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| Library status: currently open during regularly scheduled hours. |
Akhenaten and the Religion of Light by
Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, was king of Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty and reigned from 1375 to 1358 B.C. E. Called the "religious revolutionary," he is the earliest known creator of a new religion. The cult he founded broke with Egypt's traditional polytheism and focused its worship on a single deity, the sun god Aten. Erik Hornung, one of the world's preeminent Egyptologists, here offers a concise and accessible account of Akhenaten and his religion of light. Hornung begins with a discussion of the nineteenth-century scholars who laid the foundation for our knowledge of Akhenaten's period and extends to the most recent archaeological finds. He emphasizes that Akhenaten's monotheistic theology represented the first attempt in history to explain the entire natural and human world on the basis of a single principle. "Akhenaten made light the absolute reference point," Hornung writes, "and it is astonishing how clearly and consistently he pursued this concept." Hornung also addresses such topics as the origins of the new religion; pro-found changes in beliefs regarding the afterlife; and the new Egyptian capital at Akhetaten which was devoted to the service of Aten, his prophet Akhenaten, and the latter's family.
The Bible: A Literary Study by 
The Bible: Authorized King James Version by
This unique edition of the most important book in the history of Western civilization offers an exciting new approach to the most influential of all English biblical texts - the Authorized King James Version, complete with the Apocrypha. Its wide-ranging introduction and notes draw on the most up-to-date scholarship to show how and why the Bible has affected the literature, art, and general culture of the English-speaking world.
The Bible and Literature: A Reader by 
The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation by
Written by leading experts in the field, The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation offers a wide-ranging treatment of the main aspects of Genesis study. Its twenty-nine essays fall under four main sections. The first section contains studies of a more general nature, including the history of Genesis in critical study, Genesis in literary and historical study, as well as the function of Genesis in the Pentateuch. In the second portion, scholars present commentary on or interpretation of specific passages (or sections) of Genesis, as well as essays on its formation, genres, and themes. The third part includes essays on the textual history and reception of Genesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The final section explores the theologies of the book of Genesis, including essays on Genesis and ecology and Genesis in the context of Jewish thought.
Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition by
This volume brings together Jewish and Christian scholars with perspectives on Creation in the Bible (Tanakh, Old Testament, New Testament), in ancient Egypt and Israel, and at Qumran, as well as contemporary theological, philosophical and political issues raised by the biblical, Jewish and Christian concepts of creation.
Double Narratives in the Old Testament: The Foundations of Method in Biblical Criticism by
A study of the importance of variant forms of Old Testament narratives in prompting the development of the criticism of the Bible. The recognition of the recurrence of stories in variant forms in the Old Testament has been seminal to the birth and development of biblical criticism. The author assesses the role of the "double narrative phenomenon" in the evolution of Old Testament methodology, from its earliest documentary theories to its most recent literary ones, with the help of current literary, folklore and textual studies.
From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis by 
Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology by
"The ancient Near Eastern mode of thought is not at all intuitive to us moderns, but our understanding of ancient perspectives can only approach accuracy when we begin to penetrate ancient texts on their own terms rather than imposing our own world view. In this task, we are aided by the ever-growing corpus of literature that is being recovered and analyzed.
After an introduction that presents some of the history of comparative studies and how it has been applied to the study of ancient texts in general and cosmology in particular, Walton focuses in the first half of this book on the ancient Near Eastern texts that inform our understanding about ancient ways of thinking about cosmology. Of primary interest are the texts that can help us discern the parameters of ancient perspectives on cosmic ontology - that is, how the writers perceived origins. Texts from across the ancient Near East are presented, including primarily Egyptian, Sumerian, and Akkadian texts, but occasionally also Ugaritic and Hittite, as appropriate. Walton's intention, first of all, is to understand the texts but also to demonstrate that a functional ontology pervaded the cognitive environment of the ancient Near East. This functional ontology involves more than just the idea that ordering the cosmos was the focus of the cosmological texts. He posits that, in the ancient world, bringing about order and functionality was the very essence of creative activity. He also pays close attention to the ancient ideology of temples to show the close connection between temples and the functioning cosmos.
Genesis 12-50 by
Walter Moberly's study Guide to Genesis 12-50 provides an invaluable introduction to the second part of Genesis and is essential reading for anyone interested in the patriarchal narratives and the earliest history of the people of Israel.
The Genesis of Genesis: The Mytho-empiricism of Creation by
The Genesis of Genesis is about the mytho-empiricism of creation-cosmogony. In its attempt to compare the mythologies of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean cultures-Egyptian, Greek, Judaic and Mesopotamian-the Judaic cosmogony of genesis, which is unique in its reliance on the word as creative agent, is contrasted with the Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian mythologies, which are more deterministic.
