First Glance
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What controversial book of the Bible includes no miracle and does not mention God? One of the two books of the Hebrew Bible that bear women’s names, it tells the story of a heroine who risks her life to save her people from annihilation. Carey A. Moore, author of the Anchor Bible Esther, has been asked about this complex book so often that he has collected “Eight Questions Most Frequently Asked About the Book of Esther.”
Moore composed his article on his word processor and transmitted it to the BR computer by telephone—a BR first. Proficient with an archaeologist’s trowel as well as with a terminal, Moore served as area supervisor at Tel Gezer and Tel Dan excavations in Israel. An Old Testament scholar and an authority on the Book of Esther, Moore has published Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions (Doubleday, 1977) and Studies in the Book of Esther (KTAV, 1982). He is also the author of “You Too Can Read Hieroglyphics,” BAR 11:04.
Like Moore, Philip J. King raises the issue of violence and hatred in the Bible, presenting psalmists’ and prophets’ alternatives. In “Teaching the Bible and Living Its Message,” King also addresses the lack of archaeological analysis in Bible study. A member of BR’s editorial advisory board, King is former president of the American Schools of Oriental Research and president-elect of the Society of Biblical Literature (BRiefs).
The biblical books of Chronicles retell the history of the world beginning with Adam and ending with the proclamation of Cyrus, king of Persia, that allowed the Jewish exiles to return to the land of Israel. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah take up the story at this point, repeating verbatim the last two verses of 2 Chronicles. Known as catchlines, these last two repeated verses indicate that the books of Chronicles and the books of Ezra/Nehemiah were once connected. For 150 years scholars have agreed that Chronicles and Ezra/Nehemiah were composed by the same author. In our Fall 1986 issue, Menahem Haran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sought to explain these repeated verses, accepting the common view that the four books were one continuous work (see “Explaining the Identical Lines at the End of Chronicles and the Beginning of Ezra,” BR 02:03).
Now Hugh G. M. Williamson, lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at the University of Cambridge, in England, challenges this one-author view (“Did the Author of Chronicles Also Write the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah?”). Chronicles and Ezra/Nehemiah couldn’t be more different, says Williamson. But this leaves him with the problem of explaining the catchlines. Williamson’s commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah won a
Daniel J. Harrington, S. J., in “The Jewishness of Jesus” probes Judaism as it was practiced in Jesus’ time. Major textual discoveries in recent years—notably the Dead Sea Scrolls—have vastly enriched our understanding of Jesus’ life as a Jew in the land of Israel 2000 years ago. But understanding Jesus’ Jewishness has become more, not less, complex.
Professor of New Testament at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harrington is president of the Catholic Biblical Association. He writes widely on both Old and New Testament subjects, from Abraham to Pseudo-Philo. New Testament Abstracts includes more than 15,000 abstracts and 10, 000 book notices by Harrington.
In “Parallel Histories of Early Christianity and Judaism,” Jacob Neusner observes that in the first century A.D. Judaism went off in two major directions: One led to rabbinic Judaism, or Judaism as we know it today; the other led to Christianity. Each branch, Neusner says, can learn more about its origins by studying the other. Neusner charts his course against a backdrop of such major historical events as the destruction of the Second Temple, the failure of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome and the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity.
Neusner is Ungerleider Distinguished Scholar of Judaic Studies at Brown University and a member of the National Endowment for the Arts. The author of more than 100 scholarly books on Judaism in late antiquity, he also writes on current issues, including “Why Study Religion?” My View, BR 02:04.
What controversial book of the Bible includes no miracle and does not mention God? One of the two books of the Hebrew Bible that bear women’s names, it tells the story of a heroine who risks her life to save her people from annihilation. Carey A. Moore, author of the Anchor Bible Esther, has been asked about this complex book so often that he has collected “Eight Questions Most Frequently Asked About the Book of Esther.”
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