About the Book
This collection of essays on the theme of repentance/penitence emerged from an assembly of biblical scholars, systematic theologians, and church historians at the 2003-2004 meetings of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature. Walter Brueggemann, one of the respondents to the project, calls this collection "a wondrous and rich collage of historical and contemporary probes into the specific teachings and practices of penitence." This volume is a major resource for the interpretation, theology, and practice of communal and individual penitence. Each chapter begins with the examination of a particular aspect of the theme - repentance in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, private confession in the German Reformation, a Pentecostal understanding of penitence, the Catholic call to conversion. Implications of that aspect to the overall theme are given, along with a list of further readings and interpretative reflections by the assembly on the results of the project.
This volume gives teachers, preachers, and serious students of theology an exhaustive source of information and inspiration for renewing the initial call of Jesus to "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). "Repentance is a theme that is both essential to Christian faith and practice and of renewed interest in academic studies. This book represents a hopeful conjunction of serious disciplinary analysis and broad theological reflection. The contributors create an interdisciplinary, ecumenical, and multicultural forum, offering a model for generous scholarly exchange that engages the realities and concerns of the contemporary church." - Katherine M. Hayes, Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, New York.
Table of Contents:
Ahab, king of Israel during the ninth century B.C.E., "did evil in the sight of the Lord more than of his predecessors" and "did more to anger the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the kings of Israel before him" (1 Kings 16:30, 33). With this less-than-flattering introduction, modern readers meet Ahab. And that first impression is only underscored in the remaining biblical account of the notorious king's reign. In Ahab: The Construction of a King, Walsh sheds new, if not always more positive, light on this character. He begins by pointing out that the historical Ahab, insofar as we can retrieve him, seems to have been a stabilizing and successful political leader. Walsh then uses narrative criticism to examine more closely how the biblical text paints its generally negative portrait of Ahab. Finally, Walsh uses source and redaction criticism to trace how the king's positive image might have been transformed into the negative one we encounter in the text. In the end, Walsh leads readers to a greater appreciation for both the richness of the biblical text and the complexity of the truths contained therein. "Jerome Walsh offers an understandable, unpretentious, and lucid guide through the complex texts about Ahab. He unravels the interplay of the separate tasks of literary reading and historical reading, never confusing these two distinct pursuits but demonstrating how they ask different questions of the same convoluted text in order to seek out different sorts of meaning. This results in divergent portraits of Ahab as a moderately successful king whose memory was darkened through later theological and literary developments into an apostate and unjust tyrant." Richard D. Nelson, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas "Jerome Walsh demonstrates and teaches both critical investigation and such staple methods of biblical scholarship as source, textual, redactional, and narrative criticism, with such skill and artfulness that the exercise becomes a page-turning adventure. With the example of the story and character of Ahab, Walsh shows that ancient texts are multi-layered, charged with nuanced meanings, and inexhaustibly rich. A marvelous achievement." Dr. Johanna Stiebert University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee
About the Author :
Jerome T. Walsh, PhD, was a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of Botswana. He is the author of 1 Kings in the Berit Olam (The Everlasting Covenant) Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry series for which he is also an associate editor.
Review :
While this book should serve its intended primary audience admirably as a fully exemplified pathway into the main methods of biblical criticism, there are also sufficient fresh observations included to make this a book which more advanced scholars of this material will also need to consult.Journal for the Study of the New Testament
This is a valuable book with which to teach college students and non-biblical specialists the strategic value to listen to the text.The Bible and Critical Theory
This is a well-thought-through study of a very interesting biblical character. It will delight those interested in various interpretive approaches and the relationships between them.The Bible Today
This book can serve as an accessible introduction to narrative criticism and historical criticism for college and seminary students, since it is methodologically self-conscious and able to show the dramatically different results that come from these methods.Review of Biblical Literature
Walsh’s work is a logical step for learning about methods of biblical study and their application to texts related to Ahab.Catholic Studies
Jerome Walsh offers an understandable, unpretentious, and lucid guide through the complex texts about Ahab. He unravels the interplay of the separate tasks of literary reading and historical reading, never confusing these two distinct pursuits but demonstrating how they ask different questions of the same convoluted text in order to seek out different sorts of meaning. This results in divergent portraits of Ahab as a moderately successful king whose memory was darkened through later theological and literary developments into an apostate and unjust tyrant.Richard D. Nelson, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
Jerome Walsh demonstrates and teaches both critical investigation and such staple methods of biblical scholarship as source, textual, redactional, and narrative criticism, with such skill and artfulness that the exercise becomes a page-turning adventure. With the example of the story and character of Ahab, Walsh shows that ancient texts are multi-layered, charged with nuanced meanings, and inexhaustibly rich. A marvelous achievement.Dr. Johanna Stiebert, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
