From the Seattle Art Museum to an evening refuge from the heat of the Sonoran desert, from a church overlooking Ho'okena Bay, Hawaii to Israel's Judean wilderness, from the classroom to the synagogue to the community center, from contemporary to ancient thought to the text of the Bible itself, Re-Imagining Eve and Adam has drawn its inspiration from unexpected sources, compelling the reader to not only re-imagine, but remember and reclaim the legacies of Eve, Lilith, Sarah, Leah, Lot's daughters, Micah's mother, Mrs. Job, Vashti, Susanna, Dinah, Tamar and the Levite's Concubine. It is for the reader to decide what is a delectable Re-imagining, a desired Remembering, or a palatable Reclaiming.
Reimagining the Bible collects a dozen essays by Howard Schwartz. Together the essays present a coherent theory of the way in which each successive phase of Jewish literature has drawn upon and reimagined the previous ones. The book is organized into four sections: The Ancient Models; The Folk Tradition; Mythic Echoes; Modern Jewish Literature and the Ancient Models. Within these divisions, each of the essays focuses on a specific genre, ranging from Torah and Aggadah to Kabbalah, fairy tales, and the modern Yiddish stories of S.Y. Agnon and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Arguing the important thesis that there is a continuity in Jewish literature which extends from the Biblical era to our own times, over a period of more than 3,000 years, this collection also serves as a guide to the history of that literature, and to the genres it comprises.
What does it mean to be a good reader of Genesis 1-11? What does it mean to take these ancient stories seriously and how does that relate to taking them literally? Can we even take any of this material seriously? Reading Genesis Well answers these questions and more, promoting a responsible conversation about how science and biblical faith relate by developing a rigorous approach to interpreting the Bible, especially those texts that come into play in science and faith discussions. This unique approach connects the ancient writings of Genesis 1-11 with modern science in an honest and informed way. Old Testament scholar C. John Collins appropriates literary and linguistic insights from C. S. Lewis and builds on them using ideas from modern linguistics, such as lexical semantics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics. This study helps readers to evaluate to what extent it is proper to say that the Bible writers held a "primitive" picture of the world, and what function their portrayal of the world and its contents had in shaping the community.
"Who do you say that I am" (Mark 8:29) is the question of Christology. By asking this question, Jesus invites his followers to interpret him from within their own contexts-history, experience, and social location. Therefore, all responses to Jesus's invitation are contextual. But for too long, many theologians particularly in the West have continued to see Christology as a universal endeavor that is devoid of any contextual influences. This understanding of Christology undermines Jesus's expectations from us to imagine and appropriate him from within our own contexts. In Re-imagining African Christologies, Victor I. Ezigbo presents a constructive exposition of the unique ways that many African theologians and lay Christians from various church denominations have interpreted and appropriated Jesus Christ in their own contexts. He also articulates the constructive contributions that these African Christologies can make to the development of Christological discourse in non-African Christian communities.
Artists plumb the depths of soul which Jung calls the collective unconscious, the inheritance of our ancestors' psychic responses to life's drama. In this sense the artist is priest, mediating between us and God. The artist introduces us to ourselves by inviting us into the world of image. We may enter this world to contemplate briefly or at length. Some paintings invite us back over and over again and we return, never tiring of them. It is especially these that lead us to the Great Mystery, beyond image. Re-Imagining Mary: A Journey through Art to the Feminine Self is about meeting the Cosmic Mary in image and imagination, the many facets of the Mary image that mirror both outer reality and inner feminine soul. Jungian analyst Mariann Burke offers personal reflections and suggests symbolic meanings in works by several artists including: Fra Angelico, Albrecht Durer, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Nicolas Poussin, Parmigianino, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, and Frederick Franck. Aspects of Mary explored include: Mary not only as Mother of God, a title from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but as Mother God, a title reaching back to an ancient longing for a Female Divinity. In western Christianity this Mary bears the titles and the qualities worshipped for thousands of years in the Female images of God and Goddess. These titles include Mary as Sorrowful One and as Primordial Mother. Recovering Mary both as light and dark Madonna plays a crucial role in humanity's search for a divinity who reflects soul. Also discussed is Mary as the sheltering Great Mother that Piero della Francesca suggest in the Madonna del Parto and Mater Misericodia. Frederick Franck's The Original Face and the Medieval Vierge Ouvrante also suggest this motif of Mary as Protector of the mystery of our common Origin. Franck's inspiration for his sculpture of Mary was the Buddhist koan-"What is your original face before you were born?" What is spirituality? What does it mean to grow spiritually and psychologically closer to the Feminine Self? How can we begin to see the "outer" image as a manifestation, a projection of the psyche? Can we be challenged by being "betwixt and between" a male dominated Church without a recognized female divinity where God is generally imagined external to the soul and a more feminine depth psychological approach to the Marian mystery and to the Feminine Self? Will we answer the call of the mystic within us? If so, how will we be changed?
Metal is a form of popular music. Popular music is a form of leisure. In the modern age, popular music has become part of popular culture, a heavily contested collection of practices and industries that construct place, belonging and power.
"We need a real Adam and Eve if we are to make sense of the Bible and of life," argues C. John Collins. Examining the biblical storyline as the worldview story of the people of God, Collins shows how that story presupposes a real Adam and Eve and how the modern experience of life points to the same conclusion. Applying well-informed critical thinking to common theological and scientific questions, Collins asserts the importance of a real man at the beginning in God's plan for creation, a plan that includes "redemption" for all people since sin entered the world. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? addresses both biblical and Jewish texts and contains extensive appendices to examine how the material in Genesis relates to similar material from Mesopotamian myths. Collins's detailed analysis of the relevant texts will instill confidence in readers that the traditional Christian story equips them better than any alternatives to engage the life that they actually encounter in the modern world.
A careful examination of the earliest biblical interpretations of Genesis considers such topics as human destiny, the Creation, sexuality, sin, and forgiveness, from the perspectives of both Judaism and Christianity.
This textbook seeks to reclaim the bible for a Christianity that is open to society and keen on participating in conversation about today's major issues.
A Guide to Navigate Evangelical Feminism In a society where gender roles are a hot-button topic, the church is not immune to the controversy. In fact, the church has wrestled with varying degrees of evangelical feminism for decades. As evangelical feminism has crept into the church, time-trusted resources like Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood help remind Christians of what the Bible has to say. In this edition of the award-winning best seller, more than 20 influential men and women such as John Piper, Wayne Grudem, D. A. Carson, and Elisabeth Elliot offer thought-provoking essays responding to the challenge egalitarianism poses to life in the church and in the home. Covering topics like role distinctions in the church, how biblical manhood and womanhood should work out in practice, and women in the history of the church, this helpful resource will help readers learn to orient their beliefs with God's unchanging word in an ever-changing culture.
