Lamentations: An Introduction and Study Guide

✍ Scribed by Jill Middlemas

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 145
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In this guide, Jill Middlemas introduces students to the Book of Lamentations by examining the book's structure and characteristics, covering the latest in biblical scholarship on Lamentations, including historical and interpretive issues, and considering a range of scholarly approaches. In particular, the guide provides students with an introduction to Hebrew poetry as it relates to Lamentations and includes insights from the field of trauma and postcolonial studies.
With suggestions of further reading at the end of each chapter, this guide will be an essential accompaniment to study of Lamentations.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Preface
Introduction
The Book of How
Placement in the canon
Tradition of authorship
A brief overview of Lamentations
Attempts to synchronize Lamentations
Outline of the guide
1 The literature of Lamentations: Poetic art
Lamentations as poetry
External structure
Alphabetic and acrostic poems
Internal structure
Parallelism
Enjambment
Qînah metre or rhythm
Internal stylistic features
Speaking voices
Personification
Figurative language and imagery
2 The literature of Lamentations: Composition history and matters of form
The genre of Lamentations
Laments and dirges
The city lament
Penitential prayer
City lament over Zion
Penitential Lament over Zion
The formation of grief
3 The historical background of Lamentations
Matters of composition
Inner-biblical correspondence
Composition history and the evidence of individual poems
Composition history and the role of a redactor
Socio-historical context: The background of war and systemic collapse
The remnant in Judah
The exiles in Babylonia
Sitz im Leben: Mourning rituals in the ancient Near East and the Bible
4 Theological and contextual readings in Lamentations
Theological discussions
Lamentations and its theological traditions
The theological message of Lamentations
Theologies of Lamentations
Socio-contextual readings
Trauma studies and Lamentations
Feminist criticism and Lamentations
Post-colonial criticism and Lamentations
Reception history and Lamentations
Reception in the biblical period
Reception in the post-biblical period
Reception in the fine arts: Music, literature and art
5 Readings in Lamentations
A text of terror
Post-colonial awareness: Silencing and the voices of the marginalized
Silencing alternative perspectives through appeal to God
Honouring suffering under imperial exploitation
Reading for comfort and compassion
Works cited by chapter
Bibliography
Index of authors
Index of references