150 words: The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah contain oracles that address problems in and around ancient Judah in ways that are as incisive and critical as they are optimistic and constructive. Daniel C. Timmer’s The Theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah situates these books in their social and political contexts and examines the unique theology of each as it engages with imposing problems in Judah and beyond. In dialogue with recent scholarship, this study focuses on these books’ analysis and evaluation of the world as it is, focusing on both human beings and their actions and God’s commitment to purify, restore, and perfect the world. Timmer also surveys these books’ later theological use and cultural reception. Timmer also brings their theology into dialogue with concerns as varied as ecology, nationalism, and widespread injustice, highlighting the enduring significance of divine justice and grace for solid hope and effective service in our world.

50 words: This volume examines the powerful and poignant theology of the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Daniel C. Timmer situates these books’ theology in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and traces its multifaceted contribution to Jewish and Christian theology and to broader cultural spheres, without neglecting its contemporary significance.

20 words: This volume draws out the theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, attending to their ancient contexts, past use and reception, and contemporary significance.

To understand Irenaeus and the canonical collection, particularly the revision of Paul’s letters, we need to look into the parallel redaction and revision of the famous collection of letters who pseudonymously were credited to Ignatius of Antioch. With him being backdated to the beginning of the second century by Eusebius of Caesarea, his collection of seven letters of which Eusebius is the first to speak, provides the cornerstone for the ancient anti-heretic, anti-Jewish and monepiscopal church history of the beginnings of Christianity. A critical reading of both, Paul’s letters and those of the spurious Ignatius, however, allows to dismantle the fictional account that served Irenaeus and his apologetic followers through the centuries to cement early Christian orthodoxy.

Prior to the dialogue on Easter morning that forms the major part of this work, the Epistula Apostolorum includes a sequence of seven stories of Jesus’ miracles. Since this text also includes references to his birth and his ascension, its scope is comparable to that of the Gospel of Luke, in contrast to other so-called ‘dialogue gospels’, which focus exclusively on post-Easter appearances of the risen Lord. Skilfully integrated into its context within the Epistula, the miracle sequence opens with a story from Jesus’ childhood also attested in non-canonical sources, here illustrating a Christology which differentiates the pre-existent from the incarnate Christ. This is followed by a version of the water-into-wine story that seems to preserve pre-Johannine features, challenging the assumption that Jesus traditions in non-canonical sources always postdate and depend upon their canonical versions. Other miracles recounted in this group of stories shows awareness of synoptic traditions, although substantial redactional elements are also present.

Uses the ideas of revision and reuse to reframe scholarly conversations about rewriting within manuscripts and versions of the Hebrew Bible. Shows how canonically oriented labels like “rewritten Bible” and “innerbiblical exegesis” impede our understanding, and how the neutral terms used here can facilitate comparison to rewriting in other corpora.

This chapter begins the text-critical study at the heart of the book. It analyzes the relationship between two different and redundant types of text-segments in the extant text, chapters (ādhyāyas) and topics (prakaraṇas). The chapters are shown to have been added at a later time. So, too, the verses that conclude each of these chapters in the extant text are shown to have been added along with the chapter segments. This chapter goes on to argue that all, or nearly all, of the verses in the text are later additions. Other additions made at the end of certain chapters are identified.

An exploration of a formal feature in the Arthaśāstra called "citation" (apadeśa), in which various authorities on statecraft are cited. These citations are usually presented in the form of dialogic exchanges, and the triumphant position as attributed to Kauṭilya, the individual to whom the text is ascribed in two (late) verses. This chapter shows that, like the chapters and verses, the citations are also a later addition dating to the same redaction of the text. Finally, this chapter argues that "Kauṭilya" must be the name not of the original composer of the text, but of the redactor who brought it to its present form.

An overview of the historiography of the Arthaśāstra, beginning with a presentation of the text's formal and informal features. This chapter then goes on to explore the traditional history of the text, which assigns it to a figure called Cāṇakya who probably lived in the late fourth/early third century BCE. A critique of this account is offered based on a preliminary examination of the text's features. Rules out the possibility that the extant text could have been produced at one time by a single author.

The stages of development identified in the text-critical chapters of this study are then put into chronological relationship with other texts of the period. This chapter presents an argument that the Arthaśāstra, which was probably originally called the Daṇḍanīti, was composed around the first century BCE and redacted by Kauṭilya around the third century CE. This allows us to trace the development of certain political concepts in the text, which is undertaken in the final three chapters.

Isa 24–27 is lacking many of the generic components that characterize apocalypses, but early assessments of it as such have continued to exercise influence. Eschatological imagery of widespread destruction not only is shared with other early biblical texts such as Zephaniah and Amos but also is part of a widespread ANE tradition of divine destruction of the natural order. There is no reason to suppose that images of the divine disruption of the natural order are characteristic of a late period.

Such imagery of widespread disorder was commonly used as a precursor to the reimposition of order by a righteous king. In other words, the rhetoric of chaos was a form of royal propaganda arguing that a current ruler had brought about (or would bring about) the flourishing of his land, as he was supposed to do. As for why a supposedly royal, propagandistic text does not mention the king. It has pointed out that a similar text, the Potter’s Oracle, can be empirically shown to have started out as political propaganda and to have been stripped of its original historical context so that it came to appear apocalyptic in a similar way to Isa 24–27.