{"product_id":"9781906055943","title":"Sacred Texts And Sacred Meanings","description":"John Sawyer has been known for over 40 years as one of the finest\u003cbr\u003eBritish biblical scholars, always alert to new perspectives in biblical criticism and a pioneer in fruitful applications of new, often interdisciplinary, research methods. He has been an inspiring teacher to generations of students in Glasgow (1964-65), Newcastle upon\u003cbr\u003eTyne (1965-94), Lancaster (1994-2002) and Oxford (2005-2008).\u003cbr\u003eFrom the very beginning he saw the need to apply sound linguistic theory to the study of the Bible, with the fundamental insight that all texts can have, and very often have had, more than one meaning.\u003cbr\u003eNo one meaning can claim priority over the others, he argues. The\u003cbr\u003e'original meaning', more or less convincingly reconstructed by modern scholarship, can claim chronological priority, but that is all.\u003cbr\u003eWhat the text has meant to its Jewish and Christian readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any\u003cbr\u003e'original' meaning.\u003cbr\u003eThis is the unifying strand in the whole of his work, from his groundbreaking\u003cbr\u003eSemantics in Biblical Research: New Methods of Defining\u003cbr\u003eHebrew Words for Salvation (1972) and his From Moses to Patmos:\u003cbr\u003eNew Perspectives in Old Testament Study (1977) to his fascinating The\u003cbr\u003eFifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (1996) and his\u003cbr\u003eSacred Languages and Sacred Texts (1999). Among his most recent major contributions in this area have been his co-editorship of the\u003cbr\u003eBlackwell Bible Commentary Series, his edited Blackwell\u003cbr\u003eCompanion to the Bible and Culture (2006) and his own Concise\u003cbr\u003eDictionary of the Bible and its Reception (2009).\u003cbr\u003eIn 2011 John Sawyer was elected President of the Society for Old\u003cbr\u003eTestament Study, and to celebrate that appointment Sheffield Phoenix\u003cbr\u003ePress is honoured to present this representative selection of 46 of his papers, some previously unpublished and some originally published in rather obscure places.","brand":"Sheffield Phoenix Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47050954178800,"sku":"9781906055943","price":130.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781906055943_p0.jpg?v=1763615946","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781906055943","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}