Marxist Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Second Edition

Thoroughly rewriting his 2003 work with the biblical scholar and student in mind, Roland Boer presents a wide-range of Marxist critical theorists on biblical texts from Genesis to Daniel. The admirable result is a variety of provocative readings of dialectical richness. Boer offers an excellent entrée into the depth and complexities of these philosophical thinkers, who tackled issues of economic exploitation and injustice head-on. His readings provide biblical scholars new ways of approaching texts that have been used in oppressive struggles throughout the course of history. * Gale A. Yee, Episcopal Divinity School, USA *
Roland Boer offers a fascinating ‘close reading’ of biblical texts with the help of Marxist hermeneutics. He connects the texts with the socio-economic context in which they are written, with respect to what those texts themselves want to express. Different from the historical-critical interpretation of the Bible, in which history is the critique of the text, he shows how the tensions in the text itself make possible an immanent critique of its ideology: the never-ending attempt to oppress the protest. After this book it will be very difficult to read the Hebrew Bible as only a historical or religious document. * Dick Boer, University of Gröningen, the Netherlands *