Seeking the Favor of God: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism

The late 1990s saw a flurry of significant publications on the Second Temple era, and in response the Society of Biblical Literature set up a series of annual meetings designed to encourage mutual consultation. The idea worked admirably, and these 11 papers chosen from those meetings cross the typical disciplinarian lines of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Second Temple literature, the New Testament, post-70 CE Judaism, and early Christianity, resulting not only in accomplished work but also in avenues for future research. Contributors address penitential prayer with the context of the Second Temple era, the state of scholarship, confession as a theological expression, the socio-ideological setting or settings for penitential prayers, priestly performance as speech act, lament in Trito-Isaiah's penitential prayer and within Jeremiah and Joel, the concept of guilt in Isaiah, the literary lament of Ezra 9:6-15, and the contributions of form criticism. Society of Biblical Literature publishes the paperbound edition; Brill publishes the hardbound. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)