Product Description: Images of books appear in art, advertising and commercial logos to symbolize learning, knowledge and wisdom. In religious and secular rituals around the globe, people carry, show, wave, touch and kiss books and other texts, as well as read them...read more

Product Description: James Watts uses rhetorical analysis for this detailed exposition of Leviticus 1-10. In dialogue with a wide variety of contemporary scholarship on Leviticus, this commentary also engages the history of the book's interpretation and the history of Jewish and Christian ritual practices...read more

Product Description: Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus uses rhetorical analysis to expose the motives behind the writing of the central book of the Torah/Pentateuch and its persuasive function in ancient Judaism. Rhetorical analysis of Leviticus has implications not only for the form and contents of that book, but also for understanding the later history of the rhetoric of priesthood, of sacrifice, and especially of scripture...read more

Product Description: This book addresses the literary, historical and methodological issues which have been raised by the appearance of psalms in narrative contexts of the Hebrew Bible. The narrative role of each psalm is explored to determine the reasons for its present position...read more

Product Description: This collection of essays focuses on the book of Job, exploring the complex interplay of methodology and hermeneutics. There are two major parts: approaches that are primarily historical, i.e. the recovery of what the text 'meant'; and those that are contextual, i...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: Watts here argues that conventions of oral rhetoric were adapted to shape the literary form and contents of the Pentateuch. The large-scale structure-stories introducing lists of laws that conclude with divine sanctions-reproduces a common ancient strategy for persuasion...read more

Product Description: These essays are written in honour of John D.W. Watts, formerly Professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky and Old Testament editor of the Word Biblical Commentary, well known for his contributions, especially to scholarship on the prophetic books...read more