Biblical Studies

Abraham: Father of All Believers

Abraham: Father of All Believers
$12.00
Ancient-Future Bible Study incorporates contemporary study of the Bible with an experience of the church's most ancient way of reading Scripture, lectio divina. This time-honored practice consists of five basic movements: biblical study (lectio), reflection (meditatio), prayer (oratio), discernment (contemplatio), and contemplative action (operatio). In six clearly written volumes, bestselling author Stephen Binz helps readers study the Bible in a way that leads to spiritual transformation and brings them closer to God.
Binz leads readers in a vivid study of key biblical characters, including Abraham, Paul, Peter, David, the women of the Torah, and the women of the Gospels. He shows all Christians who desire to have a transforming experience with the inspired Word of God how studying Scripture through lectio divina can enrich their discipleship. This ecumenical Bible study, designed for use by individuals or groups, includes questions for personal reflection and suggested action. Each volume includes leader's notes for guiding a study over the course of six sessions.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781587432774
Publication Date: 
2011-01-01
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Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World

Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World
$24.95

Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world, from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500B.C. in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (what is now present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empirein A.D. 453. In Antiquity, Cantor covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of Christianity, and the triumph and decline of Rome.

In this fascinating and comprehensive analysis, the author explores social and cultural history, as well as the political and economic aspects of hisnarrative. He explains leading themes in religionand philosophy and discusses the environment, population, and public health. With his signature authority and insight, Cantor highlights the great books and ideas of antiquity that continue to influence culture today.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780060174095
Publication Date: 
2003-09-16
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APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
$24.00

Biblical texts create worlds of meaning and invite readers to enter them. When readers enter such textual worlds, which are strange and complex, they are confronted with theological claims. With this in mind, the purpose of the IBT series is to help serious readers in their experience of reading and interpreting by providing guides for their journeys into textual worlds. The focus of the series is not so much on the world behind the text as on the worlds created by the texts in their engagement with readers.

Nowhere is the world of the biblical text stranger than in the apocalyptic literature of both the Old and New Testaments. In this volume, Stephen Cook makes the puzzling visions and symbols of the biblical apocalyptic literature intelligible to modern readers. He begins with definitions of apocalypticism and apocalyptic literature and introduces the various scholarly approaches to and issues for our understanding of the text. Cook introduces the reader to the social and historical worlds of the apocalyptic groups that gave rise to such literature and leads the reader into a better appreciation and understanding of the theological import of biblical apocalyptic literature.

In the second major section of the book, Cook guides the reader through specific examples of the Bible's apocalyptic literature. He addresses both the best-known examples (the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation) and other important but lesser known examples (Zechariah and some words of Jesus and Paul).

ISBN/SKU: 
9780687051960
Publication Date: 
2003-11-01
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Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation

Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation
$39.00
The contributors in this book use the most recent research in key areas - the early settlements of Israel, early Israelite religion, Qumran, Jerusalem, early Christian churches - to show that ancient writings and modern archaeology can illuminate each other, but only when used with professional care. The essays represent a new generation of archaeologists and historians, with new social, political and religious concerns who draw a fresh and vital picture of the emergence of ancient Israel.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780415141147
Publication Date: 
1997-02-13
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Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol 2: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persi

Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol 2: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persi
$60.00
Every year thousands of enthusiasts, both amateur and professional, spend the summer months digging in the sands of Israel hoping to find items that relate in some way to the places or events depicted in the Bible. Thousands more view artifacts in museums and long to know the full stories behind them. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Volume II, is the essential book for all of them.

In Ephraim Stern's sequel to Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Volume I, by Amihai Mazar, this world-renowned archaeologist who has directed excavations in the Holy Land for many years offers a dramatic look at how archaeological research contributes to our understanding of the connections between history and the stories recounted in the Bible. Stern writes about various artifacts unearthed in recent years and relates them to the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian periods in the Bible. Accompanied by photographs and illustrations of rare ancient relics ranging from household pottery to beautifully crafted jewelry and sculpture. His discussions bring the biblical world to life.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780300140576
Publication Date: 
2001-02-01
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ART OF READING SCRIPTURE

ART OF READING SCRIPTURE
$36.00
The difficulty of interpreting the Bible is felt all over today. Is the Bible still authoritative for the faith and practice of the church? If so, in what way? What practices of reading offer the most appropriate approach to understanding Scripture? The church's lack of clarity about these issues has hindered its witness and mission, causing it to speak with an uncertain voice to the challenges of our time.

