New Books in Biblical Studies

In Rachael E. Adelman's monograph The Female Ruse: Women's Deception and Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield Press, 2017) she explores how the feminine trickster archetype plays a central role in the Hebrew bible and is an important forces that drives the narrative forward and unmasks wisdom.

From Eve to Esther, the Hebrew Bible is replete with gendered tales of trickery. A lie is uttered, a mask donned, a seduction staged, while redemption is propelled forward, guided by the divine hand. From the first 'female ruse' - Eve presenting the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam - humanity becomes embodied, engaged in history, moving from the Garden to exile, from wandering to homeland and redemption (and back again). Consider Rebekah dressing her beloved son in goatskins to steal the blessing from his blind father; Lot's daughters lying with their drunken father, and then conceiving the founding fathers of Ammon and Moab; Leah and Rachel, the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, duping Jacob on their wedding night; Tamar's seduction of Judah, her father-in-law, who then bears the progenitor of the Davidic line; Naomi sending Ruth to the threshing floor to seduce Boaz by night; Bathsheba invoking an oath that King David had supposedly made in order to forward Solomon, her son, as successor to the monarchy; and Queen Esther concealing her Jewish identity in the Persian imperial court. Over the course of nine chapters, the author traces these narratives of deception; in each case, God is in cahoots with these feminine agents in advancing the providential plan. A tension holds between the 'best laid plans' of men and the divine will as forwarded by women. Drawing on classic rabbinic sources and modern literary exegesis, the author exposes the conflict between the simple progression of genealogies and the process of selection through alliances of family and kin. Women are at the crux of that conflict, seemingly compelled to choose the indirect route while the deity appears to endorse their lie.

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The Jewish Reformation: Bible Translation and Middle-Class German Judaism as Spiritual Enterprise (Oxford University Press, 2021) was the 2022 winner of the AHA’s Dorothy Rosenberg Prize in the history of Jewish diaspora. In it, Michach Gottlieb looks at Bible translations by Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, and Samson Raphael Hirsch. Gottlieb argues that each translator sought a "reformation" of Judaism along bourgeois lines, which involved aligning Judaism with a Protestant concept of religion.

Michah Gottlieb is Associate Professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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The Shema (Deut. 6:4-5) remains the centerpiece of Jewish prayer, proclaiming divine unity even while summoning God’s people to loyalty and loving obedience. In her recent book, Lori A. Baron, argues that John’s Gospel uses the Shema to portray Jesus’ unity with God. 

Tune in as we speak with Lori Baron about her book, The Shema in John’s Gospel (Mohr Siebeck, 2022).

Lori A. Baron taught Greek language at Duke Divinity School, and is Assistant Professor of New Testament at St. Louis University.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at [email protected]

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Archaeologist Ilka Knüppel discusses her master's thesis—The Search for Jesus's Final Steps: How Archaeological and Literary Evidence Reroutes the Via Dolorosa—and how she came to write it. To use both ‘archaeological and literary evidence’ requires digging in both the earth and in books, and to ‘reroute’ the Via Dolorosa reveals that many of the traditional fixtures are pious inventions of later centuries.

Ilka talks a bit about her life, how she became an archaeologist and what kind of projects she has been undertaking since wrote her master’s thesis. 

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Is the search for meaning a luxury of the modern world or have human beings always struggled to find meaning in the human condition – in the face of suffering, injustice and the finality of life?

In Ecclesiastes and the Meaning of Life in the Ancient World (Cambridge UP, 2022), Arthur Keefer offers a timely assessment of Ecclesiastes and what it has to do with the meaning of life. Drawing on recent psychological research, he argues that this Hebrew Bible text associates the meaning of life with various types of suffering in life.

Keefer situates Ecclesiastes within its ancient intellectual world. Offering an analysis of contemporary texts from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, he demonstrates that concerns about meaning and suffering were widespread in the greater Mediterranean world. Ecclesiastes, however, handled the matters of suffering and meaning in an unprecedented way and to an unprecedented degree. With its rigorous commitment to precise definitions of life's meaning, Keefer provides a comprehensive set of definitions for “the meaning of life” as well as a conclusive point of reference for interpreters of Ecclesiastes.

