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In the last two decades, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value of the Old Testament for modern ethical questions. John Rogerson is a scholar who has dedicated much of his academic life to probing the possibility of the abiding significance of the Old Testament for moral issues today. This volume brings together for the first time many of his contributions - both published and unpublished - to Old Testament social ethics. Rogerson's essays cover a wide range of modern social issues including: using the Bible in the debate about abortion; the Old Testament and nuclear disarmament; and the use of the Old Testament with reference to work and unemployment. Several essays examine the contribution of philosophical ethics to the study of Old Testament. Rogerson also offers a brief account of his pilgrimage in Old Testament ethics and outlines the basic framework of his perspective. The introduction by the editor provides a summary and survey of Rogerson's work. This is volume 405 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series.

The highly popular Sheffield Old Testament Guides are being reissued in a new format, grouped together and prefaced by one of the best known of contemporary biblical scholars. This new format is designed to ensure that these authoritative introductions remain up to date and accessible to seminary and university students of the Old Testament while offering a broader theological and literary context for their study. John Goldingay introduces Genesis and Exodus as a whole, illuminating their distinctive literary and theological features and their importance for modern theological reflection.

How should Christians approach the Old Testament? Should we use it to reconstruct what people believed several millennia ago? Or should we ask what the Old Testament says to us today and consider how it addresses today's world? J. W. Rogerson firmly believes that we should take the latter approach. Rogerson, an internationally respected scholar, has dedicated much of his academic life to probing the possibility of the abiding significance of the Old Testament. He shows how texts written for a strange and distant world with different social, religious and cultural factors can still speak to moral issues today.

John Rogerson traces the interpretation of Genesis 1-11 through to its present engagement with contemporary issues, before going on to examine the hermeneutical debate currently centred on the text, and to discuss it from the more familiar perspective of the historical-critical method, with particular attention to translation, source-critical and inter-literary questions.

W.M.L. de Wette (1780-1849) was not only one of the founders of modern Old Testament criticism. His loss and recovery of Christian faith, his dismissal from his post in Berlin in 1819 on political grounds and his long subsequent exile in Basel left their mark upon his work in New Testament ethics, dogmatics and aesthetics. This first modern critical study of de Wette's life and work evaluates his achievements in the context of his own times and asesses their importance on modern biblical scholars.

Rogerson's Genesis 1-11 falls into two main parts. The first outlines recent approaches to Genesis 1-11 by mainstream scholars who have been addressing environmental, liberation, feminist and literary issues. The second main section addresses itself to the text from the point of view of standard literary questions such as source division, literary criticism, myth and ancient Near Eastern parallels. The Guide thus aims to combine larger, hermeneutical questions with a detailed study of the context of Genesis 1-11.

Ecclesiastes is the most surprising book in the Scriptures. It challenges its readers to reconsider what they think life is about and how far it is possible to understand God’s involvement in the world. This commentary seeks to help people enter the world of Ecclesiastes and see how it can increase their understanding of God and of themselves.

In this third volume of his critically acclaimed Old Testament Theology John Goldingay explores the Old Testament vision of Israel's life before God. The first volume focused on the story of God's dealings with Israel, or Israel's gospel. The second volume investigated the beliefs of Israel, or Israel's faith. Now the spotlight falls on the Old Testament's perspective on the life that Israel should live in its present and future, including its worship, prayer and spirituality, as well as its practices, attitudes and ethics before God.