Personal tragedy and communal catastrophe up to the present day are universal human experiences that call forth lament. Lament singers--from the most ancient civilizations to traditional oral poets to the biblical psalmists and poets of Lamentations to popular singers across the globe--have always raised the cry of human suffering, giving voice to the voiceless, illuminating injustice, or pleading for divine help. This volume gathers an international collection of essays on biblical lament and Lamentations, illuminating their genres, artistry, purposes, and significant place in the history and theologies of ancient Israel. It also explores lament across cultures, both those influenced by biblical traditions and those not, as the practices of composition, performance, and interpretation of life's suffering continue to shed light on our knowledge of biblical lament. --From publisher's description.

In this title, professor Robert B. Salters contributes his commentary on Lamentations to the International Critical Commentary Series. For over one hundred years, International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought. Robert B. Salters, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at St. Andrews University provides a masterful commentary on Lamentations , as befits this prestigious commentary series.

The practice of a public theology is to identify issues that require attention for the sake of a civil society and the flourishing of all. In diverse ways the writers of Enacting a Public Theology recognise that the present is a volatile moment in time. The publication explores the loss of confidence in the contemporary expressions of democracy; the climate emergency accompanies the dawn of the Anthropocene; the migration of people raises concerns to do with identity, belonging and where is home; the invasion of land wrongly described as terra nullius and then invaded demands a deepened praxis of reconciliation between first and second peoples; and lastly there is an urgent need to speak into the situation of those pushed to the margins because of HIV/Aids. Enacting a Public Theology represents the thinking of writers from Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. It is both local and global in its concern. Each one of the contributors participated in the triennial gathering of the Global Network of Public Theology held in Stellenbosch in 2016.

Every life, and every land and people, has reasons for lament and complaint. This collection of essays explores the biblical foundations and the contemporary resonances of lament literature. This new work presents a variety of responses to tragedy and a world out of joint are explored. These responses arise from Scripture, from within the liturgy of the church, and from beyond the church; in contemporary life (the racially conflicted land of Aotearoa- New Zealand, secular music concerts and cyber-space).The book thus reflects upon theological and pastoral handling of such experience, as it bridges these different worlds. It brings together in conversation specialists from different fields of academy and church to provide a resource for integrating faithand scholarship in dark places.

In this guide, Jill Middlemas introduces students to the Book of Lamentations by examining the book's structure and characteristics, covering the latest in biblical scholarship on Lamentations, including historical and interpretive issues, and considering a range of scholarly approaches. In particular, the guide provides students with an introduction to Hebrew poetry as it relates to Lamentations and includes insights from the field of trauma and postcolonial studies. With suggestions of further reading at the end of each chapter, this guide will be an useful accompaniment to study of Lamentations.

Poetic elegies for lost or fallen cities are seemingly as old as cities themselves. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this genre finds its purest expression in the book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem; in Arabic, this genre is known as the ritha al-mudun. In The City Lament, Tamar M. Boyadjian traces the trajectory of the genre across the Mediterranean world during the period commonly referred to as the early Crusades (1095–1191), focusing on elegies and other expressions of loss that address the spiritual and strategic objective of those wars: Jerusalem. Through readings of city laments in English, French, Latin, Arabic, and Armenian literary traditions, Boyadjian challenges hegemonic and entrenched approaches to the study of medieval literature and the Crusades. The City Lament exposes significant literary intersections between Latin Christendom, the Islamic caliphates of the Middle East, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, arguing for shared poetic and rhetorical modes. Reframing our understanding of literary sources produced across the medieval Mediterranean from an antagonistic, orientalist model to an analogous one, Boyadjian demonstrates how lamentations about the loss of Jerusalem, whether to Muslim or Christian forces, reveal fascinating parallels and rich, cross-cultural exchanges.

Resistance against unjust (wicked) cultures and imperial powers is at the heart of scripture. In many cases, the resistance is waged against external systems or the misappropriation of scriptural texts and traditions. In some cases, however, scripture resists oppressive cultures and powers that it also requires, certifies and protects. At other times, and in different settings, the minders of scripture speak against the abusive cultures and power systems that they inherited and whose benefits they milk. Scripture and Resistance contains reflections by authors from East, West, South, and North — on resistance and the Christian scriptures regarding a rainbow of concerns: the colonial legacies of the Bible; the people (especially native and indigenous people) who were subjugated and minoritized for the sake of the Bible; the courage for resistance among ordinary and normal people, and the opportunities that arise from their realities and struggles; the imperializing tendencies that lurk behind so-called traditional biblical scholarship; the strategies of and energies in post- and de-colonial criticisms; the Bible as a profitable product, and a site of struggle; and the multiple views or perspectives in the Bible about empire and resistance. In other words, the contributors, as a collective, affirm that the Bible contains (pun intended) resistance.

For six decades, Erhard Gerstenberger was a leader in the study of the Psalms and ancient Israelite poetry. The essays in this volume bring together some of his key contributions reflecting on two fundamental forms of prayer in the biblical tradition: praise and petition. Both the student and the experienced researcher will be enriched by the depth and clarity of perspective that Gerstenberger brings. One of the essays (chapter 4) appears here for the first time in any language. Contents 1. Petition and Praise: Basic Forms of Prayer in Babylonian and Hebrew Traditions 2. “Where Is God?” The Cry of the Psalmist 3. Complaint and Confession: Psalm 69 4. Form Criticism in Action: Psalm 22 5. New Form Criticism: Psalm 55 6. Jeremiah’s Complaints: Observations on Jer 15:1–21 7. Elusive Lamentations: What Are They About?

Is it possible to hear women prophets' utterances embedded within lyrics of prophetic books? If so, women prophets should be represented as implied composers along with men. A few scholars have raised this question, yet a clear method for discerningwomen's voices - apart from feminine grammatical forms, genres used, and women's perspectives - has not been offered. This study offers a reliable method, based on the sound patterns of lyrical Hebrew. It discerns a consistent, clear signature of women's composing more broadly, and a different signature of men's composing, across all lyrical genres and historical periods. This methodological key, when turned, unlocks and throws open a window on a significant women's Hebraic composing tradition,resounding in texts where women's voices are attributed, and where they are unattributed. There are also surprising ramifications here for the biblical narratives composed by women and rooted in oral tradition. Integrating indigenous cultural, postcolonial, feminist, and oral poetic approaches, this inquiry moves past closed doors of previous suppositions, including that ancient Israel was simply patriarchal. It also brings a new appreciation of the practice of female and male prophets lyricising in partnership, in an indigenous culture in which women, individually or as a group, were not always given credit for their contributions.

Central to understanding the prophecy and prayer of the Hebrew Bible are the unspoken assumptions that shaped them—their genres. Modern scholars describe these works as “poetry,” but there was no corresponding ancient Hebrew term or concept. Scholars also typically assume it began as “oral literature,” a concept based more in evolutionist assumptions than evidence. Is biblical poetry a purely modern fiction, or is there a more fundamental reason why its definition escapes us? Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on its Own Terms changes the debate by showing how biblical poetry has worked as a mirror, reflecting each era’s own self-image of verbal art. Yet Vayntrub also shows that this problem is rooted in a crucial pattern within the Bible itself: the texts we recognize as “poetry” are framed as powerful and ancient verbal performances, dramatic speeches from the past. The Bible’s creators presented what we call poetry in terms of their own image of the ancient and the oral, and understanding their native theories of Hebrew verbal art gives us a new basis to rethink our own.