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478 books match the query 'Bible' and 124 start with t

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Teaching the Bible through Popular Culture and the Arts

Mark Roncace

SBL Press, 2007

This resource enables biblical studies instructors to facilitate engaging classroom experiences by drawing on the arts and popular culture. It offers brief overviews of hundreds of easily accessible examples of art, film, literature, music, and other media and outlines strategies for incorporating them effectively and concisely in the classroom. Although designed primarily for college and seminary courses on the Bible, the ideas can easily be adapted for classes such as “Theology and Literature” or “Religion and Art” as well as for nonacademic settings. This compilation is an invaluable resource for anyone who teaches the Bible.

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Teaching the Bible with Undergraduates

Jocelyn McWhirter

SBL Press, 2022

Teaching the Bible with Undergraduates offers concrete strategies for Bible instruction in college classrooms. Each essay pays special attention to the needs of tech-savvy students whose sensibilities, aspirations, expectations, and preferred ways of learning may differ significantly from those of their instructors. The volume’s contributors, all biblical scholars and undergraduate instructors, focus on best pedagogical practices using concrete examples while sharing effective strategies. Essays and quick tips treat topics, including general education, reading skills, student identities, experiential learning, and instructional technology. Contributors include Kimberly Bauser McBrien, George Branch-Trevathan, Callie Callon, Lesley DiFransico, Nicholas A. Elder, Timothy A. Gabrielson, Kathleen Gallagher Elkins, Susan E. Haddox, Seth Heringer, John Hilton III, Melanie A. Howard, Christopher M. Jones, Steve Jung, Katherine Low, Timothy Luckritz Marquis, Kara J. Lyons-Pardue, Jocelyn McWhirter, Sylvie T. Raquel, Eric A. Seibert, Hanna Tervanotko, Carl N. Toney, John Van Maaren, and Robby Waddell. This book provides an essential resource not only for instructors at the undergraduate level but also for anyone who teaches biblical studies in the classroom.

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Teaching the Bible

Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction

Mark Roncace

SBL Press, 2005

While books on pedagogy in a theoretical mode have proliferated in recent years, there have been few that offer practical, specific ideas for teaching particular biblical texts. To address this need, Teaching the Bible, a collection of ideas and activities written by dozens of innovative college and seminary professors, outlines effective classroom strategies—with a focus on active learning—for the new teacher and veteran professor alike. It includes everything from ways to incorporate film, literature, art, and music to classroom writing assignments and exercises for groups and individuals. The book assumes an academic approach to the Bible but represents a wide range of methodological, theological, and ideological perspectives. This volume is an indispensable resource for anyone who teaches classes on the Bible.

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Tel Dan in Its Northern Cultic Context

Andrew R. Davis

SBL Press, 2013

This work presents in detail a description of archaeological data from the Iron II temple complex at Tel Dan in northern Israel. Davis analyzes the archaeological remains from the ninth and eighth centuries, paying close attention to how the temple functioned as sacred space. Correlating the archaeological data with biblical depictions of worship, especially the “textual strata” of 1 Kings 18 and the book of Amos, Davis argues that the temple was the site of “official” and family religion and that worship at the temple became increasingly centralized. Tel Dan's role in helping reconstruct ancient Israelite religion, especially distinctive religious traditions of the northern kingdom, is also considered.

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Temptation Transformed

The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple

Azzan Yadin-Israel

University of Chicago Press, 2022

A "brisk and entertaining" (Wall Street Journal) journey into the mystery behind why the forbidden fruit became an apple, upending an explanation that stood for centuries.

How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, sin, and the Fall? Temptation Transformed pursues this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, when, and why the forbidden fruit became an apple.

Azzan Yadin-Israel reveals that Eden’s fruit, once thought to be a fig or a grape, first appears as an apple in twelfth-century French art. He then traces this image back to its source in medieval storytelling. Though scholars often blame theologians for the apple, accounts of the Fall written in commonly spoken languages—French, German, and English—influenced a broader audience than cloistered Latin commentators. Azzan Yadin-Israel shows that, over time, the words for “fruit” in these languages narrowed until an apple in the Garden became self-evident. A wide-ranging study of early Christian thought, Renaissance art, and medieval languages, Temptation Transformed offers an eye-opening revisionist history of a central religious icon.

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Text, Image, and Otherness in Children's Bibles

What is in the Picture.

Caroline Vander Stichele

SBL Press, 2012

Children’s Bibles are often the first encounter people have with the Bible, shaping their perceptions of its stories and characters at an early age. The material under discussion in this book not only includes traditional children’s Bibles but also more recent phenomena such as manga Bibles and animated films for children. The book highlights the complex and even tense relationship between text and image in these Bibles, which is discussed from different angles in the essays. Their shared focus is on the representation of “others”—foreigners, enemies, women, even children themselves—in predominantly Hebrew Bible stories. The contributors are Tim Beal, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, Melody Briggs, Rubén R. Dupertuis, Emma England, J. Cheryl Exum, Danna Nolan Fewell, David M. Gunn, Laurel Koepf, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Jeremy Punt, Hugh S. Pyper, Cynthia M. Rogers, Mark Roncace, Susanne Scholz, Jaqueline S. du Toit, and Caroline Vander Stichele.

