The Five Scrolls

Athalya Brenner-Idan, Gale A. Yee, Daniel Patte

"In this collection, scholars from diverse geographical locations revisit a cluster of five biblical texts: Ruth, Song of Songs, Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), Lamentations and Esther. The volume presents various viewpoints and contexts--geographical, communal, religious, social, economical and ethical. Matching scholarship with social awareness, the contributors keep asking themselves and their readers a dual-faced question: how does our life context influence our scholarly and non-scholarly readings of the Bible, and how does reading the Bible critically influence our life? To answer this question and to show it at work the contributors employ a range of contextual lenses. Geography is a major factor of the contributors' contexts - with contributors from South Africa, Argentina, Israel, the Pacific Islands - but not the only one to influence their readings. Issues of society, culture and...