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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > The Bible > Bible readings or selections
Using features of the narrative-critical method, this book offers
an innovative approach to a notable phenomenon in the book of Acts:
the conversion of entire households to the Christian faith. When
viewed against the household mission of the seventy(-two)
messengers in Luke, the stories of Cornelius, Lydia, the Roman
jailer and Crispus comprise a pattern of evangelistic activity that
provides a common framework for their interpretation. Repetition
and variation of the pattern offer important clues for the way each
story functions within the wider context of Acts, opening up new
lines of interpretation as well as new levels of unity/disunity
between the Lukan writings.
Exegetical study of Proverbs 10:1-22:16. Proverbs are neither
statements of this-worldly cause and effect nor universally
applicable doctrines of divine order. Rather, a proverb's meaning
and 'truth' are conditioned by the context. The author delimits
sections which the editor(s) of the collection consciously grouped
together in their present sequence. He then examines how these
literary arrangements both influence the meaning of the individual
proverbs and determine their function in context. Indexes of names,
passages and subjects are included.
Life has its rhythms. We all need to be able to cope with its ebb
as well as its flow. We have to survive its darkness as well as its
light. We face dry times as well as times of richness. To survive
this intricate pattern, we need to have an overriding rhythm of
prayer. We need to know that whatever is happening, we are loved by
God, and in him we live and move and have our being. "This updated
gift edition of one of David Adam's most popular books features
new, specially commissioned drawings."
Against the majority opinion, this study argues that the Lukan
Parable of the Talents (Lk 19.11-28) is a story about the use and
abuse of power. The parable is also the story of those who suffer
adverse consequences when they oppose unjust power structures. This
suppression of challenge to oppressive structures evidenced in the
Parable of the Pounds fits a pattern that operates in other parts
of the Lukan Gospel. We meet it, for example, in the arrest and
killing of John the Baptist by Herod, and in the arrest and
crucifixion of Jesus. The Parable of the Pounds can be seen as a
paradigm for the stories of those characters in the Lukan Gospel
who 'lose their pound' when they challenge an oppressive structure,
where 'pound' becomes a metaphor for what one has that can be
potentially taken away by those in a position of power. This study
argues that this pattern of 'taking away the pound' is also seen
within stories of women characters who resist patriarchal ideals
and expectations. The Parable of the Pounds is used as a lens
through which to view the characterizations of Lukan women. New
lenses provide new opportunities for perception. This study
explores what is opened up by this way of viewing the text. In
particular, it explores the ways in which the dynamic of the
Parable of the Pounds gives insight into the dynamic operating in
the Lukan women's characterizations. LNTS
Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature examines the
powerful influence of the biblical Psalms on sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century English literature. It explores the
imaginative, beautiful, ingenious and sometimes ludicrous and
improbable ways in which the Psalms were 'translated' from ancient
Israel to Renaissance and Reformation England. No biblical book was
more often or more diversely translated than the Psalms during the
period. In church psalters, sophisticated metrical paraphrases,
poetic adaptations, meditations, sermons, commentaries, and through
biblical allusions in secular poems, plays, and prose fiction,
English men and women interpreted the Psalms, refashioning them
according to their own personal, religious, political, or aesthetic
agendas. The book focuses on literature from major writers like
Shakespeare and Milton to less prominent ones like George
Gascoigne, Mary Sidney Herbert and George Wither, but it also
explores the adaptations of the Psalms in musical settings,
emblems, works of theology and political polemic.
"I know dogs in my life the way I know people and cats and trees
and landscapes. Dogs help me shape my thoughts, feelings, and
prayer life. Dogs have taught me attributes I feel in myself when
reflecting and praying. "Dogs have shown me the spirit of being
loyal, glad, overwhelmed, protective, committed, vigilant, patient,
kind, energetic, discerning, forgiving. Unfolding these attributes
of dog life opens my own spiritual being. My relationship with dog
mirrors my relationship with God." In Dog Psalms the reader can use
a dog's attributes to speak to God.
Woods examines Luke's use of the unusual phrase 'Finger of God' at
Lk. 11.20 as a key to understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in
Luke-Acts. Luke's interest in the Holy Spirit is well-known, so
when instead of having Jesus say,' It I cast out devils by the
Spirit of God...', as Matthew has it, he writes, 'If I by the
finger of God..', Luke poses a question that has puzzled many
commentators since. Woods argues that in fact the phrase finger of
God' holds the key to understanding the role of the Spirit in
Luke-Acts. Taking into account the background to the phrase. Luke's
larger theological interests within the Beelzebub section itself,
the Travel Narrative, and the programme of Luke-Acts as a whole, he
offers a new solution to an old exegetical question.
John's Gospel has had an incalculable impact on human history. Its
pages contain a moral and spiritual potency which, over the
centuries, has transformed communities, brought about political
change and remade human character on a scale without precedent. The
power remains in the Gospel today. At its centre, as at the centre
of his exposition, is Jesus Christ in his glory and grace, majesty
and tenderness. Bruce Milne believes that we can experience his
presence even today, for the Gospel was 'written that ... you may
have life in his name'. The Gospel of John is a witness to the
King, as much a tract for our times as for John's. Bruce Milne's
exposition focuses on the ministry of Jesus before his incarnation,
during his life on earth and after his resurrection. The
centrepiece of this Gospel is the cross, and its background the
solemnity of God's judgment of the world.
"Reading First Peter with New Eyes" is the second of four volumes
that incorporate essays examining the impact of recent
methodological advances in New Testament studies of the letters of
James, 1 and 2 Peter and Jude. It includes rhetorical,
social-scientific, socio-rhetorical, ideological and hermeneutical
methods, as they contribute to understanding First Peter and its
social context. Each essay has a similar three-fold structure,
ideal for use by students: a description of the methodological
approach; the application of the methodological approach to First
Peter; and a conclusion identifying how the methodological approach
contributes to a fresh understanding of the letter. "Reading First
Peter with New Eyes" follows on from the first volume in the
series, "Reading James With New Eyes", edited by Robert, L. Webb
and John S. Kloppenborg.
This book offers a fascinating account of the central myth of
Western culture - the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Philip Almond examines the way in which the gaps, hints and
illusions within this biblical story were filled out in
seventeenth-century English thought. At this time, the Bible formed
a fundamental basis for studies in all subjects, and influenced
greatly the way that people understood the world. Drawing
extensively on primary sources he covers subjects as diverse as
theology, history, philosophy, botany, language, anthropology,
geology, vegetarianism, and women. He demonstrates the way in which
the story of Adam and Eve was the fulcrum around which moved lively
discussions on topics such as the place and nature of Paradise, the
date of creation, the nature of Adamic language, the origins of the
American Indians, agrarian communism, and the necessity and meaning
of love, labour and marriage.
In this 2006 text, Daniel M. Gurtner examines the meaning of the
rending of the veil at the death of Jesus in Matthew 27:51a by
considering the functions of the veil in the Old Testament and its
symbolism in Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. Gurtner
incorporates these elements into a compositional exegesis of the
rending text in Matthew. He concludes that the rending of the veil
is an apocalyptic assertion like the opening of heaven revealing,
in part, end-time images drawn from Ezekiel 37. Moreover, when the
veil is torn Matthew depicts the cessation of its function,
articulating the atoning role of Christ's death which gives access
to God not simply in the sense of entering the Holy of Holies (as
in Hebrews), but in trademark Matthean Emmanuel Christology: 'God
with us'. This underscores the significance of Jesus' atoning death
in the first gospel.
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