Popular writer and teacher Jeannine Brown shows how a narrative approach illuminates each of the Gospels, helping readers see the overarching stories. This book offers a corrective to tendencies to read the Gospels piecemeal, one story at a time. It is filled with numerous examples and visual aids that show how narrative criticism brings the text to life, making it an ideal supplementary textbook for courses on the Gospels. Readers will gain hands-on tools and perspectives to interpret the Gospels as whole stories.
The servants who filled the jars at Jesus' command when he turned the water into wine the boy who donated his loaves and fishes so Jesus could multiply them the woman with the alabaster jar who anointed Jesus' feet. All these and many more characters in the Gospels share one important trait: in the biblical accounts where they appear, they are silent. We have no record of their words. Nevertheless, they have much to say to us by the ways they responded to Christ. Take a journey of the imagination with author Allan Wright, back to New Testament times, to consider what kinds of lives these people might have lived and what lessons we might learn from the Silent Witnesses in the Gospels.
'It has been slowly dawning on me over many years that there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known them . . . we have all forgotten what the four Gospels are about.' With that surprising assertion, Tom Wright launches this ground-breaking work in which he helps us to see the gospel story in radically a new light, and to acknowledge that, for many generations, the Church has been avoiding its full impact and holding back from proclaiming its full meaning. 'Classic Wright: clear, accessible, robust, engaging and challenging.' Paula Gooder in Third Way 'Scholarly, accessible, insightful and provocative.' Christianity 'Wright argues compellingly that the twin themes of kingdom and cross are inseparably linked. . . This is a much-needed reorientation. The book makes its case for 'rethinking' cogently and deserves widespread attention.' Theology
This textbook on how to read the Gospels well can stand on its own as a guide to reading this New Testament genre as Scripture. It is also ideally suited to serve as a supplemental text to more conventional textbooks that discuss each Gospel systematically. Most textbooks tend to introduce students to historical-critical concerns but may be less adequate for showing how the Gospel narratives, read as Scripture within the canonical framework of the entire New Testament and the whole Bible, yield material for theological reflection and moral edification. Pennington neither dismisses nor duplicates the results of current historical-critical work on the Gospels as historical sources. Rather, he offers critically aware and hermeneutically intelligent instruction in reading the Gospels in order to hear their witness to Christ in a way that supports Christian application and proclamation.
Anyone who has ever spent time in a Christian church knows that the gospels are never read as a series of ordered events forming a narrative whole. Instead they are read with dogged incoherence, focusing on tiny snippets taken out of context. The birth stories of Matthew and Luke are emphasized at Christmas; the stone rolls away from the tomb at Easter. The gospels are used in churches only as occasional readings, lections, chapters and verses which are dipped into for liturgical moments. If we understand them that way, it makes no difference whether Peter and John observe Jesus raising a dead girl in one chapter and in the next seem dumbfounded by the very concept of resurrection. That juxtaposition is dramatically incoherent only if we assume that meaning derives from the order of events in a story that is read as a whole; that is, as a literary fiction. Reading the gospels as novels raises questions about how we think of fiction, how we think of history, and how we think of religion. Critical reading opens windows to truth claims at basic levels: the level of the definition of the text, the level of when and how it was composed, the level of form or genre. These are questions for the literary critic, and they lead to factual conclusions, including the author's conclusion that crucifixion and resurrection are allegories for the destruction of Jewish culture in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and the rebirth of that culture in the form of a Hellenized and de-tribalized Judaic offshoot, Christianity. ,
These ancient yet compelling stories, passed down from generation to generation, are as timeless as the lessons they teach. The scenes and people may change, but God and his Word do not. The lives of these Bible characters will inspire, challenge, and encourage you in your walk with God.
Presents a new approach for using the Gospels as unique storytelling material. Each biblical story is printed in episodes to enhance memorization and make strong interpretive comments. Also includes suggestions on how to connect these stories with everyday experience.
Born out of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of women who Raechel and Amanda have walked alongside as they walk with the Lord, She Reads Truth is the message that will help you understand the place of God's Word in your life.
The renowned biblical scholar, author of The Misunderstood Jew, and general editor for The Jewish Annotated New Testament interweaves history and spiritual analysis to explore Jesus’ most popular teaching parables, exposing their misinterpretations and making them lively and relevant for modern readers. Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus’ stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives. In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.
The Seamless Gospels presents the entire King James Gospels, updated in modern English, arranged in sequential order, with special care given to preserve and blend the original King James text into one continuous flow of events without translation or interpretation.
