective – are the architects of this rebuilding of a people so long without roots. Ezra, “the second Moses,” bases the renewal on the Torah and spiritual reform. Nehemiah, the accomplished politician and diplomat, keeps the renewal alive with his deft administrative hand. For all its usefulness in painting the historical picture, Ezra-Nehemiah presents an exceedingly complex textual jigsaw puzzle. The heart of the matter lies not in reconciling all the parallel lists, quotes, and different accounts of the same story, but in coming to a better understanding of how and when the Bible came to be written. The factors of spiritual renewal, national reconstruction, and biblical composition make Ezra-Nehemiah a key to biblical interpretation then and now. Jacob M. Myers was Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, until his death in 1991. He is also the author of the Anchor Bible commentaries on II Chronicles and I & II Esdras.

Postcolonial Liberation: Decolonizing Biblical Studies in the South African Postcolony

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Black ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
The 1960S

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.

Spirit Hermeneutics or Biblical Interpretation by Any Other Name

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-212
Author(s):  
Robby Waddell
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
A Priority

Within the guild of Pentecostal Studies, few topics have received more attention than biblical hermeneutics. Craig Keener, F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, makes a significant contribution to this discussion with the publication of his book, Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in the Light of Pentecost. Giving a priority to contextually sensitive, socio-historical methodologies, Keener attempts to define hermeneutics broadly in order to include most confessional perspectives. Indeed, he writes that Spirit Hermeneutics is Christian Hermeneutics. While such an inclusive move is admirable, it begs the question about the existence and viability of a distinctive hermeneutic for Pentecostals and Charismatics. This article reviews Keener’s argument and makes a case for a more distinctive hermeneutical theory.

Intersections between Iconographic and Gendered Approaches to Biblical Interpretation

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-341
Author(s):  
Brian Charles DiPalma
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Visual Images

This paper explores the intersections between two approaches to biblical interpretation: iconographic and gendered approaches. Focusing on the ways that visual images from the ancient Near East have been incorporated in studying gender in the Hebrew Bible, I identify four intersections. These examples demonstrate that participating in an iconographic turn is an important way that gender studies in the Hebrew Bible can develop. I also seek to show that the interactions can be mutually fruitful. In other words, including gender as an area of inquiry is a way that the iconographic turn itself can develop in biblical studies.


Returning To China: Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie C.C. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
New Framework

AbstractThe paper aims to construct a new framework for biblical studies from the context of postcolonial Hong Kong. While present biblical scholarship has largely depended on historical-critical exegesis, biblical scholars of Asia have begun to conceive a different approach to the Bible, because of not only a new context of reading, but also a radically different cultural-political location of the reader. This location, as it is now being formulated, is a reading between East and West, between the dominant interpretation and scholarship of the formerly colonial and Western cultures and the newly arising consciousness of emerging postcolonial identities in the histories and cultures of Asia. After about some 150 years of British colonial rule, the identity of being a people of Hong Kong is highly hybridised. It is a hybrid identity of being cultural Chinese and yet pragmatically British, both a strong sense of identification with China and an unexplainable fear of being national Chinese. Such location of a reader transforms one's understanding of a biblical text such as Isaiah 56-66 and sheds a new light on the meaning of the return in some of its major passages.

Biblical Interpretation and Kyriarchal Globalization

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Displaced Populations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Market Relations

Feminist biblical studieaas engage both wo/men and gender studies for their work, but the feminist analysis is not identical with and cannot be limited to gender studies. Rather, feminist biblical studies needs to focus on issues of power and structures of domination in light of wo/men’s struggles against kyriarchal relations. Accordingly, feminist biblical studies are social-cultural-political studies of domination, exploring how the Bible and biblical interpretation function and are shaped in the context of global kyriarchal neoliberalism. If the analytic object of feminist theory and biblical studies is not simply woman or gender in the Bible but the intersectionality of domination—of kyriarchy (from the Greek kyrios for “lord, master, legal guardian” and archein for “to rule, dominate”), the object needs to be understood in terms of the ontology of kyriarchal power. Kyriarchal relations of domination are characteristic of the ancient biblical worlds and are still at work today in the multiplicative intersectionalities of class, race, gender, ethnicity, empire, and other structures of exploitation. Hence, biblical interpretation must not only be practiced in terms of its content but also in terms of its function in global neo-liberalism, which is not only a theory of market relations but also a theory of human relations. We are encouraged to think not only of our work but also of our lives in economic terms in global neoliberal societies. These societies are characterized by xenophobic reactions against displaced populations and strangers, the threat of global warming, political polarization, unemployment, poverty, and centuries of exploitation, as well as by the devaluation of societal equality and democratic multiplicity.

