Torah: Functions, Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity
William M. Schniedewind, Jason M. Zurawski, and Gabriele Boccaccini, editors

Scholars of early Jewish and Christian literature rethink some of the most basic scholarly assumptions and preconceptions about the nature of torah in light of new critical approaches. Essays explore torah through philological, historical-critical, cultural-historical, transcultural, postcolonial, biocultural evolutionary, material, and performance studies—methodologies that better address the complexity of the topic and better reflect the ambiguity and fluidity inherent in the concept of torah itself.

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Postclassical Greek and Septuagint Lexicography
William A. Ross

In this study of the language of the Septuagint, William A. Ross approaches the corpus in light of its contemporary Greek linguistic environment rather than by comparing the Greek to a supposed Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage. Ross employs a textually based study of the double text of Judges. The results offer a window into the Old Greek translation and its later revision, two distinct stages of the book with numerous instances of divergent vocabulary choices that reflect deliberateness in both the original selection and the subsequent change within the textual development of the book. In the process, Ross also outlines the many challenges of Septuagint lexicography and points the way forward.

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Apocalyptic Sheep and Goats in Matthew and 1 Enoch 
Elekosi F. Lafitaga

In this volume Elekosi F. Lafitaga reexamines Matthew’s vision of the sheep and goats in the judgment of the nations, which are often interpreted as metaphors for the saved and the condemned. Lafitaga views these images in the wider context of the rhetoric of apocalyptic communication stretching back to Matthew 3. This broader context reveals that the vision of Matthew 25 serves to exhort Israel in the here and now according to the torah, with salvation for Israel involving an indispensable responsibility to love and serve humanity. Central to Lafitaga’s analysis is the highly probable scenario that the material in Matthew is dependent on the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83–90).

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