Richard J. Bautch Boeken

Covenant concepts are intricately woven into the fabric of ancient Near Eastern religions and early religious literature, making them a focal point for scholarly debate. This collection of essays delves into the diverse interpretations and theological implications of covenant across various cultures in the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. It presents a comprehensive analysis of the complexities surrounding these concepts in biblical texts and examines their historical scholarly research, offering insights into their evolution and significance over time.

Focusing on the literary conventions of communal lament, this book explores their evolution in post-exilic penitential prayers. It highlights shared structural elements and delves into the literary connections between the psalms and the prayers, offering insights into how these texts reflect and modify traditional themes of lamentation and repentance.

In the last two decades, increasing numbers of texts have been suggested as coming from or edited during the Persian period, but these discussions do not always reflect extensively on the assumptions used in making these claims or the implications on a broader scale. Earlier generations of scholars found it sufficient to categorize material in the biblical books simply as „late“ or „postexilic“ without adequately trying to determine when, by whom, and why the material was incorporated into the text at a fixed point in the Persian period. By grappling with these questions, the essays in this volume evince a greater degree of precision vis-à-vis dating and historical context. The authors introduce the designations early Persian, middle Persian, and late Persian in their textual analysis, and collectively they take significant steps toward developing criteria for locating a biblical text within the Persian period.