Plant Metaphors in the Old Greek of Isaiah
Benjamin M. Austin
In this study Benjamin M. Austin analyzes all the plant metaphors in Isaiah and classifies them according to the metaphor translation techniques used by the Septuagint translator. Austin illustrates how the translator took the context of each metaphor into account and demonstrates how the natural features of the plants under discussion at times influence their translation. He argues that the translator tried to render metaphors vividly and with clarity, sometimes adjusting them to match the experience of his audience living in Egypt. Austin examines metaphors by their vehicles, so that the translation of similar metaphors can be compared.
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Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation
John Ahn (Editor)
Essays by established and emerging Korean and Korean American scholars reflect a range of historical, textual, feminist, sociological, theological, and postcolonial readings. Contributors cast ancient contexts and even recent events in South Korea in light on familiar passages such as King Manasseh read through the Sewol Ferry Tragedy, David and Bathsheba’s narrative as the backdrop to the prohibition against adultery, rereading the virtuous women in Proverbs 31:10–31 through a Korean woman’s experience, visualizing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and demarcations in Galatians, and introducing the extrabiblical story of Eve and Norea, her daughter, through story (re)telling. This volume of essays introduces Korean and Korean American biblical interpretation to scholars and students interested in contemporary contextual interpretations.
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Bodies on the Verge: Queering Pauline Epistles
Joseph A. Marchal
Interpretation of Paul’s letters often proves troubling, since people frequently cite them when debating controversial matters of gender and sexuality. Rather than focusing on the more common defensive responses to those expected prooftexts that supposedly address homosexuality, the essays in this collection reflect the range, rigor, vitality, and creativity of other interpretive options influenced by queer studies. Thus key concepts and practices for understanding these letters in terms of history, theology, empire, gender, race, and ethnicity, among others, are rethought through queer interventions within both ancient settings and more recent history and literature.
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Documents from the Luciferians: In Defense of the Nicene Creed
Colin M. Whiting
This volume includes English translations of several documents concerning the Luciferians, a group of fourth-century Christians whose name derives from the bishop Lucifer of Cagliari. Documents include a confession of faith written for Emperor Theodosius I and a theological treatise written for his wife by Luciferian clergyman Faustinus, the first English translation of a Luciferian petition to Theodosius that focuses on the persecution the community has suffered, Theodosius’s imperial law in response to the Luciferians, two letters composed by Luciferians that purport to represent correspondence from the bishop Athanasius of Alexandria to Lucifer, and the priest Jerome’s Dialogus adversus Luciferianos. These texts highlight connections between developments in Christian theology and local Christian communities in the course of the fourth century.
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L. Annaeus Cornutus: Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia
George Boys-Stones
The first-century CE North African philosopher, Cornutus, lived in Rome as a philosopher and is best known today for his surviving work Greek Theology, which explores the origins and names of the Greek gods. However, he was also interested in the language and literature of the poets Persius and Lucan and wrote one of the very first commentaries on Virgil. This book collects and translates all of our evidence for Cornutus for the very first time and includes the first published English translation of Greek Theology. This collection offers entirely fresh insight into the intellectual world of the first century.
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A Filipino Resistance Reading of Joshua 1:1-9
Lily Fetalsana-Apura
Lily Fetalsana-Apura reads Joshua 1:1–9, a text that has been used to legitimize Western conquests and imperialism, as a resistance text. Using contextual hermeneutics, the author reads the Former Prophets as countering and resisting impositions of surrounding imperial forces. Read in the context of four hundred years of colonial victimization and a continuing struggle against neocolonialism, Fetalsana-Apura interprets Joshua 1:1–9 as exhorting strength and courage against exploitation and domination by empire. She reveals the Western context and interests reflected in many books and commentaries and outlines instead how the text’s meaning can be translated as resisting empire to marginalized and exploited communities such as the Philippines.
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