Conversing with God
The Conversational Prayers in the Hebrew Bible
by Terry Giles
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
Talk is essential to human social life. Through conversation we form friendships, share dreams and hopes, and develop a common outlook on the world around us. Talk with God can achieve the same thing. This book examines the conversational prayers in the Hebrew Bible, their structure and content, to understand how talk with God forms friendship, shares dreams and hopes, and develops a Divine-human outlook on the world. Conversation forces the petitioner to surrender control of the encounter and become susceptible to unscripted give and take with the Divine. Conversation with God is always a risk, but the rewards can be great. Through conversation Abraham and Moses became friends with God. The same can be true for us.
Terry Giles is Professor of Theology at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Previous books include A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible (2009), The Samaritan Pentateuch, with Robert T. Anderson (2012), and The Naomi Story—The Book of Ruth, with William J. Doan (Cascade, 2016).
“Written with wondrous theological sensitivity and sophisticated interpretive skill, Terry Giles’s Conversing with God is perfect for book clubs, Bible studies, or classrooms that are daring enough to explore the power and vulnerability of conversational prayers in the Hebrew Scriptures. Following in the footsteps of Martin Buber’s ‘I-Thou’ philosophy, this little book is a treasure grove of insights on divine-human dialogue, then and now.”
—Louis Stulman, University of Findlay
“Terry Giles uses the techniques of conversational analysis to gain a deeper understanding of those prayers in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible that are presented as conversations between a human actor and God. What he discovers will bring the reader a deeper appreciation of the different ways the various biblical writers express their ideas about the relationship between the human and the divine.”
—Glenn Holland, Allegheny College, emeritus
“I have collaborated with Terry Giles several times and find him to be one of the most thoughtful and meticulous scholars I know. In Conversing with God, he continues to bring rigorous scholarship and analysis to the Hebrew Bible while laying bare a path to a deeply personal and meaningful connection to God and to the act of praying.”
—William J. Doan, Penn State University
“Conversation analysis has been applied to various types of biblical writings, but not to prayers. Terry Giles has now produced a volume that does exactly that . . . . What makes this particularly important is that prayer is the most intimate form of interaction between God and humans. . . . Giles is to be thanked for adding this dimension to biblical studies.”
—Victor H. Matthews, Missouri State University
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