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Texts and Contexts of the Book of Sirach / Texte und Kontexte des Sirachbuches

Gerhard Karner

SBL Press, 2017

Now available from SBL Press

Thirteen essays, some in German and others in English, tackle the complicated history of textual transmission of Sirach. This book presents the proceedings of an international conference held in 2014 in Eichstaett, Germany on the text of Ben Sira within its historical contexts.Contributors include James K. Aitken, Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, Franz Böhmisch, Anthony J. Forte SJ, Jan Joosten, Otto Kaiser, Siegfried Kreuzer, Jean-Sébastien Rey, Werner Urbanz, Knut Usener, Oda Wischmeyer, Markus Witte, Benjamin G. Wright, and Burkard M. Zapff.

Features:

A sociocultural and theological history of Sirach
Philological and textual problems of the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions
Translation strategies based on Greek, Syriac, and Latin text traditions and related hermeneutical questions

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Textual Criticism and the New Testament Text

Theory, Practice, and Editorial Technique

Eberhard W. Güting

SBL Press, 2020

The fruit of more than three decades of research

This collection of fourteen essays by Eberhard W. Güting covers important aspects of editorial science with a particular focus on New Testament textual criticism. Essays cover textual emendation, text-critical procedures, literary criticism, history of scholarship, advantages and disadvantages of online manuscripts, and text-critical studies of words and phrases. The addition of a substantial introduction to text criticism makes this a valuable resource for students and teachers.

Features

Essays concerned with establishing the original text of New Testament writings
Nine essays published in English for the first tim
Two previously unpublished essays

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Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity

Johannes de Vries

SBL Press, 2013

The essays in this volume summarize an international research project on early Christian citations from Israel’s scriptures. These quotations are not only theologically significant but are also part of the textual history of the Septuagint and adjacent textual traditions of the Greek and Hebrew Old Testament. The essays discuss relevant manuscripts (Bible codices, papyri, etc.) up to the fifth century, signs and marginal notes (e.g., the diplé) that were used in the ancient scriptoria, and the specifics of the reception history in early Christianity from Matthew to 1 Peter and from the apostolic fathers to Theophilos of Antioch. The contributors are Felix Albrecht, Ronald H. van der Bergh, Heinz-Josef Fabry, Kerstin Heider, Martin Karrer, Christin Klein, Arie van der Kooij, Siegfried Kreuzer, Horacio E. Lona, Martin Meiser, Maarten J. J. Menken, Matthias Millard, Darius Müller, Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, Alexander Stokowski, Martin Vahrenhorst, Christiane Veldboer, and Johannes de Vries.

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Textual Signposts in the Argument of Romans

A Relevance-Theory Approach

Sarah H. Casson

SBL Press, 2019

A fresh look at the development of Paul’s argument in Romans

The Greek word gar occurs 144 times in Romans and 1,041 times in the entire New Testament. However, many instances of this connective defy easy definition, and the English translation for is often inadequate, obscuring the clue that gar gives to the direction of the communicator’s thought. In this ground-breaking work, Sarah H. Casson argues that gar offers vital guidance to the coherence of Romans. The book applies the cognitive approach of relevance theory to show how garfunctions as an indispensable guide for tracing the significant points of Paul’s argument, helping resolve questions about the coherence of sections, as well as smaller-scale exegetical problems. The work engages with key debates regarding the purpose of Romans and challenges some recent influential interpretations.

Features:

An exegetically useful understanding of the connective gar
A new method for determining Paul’s audience and reason for writing
A challenge to recent key debates and influential interpretations of the purpose of Romans

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The Amazing Colossal Apostle

The Search for the Historical Paul

Robert M. Price

Signature Books, 2012

The story of Paul is one of irony, the New Testament depicting him at the martyrdom of Stephen holding the assassins' cloaks. Then this same Paul is transformed into the biblical archetype for someone suffering for their faith. He becomes so entrenched, it would appear that he had walked with the Christians all his life, that he was the one who defined the faith, eventually being called the “second founder of Christianity.” But much of what we think we "know" about Paul comes from Sunday school stories we heard as children. The stories were didactic tales meant to keep us reverent and obedient.

As adults reading the New Testament, we catch glimpses of a very different kind of disciple—a wild ascetic whom Tertullian dubbed “the second apostle of Marcion and the apostle of the heretics.” What does scholarship tell us about the enigmatic thirteenth apostle who looms larger than life in the New Testament? The epistles give evidence of having been written at the end of the first century or early in the second—too late to have been Paul’s actual writings. So who wrote (and rewrote) them? F. C. Baur, a nineteenth-century theologian, pointed persuasively to Simon Magus as the secret identity of “Paul.” Robert M. Price, in this exciting journey of discovery, gives readers the background for a story we thought we knew.

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The Apostle Paul and His Letters

An Introduction

James B. Prothro

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

The letters of the Apostle Paul are central witnesses to the Christian faith and to the earliest history of Christianity. And yet, when students, preachers, and others turn to Paul, they find many things “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16) in these ancient writings. James Prothro’s new book aims to help readers see the Apostle’s faith and hope at work as he evangelized the nations. Steeped in up-to-date scholarship and a passion for the gospel Paul preached, Prothro draws readers into Paul’s life and letters in order to help them hear the Apostle’s voice. The book’s chapters offer introductions to Paul’s background, life, and legacy; an introduction to ancient letter writing; a guide to understanding Paul’s theology across the letters; a survey of the portrait of Paul in the Book of Acts; separate treatments of each letter’s background and purpose; treatments of key theological topics in each letter and a thorough outline of each letter showing its arguments and how they make sense. Prothro introduces complex matters with clarity, balance, and an inviting style. He not only offers answers but models how to ask questions, helping us reason through Paul’s letters as ancient documents and as Christian Scripture. This book will prove a valuable introduction for those who study, teach, and preach these biblical books.

