Showing posts with label Isaiah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaiah. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Isaiah 40-55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
Joseph Blenkinsopp
Doubleday, 2002 - 411 pages
Scholars have traditionally isolated three distinct sections of what is known as the Book of Isaiah, and in Isaiah 40—55,
distinguished biblical scholar Joseph Blenkinsopp provides a new
translation and critical commentary on the section usually referred to
as Second or Deutero Isaiah. The second volume in a three-volume
commentary, it easily maintains the high standards of academic
excellence established by Isaiah 1—39.Second
Isaiah was written in the sixth century b.c.e., in the years just before
the fall of the mighty Babylonian Empire, by an anonymous prophet whom
history has erroneously identified with the real Isaiah (born ca. 765
b.c.e.). Scholars know Second Isaiah was written by someone other than
Isaiah because the contexts of these prophecies are so very different.
When Second Isaiah was written, the prophet believed that Israel’s time
of suffering was drawing to a close. There was, he insisted, a new age
upon them, a time of hope, peace, and renewed national prosperity. The
main thrust of the prophet’s argument was intended to rally the spirits
of a people devastated by war and conquest. One of the most famous
examples of this optimistic tone is the well-known and beloved Song of
the Suffering Servant, which is found in Chapters 52—53, and about which
Blenkinsopp has some challenging new ideas. The final chapters
of Second Isaiah, however, are in an entirely different key as it
becomes clear that the new world the prophet foresaw earlier was not
going to come to pass. This despair finds its most poignant expression
in the final section of the Book of Isaiah, which Blenkinsopp will
address in his forthcoming third volume.Sunday, 8 April 2012
Isaiah 40-66
Paul D. Hanson
The latter half of the sixth century B.C.E. found the Jewish community
fragmented and under great strife after having been conquered by the
Babylonian armies. As a response to a growing despair over life in
servitude and exile, Isaiah 40 - 66 was written. Paul Hanson examines
the writings of Second Isaiah. What he discovers is a poetic argument
for a loving and attentive God and the rightful place of God's creatures
in the unfolding of history. This commentary provides a wealth of insight into the world and worldview of Second Isaiah.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah
While
most treatments of biblical metaphor examine individual metaphors in
isolation, Sarah J. Dille presents a model for interpretation based on
their interaction with one another. Using Lakoff and Johnson's category
of "metaphoric coherence," she argues that when nonconsistent or
contradictory metaphors appear together in a literary unit, the areas of
overlap (coherence) are highlighted in each. Using the images of father
and mother in Deutero-Isaiah as a starting point, she explores how
these images interact with others: for example, the divine warrior, the
redeeming kinsman, the artisan of clay, or the husband. The
juxtaposition of diverse metaphors (common in Hebrew prophetic
literature) highlights common "entailments," enabling the reader to see
aspects of the image which would be overlooked or invisible if read in
isolation. Dille argues that any metaphor for God can only be understood
if it is read or heard in interaction with others within a particular
cultural context.
The Isaiah Targum
Designed
for those who are beginning Targum study, this book also provides
material for those who have already made some progress. Beginners will
have recourse first of all to the Translation, and the Notes are
intended to help orient them in the message conveyed by the Targum in
its two levels. Students with recourse to Aramaic will perhaps require
remarks of a linguistic and textual nature; these are given in the
Apparatus. Additional material for more advanced students is also
offered in the Notes, to help relate the exegesis of the Targum to the
intertestamental document, Rabbinica, and the New Testament.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel: Barth's Theological Exegesis of Isaiah
Today's
biblical scholars and dogmaticians are giving a significant amount of
attention to the topic of theological exegesis. A resource turned to for
guidance and insight in this discussion is the history of
interpretation, and Karl Barth's voice registers loudly as a helpful
model for engaging Scripture and its subject matter. Most readers of
Barth's theological exegesis encounter him on the level of his New
Testament exegesis. This is understandable from several different
vantage points. Unfortunately, Barth's theological exegesis of the Old
Testament has not received the attention it deserves. This book seeks to
fill this lacuna as it encounters Barth's theological exegesis of
Isaiah in the Church Dogmatics. From the Church's inception, Isaiah has
been understood as Christian Scripture. In the Church Dogmatics we find
Barth reading Isaiah in multi-functional and multi-layered ways as he
seeks to hear Isaiah as a living witness to God's triune revelation of
himself in Jesus Christ.Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel
Sharon
Moughtin-Mumby explores the complex, and potentially subversive, power
of metaphor as a tool of persuasion in the prophetic books of the Hebrew
Bible. Often, such language is used to speak of the worship of gods
other than Yhwh, of undesirable cultic practices, or of political
alliances with foreign nations. Evaluating several schools of language
and biblical criticism, including a traditional approach, a feminist
critique and a literary-historical investigation, Moughtin-Mumby brings
lucid new readings with a fresh perspective to these dramatic texts. The
study emphasizes the importance of context for understanding
metaphorical meaning and challenges previous scholarship which has read
such language in terms of the traditional concept of "the marriage
metaphor" and the hypothetical background of cultic prostitutionGet it
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