• Introduction
• Playing with Leviathan: Job and the aesthetic turn in biblical exegesis
• "Jonah historically regarded": improvisations on Kitto's Cyclopedia of biblical literature
• "Call me Ishmael": the BIble and the Orient
• Ahab, idolatry, and the question of possession: biblical politics
• Rachel's inconsolable cry: the rise of women's BIbles
• Epilogue.

Many writers in antebellum America sought to reinvent the Bible, but no one, Ilana Pardes argues, was as insistent as Melville on redefining biblical exegesis while doing so. In "Moby-Dick, " he not only ventured to fashion a grand new inverted Bible in which biblical rebels and outcasts assume center stage, but also aspired to comment on every imaginable mode of biblical interpretation, calling for a radical reconsideration of the politics of biblical reception. In "Melville's Bibles, " Pardes traces Melville's response to a whole array of nineteenth-century exegetical writings - literary scriptures, biblical scholarship, Holy Land travel narratives, political sermons, and women's bibles. She shows how Melville raised with unparalleled verve the question of what counts as Bible and what counts as interpretation.

• Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Constitutive Divide of Reception History
• 1. The Miltonesque Concept of the Original Text
• 2. Living in Pottersville: An Alternate Approach to Textual Criticism
• 3. Anchor or Spandrel: The Concept of the Original Context
• 4. On Tigers and Cages: Re-Thinking Context
• 5. Mapping the Garden of Forking Paths: A Nomadic Reception History
• 6. Justice, Survival, Presence: Job 19:25-27
• 7. Trajectories of Job 19:25-27: The Example of Survival Conclusion: Nomadology and the Future of Biblical Studies Notes Bibliography Index.
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Brennan W. Breed claims that biblical interpretation should focus on the shifting capacities of the text, viewing it as a dynamic process rather than a static product. Rather than seeking to determine the original text and its meaning, Breed proposes that scholars approach the production, transmission, and interpretation of the biblical text as interwoven elements of its overarching reception history. Grounded in the insights of contemporary literary theory, this approach alters the framing questions of interpretation from "What does this text mean?" to "What can this text do?".
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• AbbreviationsPreface Part I The Bible and History1 Israel Without the Bible Gary A. Rendsburg2 Bible, Archaeology, and the Social Sciences: The Next Generation Elizabeth Bloch-SmithPart II New Approaches to the Bible3 Literary Approaches to Biblical Literature: General Observations and a Case Study of Genesis 34 Adele Berlin4 Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible Esther FuchsPart III Ancient Practice5 The Laws of Biblical Israel Raymond Westbrook6 The Study of Ritual in the Hebrew Bible David P. WrightPart IV Judaism and the Bible7 By the Letter?/Word for Word? Scripture in the Jewish Tradition Leonard Greenspoon8 From Judaism to Biblical Religion and Back Again Ziony Zevit9 Jewish Biblical Theology Marvin A. SweeneyEpilogue: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: Some Re?ections on Reading and Studying the Hebrew Bible Peter MachinistAbout the Contributors Index Index of Biblical Passages.
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In April of 2001, the headline in the Los Angeles Timesread, "Doubting the Story of the Exodus." It covered a sermon that had been delivered by the rabbi of a prominent local congregation over the holiday of Passover. In it, he said, "The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all." This seeming challenge to the biblical story captivated the local public. Yet as the rabbi himself acknowledged, his sermon contained nothing new. The theories that he described had been common knowledge among biblical scholars for over thirty years, though few people outside of the profession know their relevance.New understandings concerning the Bible have not filtered down beyond specialists in university settings. There is a need to communicate this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy. This volume seeks to meet this need, with accessible and engaging chapters describing how archeology, theology, ancient studies, literary studies, feminist studies, and other disciplines now understand the Bible.
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• The disgrace of Egypt: Joshua 5.9a and its context / Ed Noort
• La Genèse d'Alexandrie, les Rabbins et Qumrân / Florentino García Martínez
• The birth of Moses in Egypt according to the Book of Jubilees (Jub 47.1-9) / Jacques T.A.G.M. van Ruiten
• Hearing the story of Moses in Ptolemaic Egypt: Artapanus accommodates the tradition / Rob Kugler
• Egypt as the setting for Joseph and Aseneth: accidental or deliberate? / János Bolyki
• The Wisdom of Solomon and the gnostic Sophia / Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte
• Cleopatra in Josephus: from Herod's rival to the wise ruler's opposite / Jan Willem van Henten
• 'The God who drowned the king of Egypt': a short note on an exorcistic formula / Pieter W. van der Horst
• 'Out of Egypt I have called my son': some observations on the quotation from Hosea 11.1 in Matthew 2.15 / Maarten J.J. Menken
• 'And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians' (Acts 7.22) / Ton Hilhorst
• 'Wrath will drip in the plains of Macedonia': expectations of Nero's return in the Egyptian Sibylline oracles (book 5), 2 Thessalonians, and ancient historical writings / George H. van Kooten
• Looking at the condemning heart of 1 John 3.18-20 through the eyes of an ancient Egyptian / Herman te Velde
• The Egyptian background of the 'ointment' prayer in the Eucharistic rite of the Didache (10.8) / Huub van de Sandt
• The Letter of Barnabas in early second-century Egypt / Janni Loman
• Paul's rapture to paradise in early Christian literature / Riemer Roukema
• The Sphinx: sculpture as a theological symbol in Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria / John Herrmann and Annewies van den Hoek
• Foolish Egyptians: Apion and Anoubion in the Pseudo-Clementines / Jan N. Bremmer
• Potamiaena: some observations about martyrdom and gender in ancient Alexandria / Henk Bakker
• 'Mulier est instrumentum diaboli': women and the desert fathers / Monika Pesthy
• Le gnosticisme Alexandrin aux premiers temps du Christianisme / Attila Jakab
• The Gospel of Thomas and the historical Jesus: the case of eschatology / Albert L.A. Hogeterp
• Basilides of Alexandria: Matthias (Matthew) and Aristotle as the sources of inspiration for his gnostic theology in Hippolytus' Refutatio / Abraham P. Bos
• Early Christian apocrypha and the secret books of ancient Eygpt / Jacobus van Dijk
• Baraies on Mani's rapture, Paul, and the antediluvian apostles / Eibert Tigchelaar
• Devolution and recollection, deficiency and perfection: human degradation and the recovery of the primal condition according to some early Christian texts / F. Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta
• Reisewege der apostel in den Acta Petri aus Nag Hammadi / Jürgen Tubach
• The identity of Lithargoel in the Acts of Peter and the Twelve / István Czachesz
• Gnōsis, mageia, and The holy book of the great invisible spirit / Marvin Meyer
• Fate, magic and astrology in Pistis Sophia, chaps 15-21 / Jacques van der Vliet.

