Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, form criticism has diminished in popularity and use in recent years. Bryan H. Cribb’s studies demonstrates that, if appropriately modified, form criticism still has much to add to Old Testament studies. Using a synchronic and inductive approach to the text, Cribb engages in a form critical study of nine “death stories” in the Old Testament. In so doing, he not only provides substantial support for the existence of this genre, but he also shows how remarkably fruitful such a study can be in revealing the messages of these accounts.

The humanistic, non-religious approach of this book presents Judaism as the Culture of the Jewish People and God as a literary figure created by the authors of the Bible. This book defines key concepts in the discourse of Judaism as Culture. It offers a concise version of the history of pluralism in Judaism during the biblical era, the Hellenistic period, the influence of the Talmudic "culture of dispute" and the asking of new questions, the influence of the secularization process on Judaism, the assimilation of Jews in foreign cultures, and the formation of Israeli culture.

This book is an excellent resource for students, scholars, pastors and other people interested in biblical studies for their daily work at the computer. This book treats general interest subjects like hardware and networks, operating systems, word processors and others. The main focus is on subjects for biblical scholars like Unicode, bible software and websites. Each chapter ends up with a list of URLs for further information about the subject. An online up-to-date link list is available. It can be used as textbook as well as a reference work.

More than a literary survey, this introduction to the history of late and Neo-Syriac (Neo-Aramaic) covers the works of the past several centuries. Macuch begins with the post-Mongolian period to the end of the 18th century. For the 19th century, Macuch considers the situation of the Assyrians in this period, including the American, Anglican, and Russian Orthodox missionary enterprises in Urmia, noting the writers of the foreign missions. For the twentieth century he includes literature from the period of the wars up to the 1970s. Various East-Syriac and West-Syriac authors of the Chaldean and Church of the East, and Syrian Orthodox and Maronite traditions, as well as the Syrian literature of Malabar in southern India are also considered.

Moslem Women is built around six main chapters; half are devoted to the place and experiences of Moslem women, and half consider the Christian mission to these women. The Zwemers acknowledge some of the great women of Islamic history, such as Rabia, the famous early mystic, and Nurah Mahal, wife of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. They speak in glowing terms about advances in the women’s situation in post-Ottoman Turkey. Their work is dedicated to serving Muslims and to seeing them as people rather than as faceless numbers; it is an excellent model for today’s Christians who feel called to engagement with Islam.

Based on lectures delivered in Chichester Cathedral, this book mirrors typical nineteenth century English attitudes toward the non-European space. This needed Christianity and European political oversight, or its people would remain backward and spiritually lost. The book shows how someone whose inclinations were liberal could look at Islam and dislike what he saw. On the other hand, the book also shows that a non-specialist scholar in the second half of the nineteenth century could write seriously if not impartially about Islam using material available in European languages. This suggests that Islam was a subject of increasing interest in Victorian England.

Given the twenty-first century association between the Holy Land and the Bible, we may assume that such a relationship just exists, and that the land is like the Book and contains a timeless quality. Eothen requires us to question this supposition. Alexander Kinglake describes a Palestine which is largely a wilderness on the verge of being defined by the political and religious forces of the west. He offers us a glimpse into the past of a society as it begins to engage with the West.

Ignaz Goldziher was a pre-eminent scholar of Islam during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This book encapsulates his own lifetime of work and provides something of an historical commentary on his epoch in the Western academic study of Islam. One of its strengths is that Goldziher’s investigation of historical development probes into underlying religious motivations and allied theological issues. The book quickly became a classic of its day. It remains a classic that, in our day, is well worth re-visiting as it can still inform our understanding of contemporary Islam, whose roots lie in all that Goldziher covers.

A convert to Christianity from the Qadiri Order, John A. Subhan is well-known for his seminal work, Sufism: Its Saints and Shrines. Sufism prepared him for faith in Jesus and his Injil. His Sufi background and intimate knowledge of its beliefs and practices enabled him to explain Sufism to others. All ten chapters in Sufism are interesting, including chapter eight, which contains a comparative discussion of Sufism in the broader Hindu context. It is a must read for all, not only because it is a window into the world of a great Sufi convert but also because his insight is still relevant today.

The Ostraca of the Coptic Museum, written on pottery pieces, limestone flakes and wood, present the lives of ordinary people in their interactions with one another, and includes their economic and personal affairs. This volume is a catalog of the 1,127 ostraca in the museum.

Temple Gairdner’s The Rebuke of Islam, published in 1920, has long been recognized as one of the classics of Christian response to Islam in the early 20th century. Part of its significance is that Gairdner’s approach sums up the very best of earlier approaches (especially in the 19th century), but breaks significantly new ground and therefore points forward to approaches that have been developing between his time and the present day.

Since the 1850s until the outbreak of World War I, the Dominican Press in Mosul, Iraq, produced scholarly, liturgical, and pedagogical publications to service the local Christian communities. These hard to find publications have now been cataloged in detail by J. F. Coakley and David G. K. Taylor.

This monograph presents an unpublished historical resource in the form of a register of dues collected for the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate during the second half of the nineteenth century. Bcheiry provides the original text, an English translation, and an extensive socio-economic study.

The volume deals with the liturgical dimension of mystical, ascetical, and hymnographic texts and traditions within the Christian environment. Special attention is paid to liturgical texts of the Coptic and the Byzantine rite, especially in its Slavonic and Georgian versions. The volume also explores the Jewish background of some Christian liturgical settings and the afterlife of the Jewish priestly and liturgical traditions in the Christian milieu. The collection includes the critical edition of the early Slavonic version of the liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts accompanied by the historical study of this service.

This comprehensive study offers a critical, comparative analysis of the sources available on Bardaisan and a reinterpretation of his thought. The study highlights the profound points of contact between Bardaisan, Origen, and their schools; the role of Plato’s Timaeus and Middle Platonism in Bardaisan’s thought, and Stoicism. Bardaisan’s thought emerges as a deeply Christian one, depending on the exegesis of Scripture read in the light of Greek philosophy. Positive ancient sources present him as a deacon or even a presbyter, as an author of refutations of Marcionism and Gnosticism, and as a confessor of the faith during persecution.

This volume incorporates all the articles and reviews published in Volume 8 (2008) of the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.