Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘reseña’

methodological precision for readers of biblical narrative: J. P. Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative. An Introductory Guide

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 20, 2007| Leave a Comment »

This book is meant to teach people to ‘read with understanding’. It accomplishes its objective by inviting its reader to go back over the same biblical narratives numerous times, viewing the text through a different lens on each visit. One is trained to seek out each story’s hero, a concept that is linked to the notion of quest (the effort to solve a problem). Fokkelman believes that the distance separating us from the biblical stories is not to be feared, since a well-written story will ‘come into its own’ when it meets an attentive reader. The book places the concepts and nomenclature of narratology in the hands of the Bible reader, whose subjectivity is not to be lamented. Rather, it is the sphere in which he encounters the text’s art. Meaning is conferred in the interplay of the reader who bestows it and the text which in some sense ‘has’ it. (more…)

Read Full Post »

an encyclopedia of information and discerning interpretation: Philip S. Johnston, Shades of Sheol. Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 20, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The author organises this encyclopaedic study under four parts: Death, the Underworld, the Dead, and the Afterlife. An introductory apology for the study confronts the reader with a paradox: death and the underworld are fascinating topics for Judaism, Christianity, and modern scholarship, yet ‘Israel’s religious writers were not particularly concerned with the underworld or with the dead. The related to Yahweh in this life, and were relatively uninterested in the life hereafter.’ (more…)

Read Full Post »

An Old Testament scholar goes theological and pastoral, with admirable results: Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out. Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 20, 2007| Leave a Comment »

This spirited, fascinating, and occasionally sermonic book is noteworthy not exclusively for its subject matter, some of which falls outside of the author’s principal field of Old Testament criticism. Rather, its interest lies in the incursion of a main exponent of B. Childs-style ‘canonical criticism’ into ethical, pastoral, and ecclesial arenas which frequently remain beyond the horizon of biblical scholars. (more…)

Read Full Post »

close analysis by the ranking scholar on the Septuagint of Isaiah: Arie Van Der Kooij, The Oracle of Tyre. The Septuagint of Isaiah Xxiii As Version and Vision (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum)

Posted in denkschrift, tagged , , , , on September 20, 2007| Leave a Comment »

This volume is a close study of LXX Isaiah chapter 23 by the most prolific writer on the Greek Isaiah. Chapter One (‘Introduction: the Method for the Book’, 1-19) surveys the various approaches to LXX Isaiah that have occupied the field since Z. Frankel’s seminal study. The author takes a ‘contextual approach’. The LXX is at first to be studied in relation to its presumed Vorlage (similar to MT Isaiah), but more importantly is taken seriously as a coherent text in its own right. Pace Seeligmann, the translator’s genius is not to be discovered at the word or verse level, in ‘isolated free renderings’, but rather at the level of pericope or passage. The translator is a scholar, with liberties to engage in creative and actualising interpretation. (more…)

Read Full Post »

helpful introduction to the Bible as literature: John C. Gibson, Language and Imagery in the Old Testament

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Even if John C.L. Gibson admits that the OT is “capable of causing not a little embarrassment to the two religions which have adopted it as their Scriptures”, he finds it also “seductive”, “moving” and “illuminating”. His little book is meant to guide the reader to fuller appreciation of the latter qualities and in this he must be judged to have succeeded. His first of seven well-written chapters, entitled “The Energies of the Hebrew Language”, presents the lack of abstract terms and the linking together of clauses by “and” as the “two basic characteristics of biblical Hebrew.” The picture is filled out by several not unimportant features: prominence of direct speech, cosmological descriptions of heaven and Sheol, the extravagance of Semitic address, folk etymologies, figurative language, hyperbole, personalisation, irony, et al. Throughout this chapter Gibson indicates the considerable distance which separates theological language from that of the OT. (more…)

Read Full Post »

sumptuous and dark writing: Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran. A Memoir in Books

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Just when the Police were winning a Grammy with a song that included the allusive line `just like the old man in that book by Nabakov’, it was a crime to read Lolita in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Azar Nafisi’s spendidly-titled book chronicles one woman’s experience of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s long descent into decadent darkness. (more…)

Read Full Post »

practical training for non-profit execs and board members: Steven H. Berger, Understanding Nonprofit Financial Statements

Posted in clarity, reseña, tagged , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

BoardSource (formerly the National Center for Nonprofit Boards) has distinguished itself as the premier source for high-quality, practical materials designed to equip nonprofit board members and officers to fulfill their considerable and evolving responsibilities. Though pricey, its products represent high value. This book is no exception. For the board member or executive without business training, seven well-illustrated chapters serve as both a primer and a reference work that will be consulted often and profitably. (more…)

Read Full Post »

vintage García Márquez in short form: Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

García Márquez did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature and become Colombia’s favorite son by accident. This book, among his best, anchors his reputation as one of Latin America’s greatest novelists. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Israel’s closest call?: Howard Blum, The Eve of Destruction. The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The Israeli swagger that became a regional pose following the military victories of 1948 and 1967 quickly became a limp following near defeat at the hands of Egypt and Syria in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Howard Bloom’s appropriately-titled chronicle of that October surprise reads like a novel, complete with an amorous young couple whose honeymoon was rudely interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities and a mysterious double agent called ‘the In-Law’. Yet the events he describes were all too real. (more…)

Read Full Post »

modern land conflict through the lens of ancient texts: Robert P. Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City. Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The trajectory of this thoughtful book begins in the primeval history of Genesis, continues through texts of both Old and New Testaments, and finishes in the heated context of the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the belligerent use that is frequently made of these same biblical sources. Holy Land, Holy City is well suited to the reader who is willing to engage complex argument on her way to a better understanding of the biblical and theological underpinnings of ‘land theology’ and contemporary conflicts over land. R.P. Gordon is the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge and a highly regarded linguist and biblical interpreter. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »