Does your knowledge of the Old Testament feel like a grab bag of people, books, events and ideas? Sandra Richter gives an overview of the Old Testament, organizing our disorderly knowledge of the Old Testament people, facts and stories into a memorable and manageable story of redemption that climaxes in the New Testament.
Sandra L. Richter cares about the Bible and the environment. Using her expertise in ancient Israelite society as well as in biblical theology, she walks readers through biblical passages and shares case studies that connect the biblical mandate to current issues. She then calls Christians to apply that message to today's environmental concerns.
A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors, in a commemorative hardcover edition In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century.
This monograph is a comparative, socio-linguistic reassessment of the Deuteronomic idiom, leshakken shemo sham, and its synonymous biblical reflexes in the Deuteronomistic History, lashum shemo sham, and lihyot shemo sham. These particular formulae have long been understood as evidence of the Name Theology - the evolution in Israelite religion toward a more abstracted mode of divine presence in the temple. Utilizing epigraphic material gathered from Mesopotamian and Levantine contexts, this study demonstrates that leshakken shemo sham and lashum shemo sham are loan-adaptations of Akkadian shuma shakanu, an idiom common to the royal monumental tradition of Mesopotamia. The resulting retranslation and reinterpretation of the biblical idiom profoundly impacts the classic formulation of the Name Theology.
In a book marked by unusually readable yet academic style, Mettinger transforms our knowledge of the story of Eden in Genesis. He shows us a story focused on a divine test of human obedience, with human disobedience and its consequences as its main theme. Both of the special trees in Eden had a function: the tree of knowledge as the test case, and the tree of life as the potential reward for obedience. Mettinger adopts a two-tiered approach. In a synchronic move, he understakes a literary analysis that yields striking observations on narratology, theme, and genre in the text studied. He defines the genre as myth and subjects the narrative to a functional analysis. He then applies a diachronic approach and presents a tradition-historical reconstruction of an Adamic myth in Ezekiel 28. The presence of both wisdom and immortality in this myth leads to a discussion of these divine prerogatives in Mesopotamian literature (remember Adapa and Gilgamesh). The two prerogatives demarcated an ontological boundary between the divine and human spheres. Nevertheless, the Eden Narrative does not evaluate the human desire to obtain knowledge or wisdom negatively. A piece of fresh, original scholarship in accessible form, this book is ideal for courses on creation, primeval history, the Bible and literature, and the Bible and the ancient Near East.
An “instantly cinematic” horror eco-thriller “that will make you wonder what the world would be like if humans were to give it back” (Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box). “As terrifying as it is exhilarating.” —Alma Katsu “A smart, thrilling, relentless eco-nightmare.” —Paul Tremblay Earth’s rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction. Humanity’s last hope to save the planet lies with The Virgin Zones, 13 vast areas of land off-limits to people and given back to nature. Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventure racers, including his daughter Jenn, into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Jenn carries a secret—Kat, Dylan’s wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity’s friend.
This collection of letters forms a fascinating day-by-day account of Steinbeck's writing of EAST OF EDEN, his longest and most ambitious novel. The letters, ranging over many subjects - textual discussion, trial flights of workmanship, family matters - provide an illuminating perspective on Steinbeck, the creative genius, and a private glimpse of Steinbeck, the man.