This important book is for a twenty-first-century church that seems to have lost the art of reading the Bible attentively and imaginatively. The Art of Reading Scripture is written by a group of eminent scholars and teachers seeking to recover the church's rich heritage of biblical interpretation in a dramatically changed cultural environment. Asking how best to read the Bible in a postmodern context, the contributors together affirm up front "Nine Theses" that provide substantial guidance for the church. The essays and sermons that follow both amplify and model the approach to Scripture outlined in the Nine Theses.

Lucidly conceived, carefully written, and shimmering with fresh insights, The Art of Reading Scripture proposes a far-reaching revolution in how the Bible is taught in theological seminaries and calls pastors and teachers in the church to rethink their practices of using the Bible.

Contributors:

Gary A. Anderson
Richard Bauckham
Brian E. Daley
Ellen F. Davis
Richard B. Hays
James C. Howell
Robert W. Jenson
William Stacy Johnson
L. Gregory Jones
Christine McSpadden
R. W. L. Moberly
David C. Steinmetz
Marianne Meye Thompson

ISBN/SKU: 
9780802812698
Publication Date: 
2003-10-02
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Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses

Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses
$52.00
This is a study of the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses involving ascent into heaven, which have received little scholarly attention in comparison to apocalypses concerned primarily with the end of the world. Recent developments like the publication of the Aramaic Enoch fragments from Qumran and interest in questions of genre in the study of the apocalypses make this a particularly appropriate time to undertake this study. Martha Himmelfarb places the apocalypses in relation to both their biblical antecedents and their context in the Greco-Roman world. Her analysis emphasizes the emergence of the understanding of heaven as temple in the Book of the Watchers, the earliest of these apocalypses, and the way in which this understanding affects the depiction of the culmination of ascent, the hero's achievement of a place among the angels, in the ascent apocalypses generally. It also considers the place of secrets of nature and primeval history in these works. Finally, it offers an interpretation of the pseudepigraphy of the apocalypses and their function.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780195082036
Publication Date: 
1993-08-19
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Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture

Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture
$24.00
Traverses the ancient world's three great centers of cultural exchange - Babylonian Nineveh, Egyptian Memphis, and Iranian Perseolis - to situate classical Greece in its proper historical place, at the Western margin of a more comprehensive Near Eastern- Aegean cultural community.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780674014893
Publication Date: 
2004-11-17
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Bad Girls of the Bible: And What We Can Learn from Them

Bad Girls of the Bible: And What We Can Learn from Them
$16.00

Ten of the Bible's best-known femmes fatales parade across the pages of this popular and unforgettable study with situations that sound oh-so-familiar.

Women everywhere marvel at those "good girls" in Scripture-Sarah, Mary, Esther-but on most days, that's not who they see when they look in the mirror. Most women (if they're honest) see the selfishness of Sapphira or the deception of Delilah. They catch of glimpse of Jezebel's take-charge pride or Eve's disastrous disobedience. Like Bathsheba, Herodias, and the rest, today's modern woman is surrounded by temptations, exhausted by the demands of daily living, and burdened by her own desires.

So what's a good girl to do? Learn from their lives, says beloved Bible study teacher and speaker Liz Curtis Higgs, and choose a better path. Whether they were "Bad to the Bone," "Bad for a Season, but Not Forever" or only "Bad for a Moment," these infamous sisters show women how not to handle the challenges of life.
With her trademark humor and encouragement, Higgs combines a contemporary retelling of the stories of these "other women" in Scripture with a solid, verse-by-verse study to teach us how to avoid their tragic mistakes and joyfully embrace grace.
Let these Bad Girls show you why studying the Bible has never been more fun!

