Seeking the Favor of God: Volume 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism

The essays collected in this volume investigate the development of prayers of penitence within Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The book provides a critical overview of the present state of research on these prayers, and leading experts in the field use a variety of methodologies to investigate afresh various texts from the Hebrew Bible, apocryphal (deuterocanonical) and pseudepigraphical works, and the Qumran corpus in order to provide new insights into this prayer tradition. Contributors include Russell C. D. Arnold, Esther G. Chazon, Daniel K. Falk, LeAnn Snow Flesher, Michael H. Floyd, Judith H. Newman, Bilhah Nitzan, Eileen Schuller, Pieter M. Venter, and Rodney A. Werline. Seeking the Favor of God includes three volumes covering the origins, development, and impact of penitential prayer in Second Temple Judaism.

Mark J. Boda, Ph.D. (1996) in Old Testament, University of Cambridge, is Professor of Old Testament, McMaster Divinity College, and Professor, Faculty of Theology, McMaster University. He coedited Repentance in Christian Theology (Liturgical/Michael Glazier) and authored Praying the Tradition: The Origin and Use of Tradition in Nehemiah 9 (de Gruyter). Daniel K. Falk, Ph.D. (1996) in Qumran Studies, University of Cambridge, is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Ancient Judaism at the University of Oregon and author of Parabiblical Texts (T&T Clark) and Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Brill). Rodney A. Werline, Ph.D. (1995) in Early Judaism and Early Christianity in the Greco-Roman World, University of Iowa, is Associate Professor of Religion at Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina, and author of Pray Like This (Continuum) and Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution (Scholars Press).