He also opens avenues for the interdisciplinary interpretation of texts from the ancient world.

Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at [email protected]. She's on Twitter @embracingwisdom. She blogs here.

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Professor Cathleen Chopra-McGowan examines some the incongruities of our Bible in the context of the Ancient Near East, showing how the stories and traditions of Israel resembled and borrowed from those of Babylon and Assyria. She compares the Genesis narrative to two others, the epics of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis, especially discussing the universal flood narrative and rationale for sacrifice to show the evolution of our ancestors’ religious practice and thinking about God.

Professor Chopra-McGowan teaches courses in the Religious Studies Department at Santa Clara University, including Near Eastern languages, literatures, history, and archaeology, as well as uses of the Bible in contemporary society.

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The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton UP, 2010) documents the process, and relative ease, with which institutions of higher learning and the religious establishment, can be corrupted by political ideology and power.

In Germany of the 1930’s the thin cloak of religion covered and sanitized the murderous evil of Naziism.

Was Jesus a Nazi?

During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center.

Based on years of archival research, The Aryan Jesus examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach, the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members--professors of theology, bishops, and pastors--viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler's war against the Jews. Heschel looks in particular at Walter Grundmann, the Institute's director and a professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena. Grundmann and his colleagues formed a community of like-minded Nazi Christians who remained active and continued to support each other in Germany's postwar years.

The Aryan Jesus raises vital questions about Christianity's recent past and the ambivalent place of Judaism in Christian thought.

Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at [email protected]. She's on Twitter @embracingwisdom. She blogs here.

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The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as ‘Shepherd. ’ Is this theme part of the Gospel’s divine Christology? Wayne Baxter, by exploring shepherd imagery in the Hebrew Bible and the literature of Second Temple Judaism, answers, ‘Yes!’ 

Tune in as we speak with Wayne Baxter about his recent book, Divine Shepherd Christology in the Gospel of Matthew (Fortress Academic, 2022).

Wayne Baxter is professor of New Testament and Greek at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at [email protected]

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Asking Better Questions of the Bible: A Guide for the Wounded, Wary, and Longing for More (Nav Press, 2023), written by Marty Solomon was published by Nav Press in 2023. In this insightful book, Solomon takes us on a journey reminding us that questions are not only good, but they are necessary for a rich faith experience.

Too often when we come to the Bible, questions make us uncomfortable. But questions are often a good thing. When we stop viewing the Bible through the lens of our own agendas and ask the questions the Bible is asking, something extraordinary happens. We form a new and deeper way of thinking about Scripture and understanding the Bible. As we do, we move further into the depths and mystery of God.

Asking Better Questions of the Bible is a journey into the original conversation of the inspired Text. In it, Marty Solomon (a host of The BEMA Podcast and the founder of the BEMA Discipleship ministry, a branch of Impact Campus Ministries) explores all the different portions of Scripture, examining how each is unique in structure and intent.

When we ask the questions the Bible is asking, we will

God can be trusted with our doubts and invites us to question. Let Asking Better Questions of the Bible show you a better way forward for interpreting Scripture.

Meg Gambino is an artist and activist currently working as the Client and Community Relations Manager at a local nonprofit focused on ending hunger in North Penn. Her life mission is to creatively empower others by modeling reconciliation between communities of people and people on the margins. Find her on Instagram @megambino.

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In his new book, theologian Matthew Thomas takes on the big question of what the Apostle Paul means when he talks about "Works of the Law" -- as opposed to Grace -- in terms of Justification, addressing a long-standing debate between biblical scholars and using second-century sources to adjudicate the question. The stakes of the faithful, and what it means to be a Christian for the first-century Jews who founded the religion, could not be higher, especially when St. Peter slid back into the observation of Mosaic custom.

This is Matthew Thomas’s third appearance on AGC: you can also hear him in episodes 02 and 03. The episode that we refer to with Fr. Greg Boyle is episode 17.

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