Includes Discussion Questions and Study Guide

ISBN/SKU: 
9780307731975
Publication Date: 
2013-07-16
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Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah

$50.00
"William G. Dever offers a welcome perspective on ancient Israel and Judah that prioritizes the archaeological remains to render history as it was--not as the biblical writers argue it should have been. Drawing from the most recent archaeological data as interpreted from a nontheological point of view and supplementing that data with biblical material only when it converges with the archaeological record, Dever analyzes all the evidence at hand to provide a new history of ancient Israel and Judah that is accessible to all interested readers"--
ISBN/SKU: 
9780884142188
Publication Date: 
2017-10-01
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Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life: A New Conversation (3rd ed.)

Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life: A New Conversation (3rd ed.)
$39.00

Earth is changing in ways it hasn't for hundreds of thousands of years. At the same time, Christianity is breaking away from its millennium-long geographical and cultural center in the Euro-West. Its growth is in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, primarily in Pentecostal, evangelical, and independent churches. These dramatically changed planetary and ecclesial landscapes have led many to conclude that we need a new way of thinking about our collective existence: who are we and what is the nature of our responsibility in this deeply altered world? To address that question, biblical scholars Bruce C. Birch and Jacqueline E. Lapsley and Christian ethicists Larry L. Rasmussen and Cynthia Moe-Lobeda carry on "a new conversation" that engages how Christians are to understand the authority and use of Scripture, the basic elements of any full-bodied Christian ethic attuned to our circumstances, and the nature of our responsibility to our planetary neighbors and creation itself.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780800697617
Publication Date: 
2018-05-01
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Bible and Social Justice: Old Testament and New Testament Foundations for the Church's Urgent Call

Bible and Social Justice: Old Testament and New Testament Foundations for the Church's Urgent Call
$29.00
Although the cry for justice in human society is an important theme in the Bible, in many church and academic circles action for and discourse about social justice is carried on without a thorough exploration of this theme in Scripture. This volume brings together chapters by experts in the various sections of the Old and New Testaments to give a full spectrum of what the Bible has to say about social justice, and to point to ways forward for Christians seeking to think and act in harmony with God in pursuing social justice in the world today. ""This book is unique: in it, noted biblical scholars weigh in on what the Bible says about social justice, a topical domain typically populated by sociologists, ethicists, and activists. The volume is remarkably comprehensive, sampling texts from across the biblical canon, and its discussions are robust and insightful. The volume introduces devout, learned evangelical voices into a conversation of great import both for the church and the poor and powerless in our world. Hear them well!"" --Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. Professor (Emeritus) of Biblical Literature, North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago ""Concern with social justice has rightly captured the imagination of those who follow Jesus. The Bible and Social Justice powerfully supports this passion with brilliant biblical exposition. I highly recommend this stimulating book that not only informs us but also stirs us to action."" --Tremper Longman III, Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, Westmont College Cynthia Long Westfall is Assistant Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College. Along with her academic work, she has ministered to those who are at risk for homelessness in Denver, Colorado, and Hamilton, Ontario. Bryan R. Dyer is the coeditor of Paul and Ancient Rhetoric (2015), and currently works for Baker Academic as an Acquisitions Editor.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781498238076
Publication Date: 
2016-03-10
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Bible and the American Myth

Bible and the American Myth
$18.95
The Bible and the American Myth challenges the academic study of the Bible to orient itself to cultural criticism. The essays model an approach to the study of the Bible that entails efforts to fathom not only the meanings of texts, but the role of texts in the construction of meaning.It is all the more fascinating and poignant that the essayists are students of theology of varied backgrounds. What they have in common is the pursuit of theological studies at the mouth of Harlem. This location at the turn of the century inspired them to think differently about the focus and agenda of theological studies, especially biblical studies. Each essayist is convinced that the study of the Bible should entail the study of cultural construction and deconstruction, the study of the making and unmaking of cultural myths that shape existence.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780865546509
Publication Date: 
1999-05-01
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Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Scrolls & Christian Origins (vol. 3)

Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Scrolls & Christian Origins (vol. 3)
$100.00
$100.00
$100.00

