The Bible was at the center of Jonathan Edwards' intellectual and ministerial life. As an eighteenth century theologian-pastor, the Scriptures were the focus of his work and the perspective through which he viewed his world. Edwards had a particular interest in the interpretation of the Apocalypse, devoting a notebook to the collection of observations and thoughts from his reading and reflection. This book examines Edwards' interpretation of Revelation 4-8 as seen in his working notebooks and theological treatises and sermons and then compares his views with some of his major contemporary biblical interpreters. Edwards employs a typological hermeneutical method, arguing that typology is the language God uses to communicate and this language can be learned both from explicit typology in Scripture as well as from the biblical author's implicit use of types. In the application of this typological hermeneutics, Edwards not only interprets all of Scripture Christologically, but also views the natural world and secular history as types of Christ.

In this outstanding commentary, Gordon McConville offers a theological interpretation of the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy in the context of the biblical canon. He gives due attention to historical issues where these bear on what can be known about the settings in which the text emerged. His dominant method is one that approaches Deuteronomy as a finished work. Dr McConville argues that in the context of the ancient world, Deuteronomy should be understood as the radical blueprint for the life of a people, at the same time both spiritual and political, and profoundly different from every other social, political and religious programme. The book incorporates the tension between an open-ended vision of a perfectly ordered society under God, and practical provisions for dealing with the frailty and imperfections of real people. Hence, it is capable of informing our thinking about the organisation of societies while maintaining a vision of the kingdom of God.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

After publishing a number of books in the history, literature, social thought, history of religion, and theology of formative Judaism, in the first six centuries C.E., Neusner explains the principal stages in the unfolding of his oeuvre. He introduces the documentary reading of the canonical components, one by one. He proceeds to the description, analysis, and interpretation of religious systems that comprise Rabbinic Judaism. He then sets forth the documentary history of the formation of Rabbinic Judaism in antiquity, its transformation from a philosophical to a religious system for Israel's social order. From that diachronic perspective turns to the generative logic that transcends the diachronic narrative and imposes synchrony upon the whole. That marks a shift to a synchronic perspective, now spelling out the theological outcome of the entire venture: how the whole holds together in a coherent and logical way.

Phillips undertakes a sequential reading of the Prologue of John's Gospel. By using the reading strategies of Iser, Emmott, and Eco, the book establishes a reading strategy termed sequential disclosure, which is then applied to the text. In order to arrive at the reading, preliminary chapters focus both on historical interpretation of the Prologue in terms of reader response and on the role of the author, the use of persuasion and the development of irony. Special focus is given to the role of the dramatic prologue, as well as the interaction between rhetoric, irony and community. As such, the book discusses the role of the reading process in developing a specific community language. The book focuses on the didactic role of the Prologue in teaching readers this language and so including them into the Johannine community. The reading of the Prologue highlights the key aspects of the reading process: ambiguity and disambiguation; resemanticization; antilanguage; community development and intertextuality. A sequential reading of the Prologue highlights the didactic and evangelistic role of this text. JSNTS 294

Our oldest Christian traditions invite us to listen as well as speak when we pray, yet often the Voice seems barely audible. With over 40,000 copies sold since its original release in 1996, "Echoes of Eternity: Volume I" is helping many who desire to quiet their hearts and listen. "Echoes of Eternity" presents 365 brief meditations gathered from one pastor's faithful daily practice of listening to God. Each reading includes a Scripture verse and encouraging words that speak of Christ as our anchor, the treasure of God's love, and His lasting peace.

Sized to fit easily into a purse or pocket, "Echoes of Eternity" can facilitate a quiet moment alone with God at any time or place.

"Pray with your heart open. Pray with your ears open---open to Me and My word. Enter My presence with thanksgiving, and come "boldly" to the Throne of grace. I welcome you, My beloved child."

This book charts the mutations of the book of Jonah as it latches onto Christian and Jewish motifs and anxieties, passes through highbrow and lowbrow culture, and finally becomes something of a scavenger among the ruins, as, in its most resourceful move to date, it begins to live off the demise of faith. This book is concerned with those versions of the biblical that escape proper disciplinary boundaries: it shifts the focus from "Mainstream" to "Backwater" interpretation. It is less a navigation of interpretative history and more an interrogation of larger political/cultural issues: anti-Judaism in Biblical Studies, the secularization of the Bible, and the projection of the Bible as credulous ingenu, naive Other to our savvy post-Enlightenment selves.