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The Art of Visual Exegesis

Rhetoric, Texts, Images

Vernon K. Robbins

SBL Press, 2017

A critical study for those interested in the intersection of art and biblical interpretation

With a special focus on biblical texts and images, this book nurtures new developments in biblical studies and art history during the last two or three decades. Analysis and interpretation of specific works of art introduce guidelines for students and teachers who are interested in the relation of verbal presentation to visual production. The essays provide models for research in the humanities that move beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries erected in previous centuries. In particular, the volume merges recent developments in rhetorical interpretation and cognitive studies with art historical visual exegesis. Readers will master the tools necessary for integrating multiple approaches both to biblical and artistic interpretation.

Features

Resources for understanding the relation of texts to artistic paintings and images

Tools for integrating multiple approaches both to biblical and artistic interpretation

Sixty images and fifteen illustrations

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The Battles of Armageddon

Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age

Eric H. Cline

University of Michigan Press, 2002

WINNER
> Best Popular Book on Archaeology
--Biblical Archaeology Society
Apocalypse. Judgment Day. The End Time. Armageddon. Students of the Bible know it as the place where the cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil will unfold. Many believe that this battle will take place in the very near future. But few know that Armageddon is a real place--one that has seen more fighting and bloodshed than any other spot on earth.
The name Armageddon is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase Har Megiddo, and it means "Mount of Megiddo." More than thirty bloody conflicts have been fought at the ancient site of Megiddo and adjacent areas of the Jezreel Valley during the past four thousand years. Egyptians, Israelites, Greeks, Muslims, Crusaders, Mongols, British, Germans, Arabs, and Israelis have all fought and died here. The names of the warring leaders reverberate throughout history: Thutmose III, Deborah, Gideon, Saul and Jonathan, Jezebel, Saladin, Napoleon, and Allenby, to name but the most famous. Throughout history Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley have been ground zero for battles that determined the very course of civilization. No wonder that the author of Revelation believed Armageddon, the penultimate battle between good and evil, would also take place here!
The Battles of Armageddon introduces readers to a rich cast of ancient and modern warriors, while bringing together for the first time the wide range of conflicts that have been fought at Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age.
Eric H. Cline has participated in more than seventeen seasons of excavation and survey in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Greece, and the United States. He is currently a Senior Staff Archaeologist at the ongoing excavations of Megiddo.

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The Bay Psalm Book

A Facsimile

With an Introduction by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2014

The Bay Psalm Book was the first book to be printed in North America, twenty years after the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. Today, only eleven copies are still in existence and fetch as much as fourteen million dollars at auction, making it also the most expensive book in the world.

Originally published in 1640 as The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, the unassuming psalter undertook the translation of Hebrew psalms into English verse for a growing population of New England Puritans unhappy with contemporary translations and in need of a version that would better represent their beliefs. The book became popularly known as The Bay Psalm Book, named after the Massachusetts Bay Colony in which its translators—among them the ministers John Cotton and Richard Mather—lived.

This beautiful facsimile edition of The Bay Psalm Book reproduces one of the best remaining copies of the psalter, including the translators’ preface and the original printer’s errors and binding marks. An introduction by Diarmaid MacCulloch details the book’s place in American religious and cultural history and explains how the psalter came to have such a profound effect on the course of the Protestant faith in America.

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The Beginning of Wisdom

Reading Genesis

Leon R. Kass

University of Chicago Press, 2006

“Extraordinary,” says the New York Times, “will leave no reader’s understanding of Genesis unchanged.”

Examining Genesis in a philosophical light, Leon Kass presents it not as a story of what happened long ago, but as the enduring story of humanity itself. He asserts that the first half of Genesis contains insights about human nature that “rival anything produced by the great philosophers.” Kass here reads these first stories—from Adam and Eve to the tower of Babel—as a mirror for self-discovery that reveals truths about human reason, speech, freedom, sexual desire, pride, shame, anger, and death. Taking a step further in the second half of his book, Kass explores the struggles in Genesis to launch a new way of life that addresses mankind’s morally ambiguous nature by promoting righteousness and holiness.

Even readers who don’t agree with Kass’s interpretations will find The Beginning of Wisdom a compelling book—a masterful philosophical take on one of the world’s seminal religious texts.

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The Bible Without Theology

The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It

Robert A. Oden, Jr.

University of Illinois Press, 1987

In this thought-provoking volume, Robert A. Oden Jr. advocates stripping away the theological and historiographic biases that underlie modern biblical scholarship in order to arrive at a nontheological historical reading of the Bible. Oden calls into question a scholarly tradition that accepts biblical writers' views of themselves and their neighbors at face value and reproduces a view of Israelite religion as divinely guided and inherently superior.

Using cross-cultural and interdisciplinary methodology, Oden investigates three biblical issues--the clothing of Adam and Eve, Jacob's name change to Israel, and ritual prostitution and Deuteronomy--in light of extra-biblical evidence. He also challenges scholars' assumptions of Scripture as monotheistic and proposes treating biblical narrative as myth rather than as historical fact.

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The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology

Christopher A. Beeley

Catholic University of America Press, 2018

The past thirty years have seen an unprecedented level of interest in early Christian biblical interpretation, from major scholarly initiatives to more popular resources aimed at pastors and general readers. The fields of Biblical Studies and Patristics/Early Christian Studies each arrived at the study of early Christian biblical interpretation largely from their own standpoints, and they tend to operate in relative isolation from one another. This books aims to bring the two fields into closer conversation, in order to suggest new avenues into the study of the deeply biblical dimension of patristic theology as well as the contribution that patristic exegesis can make to contemporary views of how best to interpret the Bible.

Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology features leading scholars from both fields, who bring new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. Following an account of how each field came to study patristic exegesis, the book offers new studies of Trinitarian theology in Old Testament, Johannine, and Pauline biblical texts and the patristic interpretation of them, combining the insights of modern historical criticism with classical historical theology. It promises to make a valuable contribution to both fields, suggesting several new avenue into the study of early biblical literature and the development of Trinitarian theology.

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The Bible and Posthumanism

Jennifer L. Koosed

SBL Press, 2014

What does it mean, and what should it mean to be human?

In this collection of essays, scholars place the philosophies and theories of animal studies and posthumanism into conversation with biblical studies. Authors cross and disrupt boundaries and categories through close readings of stories where the human body is invaded, possessed, or driven mad. Articles explore the ethics of the human use of animals and the biblical contributions to the question. Other essays use the image of lions—animals that appear not only in the wild, but also in the Bible, ancient Near Eastern texts, and philosophy—to illustrate the potential these theories present for students of the Bible. Contributors George Aichele, Denise Kimber Buell, Benjamin H. Dunning, Heidi Epstein, Rhiannon Graybill, Jennifer L. Koosed, Eric Daryl Meyer, Stephen D. Moore, Hugh Pyper, Robert Paul Seesengood, Yvonne Sherwood, Ken Stone, and Hannah M. Strømmen present an open invitation for further work in the field of posthumanism.

Features:

Coverage of texts that explore the boundaries between animal, human, and divinity
Discussion of the term posthumanism and how it applies to biblical studies
Essays engage Derrida, Foucault, Wolfe, Lacan, Žižek, Singer, Haraway, and others

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The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition

Edited by Taylor G. Petrey, Cory Crawford, and Eric A. Eliason

University of Utah Press, 2022

Like other Christian denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has been engaged in the battle for the Bible since challenges to biblical authority began to exert significant influence in America toward the end of the nineteenth century. Other believing communities have responded with various reevaluations of the biblical text. Latter-day Saints have experimented with similar approaches, often taking liberal positions on biblical authority and conservative positions on history and authorship. However, Latter-day Saints accept additional scripture and embrace a theology notably distinct from traditional Christianity. Hence, they relate to the Bible differently from other Christians, creating gaps with mainstream biblical studies. This volume bridges that gap.

From comparing the Book of Mormon to the Bible or the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Mormon feminists’ views on the Gospels, this volume takes a comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding Bible scholarship’s role in Mormon history, exploring these differences for both scholars and students. A diverse group of contributors presents an accessible resource to mediate between Latter-day Saint traditions and the broader context of biblical history, literature, and scholarship. Each essay provides a synopsis of relevant major scholarly views and delivers new insights into varied crosscurrents of biblical studies.

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The Bible as Christian Scripture

The Work of Brevard S. Childs

Christopher R. Seitz

SBL Press, 2013

This memorial volume both displays and evaluates the canonical approach of Brevard S. Childs, whose attention to history through time animated his interest in the Bible’s use in the church through the ages up to and including the present. Just as Childs wrote on a wide range of topics canonical and theological—both Testaments, Isaiah and Exodus, the Pauline letters, the history of biblical interpretation, biblical theology, and historical, theological, and methodological questions—the contributors to this volume, seasoned colleagues as well as younger scholars who studied with Childs, offer an international collection of historical, theological, and New Testament essays as well as contributions focused on the Old Testament. The contributors are Stephen B. Chapman, Brevard S. Childs, Don Collett, Daniel R. Driver, Mark W. Elliott, Leonard G. Finn, Mark Gignilliat, Bernd Janowski, Jörg Jeremias, Leander E. Keck, Neil B. MacDonald, David L. Petersen, Murray A. Rae, C. Kavin Rowe, and Christopher R. Seitz.

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The Bible in Asian America

Tat-siong Benny Liew

SBL Press, 2002

In this issue of the journal Semeia, readers will find essays less concerned with what the Bible says about Asian American lives than by how Asian Americans read biblical texts. Pulling together Asian American historians, rhetoricians, sociologists, biblical scholars, and theologians, the collection questions assumed understandings and challenges accepted practices of established disciplines in ways that are both transgressive and transformative. Essays in the first section deal with the Bible’s role in constructing Asian American identity. The second section delves into how the Bible is read and interpreted in Asian American literature and churches. The third section includes a response. Contributors include Antony W. Alumkal, Rachel A. R. Bundang, Patrick S. Cheng, Peter Yuichi Clark, Eleazar S. Fernandez, Mary F. Foskett, Jane Naomi Iwamura, Russell M. Jeung, Eunjoo Mary Kim, Jung Ha Kim, Uriah (Yong-Hwan) Kim, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Leng Leroy Lim, Fumitaka Matsuoka, Russell G. Moy, Henry W. Rietz, Roy I. Sano, and Timothy Tseng.

