| Contents |
Introduction -- Doing Justice: The practical and critical interpretation of scripture -- Genesis"As Our Image" - Genesis 1:1-2:3 -- Complementarity and Rupture - Genesis 2:4-11:32 -- Beginning with Blessing - Genesis 12-50 -- Exodus -- Getting Out of Egypt - Exodus 1-15 -- Becoming God's People - Exodus 16-40 -- Leviticus -- Embodying Holiness - Leviticus 1-15 -- At-onement with YHWH and with Land - Leviticus 16-27 -- Numbers -- Marked for blessing, plagued by sin - Numbers 11-24 -- Slowing down for violence -- Numbers 5 and 25 -- Deuteronomylearning to love and to fear - Deuteronomy 1-11 -- Torah and life in the land - Deuteronomy 12-34 -- Joshua -- un-conquest narrative - Joshua -- Big upheaval: Canaan in the Thirteenth Century - Excursus -- Judges -- Leadership and Its discontents - Judges -- Ruth -- Vulnerable Protectors - Ruth -- 1-2 Samuel & 1 Kings -- United monarchy: the hope that (mostly) failed - Preface -- Tragedy of the Chosen: Saul's Kingship - 1 Samuel -- David in perspective - 2 Samuel -- Wisdom, power, worship: Solomon's reign - 1 Kings 1-12 -- Sovereignty of the prophetic word - 1 Kings 13-21 -- Minor prophets -- An Eighth-Century poetry jam: prophetic performances - Preface questioning Prosperity - Amos -- Justice and intimacy - Micah and Hosea -- Hating Our Enemies - 2 Kings, Nahum, and Jonah -- Isaiah -- Seeing the King - Isaiah 1-39 -- Vision expands - Isaiah 40-66 -- Jeremiah & Lamentations --4tWell acquainted with grief - Preface -- Telling God the Truth - Jeremiah -- The Love Poetry of Disaster - Lamentations -- Ezekiel -- Prophecy at the End of the World - Ezekiel and Haggai -- The Psalms -- Reality and praise -Psalms -- Wisdom of Lament - Psalms -- Proverbs & Ecclesiastes -- Poetry of the ordinary - Proverbs and Ecclesiastes -- Job & the Song of Songs -- Intimacy with God: The Agony and the Ecstasy - Preface -- Learning to Struggle with God - Job -- Ecstasy of Intimacy - Song of Songs -- Esther & Daniel -- Equipping Jewish imagination in a Gentile world - Preface -- Joking about Genocide - Esther -- Surviving the Furnace of History - Daniel -- Ezra-Nehemiah & 1-2 Chronicles -- Negotiating Identity - Preface -- Settling the land a second time - Ezra-Nehemiah -- Reading the Story Once More - 1-2 ChroniclesGlossaryScripture IndexIndex |
| Abstract |
Opening Israel's Scriptures is a collection of thirty-six essays on the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Chronicles, which gives powerful insight into the complexity and inexhaustibility of the Hebrew Scriptures as a theological resource. Based on more than two decades of lectures on Old Testament interpretation, Ellen F. Davis offers a selective yet comprehensive guide to the core concepts, literary patterns, storylines, and theological perspectives that are central to Israel's Scriptures. Underlying the whole study is the primary assumption that each book of the canon has literary and theological coherence, though not uniformity. In both her close readings of individual texts and in her broad demonstrations of the coherence of whole books, Davis models the best practices of contemporary exegesis, integrating the insights of contemporary scholars with those of classical theological resources in Jewish and Christian traditions. Throughout, she keeps an eye to the experiences and concerns of contemporary readers, showing through multiple examples that the critical interpretation of texts is provisional, open-ended work--a collaboration across generations and cultures. Ultimately what she offers is an invitation into the more spacious world that the Bible discloses, which challenges ordinary conceptions of how things "really" are. |
