Gunter Stemberger's revision of H. L. Strack's classic introduction to rabbinic literature, which appeared in its first English edition in 1991, was widely acclaimed. Gunter Stemberger and Markus Bockmuehl have now produced this updated edition, which is a significant revision (completed in 1996) of the 1991 volume. Following Strack's original outline, Stemberger discusses first the historical framework, the basic principles of rabbinic literature and hermeneutics and the most important Rabbis. The main part of the book is devoted to the Talmudic and Midrashic literature in the light of contemporary rabbinic research. The appendix includes a new section on electronic resources for the study of the Talmud and Midrash. The result is a comprehensive work of reference that no student of rabbinics can afford to be without.

An upper-level introduction to the Old Testament that offers students a thorough understanding of three key issues: historical background, literary analysis, and theological message.

This second edition of An Introduction to the Old Testament integrates recent developments in Old Testament scholarship. It has many distinctive features that set it apart from other introductions to the Old Testament:

It's committed to a theologically evangelical perspective.

Emphasizes "special introduction"--the study of individual books.

Interacts in an irenic spirit with the historical-critical method.

Features points of research history and representative scholars rather than an exhaustive treatment of past scholarship.

Deals with the meaning of each book, not in isolation but in a canonical context.

Probes the meaning of each book in the setting of its culture.

Including callouts, charts, and graphs, An Introduction to the Old Testament is written with an eye to understanding the nature of Old Testament historiography.

Perfect for seminary students, professors, and Bible teachers and ministry leaders, as well as anyone looking for an in-depth and balanced approach to Old Testament study.

Most scholars believe that the numerous similarities between the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23-23:19) and Mesopotamian law collections, especially the Laws of Hammurabi, which date to around 1750 BCE, are due to oral tradition that extended from the second to the first millennium. This book offers a fundamentally new understanding of the Covenant Code, arguing that it depends directly and primarily upon the Laws of Hammurabi and that the use of this source text occurred during the Neo-Assyrian period, sometime between 740-640 BCE, when Mesopotamia exerted strong and continuous political and cultural influence over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and a time when the Laws of Hammurabi were actively copied in Mesopotamia as a literary-canonical text. The study offers significant new evidence demonstrating that a model of literary dependence is the only viable explanation for the work. It further examines the compositional logic used in transforming the source text to produce the
Covenant Code, thus providing a commentary to the biblical composition from the new theoretical perspective. This analysis shows that the Covenant Code is primarily a creative academic work rather than a repository of laws practiced by Israelites or Judeans over the course of their history. The Covenant Code, too, is an ideological work, which transformed a paradigmatic and prestigious legal text of Israel's and Judah's imperial overlords into a statement symbolically countering foreign hegemony. The study goes further to study the relationship of the Covenant Code to the narrative of the book of Exodus and explores how this may relate to the development of the Pentateuch as a whole.

The debate over history, history-writing, and the scientific study of history is reaching an apex in the late twentieth century and shows no signs of abating in the near future. The literature on the topic is prodigious. The time is thus ripe for an anthology of essays of the sort that Professor Long has collected, essays that trace the history of the issues that have fed into the debate. The classic and contemporary essays presented here provide an overview and introduction to the topic, bringing together the most essential of these in a handy compilation. The book is organized in six sections:

(1) The State of Old Testament Historiography

(2) Ancient Near Eastern Historiography

(3) Ancient Israelite Historiography

(4) Method in the Study of Ancient Israelite Historiography

(5) The Historical Impulse in the Old Testament

(6) The Future of Israel's Past

Long's goal is to provide a context for Israelite history-writing within the milieu of the ancient Near East, expose the methodologies and assumptions of various approaches and perspectives on historiography, and provide access to essays that examine the contribution of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves to the origins of history-writing. The final essay, by Long, points the way to future research and topics that will move the discussion forward into the next millennium.

Professor V. Philips Long teaches Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis.