Just Published

Fortunate the Eyes That See

eds. Astrid B. Beck, Andrew H. Bartelt, Paul R. Raabe, Chris A. Franke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 682 pp., $45

Written by leading scholars in honor of David Noel Freedman on his seventieth birthday, these forty essays survey biblical studies today—covering nearly as wide a range of topics as Freedman himself has pioneered (the complete bibliography of his works included at the end of this volume takes nearly 40 pages).

Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East

by Moshe Weinfeld (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995), 300 pp., $34

Weinfeld clarifies the meaning of the Hebrew phrase mishpat u’tzedekah, meaning “justice and righteousness,” which the Bible uses to describe an ideal, future king. Examining the use of the phrase in the social reform literature of ancient Israel and the Near East, Weinfeld identifies the concept with social justice, which, he suggests, took on religious significance in Israel. The philological, sociological, historical and theological aspects of the term and what is required of kings and individuals are all discussed.

Judaism in the New Testament