CONTENTS

Editor's Foreword

Abbreviations

Preface

Prolegomena

1. Worship as a Subject in Old Testament Studies

The History Paradigm

The Collapse of the History Paradigm

From History to Vision: A New Interpretive Context for the Study of Worship

Part One The World That Shaped the Torah's Vision

2. Persian Politics and the Shaping of the Pentateuch Persian Imperial Politics

Imperial Mechanisms for Social Control

3. The Torah as Vision

The Torah's Vision: An Overview

Between the Idea and the Reality

Summary

Part Two The Torah's Vision: "You Shall Be for Me a Priestly Kingdom and a Holy Nation"

4. Creation's Liturgy and the Cosmic Covenant

Genesis i—z: The Liturgy of Creation

A Fragile World, an Earthly Altar, a Cosmic Commitment

From Cosmic Covenant to Everlasting Covenantal Relationship

Paradigms for Worship

5. The Liturgy of Covenant

"A Priestly Kingdom and a Holy Nation":

Covenant as Vocation (Exodus 19—24)

Covenant as Sanctuary Building and World Building (Exodus 25-40)

Paradigms for Ministry: Prayer as Covenantal Vocation

6. Covenant Holiness

The Priestly World of Ritual

Covenantal Holiness (Leviticus 17-26)

Paradigms of Worship: The Ministry of Priesthood

7. At the Border: The Ever New, Ever Renewing

Summons to the Torah's Vision

The "Boundary Character" of Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy as Constitutional Polity

The Ever New, Ever Renewing Summons to the Torah's Vision

Part Three The Vision That Shapes "Another World to Live In"

8. At the Border of a New Millennium:

Is This the Way the World Ends?

The Disappearance of God

In the Interim: The Burden of Faith in a God Inexorably Hidden

At the Border of a New Millennium:

"Surely Some Revelation Is at Hand"

9. Another World to Live In

The Torah's Invitation to a Counterimagination of the World

"Show Us in This World an Example

of the World to Come"

Index of Ancient Sources

Index of Authors