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The Bible in Greek

Translation, Transmission, and Theology of the Septuagint

Siegfried Kreuzer

SBL Press, 2015

Essential reading for scholars and students

This volume presents English and German papers that give an overview on important stages, developments, and problems of the Septuagint and the research related to it. Four sections deal with the cultural and theological background and beginnings of the Septuagint, the Old Greek and recensions of the text, the Septuagint and New Testament quotations, and a discussion of Papyrus 967 and Codex Vaticanus.

Features:

A complete list of Kreuzer’s publications on the text and textual history of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint
Criteria for analysis of the Antiochene/Lucianic Text and the Kaige-Recension
A close examination of the origins and development of the Septuagint in the context of Alexandrian and early Jewish culture and learning

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The Bible in the American Experience

Claudia Setzer

SBL Press, 2020

An interdisciplinary investigation of the Bible's place in American experience

Much has changed since the Society of Biblical Literature's Bible in American Culture series was published in the 1980s, but the influence of the Bible has not waned. In the United States, the stories, themes, and characters of the Bible continue to shape art, literature, music, politics, education, and social movements to varying degrees. In this volume, contributors highlight new approaches that move beyond simple citation of texts and explore how biblical themes infuse US culture and how this process in turn transforms biblical traditions.

Features

An examination of changes in the production, transmission, and consumption of the Bible
An exploration of how Bible producers disseminate US experiences to a global audience
An assessment of the factors that produce widespread myths about and nostalgia for a more biblically grounded nation

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The Bible in the Public Square

Its Enduring Influence in American Life

Mark A. Chancey

SBL Press, 2014

Explore perceptions and interpretations of scripture in American politics, identity, popular culture, and public education

Essays from the perspectives of American history, the history of ideas, film studies, visual studies, cultural studies, education, and church-state studies provide essential research for those interested in the intersection of the Bible and American culture. The contributors are Yaakov Ariel, Jacques Berlinerblau, Mark A. Chancey, Rubén Dupertuis, John Fea, Shalom Goldman, Charles C. Haynes, Carol Meyers, Eric M. Meyers, David Morgan, Adele Reinhartz, and David W. Stowe.

Features:

Ten essays and an introduction present research from professors of biblical studies, Judaism, English, and history
Articles relevant to scholars, students, and the general public
Analysis of the tensions in American society regarding the Bible and its role in public life.

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The Bible in the Sixteenth Century

David C. Steinmetz

Duke University Press, 1990

A distinguished group of authors here illuminate a broad spectrum of themes in the history of biblical interpretation. Originally published in 1990, these essays take as their common ground the thesis that the intellectual and religious life of the sixteenth century cannot be understood without attention to the preoccupation of sixteenth-century humanists and theologians with the interpretation of the Bible. Topics explored include Jewish exegesis and problems of Old Testament interpretation and the relationship between the Bible and social, political, and institutional history.

Contributors. Irena Backus, Guy Bedouelle, Kalman P. Bland, Kenneth G. Hagen, Scott H. Hagen, Scott H. Hendrix, R. Gerald Hobbs, Jean-Claude Margolin, H. C. Erik Midelfort, Richard A. Muller, John B. Payne, David C. Steinmetz

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The Bible of Dirty Jokes

Eileen Pollack

Four Way Books, 2018

When Ketzel Weinrach’s beloved brother Potsie goes missing in Las Vegas, she not only must try to find him, she must confront her family’s shady history and their ties to the legendary Jewish mob, Murder, Inc., as well as her troubling relationship to her cousin Perry (who runs a strip club on the outskirts of Vegas), her long and apparently not-so-loving marriage to her recently departed husband Morty Tittelman (a self-styled professor of dirty jokes and erotic folklore), and her own failed career as a stand-up comic.

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The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality

Innocent Himbaza

Catholic University of America Press, 2012

The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality addresses the hotly debated topic of whether the Bible condemns homosexuality by a close reading of the biblical texts without taboo or prejudice, without personal or church interpretation

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The Book of Acts

Charles Raith II

Catholic University of America Press, 2019

The Book of Acts brings together leading Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical theologians to read and interpret the book of Acts from within their ecclesial tradition, while simultaneously engaging one another in critical dialogue. Combining both theological exegesis and ecumenical dialogue, each chapter is uniquely structured to facilitate a rich reading of Scripture and an engaging though critical dialogue across the traditions. Each chapter begins with a main essay by either a Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical theologian on a section of the book of Acts; the main essay is followed by responses from theologians of the other two traditions. The chapter concludes with a final response from the main author. Readers are thus provided with not only a deep and engaging reading of the book of Acts but also the unfolding of a rich theological-ecumenical dialogue centered on Scripture. Anyone interested in understanding how our ecclesial traditions inform our reading of Scripture would do well to read this book, as would anyone interested in the book of Acts, ecumenical dialogue, and the theological interpretation of Scripture

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The Book of Job and the Immanent Genesis of Transcendence

Davis Hankins

Northwestern University Press, 2014

Winner of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise

Recent philosophical reexaminations of sacred texts have focused almost exclusively on the Christian New Testament, and Paul in particular. The Book of Job and the Immanent Genesis of Transcendence revives the enduring philosophical relevance and political urgency of the book of Job and thus contributes to the recent “turn toward religion” among philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou.

