An Apocryphal God: Beyond Divine Maturity

by Mark McEntire (Editor)

Overview

In Portraits of a Mature God, Mark McEntire traced the narrative development of the divine character in the Old Testament, placing the God portrayed at the end of that long story at the center of theological discussion. He showed that Israels understanding of God had developed into a complex, multipurpose being who could work within a new reality, a world that included a semiautonomous province of Yehud and a burgeoning Mesopotamian-Mediterranean world in which the Jewish people lived and moved in a growing diversity of ways.

Now, McEntire continues that story beyond the narrative end of the Hebrew Bible as Israel and Israels God moved into the Hellenistic world. The narrative McEntire perceives in the apocryphal literature describes a God protecting and guiding the scattered and persecuted, a God responding to suffering in revolt, and a God disclosing mysteries, yet also hidden in the symbolism of dreams and visions. McEntire here provides a coherent and compelling account of theological perspectives in the apocryphal writings and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451470352
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	08/01/2015
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 2.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark McEntire is professor of biblical studies at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He has authored widely used textbooks The Old Testament Story, Ninth Edition (2012), and Struggling with God: An Introduction to the Pentateuch (2008); scholarly works, Dangerous Worlds: Living and Dying in Biblical Texts (2004) and The Blood of Abel: The Violent Plot in the Hebrew Bible (1999); and, with Joel Emerson, Raising Cain, Fleeing Egypt, and Fighting Philistines: The Old Testament in Popular Music (2006). This work follows his successful Portraits of a Mature God: Choices in Old Testament Theology (Fortress Press, 2013).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

1 God Moves On 1

2 God of the Defeated and Scattered, Part I 31

3 God of the Defeated and Scattered, Part II 67

4 God of the Defeated and Scattered, Part III 95

5 God of Revolt 125

6 God of Dreams and Visions 161

7 God of the Future 193

8 Where Do We Go from Here? 225

Bibliography 239

Index of Subjects 255

Index of Authors 265

Index of Ancient Texts 269