Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Christian Century, May 17, 2005 by Walter Brueggemann

Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. By Rainer Albertz. Society of Biblical Literature, 461 pp., $49.95 paperback. The most important historian of Israelite religion probes the sources and issues of the 6th century BCE, now a focus of the most generative work on the production of the Hebrew Bible.

The Ten Commandments: The Reciprocity of Faithfulness. Edited by William P. Brown. Westminster John Knox, 363 pp., $34.95 paperback. Brown offers a series of articles on each of the Ten Commandments in sequence. The commentary moves regularly from critical analysis to pertinent contemporary exposition.

How Are the Mighty Fallen? A Dialogical Study of King Saul in I Samuel. By Barbara Green. Sheffield Academic Press, 432 pp., $160.00. Green introduces a new interpretation informed by the dialogic theory of Mikhail Bahktin. Her skillful way exhibits new methods and yields important new understandings.

There Shall Be No Poor Among You: Poverty in the Bible. By Leslie J. Hoppe. Abingdon, 197 pp., $22.00. This judicious inventory of important texts on the vexing issue of poverty is crucial reading as the church seeks to recover its public voice on economic issues.

The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible. By James L. Kugel. Free Press, 288 pp., $13.00 paperback. Kugel utilizes his skills in interpretation of the ancient Jewish world to delicately probe the oddities of biblical testimony that live beneath conventional theological settlement. Of particular interest is his playful exposition of God's response to the cry of the wretched.

The God You Have: Politics, Religion, and the First Commandment. By Patrick D. Miller. Fortress, 96 pp., $6.00 paperback. Miller continues his careful study of the Decalogue with an exposition of the first commandment. I am delighted that Miller has dedicated this book to me.

Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World. By Enrique Nardoni. Hendrickson, 368 pp., $24.95 paperback. This book is the fullest summary we have of biblical texts on justice issues. Nardoni's wise exposition is complemented by a bibliography that is worth the price of the book.

The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. By Carol A. Newsom. Oxford University Press, 310 pp., $55.00. Also informed by Bahktin, Newsom has written what is now surely the classic study of the book of Job. A must read.

Jeremiah. By Jorge Pixley. Chalice Press, 164 pp., $22.99 paperback. Pixley takes up the much-studied book of Jeremiah from a materialist-Marxist perspective, offering important connections to the present context, in which people are hungering for prophetic illumination.

Theory and Practice in Old Testament Ethics. By Mark Daniel Carroll R. and John W. Rogerson. T & T Clark International, 168 pp., $39.95. This will surely be the benchmark book in biblical ethics The authors combine personal passion and urgent contemporaneity with well-grounded critical analysis.

Selected by Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary.