Scripture, like any performance, aims for transformation of its audience. In this new study Jeanette Mathews demonstrates how literature from the diverse field of performance studies can be applied to the prophetic book of Habakkuk in order to draw out themes and features that are common to both. Mathews offers a fresh new translation of Habakkuk that emphasizes and celebrates its intrinsic dramatic features. This translation provides the "script" for the performance of Habakkuk. The attitudes and actions of the "actors" in the performance become models for their "audience," such that the audience members are drawn into the performance and do not remain impartial spectators. The context of crisis that forms the book's "setting" is of crucial importance, ensuring that genres such as complaint and lament are taken seriously as expressions of faith in the midst of traumatic experience. The open-ended script makes explicit the drama of faithfulness in the midst of cultural trauma and public crises--a faithfulness that is ready to be reenacted in our own settings.

Embodied Performance presents a methodology by which performer-interpreters can bring their intuitive interpretations to the scholarly conversations about biblical compositions. It may not be comfortable, for scholarship is out of practice in listening to emotion and intuition. It may not be the only way to bring the fullness of human meaning making into scholarly discussions. It is a beginning, as Sarah Agnew, storyteller and scholar, places herself as the subject and object under examination, observing her practice as a biblical storyteller making meaning through embodied performance, and develops a coherent method rigorously tested with an Embodied Performance Analysis of Romans. Follow Sarah’s story as she searches within Biblical Performance Criticism for such a method, before determining the need to strike out in a new direction from within an already innovative field. All biblical scholars are complex human beings, making meaning through their embodiment, their emotions, their embeddedness in community. Embodied Performance Analysis offers a way to attend to and incorporate the full range of human meaning making in our engagement with biblical compositions, for richer discussion closer to the intent of the compositions themselves.

In this volume, Peter S. Perry describes what performance criticism is and shows its application to biblical studies and theology. He draws on the best thinkers and practitioners in this field as well as his own experience to show how performance criticism can open up the meaning of and appreciation for biblical texts. In addition, Perry presents challenges for the future of performance criticism and its role in biblical interpretation generally. Each volume in the new Insights series discusses discoveries and insights gained into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today’s students, each Insight volume will discuss (1) how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time; (2) what current questions arise from its use; (3) what enduring insights it has produced; and (4) what questions remain for future scholarship.

Tchavdar S. Hadjiev introduces students to the books of Joel, Obadiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (the Minor Prophets) in their original historical contexts and to the issues surrounding their composition and interpretation. Hadjiev pays particular attention to important topics such as eschatology, prophecy and cult, intertextuality, theodicy and the genre of the prophetic book. Readers will come to grips with the key themes of judgment, repentance, and salvation in relation to their historical and canonical contexts. Finally, Hadjiev provides a theological evaluation of the prophetic attitude to foreigners and the vision of their final destruction, which is pervasive in Joel, Obadiah, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, and helps readers to grapple with this theme in a modern context.

The distinctiveness of this commentary lies in its consistent rotation between synchronic and diachronic views. This double perspective is directed toward the three prophetic books as a single entity, toward each individual book, and toward the interpretation of each pericope. The result is a sophisticated picture, on the one hand of the structure and intention of the texts in their final form, and on the other hand of their compositional history - from the second half of the 7th century to the late Old Testament period. Each exegetical section opens with a precise, text-critically supported translation and finishes with a synthesis that attempts to make note of the lasting insights from each text and the most important results of the analysis.

The biblical prophets and Biblical Performance Criticism are brought together in three case studies (Elijah, Ezekiel, Jonah) presented as performances. This book proposes a new method of reading the biblical prophets with a threefold focus on creativity, commentary, and connections. With this method the many and varied performances of the prophets can be better appreciated. Critical analysis of the quintessentially performative nature of the prophets as embodied spokespersons for YHWH aids us in understanding and clarifying YHWH’s message to audiences, situations, and communities of the past as well as engaging contemporary audiences.

The Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets provides a clear and engaging one-volume guide to the major interpretative questions currently engaging scholars of the twelve Minor Prophets by collecting 40 essays by both established and emerging scholars who explore a wide range of methodological perspectives. Divided into four sections, the first group of essays is devoted to historical studies which consider the manuscript evidence for these books and overview debates about how, when, and by whom they were composed. Essays dealing with literary explorations consider the genres and rhetorical style of the material, key themes, and intertextual connections with other sections of the Jewish and Christian canons. A large section on the history of interpretation traces the ways in which past and present confessional communities, scholars, and artists have understood the Minor Prophets. In the final section, essays on individual books of the twelve Minor Prophets explore the structure, themes, and contested issues of each book.