Prayer in the Hebrew Bible

by Balentine, Samuel E.

• ISBN13: 9780800626150
• ISBN10: 080062615X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-03-01
• Publisher: Fortress Pr

Summary

Balentine invites the reader to consider several aspects of prayer in the Hebrew Bible: prayer and the depiction of character, prayer and the characterization of God, prayers for divine justice, the lament tradition, sensible praise, prayer in Old Testament theology, and the motif of the church as "a house of prayer".

Table of Contents

Editor's Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations
The Subject and the Interpreter	p. 1
The Context of the Church	p. 3
The Context of the Academy	p. 6
The Method	p. 13
Previous Studies: Comparative Religion and Form Criticism	p. 13
The Present Approach: Literary and Theological Functions	p. 18
In the Beginning God	p. 33
God's Relatedness to Humanity	p. 34
God's Relatedness to the World	p. 38
Prayer and the Depiction of Character	p. 48
Prayer as a Means of Confirming Status	p. 50
Prayer as a Means of Caricature	p. 64
The Temple as a House of Prayer	p. 80
Prayer and the Characterization of God	p. 89
Prayers for Divine Intervention	p. 91
Prayers of Penitence	p. 103
Prayers for Divine Justice	p. 118
Three Basic Features	p. 120
Examples of Prayers for Justice	p. 123
Prayer as a Vehicle of Theodicy	p. 139
The Lament Tradition: Holding to God against God	p. 146
Jeremiah's Confessions	p. 150
Job	p. 168
Habakkuk	p. 183
Perspectives on Theodicy in the Hebrew Bible	p. 189
Praise That Makes Sense	p. 199
The Baruk Sentences	p. 203
Extended Hymnic Pieces in Narrative Contexts	p. 213
Prayer in the Theology of the Hebrew Bible	p. 225
The Neglect of the Subject "Prayer" in the Theology of the Hebrew Bible	p. 225
Retrospect and Prospect: The Need for a Study of the Study	p. 246
The Theology in Hebraic Prayer	p. 260
The Divine-Human Relationship Is Fundamentally Dialogical	p. 261
Prayer's Portrait of God	p. 264
Prayer's Portrait of Humanity	p. 267
Prayer as a Constitutive Act of Faith	p. 268
House of Prayer or Den of Robbers?
A Summons to the Church	p. 272
Keeping The Community in God	p. 273
Keeping God in the Community	p. 284
Index of Modern Authors	p. 297
Index of Scripture References	p. 302
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