The recovery of 800 documents in the eleven caves on the northwest shores of the Dead Sea is one of the most sensational archeological discoveries in the Holy Land to date. These three volumes, the very best of critical scholarship, demonstrate in detail how the scrolls have revolutionized our knowledge of the text of the Bible, the character of Second Temple Judaism, and the Jewish beginnings of Christianity.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781932792218
Publication Date: 
2006-03-01
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Bible and the Transgender Experience: How Scripture Supports Gender Variance

Bible and the Transgender Experience: How Scripture Supports Gender Variance
$18.00
The author, a nontransgender pastor, spent three years serving a church where ten percent of the congregation identified as trans men, trans women, cross-dressers, or genderqueer. This motivated her to learn about gender variant people and put her in situations where her previous understanding of the Bible was greatly expanded. The Bible and the Transgender Experience explores whether or not God creates only two genders; what Jesus had to say about gender variance; various understandings of "the cross-dressing passage"; gender variant groups and individuals in scripture; and the movement, within scripture itself, from the exclusion of gender variant people to their inclusion within the people of God. In this scholarly, yet easy-to-read book, Herzer gives clear, insightful accounts of what she has learned. A must-read for all pastors, chaplains, counselors, and congregants, and for family and friends of transgender people, as well as for gender-variant individuals seeking to find their stories in the biblical narrative, and desiring to know how scripture supports them. A refreshing and much-needed contribution to the public debates about the rights of transgender people.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780829820423
Publication Date: 
2016-11-01
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Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the 'People of the Book' in the Language of Islam

Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the 'People of the Book' in the Language of Islam
$25.00

From the first centuries of Islam to well into the Middle Ages, Jews and Christians produced hundreds of manuscripts containing portions of the Bible in Arabic. Until recently, however, these translations remained largely neglected by Biblical scholars and historians. In telling the story of the Bible in Arabic, this book casts light on a crucial transition in the cultural and religious life of Jews and Christians in Arabic-speaking lands.


In pre-Islamic times, Jewish and Christian scriptures circulated orally in the Arabic-speaking milieu. After the rise of Islam--and the Qur'an's appearance as a scripture in its own right--Jews and Christians translated the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament into Arabic for their own use and as a response to the Qur'an's retelling of Biblical narratives. From the ninth century onward, a steady stream of Jewish and Christian translations of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament crossed communal borders to influence the Islamic world.

The Bible in Arabic offers a new frame of reference for the pivotal place of Arabic Bible translations in the religious and cultural interactions between Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780691168081
Publication Date: 
2015-10-27
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Bible in the Contemporary World:

Bible in the Contemporary World:
$22.00
A crucial responsibility for Christian interpreters of Scripture, says Richard Bauckham, is to understand our contemporary context and to explore the Bible's relevance to it in ways that reflect serious critical engagement with that context. In this book Bauckham models how this task can be carried out.
Bauckham calls for our reading of Scripture to lead us to greater engagement with critical issues in today's world, including globalization, environmental degradation, and widespread poverty. He works to bring biblical texts to bear on these contemporary realities through the Bible's metanarrative of God and the world, according to which God's purpose takes effect in the blessing and salvation and fulfillment of the world as his cherished creation.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780802872234
Publication Date: 
2015-11-08
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Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays

Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays
$52.00
ISBN/SKU: 
9781589835061
Publication Date: 
2010-09-24
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Bible Now: Homosexuality, Abortion, Women, Dealth Penalty, Earth

Bible Now: Homosexuality, Abortion, Women, Dealth Penalty, Earth
$28.00
For millennia, people have used the Bible as a touchstone on important social and political questions, and rightly so. But many use the Bible simply as a weapon to wield against opponents in a variety of debates--without knowing what the Bible actually says about the issue in question.
In The Bible Now, two respected biblical scholars, Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, tell us carefully what the Hebrew Bible says or does not say about a wide range of issues--including homosexuality, abortion, women's status, capital punishment, and the environment. In
fascinating passages that shed new light on some of today's most passionate disputes, the authors reveal how the Bible is frequently misunderstood, misquoted, mistranslated, and misused. For instance, those who quote the Bible in condemning homosexuality often cite the story of Sodom, and those who
favor homosexuality point to David's lament over the death of Jonathan. But as the authors show, neither passage is clearly about homosexuality, and these texts do not offer solid footing on which to make an argument. Readers learn that female homosexuality is not prohibited--only male
homosexuality. And on the subject of abortion, the Bible is practically silent, with one extraordinary exception.
The Bible has inspired people to do great good but has also been used by people to do great harm, so it is vitally important for us to pay attention to it--and to get it right. The Bible Now shows us how we can--and cannot--use this ancient source of wisdom to address our most current and
pressing issues.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780195311631
Publication Date: 
2011-07-01
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Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It

Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
$16.00

The controversial Bible scholar and author of The Evolution of Adam recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God's Word.

Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community.

Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to "protect" the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God's plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job--but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow.

The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns's spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God's Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider--the essence of our spiritual study.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780062272034
Publication Date: 
2015-09-15
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Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships

Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships
$29.00
Grapples conscientiously with biblical texts at the heart of the church's debate over same-sex relationships

This thought-provoking book by James Brownson develops a broad, cross-cultural sexual ethic from Scripture, locates current debates over homosexuality in that wider context, and explores why the Bible speaks the way it does about same-sex relationships.

Fairly presenting both sides in this polarized debate -- "traditional" and "revisionist" -- Brownson conscientiously analyzes all of the pertinent biblical texts and helpfully identifies "stuck points" in the ongoing debate. In the process, he explores key concepts that inform our understanding of the biblical texts, including patriarchy, complementarity, purity and impurity, honor and shame. Central to his argument is the need to uncover the moral logic behind the text.

Written in order to serve and inform the ongoing debate in many denominations over the questions of homosexuality, Brownson's in-depth study will prove a useful resource for Christians who want to form a considered opinion on this important issue.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780802868633
Publication Date: 
2013-02-03
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Biblical Aramaic Reader: With an Outline Grammar

Biblical Aramaic Reader: With an Outline Grammar
$25.00
This reader is for anyone eager to read the story of Daniel in the lion's den and many other fascinating stories in their original language, Aramaic. A brief outline of Biblical Aramaic grammar is followed by a verse-to-verse grammatical commentary on the Aramaic chapters in the books of Daniel and Ezra. Both the outline grammar and the grammatical commentary presuppose basic knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. Constant references are made in the commentary to relevant sections of the outline grammar. The commentary is written in a user-friendly, not overtly technical language. Some grammatical exercises with keys and paradigms conclude the Reader. Also suitable for self-study.
ISBN/SKU: 
9789042932760
Publication Date: 
2015-12-31
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Biblical Figures Outside the Bible

Biblical Figures Outside the Bible
$35.00
Outstanding scholars treat the evolution of the biographical traditions of fourteen biblical figures during the second temple, late antique, and medieval periods.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781563382475
Publication Date: 
1998-11-01
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Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition

Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition
$50.00

For over a decade, A Biblical History of Israel has gathered praise and criticism for its unapologetic approach to reconstructing the historical landscape of ancient Israel through a biblical lens. In this much-anticipated second edition, the authors reassert that the Old Testament should be taken seriously as a historical document alongside other literary and archaeological sources.

Significantly revised and updated, A Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition includes the authors' direct response to critics. In part 1, the authors review scholarly approaches to the historiography of ancient Israel and negate arguments against using the Bible as a primary source. In part 2, they outline a history of ancient Israel from 2000 to 400 BCE by integrating both biblical and extrabiblical sources. The second edition includes updated archaeological data and new references. The text also provides seven maps and fourteen tables as useful references for students.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780664239138
Publication Date: 
2015-11-06
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Biblical Interpretation

Biblical Interpretation
$62.50
This book defines interpretation and examines the special issues that surround biblical interpretation. The authors analyze the development of traditional literary and historical criticism and more recent social, scientific, and literary approaches, focusing on the key figures from Reimarus to Gerd Theissen, and exposing the underlying theological issues. They reveal a pattern in the relationship between religious interests in the texts and the rational methods used to interpret them, providing guidance for a theologically sensitive use of the Bible today. The book includes an annotated index with detailed information on over two hundred fifty biblical scholars and other interpreters.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780192132574
Publication Date: 
1988-11-17
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203.432.6101