It is often presumed that biblical redaction was invariably done using scribal methods, meaning that when editors sought to modify or compile existing texts, they would do so in the process of rewriting them upon new scrolls. There is, however, substantial evidence pointing to an alternative scenario: Various sections of the Hebrew Bible appear to have been created through a process of material redaction. In some cases, ancient editors simply appended new sheets to existing scrolls. Other times, they literally cut and pasted their sources, carving out patches of text from multiple manuscripts and then gluing them together like a collage. Idan Dershowitz shows how this surprising technique left behind telltale traces in the biblical text - especially when the editors made mistakes - allowing us to reconstruct their modus operandi. Material evidence from the ancient Near East and elsewhere further supports his hypothesis.
Moses Wilhelm Shapira's infamous Deuteronomy manuscripts -- long believed to be forgeries -- are of far greater significance than ever imagined. Idan Dershowitz shows that the text preserved in these manuscripts is not based on the book of Deuteronomy. On the contrary, it is a proto-biblical book, the likes of which has never before been seen.
In this book, Phyllis Trible examines four Old Testament narratives of suffering in ancient Israel: Hagar, Tamar, an unnamed concubine and the daughter of Jephthah. These stories are for Trible the "substance of life", which may imspire new beginnings and by interpreting these stories of outrage and suffering on behalf of their female victims, the author recalls a past that is all to embodied in the present, and prays that these terrors shall not come to pass again. "Texts of Terror" is perhaps Trible's most readable book, that brings biblical scholarship within the grasp of the non-specialist. These "sad stories" about women in the Old Testament prompt much refelction on contemporary misuse of the Bible, and therefore have considerable relevance today.
What does the Bible actually say about women? This scripturally accurate book rejects harmful misinterpretations and reminds us of the dignity God places on His daughters, with a helpful guide for reflection and group discussion included. In the wake of the Me Too and Church Too movements, many of our loved ones are leaving the church or questioning Christianity because the Bible has at times been misused against them. How do we help our loved ones understand Scripture accurately? Apologetics for Women In this helpful look at God’s work of redemption from Creation to today, Wendy Alsup explores questions such as: • How does God view justice and equal rights for women? • What does it mean to be made in the image of God? • How have the centuries distorted our interpretation of how God views women? • How did Jesus approach the Old Testament and how does that help us read difficult passages today? • What is the difference between a modern view of feminism and the feminism that Scripture models? • How does the Bible explain the Bible to us? Using a Jesus-centered understanding to look at both God’s grand storyline and specific biblical passages, Alsup shows the noble ways God speaks to and about women in its pages. Most of all, she gives concrete tools for understanding Scripture to women who are questioning if the Bible is truly good for them.
The Book of Revelation is a work of profound theology. But its literary form makes it impenetrable to many modern readers and open to all kinds of misinterpretations. Richard Bauckham explains how the book's imagery conveyed meaning in its original context and how the book's theology is inseparable from its literary structure and composition. Revelation is seen to offer not an esoteric and encoded forecast of historical events but rather a theocentric vision of the coming of God's universal kingdom, contextualised in the late first-century world dominated by Roman power and ideology. It calls on Christians to confront the political idolatries of the time and to participate in God's purpose of gathering all the nations into his kingdom. Once Revelation is properly grounded in its original context it is seen to transcend that context and speak to the contemporary church. This study concludes by highlighting Revelation's continuing relevance for today.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.
Perhaps no other group of people has been as much formed by biblical texts and tropes as African Americans. From literature and the arts to popular culture and everyday life, the Bible courses through black society and culture like blood through veins. Despite the enormous recent interest in African American religion, relatively little attention has been paid to the diversity of ways in which African Americans have utilized the Bible. African Americans and the Bible is the fruit of a four-year collaborative research project directed by Vincent L. Wimbush and funded by the Lilly Endowment. It brings together scholars and experts (sixty-eight in all) from a wide range of academic and artistic fields and disciplines--including ethnography, cultural history, and biblical studies as well as art, music, film, dance, drama, and literature. The focus is on the interaction between the people known as African Americans and that complex of visions, rhetorics, and ideologies known as the Bible. As such, the book is less about the meaning(s) of the Bible than about the Bible and meaning(s), less about the world(s) of the Bible than about how worlds and the Bible interact--in short, about how a text constructs a people and a people constructs a text. It is about a particular sociocultural formation but also about the dynamics that obtain in the interrelation between any group of people and sacred texts in general. Thus African Americans and the Bible provides an exemplum of sociocultural formation and a critical lens through which the process of sociocultural formation can be viewed.
This volume explores a number of instances of unexpected but influential readings of the Bible in popular culture, literature, film, music and politics. The argument in all of them is that the effects of the Bible continues to have an effect on contemporary culture in ways that may surprise and sometimes dismay both religious and secular groups. That the Bible was at one time chained in churches is true. The subversive misreading of this enchainment as a symbol of a book in captivity to the established church is hard to suppress, however. Yet, once released from these chains, the Bible proves to be a text that gets everywhere and which undergoes surprising and sometimes contradictory metamorphoses. The pious advocates of making the Bible accessible who sought to free it from the churches' chains are the very people who then decry some of the results when the Bible is free to roam.
Study the entire Book of Genesis,beginning with the creation story and ending with Jacob and his family reuniting. Some of the major ideas explored in this Book of the Bible are: personal relationship with God, the mystery of God, God's unconditional love, courage to face the unknown, and turning evil into good. Leader Guide includes: A verse-by-verse, in-depth look at the Scriptures. Background material, including word studies and history of the biblical setting. Answers to questions asked in the Participant Book. Application of the Scripture to daily life situations. Discussion suggestions. A variety of study options. Practical tips for leaders to use. More than 3.5 million copies of the series have been sold. This revision of the Abingdon classic Genesis to Revelation Series is a comprehensive, verse-by-verse, book-by-book study of the Bible based on the NIV. These studies help readers strengthen their understanding and appreciation of the Bible by enabling them to engage the Scripture on three levels: What does the Bible say? Suggests questions for participants to consider as they read the passage for each session. What does the passage mean? Unpacks key verses in the selected passage. How does the Scripture relate to my life? Provides three major ideas that have meaning for our lives today. The meaning of the selected passages are made clear by considering such aspects as ancient customs, locations of places, and the meanings of words. The meaning of the selected passages are made clear by considering such aspects as ancient customs, locations of places, and the meanings of words. The simple format makes the study easy to use. Includes maps and glossary with key pronunciation helps. Updates will include: New cover designs and interior designs. Leader Guide per matching Participant Book (rather than multiple volumes in one book). Updated to 2011 revision of the New International Version translation (NIV)and references to New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible. Biblical chapters on the contents page beside session lesson titles for at-a-glance overview of biblical structure. Larger divisions within the contents page to reflect macro-structure of each biblical book. For example, Genesis 1-11; Genesis 12-50; Exodus 1-15; Exodus 16-40; Isaiah 1-39; Isaiah 40-66. The simple format makes the study easy to use. Each volume contains 13 sessions and has a separate Leader Guide.
