Winner of the R.B.Y. Scott Award from the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Even in antiquity, writers were intrigued by the origins of the people called Samaritans, living in the region of ancient Samaria (near modern Nablus). The Samaritans practiced a religion almost identical to Judaism and shared a common set of scriptures. Yet the Samaritans and Jews had little to do with each other. In a famous New Testament passage about an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman, the author writes, "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." The Samaritans claimed to be descendants of the northern tribes of Joseph. Classical Jewish writers said, however, that they were either of foreign origin or the product of intermarriages between the few remaining northern Israelites and polytheistic foreign settlers. Some modern scholars have accepted one or the other of these ancient theories. Others have avidly debated the time and context in which the two groups split apart. Covering over a thousand years of history, this book makes an important contribution to the fields of Jewish studies, biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, Samaritan studies, and early Christian history by challenging the oppositional paradigm that has traditionally characterized the historical relations between Jews and Samaritans.

This is a collection of twenty-four essays by Richard Bauckham first published between 1976 and 2008, some of which have been updated for this volume. Many aspects of the literature and thought of early Judaism are covered, including life after death, the provenance of the Pseudepigrapha, the Jewish apocalypses, the book of Tobit, the Horarium of Adam, and the Contra Apionem of Josephus. There are discussions of 'the parting of the ways' between early Judaism and early Christianity and of the relevance of early Jewish literature for the study of the New Testament. Other essays throw light on specific aspects or texts of early Christianity by relating them to their early Jewish context. These include studies of the delay of the parousia, the restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts, and the use of Latin names by Paul and other Jews in the early Christian movement. The essays in this volume result from the author's conviction, throughout his career, that the New Testament texts can only be understood adequately through wide-ranging and detailed study of the Judaism of the late Second Temple period.

Discoveries on Mount Gerizim and in Qumran demonstrate that the final editing of the Hebrew Bible coincides with the emergence of the Samaritans as one of the different types of Judaisms from the last centuries BCE. This book discusses this new scholarly situation. Scholars working with the Bible, especially the Pentateuch, and experts on the Samaritans approach the topic from the vantage point of their respective fields of expertise. Earlier, scholars who worked with Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies mostly could leave the Samaritan material to experts in that area of research, and scholars studying the Samaritan material needed only sporadically to engage in Biblical studies. This is no longer the case: the pre-Samaritan texts from Qumran and the results from the excavations on Mount Gerizim have created an area of study common to the previously separated fields of research. Scholars coming from different directions meet in this new area, and realize that they work on the same questions and with much common material.This volume presents the current state of scholarship in this area and the effects these recent discoveries have for an understanding of this important epoch in the development of the Bible.

This landmark volume presents the first-ever English translation of the ancient Israelite Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, or Torah. A text of growing interest and importance in the field of biblical studies, the Samaritan Pentateuch preserves a version of the Hebrew text distinct from the traditional Masoretic Text that underlies modern Bible translations. Benyamim Tsedaka's expert English translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch is here laid out parallel to the more familiar Masoretic Text, highlighting the more than 6,000 differences between the two versions. In addition to extensive explanatory notes in the margins throughout, the book's detailed appendices show affinities between the Samaritan and Septuagint versions and between the Samaritan and Dead Sea Scroll texts. Concluding the volume is a categorical name index containing a wealth of comparative information.

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE IN HISTORY, CULTURE, AND RELIGION The Bible is a popular subject of study and research, yet biblical studies gives little attention to the reason for its popularity: its religious role as a scripture. Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion integrates the history of the religious interpretation and ritual uses of biblical books into a survey of their rhetoric, composition, and theology in their ancient contexts. Emphasizing insights from comparative studies of different religious scriptures, it combines discussion of the Bible’s origins with its cultural history into a coherent understanding of its past and present function as a scripture. A prominent expert on biblical rhetoric and the ritualization of books, James W. Watts describes how Jews and Christians ritualize the Bible by interpreting it, by expressing it in recitations, music, art, and film, and by venerating the physical scroll and book. The first two sections of the book are organized around the Torah and the Gospels—which have been the focus of Jewish and Christian ritualization of scriptures from ancient to modern times—and treat the history of other biblical books in relation to these two central blocks of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. In addition to analyzing the semantic contents of all the Bible’s books as persuasive rhetoric, Watts describes their ritualization in the iconic and expressive dimensions in the centuries since they began to function as a scripture, as well as in their origins in ancient Judaism and Christianity. The third section on the cultural history and scriptural function of modern bibles concludes by discussing their influence today and the controversies they have fueled about history, science, race, and gender. Innovative and insightful, Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion is a groundbreaking introduction to the study of the Bible as a scripture, and an ideal textbook for courses in biblical studies and comparative scripture studies.

New Testament Basics introduces college, university, seminary, and divinity school students to the study of the New Testament. Authors Stefan Alkier and David M. Moffitt adopt five major aims: (i) to explore how the Bible came to exist, dealing with the formation and significance of the Christian canon; (ii) to discuss the ways the Bible continues to exert influence on contemporary culture, demonstrating the ongoing value and importance of biblical literacy; (iii) to introduce readers to some of the most fundamental methods used in the study of the New Testament, including a substantial discussion of semiotics and its usefulness for New Testament interpretation; (iv) to provide a survey of central historical, social, and economic information as important contextual knowledge for interpreting the New Testament; and (v) to offer some brief discussion of the contents of several New Testament texts and consider ways they might inform theological reflection. In the end, Alkier and Moffitt's New Testament Basics fosters within students important competencies needed to read and interpret the New Testament for themselves.