(Relatively) New From SBL: Movies, Noah, and Philo

Another publication announcement culled from the depths of my inbox. The first title looks especially good; I've become increasingly interested in cinematic depictions of biblical themes, and of Jesus in particular, in recent years.

Images of the Word: Hollywood’s Bible and Beyond
David Shepherd

Images of the Word: Hollywood’s Bible and Beyond is a collection of essays by leading international scholars in the field of Bible and film. Recognizing the increasingly global nature of both media and religion, the volume focuses on the ways in which the Bible is interpreted and visualized not only within Hollywood but also far beyond it. Cutting-edge analysis of films from France, Canada, Sweden, India, and elsewhere reveals that the Bible’s visualization is culturally rooted and contributes to the shaping of a particular culture, including its perception of the Bible itself. Essays range across the canon from Exodus to Ecclesiastes to Revelation, interacting with films of various national traditions and periods from Blackton’s Life of Moses (1909) to Karunamayudu (1978) to Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999). The volume engages the breadth of current scholarly interest in this interdisciplinary field, including the critical reading of “Bible films,” the exploration of biblical motifs and themes within contemporary cinema, and concluding responses to the essays from both a biblical scholar and a film scholar.

Paper $25.95 — ISBN 9781589832756 — 240 pages — Semeia Studies 54 — Hardback edition www.brill.nl


Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity
Dorothy M. Peters

As father of all humanity and not exclusively of Israel, Noah was a problematic ancestor for some Jews in the Second Temple period. His archetypical portrayals in the Dead Sea Scrolls, differently nuanced in Hebrew and Aramaic, embodied the tensions for groups that were struggling to understand both their distinctive self-identities within Judaism and their relationship to the nations among whom they lived. Dually located within a trajectory of early Christian and rabbinic interpretation of Noah and within the Jewish Hellenistic milieu of the Second Temple period, this study of the Noah traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls illuminates living conversations and controversies among the people who transmitted them and promises to have implications for ancient questions and debates that extended considerably beyond the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Paper $29.95 — ISBN 9781589833906 — 276 pages — Early Judaism and Its Literature 26 — Hardback edition www.brill.nl




Studia Philonica Annual XX, 2008
David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling, editors

The Studia Philonica Annual is a scholarly journal devoted to furthering the study of Hellenistic Judaism, and in particular the writings and thought of the Hellenistic-Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria (circa 15 B.C.E. to circa 50 C.E.). This volume includes articles, a special section on Philo’s De Abrahamo, a bibliography section, and book reviews.

Hardback $42.95 — ISBN 9781589833944 — 268 pages — Studia Philonica Annual 20