The Bible as a Document of the Church: A Personal View

2016 ◽  
Vol 128 (6) ◽  
pp. 276-285
Author(s):  
George G. Nicol
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Church

Following some general remarks on recent significant trends in biblical studies, I note that these will exacerbate the gulf between church and academy with respect to biblical interpretation. A brief introduction to the official documents of the Church of Scotland shows that they provide little indication of how the Bible should be interpreted as a document of the church. In view of the ideological nature of many of the biblical texts an argument against too ready recourse to theological interpretation is outlined.

Postcolonial Biblical Criticism and Feminist Studies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Scholz
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Postcolonial Feminist ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

After Two-Thirds World Bible scholars connected postcolonial theories with biblical studies in the early 1990s, it took another decade for postcolonial feminist Bible scholars to examine the Bible and its interpretation as part of past and present colonial and gender-oppressive structures of domination. Postcolonial feminist interpretations have proliferated in three main areas: (1) theoretical considerations about the nature, purpose, and goals of postcolonial feminist exegesis; (2) text-centered readings of particular biblical books, chapters, and themes or characters; and (3) some considerations on (post)colonial biblical interpretation histories with attention to sexism and gender issues. Challenges remain for postcolonial feminist exegetes. Yet, overall, postcolonial feminist exegetes continue to be called to make important scholarly contributions in solidarity with the ongoing struggles of bringing justice, peace, and the integrity of creation into the world.

A Nineteenth-Century New England Exegete Abroad: Adoniram Judson and the Burmese Bible

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-339
Author(s):  
John deJong
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Subject

AbstractAdoniram Judson’s life and work have long been the subject of popular and scholarly interest, but the intellectual and exegetical background for his Burmese Bible translation has not been closely studied. This background was the biblical studies movement in New England, which began in the early nineteenth century and flourished before declining and eventually disappearing by about 1870. The opposing New England orthodox Calvinist and liberal Unitarian schools were equally involved in the movement. Judson was an early product of Andover Theological Seminary, the center for orthodox Calvinism in New England. From 1816 to 1840 Judson translated the Bible into Burmese and his references to the scholarly works he used, along with the text-critical and interpretive decisions in his Bible translation, identify him as an ongoing participant in the New England biblical studies movement. This scholarly background helps us understand interpretive decisions in the Judson Bible, which is still the main Burmese version used by Protestants in Myanmar.

Latino/a/x Biblical Interpretation Related to the Hebrew Bible

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-262
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship

Since approximately the turn of the millennium, Latino/a/x biblical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible has focused on: (1) questions of identity—both what constitutes Latino/a/x identity and what sort of scholarly work can be characterized as Latino/a/x biblical scholarship; (2) offering analyses of biblical texts that can serve as theological-ethical resources for exploring contemporary questions of migration; (3) development of Latino/a/x hermeneutic lenses and the reading of scriptures from these perspectives, as well as the development of interdisciplinary studies of the Bible that implicitly and explicitly critique aspects of dominant modes of biblical studies and introject a Latino/a/x presence in biblical studies; and (4) the resourcing of local Latino/a/x communities of faith through the publication of works focused on the educational needs of such local communities. Two or more of these trajectories of Latino/a/x biblical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible are often discernible in single published works of Latino/a/x scholars.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 533-539
Author(s):  
Julie Faith Parker ◽  
Kristine Henriksen Garroway
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Special Volume ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of

Abstract This Introduction provides a framework for this special volume on Children in the Bible and Childist Interpretation. First, we acquaint unfamiliar readers with the term “childist” and the history of childist interpretation within biblical studies. We briefly outline the hallmarks of the field and explain the specific ways in which this volume moves childist interpretation forward. A paragraph on each article summarizes the overall content of the separate contributions. We conclude by offering the reasons why childist biblical interpretation matters not only for the study of children in the biblical world but for children in the modern world as well.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document