Hebrew Bible

"I am happy to have this opportunity to update and revise this Introduction after using and receiving feedback on the first edition over the last decade. This new edition includes corrections and a number of updates to reflect developments in recent scholarship. These revisions are too numerous to mention, but are illustrated by the inclusion of several new "More on Methods" boxes that discuss African American Biblical Interpretation, Afrocentric and Womanist Interpretation, Feminist Criticism and History of Interpretation/Reception, Trauma Studies and the Bible, and Ecological Biblical Criticism. This list reflects my ever-increasing consciousness of the importance for white male scholars like myself to recognize the impact of my social location on my writing and how I and my students must learn from the work and insights of colleagues of color. Readers are particularly encouraged to read those scholars' work directly, and I have provided some initial suggestions of resources to do so. One of the primary aims of the first edition of the introduction was to provide a relatively concise textbook so that students would have more time to read biblical texts as well. Though this revision includes substantial new material, I have worked to keep the overall book concise. In addition, users should note some new exercises and chapter review questions that focus on analysis of the Bible itself, including a series of questions oriented to the discussion of "focus texts" featured in most chapters. Overall, I have endeavored to cite biblical passages by the numbers that appear in widely-used English translations (e.g. NRSV, NIV; though note that some important English translations, e.g. the New Jerusalem or New Jewish Publication Society versions, follow the Hebrew versification, which diverges slightly for some biblical passages). In these ways I hope to have provided a more "Concise" and "Contemporary" Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and highlighted this in the revised subtitle of the book. Moreover, the main title was revised to focus on both Hebrew Bible and Old Testament to reflect the way that this book emphasizes academic study of the Bible and not just one (Christian) confessional approach to its subject matter. It should be emphasized, however, that this second edition preserves a focus on the impact of successive empires on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, even though it no longer includes the previous subtitle "sacred texts and imperial contexts.""--