Although Judah's prophets and priests often stood united in their concerns for the cult, many prophetic texts from the 6th and the 5th century BC testify to a major disagreement between them as to how to worship God. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer analyzes the critique of the priests as found in the prophetic texts from that period. In these texts, the prophets accused the priests of misdemeanours in both the cultic and the social realm. The author further explores how the same prophets envisioned a more righteous priesthood. The earlier promises in Isaiah 40-55 form the background of this critique. Much of the post-exilic prophetic literature sought to explain the non-fulfilment of these promises. The author shows that the shared focus of most of these explanations is a culpable priesthood. She further demonstrates a different picture of the post-exilic priesthood from the one often previously assumed. Rather than attributing cultic monolatry to the post-exilic priests, reformed through their suffering following the destruction of Jerusalem, she shows that the emerging new clergy were not so very different from their pre-exilic predecessors. In addition, in contrast to the common assumption that the prophetic literature displays contradictory views, the author stresses the similarity between the thoughts and ideas displayed throughout Isaiah 56-66, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 and Malachi.

Revision of author's thesis (Ph.D.)--Oxford University, 2002.

In Atoning Dyad Andrei A. Orlov explores the eschatological reinterpretation of the Yom Kippur ritual found in the Apocalypse of Abraham where the protagonist and the antagonist of the story are envisioned as two goats of the atoning rite.

This series on the seven Sacraments provides readers with a deeper appreciation of God's gifts and call in the Sacraments through a renewed encounter with God's Word. In this volume, a leading Catholic scholar offers a biblical theology of the priesthood rooted in the Old and New Testaments. Half a millennium after the Protestant Reformation and in the midst of an ongoing clerical crisis in the Catholic Church, this book presents a comprehensive biblical vision and defense of the sacramental priesthood and an informed theological response to the problem of priestly sin. It gives expression to the ministerial priesthood's biblically grounded, sacramental share in the sacrificial ministry of Jesus Christ. Series editors are Timothy C. Gray and John Sehorn. Gray is president of the Augustine Institute, which has one million subscribers to its online content channel, Formed.org. Gray and Sehorn teach at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, which prepares students for Christian mission through on-campus and distance education programs.

This collection of eight essays deals with a wide range of historical, literary, and methodological issues. First, what were the links between the cultic and the prophetic personnel? Did prophets have ritual/cultic functions in temples? Did prophetic actions and/or utterances play a role in the performance of the cult? What were the ritual aspects of divinations? Second, how do literary texts describe the interaction between prophecy and cult? Third, how can various theories (e.g. religious theory, performance theory) enable us to reach a better understanding of the interplay between divination and cultic ritual in ancient Israel and the wider ancient Near East? Marian Broida explores the ritual elements as described in the biblical accounts of intercession. Lester Grabbe revisits the important question of whether cultic prophecy existed in the Jerusalem temple in ancient Israel. Anja Klein maintains that while Psalms 81 and 95 may indirectly testify to a form of cultic prophecy, they do not themselves constitute cultic prophecy. Jonathan Stökl discusses the notion of "triggering" prophecy and suggests that enquiring of Yhwh may in itself be understood as a kind of ritualised behaviour. John Hilber considers the performance of the rituals that accompanied prophetic affirmation of victory in the Egyptian cult. Martti Nissinen looks more broadly at the question whether prophets in the ancient world functioned as ritual performers. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer investigates the priests' mediating and predictive functions as depicted in the Deuteronomistic History. Alex Jassen argues that Jews in the Second Temple Period perceived the priests and the temple to be a new locus of prophetic activity.

Antonios Finitsis and contributors continue their examination of dress and clothing in the Hebrew Bible in this collection of illuminating essays. Straddling the divide between the material and the ideological, this book lends shape and texture to topics including social standing, agency, and the motif of cloth and clothing in Esther. Essays also explore the function of dress metaphors in imprecatory Psalms, the symbolic function of headdresses, and the divine clothing of Adam and Eve and the hermeneutics of trauma recovery. Together, the contributors continue to shape scholarly discourse on a growing body of scholarship on dress in the Bible. By turning their analytical gaze to this primary evidence, the contributors are able to reveal the social, psychological, aesthetic, ideological and symbolic meanings of dress in the Hebrew Bible, thereby producing insights into the literature and cultural world of the ancient Near East.

Over the centuries, the prophetic book of Zechariah has suffered from accusations of obscurity and has frustrated readers seeking to unlock its treasures. This work by Mark Boda provides insightful commentary on Zechariah, with great sensitivity to its historical, literary, and theological dimensions. Including a fresh translation of Zechariah from the original Hebrew, Boda delivers deep and thorough reflection on a too-often-neglected book of the Old Testament.