Who was John? What was his world? What was his purpose in writing? In this brief but helpful survey of the background, purpose, plan, and teaching of the Johannine literature, E. Earle Ellis guides the reader to a better understanding and a fuller appreciation of the Gospel and the Epistles of John. Ellis shows that John was a "theologican in his own right with roots in primitive Christianity as deep as Paul's." He sees John as an "inspired interpreter" of the mind of Christ who stands on good historical ground. Written in clear, concise terminology, The World of St. John is written for readers with little or no theological background who want to know what John's writings are about, the context in which they were written, and what their meaning is for today. Originally published in 1984 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

The biblical story of King David and his conflict with King Saul (1 and 2 Samuel) is one of the most colorful and perennially popular in the Hebrew Bible. In recent years, this story has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, much of it devoted to showing that David was a far less heroic character than appears on the surface. Indeed, more than one has painted David as a despicable tyrant. Paul Borgman provides a counter-reading to these studies, through an attentive reading of the narrative patterns of the text. He focuses on one of the key features of ancient Hebrew narrative poetics -- repeated patterns -- taking special note of even the small variations each time a pattern recurs. He argues that such "hearing cues" would have alerted an ancient audience to the answers to such questions as "Who is David?" and "What is so wrong with Saul?" The narrative insists on such questions, says Borgman, slowly disclosing answers through patterns of repeated scenarios and dominant motifs that yield, finally, the supreme work of storytelling in ancient literature. Borgman concludes with a comparison with Homer's storytelling technique, demontrating that the David story is indeed a masterpiece and David (as Baruch Halpern has said) "the first truly modern human."

From its recorded beginning before Christ, this biblical poem was widely, and in fact exclusively, interpreted both by Jews and Christians as a hymn of God's passionate love for his chosen people. The Song of Songs is however a mysterious book, and the more modern reading of it as a celebration of human erotic love has largely displaced this older interpretation. Here, the author presents a contemporary mystical reading, with reference to some later Christian poetry, including John Donne, George Herbert and R. S. Thomas.

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

This collection by Scandinavian scholars offers new studies on classical and modern problems in relation to the Fourth Gospel. There are essays on John and the Synoptics, and on John and the Qumran Scrolls. Other essays present new literary approaches such as the question of the 'implied reader', biblical imagery, and irony and sectarianism. Central theological issues are discussed, including the problem of anti-Judaism, the interpretation of the death of Jesus, the concept of mission, the relation between community and ethics, and the understanding of God in the Johannine writings.

For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought. >

In 1958, Bible scholar Morton Smith announced the discovery of a sensational manuscript-a second-century letter written by St. Clement of Alexandria, who quotes an unknown, longer version of the Gospel of Mark. When Smith published the letter in 1973, he set off a firestorm of controversy that has raged ever since. Is the text authentic, or a hoax? Is Smith's interpretation correct? Did Jesus really practice magic, or homosexuality? And if the letter is a forgery . . . why?
Through close examination of the "discovered" manuscript's text, Peter Jeffery unravels the answers to the mystery and tells the tragic tale of an estranged Episcopalian priest who forged an ancient gospel and fooled many of the best biblical scholars of his time. Jeffery shows convincingly that Smith's Secret Gospel is steeped in anachronisms and that its construction was influenced by Oscar Wilde's "Salome," twentieth-century misunderstandings of early Christian liturgy, and Smith's personal struggles with Christian sexual morality.

This book is a comparison of the message of Acts transmitted by Codex Bezae with that of the more familiar Alexandrian text, represented by Codex Vaticanus. For each section of Acts, there is a side by side translation of the Bezan and Alexandrian manuscripts, followed by a critical apparatus and, finally, a commentary that explores the differences in the message of the two texts. It is concluded that the Bezan text, with its interest in internal Jewish affairs and its focus on the struggles of the early disciples to free themselves from their traditional Jewish expectations and to achieve, despite their mistakes, a more accurate understanding of their master's teaching, is the earlier of the two texts.

This commentary explains 1 and 2 Corinthians passage by passage, following Paul's argument. It uses a variety of ancient sources to show how Paul's argument would have made sense to first-century readers, drawing from ancient letter-writing, speaking, and social conventions. The commentary will be of interest to pastors, teachers, and others who read Paul's letters because of its readability, firm grasp of the background and scholarship on the Corinthian correspondence, and its sensitivity to the sorts of questions asked by those wishing to apply Paul's letters today. It will also be of interest to scholars because of its exploration of ancient sources, often providing sources not previously cited in commentaries.

The Choice of Yahweh as Refuge makes a unique and creative contribution to an emerging direction in Psalms study: the shape and shaping of the Psalter. Building especially on the work of Gerald Wilson, James Mays, Klaus Seybold and Gerald Sheppard, Creach provides an abundance of helpful data and advances the discussion significantly with his judicious interpretation of the root hsh ('to seek refuge') and related Hebrew roots. He shows that the arrangement of Psalms 2-89 reflects an editorial interest in which ideas expressed by the hsh field are a foil for complaints of being 'cast off' by Yahweh and that ideas expressed by the hsh field are also among the primary motifs in Psalms 90-106.

