The world is suffering from a severe drought. After no rain anywhere on earth for more than six months, the forests and oil fields are burning. The nations blame each other for global warming, some call it Freak Weather Syndrome, others God's revenge. In the UK, the Conservative, David Geayton is made Minister of Drought while his daughter, Lucy, tries to survive the increasing horrors of the Philippines. In Moscow, Liudmila is part of an environmental organisation that is planning a 'Save the Planet' conference and Charlotte Brand is reporting the corruption of the governors in San Francisco and the Government of America. No one knows they are suffering the effects of a divine unrequited love until a long forgotten pantheon of gods are made to come to earth to hold an election. But who, if anyone, will believe them? A Divine War is a humorous and irreverent tale - with serious consequences.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

"Scott C. Ryan investigates divine conflict motifs in select Jewish literature and places the findings in dialogue with Paul's Letter to the Romans. Paul emerges as a writer who participates in Jewish divine conflict traditions even as he modifies the motifs in light of the Christ-event." --back cover.

'Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence' examines the book of Joshua as a construction of national identity. This pioneering New Historicist analysis shows how the Deuteronomist used war oracle language and epic historical lore to negotiate sociopolitical boundaries. It asserts that text and context interacted in a programme consolidating King Josiah's authority in the wake of Assyrian imperial collapse. The book argues that the conquest narrative is not simple 'us against them' propaganda but a complex web of negotiations defining identity and otherness. The analysis draws on Foucault's principle that power is something exercised rather than merely possessed.