The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.
"A masterpiece of contemporary Bible translation and commentary."—Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books of 1999 Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.
Illuminating both the cultural context of the hysteria and the minister's struggles with his congregation, The Sermon Notebook of Samuel Parris stands as one of the most important primary sources relating to the Salem witchcraft episode.
The Sermon Journal Paper is a guided notebook format suitable for writing notes at church. The dimensions are 6" x 9" which makes it a small and handy notebook to fit in your purse. It's the perfect companion to help you keep up with your journey, with Christ at the center of it all. There are dedicated spaces for prayer requests, notes, name of speaker, journaling, bible verses, and watchwords of the day. This ensures you are able to go back to your notes during your quiet time to reflect on what you heard at church or refer to what you can't easily remember. Helps to motivate, encourage, and connect you with God in your daily walk with the Lord. Features: Dimensions: 6" x 9" Pages: 120 Perfect bound Glossy cover The size is perfect for tucking it into your purse or man bag. Get one for yourself or make it the perfect gift for the christian brother or sister in your life.
The role of Africans in the growth and process of Christianity in South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In particular the book provides an insight into the role of writing and literacy in the church founded by the South African prophet, Isaiah Shembe, in 1910. The book provides a substantial, contextualising introduction which includes discussion of the church’s history and its position in contemporary South Africa, and weaves in discussion of the topics of literacy and modernity. The book then moves to the three documents, presented in their language of composition, Zulu and in an English translation. The three ‘books’, each from Shembe’s Nazareth Baptist Church, provide the reader with a fascinating insight into the growth and organisation of one of southern Africa’s most influential African Churches, and into the use and interpretation of the Bible by the church’s founder, Isaiah Shembe, and by church members. Central to the writings is the complex presence of Shembe, present both through his own words in the first book and, in the second book, through the memory of Meshack Hadebe, a member of the church in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The extracts in the third book provide a glimpse of the church’s hymnal and the unique religious poetry of the hymns, authored by Shembe.
The author raises questions about why the fervent commitment to the emancipation of African Americans was nearly forgotten by his family, exploring the racial attitudes in the author's upbringing and the ingrained racism that still plagues our nation today.
Very little communication takes place between most pastors/priests and their congregants regarding the weekly sermon/homily. This lack of constructive dialogue has resulted in Sunday messages that are not only out-of-touch with where parishioners are living, but for the most part what’s said isn’t remembered much beyond the church parking lot. Dr. Mains contends that people in the pew can best judge when a sermon is helpful to them and when it isn’t. So why not include them in the process of both preparing and evaluating sermons? Not preaching the sermons. . . . .but again, preparing and evaluating them. He makes these changes sound so simple and practical that you can’t help but wonder, “Why weren’t these ideas implemented years ago?” Most people in the pew don’t realize how integral they are to finding a solution to this problem. But the pulpit/pew combination can be an incredibly powerful team, so let’s begin to work together to help solve this mystery of what’s happening to sermons. This is not a negative book or one that only points out problems. Instead, it’s a positive, practical and encouraging read that should fill you with hope for not only your local congregation, but churches everywhere.
In 1857, Charles Spurgeon—the most popular preacher in the Victorian world—promised his readers that he would publish his earliest sermons. For almost 160 years, these sermons have been lost to history. In 2017, B&H Academic began releasing a multi-volume set that includes full-color facsimiles, transcriptions, contextual and biographical introductions, and editorial annotations. Written for scholars, pastors, and students alike, The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon will add approximately 10 percent more material to Spurgeon's body of literature.
In the seventeenth-century English Atlantic, religious beliefs and practices played a central role in creating racial identity. English Protestantism provided a vocabulary and structure to describe and maintain boundaries between insider and outsider. In this path-breaking study, Heather Miyano Kopelson peels back the layers of conflicting definitions of bodies and competing practices of faith in the puritan Atlantic, demonstrating how the categories of “white,” “black,” and “Indian” developed alongside religious boundaries between “Christian” and “heathen” and between “Catholic” and “Protestant.” Faithful Bodies focuses on three communities of Protestant dissent in the Atlantic World: Bermuda, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In this “puritan Atlantic,” religion determined insider and outsider status: at times Africans and Natives could belong as long as they embraced the Protestant faith, while Irish Catholics and English Quakers remained suspect. Colonists’ interactions with indigenous peoples of the Americas and with West Central Africans shaped their understandings of human difference and its acceptable boundaries. Prayer, religious instruction, sexual behavior, and other public and private acts became markers of whether or not blacks and Indians were sinning Christians or godless heathens. As slavery became law, transgressing people of color counted less and less as sinners in English puritans’ eyes, even as some of them made Christianity an integral part of their communities. As Kopelson shows, this transformation proceeded unevenly but inexorably during the long seventeenth century.