This collection of essays gives a vivid impression of Egypt as background and stage of Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic thought and life in antiquity. It demonstrates Egypt's important role in the history, literature and culture of these religions.

• Introduction / Halvor Moxnes
• What is family? : problems in constructing early Christian families / Halvor Moxnes
• The family in first-century Galilee / Santiago Guijarro
• The family as the bearer of religion in Judaism and early Christianity / John M.G. Barclay
• The relativisation of family ties in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman traditions / Stephen C. Barton
• The Roman family : ideal and metaphor / Eva Marie Lassen
• Family imagery and Christian identity in Gal 5:13 to 6:10 / Philip F. Esler
• Equality within patriarchal structures : some New Testament perspectives on the Christian fellowship as a brother- or sisterhood and a family / Karl Olav Sandnes
• Brotherhood in Plutarch and Paul : its role and character / Reidar Aasgaard
• Brotherhood in Christ : a gender hermeneutical reading of 1 Thessalonians / Lone Fatum
• Paul without passion : on Paul's rejection of desire in sex and marriage / Dale B. Martin
• Asceticism and anti-familial language in the Gospel of Thomas / Risto Uro
• Family structures in Gnostic religion / Ingvild Sælid Gilhus.

The family is a topical issue for studies of the Ancient world. Family, household and kinship have different connotations in antiquity from their modern ones. This volume expands that discussion to investigate the early Christian family structures within the larger Graeco-Roman context. Particular emphasis is given to how family metaphors, such as 'brotherhood' function to describe relations in early Christian communities. Asceticism and the rejection of sexuality are considered in the context of Christian constructions of the family. Moxnes' volume presents a comprehensive and timely addition to the study of familial and social structures in the Early Christian world, which will certainly stimulate further debate.
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• Welcome to Athens
• Was Paul's speech at Athens a mistake?
• Paul's Athens
• Our Athens
• Paul's speech in acts
• Paul's audience
• Paul's gospel for the educated
• The art of persuasion
• Acting on the truth
• Going to our own Mars Hill.