LAMENTATIONS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Covering a rich landscape of literary, theological and cultural creativity, the authors explore the astonishing variety of interpretations inspired by "Lamentations," one of the shortest books in the Bible. Features a wealth of reactions - covering two and a half millennia - to this ancient text's influential and unflinching account of the devastation wreaked by warExplores a kaleidoscope of examples ranging from the Dead Sea Scrolls; Yehudah Halevy; John Calvin; and composer, Thomas Tallis; through to the startling interpretations of Marc Chagall; contemporary novelist, Cynthia Ozick; and Zimbabwean junk sculptureDeploys "reception exegesis," a new genre of commentary that creatively blends reception history and biblical exegesisOffers sensitive treatment of challenging theological and psychological responses to one of the most disturbing books of the Hebrew BibleWidely relevant, with nuanced reflections - both religious and secular - on human suffering and the disasters of war

Paul M. Joyce holds the Samuel Davidson Chair in Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible at King's College London. He is the author of Ezekiel: A Commentary (2007), and Divine Initiative and Human Response in Ezekiel (1989), and is co-editor of After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet (with Andrew Mein, 2011), and Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D.Goulder (with Stanley E. Porter and David E. Orton, 1994).

Diana Lipton teaches at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Rothberg International School. She has been a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, as well as Reader in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal Dreams of Genesis (1999) and Longing for Egypt and Other Unexpected Biblical Tales (2008), and is co-editor of Feminism and Theology (with Janet Martin Soskice, 2003) and Studies on the Text and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon (with Geoffrey Kahn, 2011).