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For centuries, scholars and interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament have read those Scriptures as if they spoke of a God whose desires, concerns, and interests were essentially no different than those of the other gods of antiquity known to us. Like those gods, what the God of Israel supposedly sought above all else was the honor, worship, and obedience of human beings and their submission to his will as his faithful and devoted servants. While he undoubtedly demanded the practice of what was good, right, and merciful among his people in a way that set him apart from other gods, ultimately he did so for his own sake in order to bring about in them the type of behavior that pleased him and compel them to live in conformity with his justice, holiness, and righteousness. Those who sought to enjoy his blessings and avoid his fierce wrath and punishments had no choice but to strive to keep him content by observing all that he had commanded and making atonement for the sins and offenses they committed by offering him the sacrifices that appeased him. Although he loved his people deeply, his righteous and holy nature placed limits on that love and prevented him from showing them his favor unless the demands of his nature were satisfied. When we abandon such an understanding of the God of Israel and instead read the Hebrew Bible on its own terms in order to grasp the logic underlying its narratives, however, a very different portrait of God emerges. The God of whom the biblical texts speak is a God who desires nothing but the good for all those whom he has created and refuses to back down from his efforts to bring them to live in ways that will allow them to enjoy the wholeness and well-being he desires for all when they insist on filling their lives with injustice, suffering, and violence. When he demands that they obey all that he has commanded by practicing justice and compassion and avoiding behaviors that do them harm, he does so not for his sake but for theirs. If he jealously refuses to let his people serve and worship other gods, it is only because those gods bring death and destruction rather than the life that is found in him alone. While at times he must himself resort to violence and even bring down evil on human beings in order to put a stop to oppression and injustice, he does so only because his passionate and unbending commitment to the well-being of all of the families of the earth together with his beloved people Israel will not allow him to hold back or relent in his efforts to save them, not from him, but from themselves. Christian and Jewish readers alike will find in the present volume a God who is very different from the God they have been taught to encounter previously in the biblical texts, a God whose ultimate concern is not for his own glory, honor, or worship or for the demands of a righteous and holy nature that holds him captive, but for the healing, wholeness, and well-being of all of his creatures. Such an understanding of God not only calls into question traditional interpretations of the Hebrew Bible but also lays the basis for a fresh reading of the many difficult passages that have long challenged biblical interpreters due to the violent and troubling image of God that they convey.
Cast out of Heaven, thrown down to rule in Hell, Lucifer Morningstar has resigned his post and abandoned his kingdom for the mortal city of Los Angeles. In this final LUCIFER volume, the war in Heaven reaches its universe-shaking conclusion, as the forces of Heaven, Hell, and everyone in between wage a final battle to determine the fate of both Yahweh and Lucifer's Creations - a fate no one, not even the Lightbringer, could foresee. And in the aftermath of the battle, how will Lucifer and his cohorts pick up their lives and tie up loose ends? Collects LUCIFER #62-75.
Poetic elegies for lost or fallen cities are seemingly as old as cities themselves. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this genre finds its purest expression in the book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem; in Arabic, this genre is known as the ritha al-mudun. In The City Lament, Tamar M. Boyadjian traces the trajectory of the genre across the Mediterranean world during the period commonly referred to as the early Crusades (1095–1191), focusing on elegies and other expressions of loss that address the spiritual and strategic objective of those wars: Jerusalem. Through readings of city laments in English, French, Latin, Arabic, and Armenian literary traditions, Boyadjian challenges hegemonic and entrenched approaches to the study of medieval literature and the Crusades. The City Lament exposes significant literary intersections between Latin Christendom, the Islamic caliphates of the Middle East, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, arguing for shared poetic and rhetorical modes. Reframing our understanding of literary sources produced across the medieval Mediterranean from an antagonistic, orientalist model to an analogous one, Boyadjian demonstrates how lamentations about the loss of Jerusalem, whether to Muslim or Christian forces, reveal fascinating parallels and rich, cross-cultural exchanges.
Senior High.
Team Teaching at the College Level describes a college-level team teaching program which affords unusual opportunities for developing an educational environment that fosters productive personal relationships between and among college students and faculty. The book describes the nature and scope of selected team teaching programs; the manner in which such programs can be administered; the potential impact of team teaching on a developing curriculum; the role of faculty and students who constitute the teaching-learning team; the particular housing requirements of team teaching programs; and finally, the limitations and future prospects of this emerging concept. In the following chapters frequent reference is made to the philosophy, program, and methodology of Boston University's College of Basic Studies, where a team system was first developed in 1949 and where an entire collegiate two-year program of studies functions on a team teaching plan. This College's extensive experience with team teaching has made possible refinements which may interest those seeking to broaden their understanding of the potential role and function of team teaching in higher education.* Rich in case studies, examples, and in-chapter elements that focus on the challenges of launching and operating a technology venture* In-depth examination of intellectual property development, valuation, deal structuring, and equity preservation, issues of most relevance to technology start-ups* Extensive discussion of technology management and continuous innovation as a competitive advantage* Addresses the issue of leading, managing, motivating, and compensating technical workers* More time on the fundamentals of marketing and selling, as these are elements of entrepreneurshipcommonly most neglected by engineers and scientists
This is the first full-scale assessment of the theological, social and ideational implications of our new understandings of ancient Israel's social and religious development. Scholars now stress the gradual emergence of Israel out of the culture of ancient Palestine and the surrounding ancient Near East rather than contrast Israel with the ancient world. Our new paradigms stress the ongoing and unfinished nature of the monotheistic 'revolution', which is indeed still in process today. Gnuse takes a further bold step in setting the emergence of monotheism in a wider intellectual context: he argues brilliantly that the interpretation of Israel's development as both an evolutionary and revolutionary process corresponds to categories of contemporary evolutionary thought in the biological and palaeontological sciences (Punctuated Equilibrium).
Since the middle of the twentieth century, one of biblical scholarship's chief assumptions has been that ancient Israel evolved out of the polytheism of surrounding cultures into an ethical monotheism. However, this consensus has fallen apart in recent years. Scholars now know that early Israel was surrounded by a very polytheistic culture and that many Israelites thought of Yahweh as the chief God among many gods. Furthermore, archaeology has shown that Yahweh was worshiped along with other gods throughout the period after the exile, when many shrines were in honor of "Yahweh and his Asherah." David Penchansky's Twilight of the Gods is the first accessible book that shows a historical Israel where polytheism and monotheism existed simultaneously in great conflict. He provides a historical introduction, followed by close readings of key Old Testament passages, where he demonstrates how to interpret difficult biblical texts that depict other gods or claim Yahweh is the only God within this new understanding of Israelite religion.