Books by Morna D. Hooker

This book, dedicated to the memory of David Stacey, Morna Hooker's late husband, is an expanded version of the Shaffer Lectures delivered atYale Divinity School in February 1995. It is more than just a commemoration, however, since it also carries on David Stacey's work on Prophe...tic Drama in the Old Testament, published by Epworth Press in 1990, and contains as an appendix his ideas for a second volume, outlined in a lecture on 'The Last Supper as Prophetic Drama'. Professor Hooker begins by reviewing the prophetic actions in the OId Testament and compares them with the way in which prophetic figures behaved in Jesus' day, in particular John the Baptist and the so-called sign prophets. Then she turns to Jesus himself and considers those actions which can be described as prophetic signs or dramas. She discusses the sign of Jonah, the refusal to perform signs, the miracles and other prophetic actions like the renaming of Simon, Jesus' eating with tax-collectors and sinners and the prophetic signs associated with Jerusalem, reaching a climax in the Last Supper. A final chapter examines the different ways in which the four evangelists interpreted Jesus' prophetic actions. Here is a fascinating study which contributes much to our understanding of the Gospel tradition and shows that biblical theology is still alive and flourishing. Morna Hooker was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Robinson College.
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Most readers of the New Testament have a clearly defined attitude towards the Apostle Paul, and frequently it is a negative one. In many instances, their opinion is based upon a combination of misunderstanding, prejudice, and a failure to recognize that Paul wrote for an age very... different from our own. We naturally tend to interpret Paul from our own standpoint, forgetting that the situation of the early Christian community was totally unlike that of Christians today. The result is that Paul is not allowed to speak for himself, but is expected to answer our questions--and blamed when he fails to do so to our satisfaction. This introduction to the church's first great theologian does not attempt to produce a systematic account of his theology. Indeed, it begins from the recognition that such an attempt is impossible: all we have on which to base our reconstruction of Paul's thought is part of his correspondenc with some of his churches, and usually we have to guess at what these letters presuppose. All too often, readers of Paul make the mistake of treating the Pauline material as a corpus of teaching, comprehensive in its range and timeless in its relevance. Pauline Pieces attempts to show that we distort Paul's meaning when we treat him in this way, but that by trying to put ourselves imaginatively into his situation we can begin to understand how the Apostle's thought can still be relevant to us today. Morna Hooker is Lady Margeret's Professor of Divinity Emerita at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Robinson College.
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