Let Your Deepest Soul Rejoice

You are the Beloved of the Divine Lover. You are loved with a love beyond that which human words can express, which song and pen seek in some way to convey or at least hint at. Let go. Let the currents of love invade you. Let your deepest soul rejoice. from the Preface

In the tradition of Christian mysticism, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Gregory the Great, and Ambrose of Milan, M. Basil Pennington shares his reflections on the Bible s most challenging mystical text, the ancient love poem that is the "Song of Songs." In this extraordinary volume, Pennington is joined by the profound Jewish artist Phillip Ratner, whose inspired works call forth from Pennington not only transcendent prayer and rich analogy but also the deepest sentiments that are common to every human mind and heart.

Pennington reflects on the ways you can use the "Song of Songs" to fulfill your own unutterable aspirations. Enriched by Jewish and Christian faith, the drawings and meditations speak to you and every person who desires to connect with their deepest, most human longings. Allow yourself to let go and delve into the poetry of "Song of Songs," to find joy in the boundless love of God for you, the beloved child. Allow yourself to experience this story of love human love yearning for the Divine.

This programmatic socio-rhetorical investigation approaches the Epistle of James as an instance of written deliberative rhetoric, and it seeks to ascertain the social texture of James 2.5, a rhetorical performance of language that in other contexts is explicitly attributed to Jesus. Utilizing the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric, Dr Wachob successively probes the inner texture, the intertexture, the social and cultural texture, and the ideological implications of the rhetoric in James 2.1-13. He analyses James’ activation of antecedent texts in the LXX, common conceptions and topics in the broader culture, and also sayings in the Jesus tradition. He concludes that James emanates from the same milieu as the pre-Matthean Sermon on the Mount and shows James 2.5 to be an artful performance of the principal beatitude in that early epitome of Jesus’ teachings.

A powerful devotional commentary series designed to inform and inspire

The Straight to the Heart commentary series brings greater accessibility to the Bible so that people can understand the message that the Holy Spirit inspired the authors to write. It aims to get people reading so that they can hear God's voice for themselves; it will challenge them and provide a springboard into a deeper relationship with the divine.

The series will cover the whole Bible in 25 volumes to be published through 2015. Previously published volumes include Genesis, Moses, Matthew, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and Revelation.

"Phil Moore has served us magnificently."
--Terry Virgo

"Most commentaries are dull. These are alive. Most commentaries are for scholars. These are for you "
--Michael Green

"Think of these books as the Bible's message distilled for everyone."
--Adrian Warnock

Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

The classical Rabbinic tradition (legal, discursive, and exegetical) claims to be Oral Torah, transmitted by word of mouth in an unbroken chain deriving its authority ultimately from diving revelation to Moses at Sinai. Since the third century CE, however, this tradition has been embodied in written texts. Through judicious deployment and analysis of the evidence, Martin Jaffee is able to show that the Rabbinic tradition, as we have it, developed through a mutual interpretation of oral and written modes.

The foundational books of the Torah-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deutoronomy-form the basis of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Like the other volumes of The Inclusive Bible, the Inclusive Torah seeks to keep in creative tension the realities of the past and the concerns of present, all the while providing a text as readable and welcoming as possible. Together with Volume II: The Prophets, and Volume III: The Writings, this Volume I: The Torah completes the whole of the The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures.

Get to know God better and dig deeper into His Word with The Bible Recap Study Guide. Following a chronological Bible reading plan, this easy-to-use resource includes reflection and research questions specific to each day's reading, as well as space to write your responses. From just a handful of questions each day, you will get a concise yet comprehensive view of the Bible's larger narrative and how God's character is revealed throughout Scripture. You will soon discover that He's where the joy is! Praise for The Bible Recap "I have grown closer to God in ways I couldn't expect." "It has helped me understand the Bible like never before." "More than a Bible study, it is a God study."

This is the first major English-language introduction to the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament to appear for over 40 years. An essential handbook for scholars and students, it provides a thorough grounding in the study and editing of the New Testament text combined with an emphasis on the dramatic current developments in the field. Covering ancient sources in Greek, Syriac, Latin and Coptic, it - describes the manuscripts and other ancient textual evidence, and the tools needed to study them - deals with textual criticism and textual editing, describing modern approaches and techniques, with guidance on the use of editions - introduces the witnesses and textual study of each of the main sections of the New Testament, discussing typical variants and their significance. A companion website with full-colour images provides generous amounts of illustrative material, bringing the subject alive for the reader.