New SBL books

SOME NEW BOOKS from the Society of Biblical Literature:

The Hodayot (Thanksgiving Psalms): A Study Edition of 1QHa

Eileen M. Schuller, Carol A. Newsom

ISBN 1589836928
Status Available
Price: $19.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date July, 2012

1QHodayot is recognized as one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls and key to understanding the specific worldview and piety of its author(s). It contains a collection of psalms giving thanks for deliverance, salvation, knowledge, and divine mercy. This volume contains the text of 1QHodayot published in the definitive Discoveries in the Judaean Desert volume 40 and the English translation from that volume, lightly revised. It provides the most up-to-date, accessible, and inexpensive access to the text, translation, and official numbering of the columns and lines of 1QH.

Eileen M. Schuller is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University. She is co-editor of 1QHodayota and other documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the author of The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned? (Westminster John Knox, 2006), and the co-editor of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions, Production of Texts (Brill, 2010).
Carol A. Newsom is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. She is the editor of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and other documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the author of The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Angelic Liturgy: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Mohr Siebeck, 1999).


The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur

F. Stanley Jones

ISBN 1589836464
Status Available
Price: $33.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date July, 2012

This focused collection of essays by international scholars first uncovers the roots of the study of ancient Jewish Christianity in the Enlightenment in early eighteenth-century England, then explores why and how this rediscovery of Jewish Christianity set off the entire modern historical debate over Christian origins. Finally, it examines in detail how this critical impulse made its way to Germany, eventually to flourish in the nineteenth century under F. C. Baur and the Tübingen School. Included is a facsimile reproduction of John Toland’s seminal Nazarenus (1718), which launched the modern study of Jewish Christianity. The contributors are F. Stanley Jones, David Lincicum, Pierre Lurbe, Matt Jackson-McCabe, and Matti Myllykoski.

F. Stanley Jones is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University, Long Beach. He has published widely on the subject of Jewish Christianity, including An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine "Recognitions" 1.27–71 (Scholars Press/Society of Biblical Literature) and Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies (Peeters).


Editing the Bible: Assessing the Task Past and Present

John S. Kloppenborg, Judith H. Newman

ISBN 1589836480
Status Available
Price: $32.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date June, 2012

The Bible is likely the most-edited book in history, yet the task of editing the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts of the Bible is fraught with difficulties. The dearth of Hebrew manuscripts of the Jewish Scriptures and the substantial differences among those witnesses creates difficulties in determining which text ought to be printed as the text of the Jewish Scriptures. For the New Testament, it is not the dearth of manuscripts but the overwhelming number of manuscripts—almost six thousand Greek manuscripts and many more in other languages—that presents challenges for sorting and analyzing such a large, multivariant data set. This volume, representing experts in the editing of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, discusses both current achievements and future challenges in creating modern editions of the biblical texts in their original languages. The contributors are Kristin De Troyer, Michael W. Holmes, John S. Kloppenborg, Sarianna Metso, Judith H. Newman, Holger Strutwolf, Eibert Tigchelaar, David Trobisch, Eugene Ulrich, John Van Seters, Klaus Wachtel, and Ryan Wettlaufer.

John S. Kloppenborg is Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He is the author most recently of Q: The Earliest Gospel (Westminster John Knox), The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (Mohr Siebeck), and the co-editor of Reading James with New Eyes (T&T Clark).

Judith H. Newman is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Emmanuel College and holds joint appointments with the Department for the Study of Religion and the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Praying by the Book: The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism (Scholars Press), the co-author of Early Jewish Prayers in Greek (de Gruyter), and the co-editor of The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel (Brill). She has served as the editor of the SBL series Early Judaism and Its Literature.


Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion: Essays in Retrospect and Prospect

Saul M. Olyan

ISBN 158983688X
Status Available
Price: $29.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date July, 2012

This volume assesses past, theoretically engaged work on Israelite religion and presents new approaches to particular problems and larger interpretive and methodological questions. It gathers previously unpublished research by senior scholars well known in social theory and Israelite religion and by junior scholars whose writing is just beginning to have a serious impact. The volume begins with a critical introduction by the editor. Essay themes include gender, violence, social change, the festivals, the dynamics of shame and honor, and the relationship of text to ritual. The contributors engage theory from social and cultural anthropology, sociology, postcolonial studies, and ritual studies. Theoretical models are evaluated in light of the primary data, and some authors modify or adapt theory to increase its utility for biblical studies.

Saul M. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. He is the author most recently of Social Inequality in the World of the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (Cambridge University Press), and Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford University Press).