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In a chapel in the old crenellated church of Mary of Zion in Aksum, Ethiopia, is kept an object that emperors, patriarchs and priests have assured the world is the most important religious relic of all time: the Ark of the Covenant. Are the legends true? Or is this story a monumental deception? In a triumph of historical detective work the acclaimed Ethiopia expert Stuart Munro-Hay traces the extraordinary legend of Ethiopia's Ark through ancient texts, local stories, from the Bible and from the...

Volume 2 of the Textual History of the Bible presents a comprehensive description and analysis of the textual history of all deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, that is, to all books outside the Hebrew Bible that were considered canonical or 'useful for reading' by a church at some point. Earlier studies of the textual histories of these books focused largely on what were considered the most important textual witnesses, mostly in Greek, Latin and possibly in Armenian and Syriac, with th...

The SCM Theological Commentary series enlists leading theologians to read and interpret Scripture for the twenty-first century, just as the church fathers, the Reformers, and other orthodox Christians did for their times and places. "The book of Jonah", though listed among the prophets, is a short novella which has inspired the imagination of writers and theologians from the gospels to the present day. This commentary, like each in the series, is designed to serve readers by demonstrating the co...

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections:Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context.Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the time...

Die Arbeit untersucht ein Textstuck aus Deuterojesaja. Sie befasst sich mit der genuinen Charakteristik seiner sprachlichen Gestalt, um dann die Frage nach deren adaquaten Beschreibungsmoeglichkeiten mit Hilfe der afrikanischen Redekunst zu eroertern. Wie fassen Afrikaner die biblischen Texte ausgehend von ihrer eigenen Bildsprache auf? Jes 42,6 enthalt ein signifikantes Kompendium semantisch gepragter Ausdrucke, die bildsprachlich Vorstellungen vermitteln. Mundele pladiert fur die Verwendung af...

The Peshitta is the Syriac translation of the Old Testament made on the basis of the Hebrew text during the second century CE. Much like the Greek translations of the Old Testament, this document is an important source for our knowledge of the text of the Old Testament. Its language is also of great interest to linguists. Moreover, as Bible of the Syriac Churches it is used in sermons, commentaries, poetry, prayers, and hymns. Many terms specific to the spirituality of the Syriac Churches have t...

Arguably the biggest blockbuster love song ever composed, the Song of Songs holds a unique place in Jewish and Christian canons as the "holiest" book, in the minds of some readers, and the sexiest in its language and imagery. This commentary aims to interpret this vibrant Song in a contemporary feminist key, informed by close linguistic-literary and social-cultural analysis. Though finding much in the Song to celebrate for women (and men) in their embodied, passionate lives, this work also expos...

The book of Genesis portrays the character Jacob as a brazen trickster who deceives members of his own family: his father Isaac, brother Esau, and uncle Laban. At the same time, Genesis depicts Jacob as YHWH's chosen, from whom the entire people Israel derive and for whom they are named. These two notices produce a latent tension in the text: Jacob is concurrently an unabashed trickster and YHWH's preference. How is one to address this tension? Scholars have long focused on the implications for...

The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations investigates the origins, manifestations, and meanings of a myth that plays a major role in the Hebrew Bible and a substantial role in the New Testament: the dragon-slaying myth. The dragon-slaying myth has a hoary ancestry, extending back long before its appearance in the Hebrew Bible, and a vast range, spanning as far as India and perhaps even Japan. This book is a chronicle of its trajectories and permutations. The target of this study is the biblica...