ABSTRACT
"Rethinking Biblical Scholarship" brings together seminal essays to provide readers with an assessment of the archaeological and exegetical research which has transformed the discipline of biblical studies over the last two decades. The essays focus on history and historiography, exploring how scholarly constructs and ideologies mould historical, literary and cultural data and shape scholarly discourse. Most of the essays illustrate the development of what has been called a "minimalist" methodology. Among the many central topics examined are the formation of the Jewish scriptural canon and how the concepts of "prophecy" and "apocalypse" illuminate the emergence of Judaism in the late Persian and Hellenistic periods.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |39 pages
Method
chapter |10 pages
Do Old Testament studies need a dictionary?
chapter |8 pages
What is ‘minimalism' and why do so many people dislike it?
part |80 pages
History
chapter |6 pages
The origin of biblical Israel
chapter |27 pages
Scenes from the early history of Judaism
chapter |12 pages
Josiah and the law book
part |68 pages
Prophecy and apocalyptic
chapter |15 pages
Amos, man and book
chapter |15 pages
Reading Daniel sociologically
chapter |8 pages
And Enoch was not, for Genesis took him
chapter |14 pages
Divination, ‘apocalyptic' and sectarianism in early Judaism
part |41 pages
Canon