Job is often understood to be a trite folktale about human limitation in the face of confounding and absolute transcendence. On the contrary, Hankins demonstrates that Job is a drama about the struggle to create a just and viable life in a material world that is ontologically incomplete and consequently open to radical, unpredictable transformation. Job’s abiding legacy for any future materialist theology becomes clear as Hankins analyzes Job’s dramatizations of a transcendence that is not externally opposed to but that emerges from an ontologically incomplete material world.

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The Book of Jonah

A Social Justice Commentary

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2020

The Book of Jonah is a unique text in the Jewish canon. Among the shortest books in the Bible, it is also one of the most mysterious and morally ambiguous. Who is this prophet running from God, hiding at the bottom of the ocean? Why does he struggle with God's mission to save and forgive Israel's enemies? In this volume, Rabbi Dr. Yanklowitz shows that the Book of Jonah delivers a message of human responsibility in a shared world. Illuminating such contemporary ethical issues as animal welfare, incarceration, climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and Jewish-Muslim relations, this social justice commentary urges us to join in repairing a broken world--a call that we, unlike Jonah, must hasten to answer.

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The Book of Proverbs

A Social Justice Commentary

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2022

The Book of Proverbs, attributed to King Solomon, is a profound collection of Jewish wisdom, song, and inspiration. Yet to contemporary readers, the text can appear vague, ambiguous, and contradictory. In this refreshing and relevant commentary, Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz challenges us to find modern meaning in this ancient text. Using his signature blend of social justice practice and Jewish thought from throughout history, Rabbi Yanklowitz shows how the words of Proverbs are strikingly pertinent to issues we face today. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Rabbi Yanklowitz explores such topics as income inequality, feminism, animal rights, environmentalism, and many more. The author’s commentary is paired with the full text of Proverbs—in both Hebrew and an updated, gender-accurate translation—so readers can glean their own insights.

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The Book of the Twelve and Beyond

Collected Essays of James D. Nogalski

James D. Nogalski

SBL Press, 2017

A critical collection for specialists and serious students of prophetic literature

This book contains a collection of essays dealing with texts in the Book of the Twelve written by James D. Nogalski beginning in 1993. Essays use various methodological approaches to prophetic literature, including redaction criticism, form criticism, text criticism, intertextuality, and literary analysis. The variety of methods employed by one scholar, as well as the diverse texts treated, makes this volume useful for exploring changes in the field of prophetic studies in the last quarter century.

Features

A helpful entry into the issues surrounding the historical and literary interpretation of the Book of the Twelve as a redacted corpus
A collection of sixteen essays using a variety of methods
Bracketed page numbers coordinating these essays with the pages in original publications

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The Book of the Twelve and the New Form Criticism

Mark J. Boda

SBL Press, 2015

An exploration of genre questions for scholars and students

Contributors to this volume explore the theoretical issues at stake in recent changes in form criticism and the practical outcomes of applying the results of these theoretical shifts to the Book of the Twelve. This volume combines self-conscious methodological reflection with examination of specific texts illustrating the value of certain methodological approaches.

Features:

Essays that demonstrate the practical consequences of theoretical decisions
Contributions that illustrate new interpretations
Focused attention to genre in the Book of the Twelve

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The Coming of the King James Gospels

A Collection of the Translators’ Work-in-Progress

Ward S. Allen

University of Arkansas Press, 1994

The Coming of the King James Gospels is a primary publication exploring the handwritten annotations of the Oxford New Testament Company, made as members completed Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their original edited pages, gathered into one binding as the Bodleian Bishops’ Bible ([1602] b.1), offer us the only known surviving record of their monumental work.

Ward Allen’s painstakingly produced collation of this Bishops’ Bible is available for the first time in acessible visual layout. It allows a reader to study simultaneously the three texts, that of the original Bishops’ Bible, the revisions suggested for the 1602 text, and the final King James version of the Gospels. Rejected readings reveal the reasoning which led to the wording of the final text. Beautifully produced, The Coming of the King James Gospels is now a prime resource for all students of the Bible and the English language.

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The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament

Frederick William Danker

University of Chicago Press, 2009

Frederick William Danker, a world-renowned scholar of New Testament Greek, is widely acclaimed for his 2000 revision of Walter Bauer’s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. With more than a quarter of a million copies in print, it is considered the finest dictionary of its kind.

Danker’s Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament will prove to be similarly invaluable to ministers, seminarians, translators, and students of biblical Greek. Unlike other lexica of the Greek New Testament, which give only brief glosses for headwords, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon offers extended definitions or explanations in idiomatic English for all Greek terms.

Each entry includes basic etymological information, short renderings, information on usage, and plentiful biblical references. Greek terms that could have different English definitions, depending on context, are thoughtfully keyed to the appropriate passages. An overarching aim of The Concise Greek-English Lexicon is to assist the reader in recognizing the broad linguistic and cultural context for New Testament usage of words.

The Concise Greek-English Lexicon retains all the acclaimed features of A Greek-English Lexicon in a succinct and affordable handbook, perfect for specialists and nonspecialists alike.

