Brad E. Kelle

An Introduction to the Old Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“This book is a gift to teachers and students alike. Good teachers (and textbooks!) encourage their students to raise honest questions about the material being studied. And students often desire active involvement with the subjects under consideration. Goldingay's years of experience in the classroom and with the material shine through, as he provides an inductive, question-based, workbook-style resource that helps readers encounter the biblical texts directly for themselves. Theologically minded readers will find much here to appreciate, but so will anyone looking for the expected essentials. Far from a sterile, detached introduction, this book is like being in the classroom with a seasoned teacher. To face the Old Testament with Goldingay is to face questions—the questions that we put to the text and that the text puts to us. Here is an invitation to a conversation with thought-provoking biblical writings under the guidance of a wise mentor.”

Enjoying the Old Testament

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“Here is a book with a simple yet profound (and much-needed) aim: give people practical ways to take joy in reading the Old Testament and thus help them want to do it more. With pleasing prose and inviting humility, Seibert provides a variety of concrete and creative practices (literary, artistic, theological, and more) that can be adopted by readers at any level. The text's problem parts are addressed (and who better than Seibert to address them?), but with a balanced emphasis on the Old Testament's attractiveness. The end result is a hands-on manual that unlocks access to and stirs affection for an often-neglected part of the Bible. Readers should try this at home. They will be glad they did!”

Hesed, the Seed of the Biblical Story

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“This is the book that the study of biblical theology needs today! Written with an engaging prose and infused with illustrative personal stories, Matheny's book carries forward the best of biblical theology's past (while skillfully sidestepping its shortfalls) in an approach that finds theological coherence across the Old Testament yet simultaneously honors—in fact, foregrounds—its rich and unsettled (and unsettling) intertextual diversity. Readers will benefit from Matheny's close readings of biblical texts and her creative proposals for how to connect them, which are methodologically sophisticated, accessible, and theologically generative.”

Interpreting Ancient Israelite History, Prophecy, and Law

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The diverse topics covered by the included articles find their unity in a particular posture and ethos from which Hayes's work operated. Hayes consistently engages in a "thick analysis" that embeds the topic under consideration within broader interpretive contexts. More so than any one particular proposal, this way in which Hayes approached the study of specific methods, seminal figures, biblical texts, and historical reconstructions has potentially lasting implications for contemporary scholarship . . . [O]ne finds in Hayes's work a dogged insistence that biblical texts must be understood as firmly embedded within particular historical, social, cultural, and political matrices out of which they emerged and within which they functioned. Following from this, at times when it was not always popular to do so, Hayes argued that the biblical texts must be taken seriously (but not uncritically) as yielding important data to be used in various ways for historical interpretation. Whether exploring the social formation of early Israel, the final years of Samaria, or the social concept of covenant, Hayes demonstrated a textually focused and exegetically based approach.”

The Destruction of the Canaanites

Apologetics

“Here is an honest engagement with one of the longstanding ethical problems raised by the Bible, marked by dialogue among diverse perspectives, fair assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, and an invitation for readers to join an ongoing conversation whose conclusions have not been predetermined. The book reads like a class discussion guided by a wise teacher committed to generous, multiperspectival dialogue. Trimm’s attention to the realities of ancient warfare, the historical Canaanites, and modern genocide studies adds a depth rarely seen in similar treatments, even as the book’s brevity makes it a usable primer to resource a more extensive—and still all-too-needed—discussion about God, violence, and the Bible.”

Uncovering Violence

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Here is an exemplar of the best of today’s interdisciplinary biblical scholarship perfectly suited to our present cultural moment. With an eclectic blend of perspectives (e.g., literary and ethical theory, moral injury, masculinity studies) and a focus on women characters in violent settings (e.g., Sisera’s mother, Ruth, Abigail, Samson’s women), Amy Cottrill helps readers better recognize different forms of violence in biblical stories, think about the effects of that textual violence, and treat reading itself as an ethical project. In Cottrill’s able hands, violent stories such as the killing of Sisera and the exploits of Samson become examples of the ethical complexity of biblical narratives and opportunities for today’s readers to face anew the violence present in their own realities.”

Vast as the Sea

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Here is a book that sets forth the intimate, honest, agonizing, yet somehow life-giving relationship between the human condition and human words, even biblical poetic words. While avoiding mechanical analysis or finalized interpretations, and illustrating adept engagement with psychology and trauma, Samuel Hildebrandt turns Hebrew poetic texts such as Jeremiah, Job, and Ecclesiastes into soul friends in the struggle to face anxiety, instability, loneliness, despair, finitude, and other painful vicissitudes of our own humanity. In Hildebrandt's able hands, the difficult poetry of these biblical texts is a gift to anyone seeking language to wrestle with the hard realities of human life--and so is this book.”