Lamentations Through the Centuries

Product Description One of the shortest books in the Bible, Lamentations exercises a disproportionately powerful cultural influence. As an unflinching account of the devastation wreaked by war, it has been called upon again and again by Jews, Christians, and others in their responses to catastrophes as varied as the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, the Great Fire of London, the Holocaust and 9/11. Covering two and a half millennia of liturgy and literature, theology and psychology, art, music and film, this volume explores the astonishing variety of cultural and religious responses to Lamentations, taking in the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yehudah Halevy, John Calvin, and Thomas Tallis, as well as the startling interpretations of Marc Chagall, Cynthia Ozick, Alice Miller, and Zimbabwean junk sculpture. Viewed through this kaleidoscope of sources, the ancient biblical text acquires a vital and resonant new life.Lamentations Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries series. Further information about this innovative reception-history series is available at www.bbibcomm.net Review “I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is informative, thought-provoking, and –despite being a commentary – holds the reader’s attention. It made me appreciateLamentations in a new way. To be recommended.”  (The Swedish Exegetical Yearbook 2014, 1 October 2014)  Review “In this engrossing investigation of Lamentations --a splendid addition to the Wiley-Blackwell commentary series-- Paul Joyce and Diana Lipton draw on a fascinating array of visual, literary, musical, scholarly, religious and secular responses […] an indispensable resource for scholars and students of the book of Lamentations, for those interested in the manifold ways it has been interpreted and appropriated, and for anyone curious about reception history in general and what it can teach us.”—J. Cheryl Exum, University of Sheffield“Mourning the physical Jerusalem is the business of the biblical Lamentations. Showing us how this is done in the book and in its reception history, over the ages, is the business of the present volume. The volume's value as guide through mourning is greatly enhanced by its inception as a Jewish-Christian authorly cooperation. Jerusalem the symbolical is thus well served; and we, the readers, those who nurture our own Jerusalems, gain a guide to mourning—as much necessary, perhaps, as any guide for joy.”—Athalya Brenner, Universiteit van Amsterdam From the Inside Flap One of the shortest books in the Bible, Lamentations exercises a disproportionately powerful cultural influence. As an unflinching account of the devastation wreaked by war, it has been called upon again and again by Jews, Christians, and others in their responses to catastrophes as varied as the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, the Great Fire of London, the Holocaust and 9/11. Covering two and a half millennia of liturgy and literature, theology and psychology, art, music and film, this volume explores the astonishing variety of cultural and religious responses to Lamentations, taking in the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yehudah Halevy, John Calvin, and Thomas Tallis, as well as the startling interpretations of Marc Chagall, Cynthia Ozick, Alice Miller, and Zimbabwean junk sculpture. Viewed through this kaleidoscope of sources, the ancient biblical text acquires a vital and resonant new life.Lamentations Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries series. Further information about this innovative reception-history series is available at www.bbibcomm.net From the Back Cover One of the shortest books in the Bible, Lamentations exercises a disproportionately powerful cultural influence. As an unflinching account of the devastation wreaked by war, it has been called upon again and again by Jews, Christians, and others in their responses to catastrophes as v