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The Craft of History and the Study of the New Testament

Beth M. Sheppard

SBL Press, 2012

Do professional historians and New Testament scholars use the same methods to explore the past? This interdisciplinary textbook introduces students of the New Testament to the vocabulary and methods employed by historians. It discusses various approaches to historiography and demonstrates their applicability for interpreting the New Testament text and exploring its background. Overviews of the philosophy of history, common historical fallacies, and the basics of historiography are followed by three exegetical studies that illustrate the applicability of various historical methods for New Testament interpretation.

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The Critic in the World

Essays in Honor of Fernando F. Segovia

Amy Lindeman Allen

SBL Press, 2024

A Pact of Love with Criticism, A Pact of Blood with the World

Building on the legacy of Fernando F. Segovia, the pioneering essays in this volume redefine the intersection of biblical studies and geopolitics. Through a thorough exploration of how ancient texts and modern readers influence and reflect geopolitical dynamics, each contributor reveals how biblical narratives have shaped and been shaped by historical power structures, territorial conflicts and climate changes, and cultural exchanges. Essays employ contemporary geopolitical concepts that move beyond traditional readings to offer fresh insights into the strategic and ideological forces behind scriptural texts. An annotated interview with Fernando F. Segovia traces his immigration journey as an adolescent and its indelible imprint on his scholarship as a postcolonial critic. Contributors include Efraín Agosto, Amy Lindeman Allen, Reimund Bieringer, Mark G. Brett, Ahida Calderón Pilarski, Greg Carey, Jorge E. Castillo Guerra, Jin Young Choi, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Gregory L. Cuéllar, Musa W. Dube, Neil Elliott, Eleazar S. Fernandez, Bridgett A. Green, Leticia A. Guardiola-Sáenz, Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Knut Holter, Ma. Maricel S. Ibita, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, John F. Kutsko, Sung Uk Lim, Francisco Lozada Jr., Luis Menéndez-Antuña, Rubén Muñoz-Larrondo, Robert Myles, Wongi Park, Mitri Raheb, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fernando F. Segovia, Yak-hwee Tan, Ekaputra Tupamahu, Gerald O. West, Hans (J. H.) de Wit, and H. Daniel Zacharias.

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The Deed and the Doer in the Bible

David Daube's Gifford Lectures, Volume 1

David Daube

Templeton Press, 2008

David Daube (1909–1999) was a world-renowned biblical law scholar. He was a fellow at All Souls College at Oxford, an emeritus professor of law at Oxford, and an emeritus professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Scholars have hailed his essential research on Roman law, biblical law, Hebraic Law, and ethics throughout his life and today.

Daube produced dozens of books and published over 150 articles in scholarly journals. Now, for the first time, his twenty Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1962 and 1964, will be available to the public. His first ten Gifford Lectures have been collected in The Deed and the Doer in the Bible: David Daube's Gifford Lectures, Volume 1.

The theme of Daube's Gifford Lectures is law and wisdom in the Bible. His wide-ranging deliberations reveal how complicated and profound the biblical text is. He analyzes deeds described in the Bible and considers, for example, what causes people to act in a certain way, the role of intent, why unintended deeds are sometimes punishable, and how the origin of a deed is determined. His lectures are aimed at professionals in biblical criticism, biblical history, ethics, and the history of law concerning its roots in Old Testament traditions. Daube is a recognized master in these fields, and there are substantial applications to current ethical and legal issues.

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The Early Middle Ages

Franca Ela Consolino

SBL Press, 2020

Examine the creative, profound dialogue between medieval women and biblical traditions

The latest volume in the Bible and Women series examines the relationship between women and the Bible’s reception during the early Middle Ages (500–1100 CE) in both the Greek East and the Latin West. Essays focus on interactions between women and the Bible through biblical precepts on women and for women, biblical women as the subjects of action or objects of discussion, and writings by women that refer to the Bible as a moral authority. The women discussed in the volume range from the well-known—including the nuns Kassia in Byzantium and Hrosvita in the West; the aristocrat Dhuoda, author of a moral guide for her son; Gisela, the sister of Charlemagne and abbess of Chelles; and her niece Rotrude—to those who remain anonymous. Contributions also explore how the Old and New Testaments exercised influence on emerging Islam.

Features:

Analysis of images of the Virgin Mary as a means of tracing the spread of her cult and feast days from East to West
Exploration of the significance of classical culture for medieval women who composed poems for a Christian audience
Evaluation of art as a means of establishing devotional relationships not necessarily mediated by the voices of preachers or the reading of texts

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The Exposition of 1 John and An Exposition upon Matthew V-VII

William Tyndale

Catholic University of America Press, 2023

The Exposition of 1 John and An Exposition upon Matthew V-VII are William Tyndale’s two major exegetical writings, published respectively in 1531 and 1533 in Antwerp. By this period Tyndale’s English translations of the New Testament and Pentateuch had both been printed, and he was preparing a revised version of the former to be published in 1534. Among the books he produced in the interim are these verse-by-verse commentaries on St. John’s first epistle and on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. In them Tyndale characteristically alternates between fierce polemics and solemn homilies that together, as has been claimed, amount to the most complete articulation of his theological positions. This volume replaces the nineteenth-century editions on which scholars and students have long relied by providing an original-spelling text of each Exposition with notes recording substantive textual variants in all sixteenth-century editions; an introduction and extensive commentary documenting, in particular, parallels and differences between the two texts and Tyndale’s other works, the works of Luther and other reform theologians, and the works of the Church Fathers and others; plus a comprehensive glossary, appendices, and indices.