A History of the English Bible as Literature by
Revised and condensed from David Norton's acclaimed A History of the Bible as Literature, this book, first published in 2000, tells the story of English literary attitudes to the Bible. At first jeered at and mocked as English writing, then denigrated as having 'all the disadvantages of an old prose translation', the King James Bible somehow became 'unsurpassed in the entire range of literature'. How so startling a change happened and how it affected the making of modern translations such as the Revised Version and the New English Bible is at the heart of this exploration of a vast range of religious, literary and cultural ideas. Translators, writers such as Donne, Milton, Bunyan and the Romantics, reactionary Bishops and radical students all help to show the changes in religious ideas and in standards of language and literature that created our sense of the most important book in English.
In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the Bible and the Ancient Near East by 
Introducing the Old Testament by
Traditional study of the Old Testament has involved careful analysis of individual books in order to discover their component sources. Outlining some alternatives to this method--yet retaining the values of the conventional technique--this study considers the importance of sociology and anthropology, of liberation and feminist perspectives, and of literary criticism to provide a unique guide for those approaching the Old Testament for the first time, and for those who are disenchanted with staid forms of biblical analysis.
Jewish and Christian Approaches to the Psalms by 
Myths of Creation by
An exploration of mythology, religious belief, and scientific theory on the origins of the universe. A classic study of mythology, this examination investigates stories from all continents and ages--with all their startling similarities and contrasts--to reveal the workings of the human mind and imagination. Philip Freund provides revealing insight into the universality of ideas and faith by examining a wide range of texts such as the Old Testament, the Upanishads, and Gilgamesh in his search for parallels between creation fables. The analysis estimates, for example, that more than 500 flood legends have been told by more than 250 tribes and peoples from around the world. Also featured are clear presentations of the theories of towering figures such as Freud, Jung, Frazer, Campbell, and Malinowski who have proposed variously that myths are primitive history based on literal fact, a means of expressing profound tribal wisdom and psychological and sexual truth, or that they represent a search for kinship with the animal and vegetable world. Fascinating and erudite, this revered book ranks among the select handful of core texts in any mythology collection.
The Old Testament and Folklore Study by
Since Gunkel, folklore studies have exercised a great influence upon theories of oral composition and transmission of the patriarchal narratives. Dr Kirkpatrick subjects the underlying premises supporting many of these theories to a careful examination in the light of the most recent folklore research.
Telling the Old Testament Story by
While honoring the historical context and literary diversity of the Old Testament, Telling the Old Testament Story is a thematic reading that construes the OT as a complex but coherent narrative. Unlike standard, introductory textbooks that only cover basic background and interpretive issues for each Old Testament book, this introduction combines a thematic approach with careful exegetical attention to representative biblical texts, ultimately telling the macro-level story, while drawing out the multiple nuances present within different texts and traditions. The book works from the Protestant canonical arrangement of the Old Testament, which understands the story of the Old Testament as the story of God and God's relationship with all creation in love and redemption--a story that joins the New Testament to the Old. Within this broader story, the Old Testament presents the specific story of God and God's relationship with Israel as the people called, created, and formed to be God's covenant partner and instrument within creation. The Old Testament begins by introducing God's mission in Genesis. The story opens with the portrait of God's good, intended creation of right-relationships (Gen 1--2) and the subsequent distortion of that good creation as a result of humanity's rebellion (Gen 3--11). Genesis 12 and following introduce God's commitment to restore creation back to the right-relationships and divine intentions with which it began. Coming out of God's new covenant engagement with creation in Gen 9, this divine purpose begins with the calling of a people (who turn out to be the manifold descendants of Abraham and Sarah) to be God's instrument of blessing for all creation and thus to reverse the curse brought on by sin. The diverse traditions that comprise the remainder of the Pentateuch then combine to portray the creation and formation of Israel as a people prepared to be God's instrument of restoration and blessing. As the subsequent Old Testament books portray Israel's life in the land and journey into and out of exile, the reader encounters complex perspectives on Israel's attempts to understand who God is, who they are as God's people, and how, therefore, they ought to live out their identity as God's people within God's mission in the world. The final prophetic books that conclude the Protestant Old Testament ultimately give the story of God's mission and people an open-ended quality, suggesting that God's mission for God's people continues and leading Christian readers to consider the New Testament's story of the Church as an extension and expansion of the broader story of God introduced in the Old Testament. The main methodological perspective that informs the book includes work on the phenomenological function of narrative (especially story's function to shape the identity and practice of the reader), as well as more recent so-called "missional" approaches to reading Christian scripture. Canonical criticism provides the primary means for relating the distinctive voices within the Old Testament texts that still honor the particularity and diversity of the discrete compositions. Accessibly written, this book invites readers to enter imaginatively into the biblical story and find the Old Testament's lively and enduring implications.
