Discovering the Traditions of Prose Prayers in Early Jewish Literature

by Michael D. Matlock

Author	: Michael D. Matlock
Publisher	: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages	: 254
Release	: 2012-03-29
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 0567458105

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In this volume Michael D. Matlock analyses five lengthy biblical prose prayers from the exilic and post-exilic period: Solomon's prayer (1 Kings 8.14-61), Ezra's prayer (Ezra 9.5-15), Nehemiah's prayer (Nehemiah 1.4-11), the Levites' prayer (Nehemiah 9.4-37), and the prayer of Daniel (Daniel 9:3-19). He also examines prayers from Second Temple literature including texts from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the writings of Philo and Josephus and texts from Qumran, and discusses the Septuagintal versions of the five biblical prayers and Targum Jonathan's treatment of Solomon's prayer. He offers a new English translation of each prayer, examines the prayers' rhetorical characteristics, and demonstrates how each prayer draws upon and reinterprets traditional images and materials. Matlock describes how each prayer relates to its larger narrative context and examines its functions within that context. Finally, he appraises the various similarities and differences in these prayers in terms of their different contexts in the Second Commonwealth period noting particular theologies and ideologies.

Shaping Israelite Identity through Prayers in the Book of Chronicles

by Kiyoung Kim

Author	: Kiyoung Kim
Publisher	: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages	: 249
Release	: 2021-11-18
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 1666706930

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What is the post-exilic Israelites’ destiny? What should they have hoped for? How could they actualize their desired community? This book discusses the identity of the post-exilic Israelite community by focusing on the unique rhetorical impetus in the book of Chronicles. Chronicles suggests a picture of the desired future Israel. Yet, the Chronicler does not call for a new identity, creation ex nihilo, from the community but calls for the restoration of the Israelites’ past identity by reporting the history of Israel and Judah. The restoration of their past identity can be actualized when members of the community fulfill portrayed roles and characteristics in Chronicles: worshiping, monotheistic believing, and praying, and Davidic citizenship. Further, recorded prayer plays a crucial role as Chronicles persuades its readers to render or exhibit those roles and characteristics. Prayer invites the community members to participate so that they transform past prayers into their own prayers. By doing so, the prayer participants perceive portrayed roles and characteristics and change their attitude. By rendering and exhibiting desired roles and characteristics, they eventually hope for and actualize a better community, the liturgical community.

Petitioners, Penitents, and Poets

by Timothy J. Sandoval

Author	: Timothy J. Sandoval
Publisher	: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages	: 299
Release	: 2020-10-26
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 3110624524

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This volume contributes to the growing interest in understanding the phenomenon of prayer and praying in the Hebrew Bible, Early Judaism, and nascent Christianity. Papers by the leading scholars in these fields revisit long-standing questions and chart new paths of inquiry into the nature, form, and practice of addressing the divine in the ancient world. The essays in this volume deal with particular texts of and about prayer, practices of prayer, as well as figures and locations (historical and literary) that are associated with prayer and praying. These studies apply a range of methods and theoretical approaches to prayer and the language of prayer in literatures of Early Judaism and Christianity. Some studies apply the classical methods of biblical studies to Second Temple texts of prayer, including form critical and text critical approaches; others engage in literary and narrative analysis of ancient works that recount discourse directed to the divine. Still other studies draw on anthropological and sociological analyses of prayer or marshal particular theories of discourse, ethics, and moral agency to offer fresh interpretations of address to God in the literature of Second Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity.

Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters

by Matthias Henze

Author	: Matthias Henze
Publisher	: SBL Press
Total Pages	: 670
Release	: 2020-11-29
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 0884144828

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An essential resource for scholars and students Since the publication of the first edition of Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters in 1986, the field of early Judaism has exploded with new data, the publication of additional texts, and the adoption of new methods. This new edition of the classic resource honors the spirit of the earlier volume and focuses on the scholarly advances in the past four decades that have led to the study of early Judaism becoming an academic discipline in its own right. Essays written by leading scholars in the study of early Judaism fall into four sections: historical and social settings; methods, manuscripts, and materials; early Jewish literatures; and the afterlife of early Judaism.

Prayers and the Construction of Israelite Identity

by Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher

Author	: Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher
Publisher	: SBL Press
Total Pages	: 259
Release	: 2019-08-09
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 0884143678

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Substantial insights into various identity discourses reflected in the biblical prayers This collection of essays from an international group of scholars focuses on how biblical prayers of the Persian and early Hellenistic periods shaped identity, evoked a sense of belonging to specific groups, and added emotional significance to this affiliation. Contributors draw examples from different biblical texts, including Genesis, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Psalms, Jonah, and Daniel. Features Thorough study of prayers that play a key role for a biblical book’s (re)construction of the people’s history and identity An examination of ways biblical figures are remodeled by their prayers by introducing other, sometimes even contradictory, discourses on identity An exploration of different ways in which psalms from postexilic times shaped, reflected, and modified identity discourses

Various Aspects of Worship in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature

by Géza G. Xeravits

Author	: Géza G. Xeravits
Publisher	: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages	: 470
Release	: 2017-06-26
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 3110467402

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The volume contains papers read at the International Conference of the ISDCL, held in Budapest in 2015. The contributors explore various aspects of worship as reflected in the literature of Judaism from the Second Temple period to Late Antiquity. The volume provides a fresh reading of various crucial issues especially within Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Rabbinic literature, Gnostic traditions, and the emerging synagogue. The papers analyse texts and artefacts that reveal how various groups of Judaism understood the concept of worship—a pre-eminent form of expressing religious identity and interpreting fundamental traditions.

Institutionalized Routine Prayers at Qumran: Fact or Assumption?

by Paul Heger

Author	: Paul Heger
Publisher	: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Total Pages	: 319
Release	: 2019-09-16
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 3647571318

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This book examines the development of institutionalized prayer in ancient Israel at a crucial time in the history of Western civilization: from the period of the Qumran writings, in the last three centuries BCE, through to the rabbinic period, after 70 CE. It explores the shift from sacrificial worship by priests to abstract, unmediated, direct approaches to the deity by laypeople. It demonstrates the transition from voluntary, freely composed prayers to obligatory prayers with fixed texts. The study shows how Qumran and Samaritan prayer contrast with rabbinic prayer, shedding light on Jewish customs before the rabbinic reform. Posthumously edited by Bernard M. Levinson.

Intertextual Explorations in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature

by Jeremy Corley

Author	: Jeremy Corley
Publisher	: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages	: 431
Release	: 2019-05-06
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 3110416956

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This volume explores the fundamentals of intertextual methodology and summarizes recent scholarship on studies of intertextuality in the deuterocanonical books. The essays engage in comparison and analysis of text groups and motifs between canonical, deuterocanonical and non-biblical texts. Moreover, the book pays close attention to non-literary relationships between different traditions, a new feature of research in intertextuality.

Prayer in John’s Farewell Discourse

by Scott Adams

Author	: Scott Adams
Publisher	: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages	: 236
Release	: 2020-03-12
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 1532686854

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It was reported that a doctoral student at Princeton once asked Albert Einstein, "What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?" He replied by saying, "Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer." Since Einstein's day, a great deal has been written on the topic of prayer in general. However, relatively little has been written about prayer in John's Farewell Discourse in particular. Therefore, this analysis not only seeks to understand the relationship between Johannine and Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian prayer traditions, but also seeks to discern the unique function and application of prayer as it is prescribed in the Farewell Discourse.