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The Future of the Biblical Past

Envisioning Biblical Studies on a Global Key

Roland Boer

SBL Press, 2012

What does global biblical studies look like in the early decades of the twenty-first century, and what new directions may be discerned? Profound shifts have taken place over the last few decades as voices from the majority of the globe have begun and continue to reshape and relativize biblical studies. With contributors from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, this volume is a truly global work, offering surveys and assessments of the current situation and suggestions for the future of biblical criticism in all corners of the world. The contributors are Yong-Sung Ahn, George Aichele, Pablo R. Andiñach, Roland Boer, Fiona Black, Philip Chia, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, Jione Havea, Israel Kamudzandu, Milena Kirova, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Monica Melancthon, Judith McKinlay, Sarojini Nadar, Jorge Pixley, Jeremy Punt, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fernando F. Segovia, Hanna Stenström, Vincent Wimbush, and Gosnell Yorke.

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The Gospel of John Marrant

Conjuring Christianity in the Black Atlantic

Alphonso F. Saville IV

Duke University Press, 2024

The Reverend John Marrant (1755–91) was North America’s first Black ordained minister and one of America’s earliest Black authors and preachers. In The Gospel of John Marrant, Alphonso F. Saville IV examines how Protestantism and West African indigenous religious practices deeply informed his life and ministry. Saville follows Marrant from his time evangelizing the Cherokee in Georgia to meeting with Black Freemasons in Boston to engaging with diasporic communities along the Eastern Seaboard and in England. Using the Black folk magic tradition of conjure as a lens for understanding Marrant’s religious imagination, Saville outlines the importance of Africana religious and cultural themes, symbols, and cosmologies in the biblical interpretation and ritual culture of early Black North American Christian communities. Marrant’s life and work, Saville contends, reveal the diverse religious cultures that contributed to the formation of African American Christianity and its evolution into a prominent institution during the colonial and early history of the United States. In so doing, he demonstrates the need to recenter both religion and Africa in the study of African American cultural and intellectual history.

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The Guide of the Perplexed

Complete in One Volume

Moses Maimonides

University of Chicago Press, 1963

The classic translation of this most important medieval Jewish text, presented in one volume for the first time.

The twelfth-century Judeo-Arabic text The Guide of the Perplexed is a monument of rabbinical exegesis and one of the most important works in the history of Jewish thought. Written by Moses ben Maimon,commonly known as Maimonides, the Guide aims to liberate people from the perplexities that arise from an understanding of the Bible based only on its literal meaning.

Shlomo Pines’s translation has served students and scholars for decades, and it is presented here, with Leo Strauss’s influential introduction, in one volume for the first time.

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The Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion

Jaco Gericke

SBL Press, 2012

This study pioneers the use of philosophy of religion in the study of the Hebrew Bible. After identifying the need for a legitimate philosophical approach to Israelite religion, the volume traces the history of interdisciplinary relations and shows how descriptive varieties of philosophy of religion can aid the clarification of the Hebrew Bible’s own metaphysical, epistemological, and moral assumptions. Two new interpretative methodologies are developed and subsequently applied through an introduction to what the biblical texts took for granted about the nature of religious language, the concept of deity, the properties of Yhwh, the existence of gods, religious epistemology, and the relation between religion and morality.

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The Hermeneutics of Torah

Proverbs 2, Deuteronomy, and the Composition of Proverbs 1–9

Bernd U. Schipper

SBL Press, 2021

This revised and expanded English edition of Bernd U. Schipper’s 2012 Hermeneutik der Tora incorporates the results of his continued research and writings on Proverbs. For nearly a century, many biblical scholars have argued that the main theological traditions, such as the divine law, God’s torah, do not appear in the book of Proverbs. In this volume, however, Schipper demonstrates that Proverbs interacts in a sophisticated way with the concept of the torah. A detailed analysis of Proverbs 2 and other passages from the first part of the book of Proverbs shows that Proverbs engages in a postexilic discourse around “wisdom and torah” concerning the abilities of humans to fulfill the will of YHWH exemplified in the divine torah.

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The High Middle Ages

Kari Elisabeth Børresen

SBL Press, 2015

An international collection of ecumenical, gender-sensitive interpretations

The latest volume in the Bible and Women series examines the relationship between women and the Bible's reception in the centuries of the High and Late Middle Ages in Europe. Contributors bring a variety of new insights to questions of how women of the Bible were treated in literary, mystical, and doctrinal texts as well as in art and music. Though the Bible was used to legitimize the subordination of women to men and to exclude them from power, during this period women produced works of theology and biblical interpretation. Contributors include Gemma Avenoza, Marina Benedetti, Dinora Corsi, Maria Laura Giordano, Elisabeth Gössmann, Maria Leticia Sánchez Hernández, Hildegund Keul, Linda Maria Koldau, Martina Kreidler-Kos, Rita Librandi, Gary Macy, Constant J. Mews, Magda Motté, Rosa María Parrinello, María Isabel Toro Pascua, Claudia Poggi, Carmel Posa, Marina Santini, Valeria Ferrari Schiefer, Andrea Taschl-Erber, Adriana Valerio, and Paola Vitolo.

Features

Essays on the treatment of women in commentaries and didactic moral literature written by men
Close study of women as scholars and interpreters of the Bible from the twelfth through the fifteen centuries
Twenty-one essays from twenty-three scholars from around the world

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