What do the Dead Sea Scrolls tell us about the forms, transmission, canonization, and interpretation of authoritative scriptures.

Lords of the Scrolls analyzes ancient literary sources to show how biblical and gospel scribes borrowed and imitated themes from earlier literature to create heroic legends around Hebrew figures and Jesus. Comparisons between the Epic of Gilgamesh; Enuma Elish; Canaanite, Egyptian, and Greek legends; Homeric epics; the histories of Herodotus; and selected biblical and gospel passages reveal thematic and literary similarities. Tracing literary classics from the birth of writing to the first millennium of the modern era, this book demonstrates that Hebrew scribes used previous literature to establish a national identity, and that gospel scribes borrowed heavily from Homer to create epic legends around the person of Jesus.

This book is a collection of cutting-edge essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of ancient Mediterranean media culture, featuring interdisciplinary feedback from scholars in New Testament studies and Classics.

This collection of essays by a group of well-known international scholars deals with the complex and fluid ways in which biblical traditions are transmitted in a variety of contexts focusing especially on the versions, the pseudepigrapha and Qumran, and early Christian literature.

A large amount of Leviticus material has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet there is surprisingly little secondary scholarly analysis of the role of Leviticus in this corpus. The book of Leviticus survives in several manuscripts; it also features in quotations and allusions, so that it seems to be a foundational source for the ideology behind the composition of some of the nonscriptural texts. Indeed this volume argues that the ideology of the Holiness Code persisted in the communities that collected the manuscripts and placed them in the Qumran Caves.

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.

How did New Testament authors use Israel’s Scriptures? Use, misuse, appropriation, citation, allusion, inspiration—how do we characterize the manifold images, paraphrases, and quotations of the Jewish Scriptures that pervade the New Testament? Over the past few decades, scholars have tackled the question with a variety of methodologies. New Testament authors were part of a broader landscape of Jewish readers interpreting Scripture. Recent studies have sought to understand the various compositional techniques of the early Christians who composed the New Testament in this context and on the authors’ own terms. In this landmark collection of essays, Matthias Henze and David Lincicum marshal an international group of renowned scholars to analyze the New Testament, text-by-text, aiming to better understand what roles Israel’s Scriptures play therein. In addition to explicating each book, the essayists also cut across texts to chart the most important central concepts, such as the messiah, covenants, and the end times. Carefully constructed reception history of both testaments rounds out the volume. Comprehensive and foundational, Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings will serve as an essential resource for biblical scholars for years to come. Contributors: Garrick V. Allen, Michael Avioz, Martin Bauspiess, Richard J. Bautch, Ian K. Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jaime Clark-Soles, Michael B. Cover, A. Andrew Das, Susan Docherty, Paul Foster, Jörg Frey, Alexandria Frisch, Edmon L. Gallagher, Gabriella Gelardini, Jennie Grillo, Gerd Häfner, Matthias Henze, J. Thomas Hewitt, Robin M. Jensen, Martin Karrer, Matthias Konradt, Katja Kujanpää, John R. Levison, David Lincicum, Grant Macaskill, Tobias Nicklas, Valérie Nicolet, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, George Parsenios, Benjamin E. Reynolds, Dieter T. Roth, Dietrich Rusam, Jens Schröter, Claudia Setzer, Elizabeth Evans Shively, Michael Karl-Heinz Sommer, Angela Standhartinger, Gert J. Steyn, Todd D. Still, Rodney A. Werline, Benjamin Wold, Archie T. Wright

In Pesher and Hypomnema Pieter B. Hartog compares ancient Jewish commentaries on the Hebrew Bible with papyrus commentaries on the Iliad. Hartog shows that members of the Qumran movement adopted classical commentary writing and adapted it to their own needs.

This collection of essays by Thomas Kazen focuses on issues of purity and purification in early Judaism and the Jesus tradition. During the late Second Temple period, Jewish purity practices became more prominent than before and underwent substantial developments. These essays advance the ongoing conversation and debate about a number of key issues in the field, such as the relationship between ritual and morality, the role and function of metaphor, and the use of evolutionary and embodied perspectives. Kazen's research stands in constant dialogue with the major currents and main figures in purity research, including both historical (origin, development, practice) and cognitive (evolutionary, emotional, conceptual) approaches.

Over 15 years in the making, an unprecedented one-volume reference work. Many of today's students and teachers of literature, lacking a familiarity with the Bible, are largely ignorant of how Biblical tradition has influenced and infused English literature through the centuries. An invaluable research tool. Contains nearly 800 encyclopedic articles written by a distinguished international roster of 190 contributors. Three detailed annotated bibliographies. Cross-references throughout.