In the history of nineteenth-century religious thought, William Robertson Smith occupies an ambiguous position. More than any other writer, he stimulated the theories of religion later advanced by Frazer, Durkheim, and Freud. Smith himself was not an original scholar, but was rather "clever at presenting other men's theories" within new and sometimes hostile contexts. Smith was an important contributor to two of the most serious challenges to Christian orthodoxy of the last century, the "Higher Criticism" of the Bible and the comparative study of religion, and was also the victim of the last successful heresy trial in Great Britain. Yet he was an utterly devout Protestant, whose views on Biblical criticism (for which he was damned) are now considered as true as his views on totemism and sacrifice (for which he was praised) are now considered false.

Despite Smith's enormous significance for the history of religious ideas, he has been written about relatively little, and most of what we know about his life and work comes from a source almost a century old. Originally published in 1882, The Prophets of Israel is a collection of eight lectures, including "Israel and Jehovah;" "Jehovah and the Gods of the Nations," "Amos and the House of Jehu," "Hosea and the Fall of Ephraim," "The Kingdom of Judah and the Beginnings of Isaiah's Work," "The Earlier Prophesies of Isaiah," "Isaiah and Micah in the Reign of Hezekiah," and "The Deliverance from Assyria."

A new introduction by Robert Alun Jones discusses Smith's early life, the heresy trial, Smith's early view of prophecy, and the classic text itself. The book will be of interest to students and teachers of religious studies, and general readers interested in Robertson Smith.

In this volume, Gerard Sloyan utilizes the lectionary approach to offer new insights into understanding the book of John. In so doing, he puts the Fourth Gospel in the Old Testament context within which the early church received the public readings of this Gospel. His emphasis on the use of John within first-century Christianity enables modern readers to grasp the meaning of the Gospel message.

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

This reading of Hosea explores the book from a feminist, psychoanalytical and poetic perspective. What is God doing with a prostitute? How does the theme of prostitution relate to the abjection of the woman as the other, and the fantasy of sexual ecstasy, precisely because she escapes patriarchal order? Where is the prophet situated in the dialectic of rage and desire that both seduces and condemns Israel? His voice is both masculine and feminine, and poetically embodies the sensuality of wayward Israel. The ambiguity of voice is also that of the prophet's role, which is both to nurture Israel, as on its Exodus from Egypt, and to be the trap that destroys it. The problematic of voice and prophetic function is evident in the vivid dissection of Israel's social institutions, whose disintegration is inversely related to the centrality of the discussion in the structure of the book, and in the violent swings from despair to impossible hope. The focus on immediate and uncontrollable entropy, manifest in extended tangled metaphors, that occupies the centre of the book, is framed in the outer chapters by intertextual references to Israel's primordial vision, and the romantic distantiation of the Song of Songs, in which the erotic and poetic contradictions of the book find their perhaps ironic resolution.>

For God alone my soul in silence waits.... In these reflections on Psalm 62 Margaret Guenther provides the foundation for a time of reflection and retreat without ever leaving home. The book s first chapter introduces us to ways of making a retreat wherever we are, at a place apart or in the midst of our daily lives. Guenther then offers eight meditations on Psalm 62, with its themes of waiting on God s presence with patience, trust, and expectation. She explores the images the psalm evokes of longing, silence, waiting, safety, enemies, and God as a rock and refuge. As in all her books, Guenther finds new ways to explore these ancient themes with the wit and practicality of an accomplished storyteller. These eight meditations can be read consecutively over the course of a single day or weekend, or spaced over time with periods of reflection in between. Each meditation ends with ideas for further prayer and pondering. My Soul in Silence Waits is one of our series of Cowley Cloister Books: smaller format, gift edition books designed for meditative and devotional reading.

Most of us get hope all wrong. We hope for better health, a generous pay rise or good grades for our children. Our wishful thinking may or may not have a good outcome, but when it does, it never leaves us satisfied. This 30-day devotional in the Food for the Journey series shows us that Christian hope, by contrast, is guaranteed and eternal, dealing with certainties: Christ's death for us, his forgiveness of sin and our hope of heaven when we die. Covering passages from Matthew, 1 Peter, Romans, 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians and Revelation, in this devotional some of the Keswick Convention's most beloved preachers - including Don Carson, Ray Ortlund and Jonathan Lamb - unpack the Bible's teaching on hope. In self-contained daily devotions they show us how we can enjoy the pleasures of earth knowing that they point to the far greater delights we'll experience one day in God's presence. In a small, easily portable format, Hope is perfect for carrying around with you on the go. Like all the Food for the Journey books, its undated format means you can start and finish at any time of the year, and work through it at your own pace. Whether you are looking to renew your own sense of hope and wonder at God's goodness, or want to dig more deeply into what the Bible teaches us about hope, this little devotional is packed full of wisdom that will help strengthen your faith in your walk with Christ. 'The hope set before us' is far greater than we can ever imagine. This devotional shows the glorious contours of our inexhaustible hope, offering encouragement and reassurance, whatever our present circumstances may be.

The Greco-Roman world was shaped by ideals and abstract ideas. The Apostle Paul left them behind. But they continue to shape evangelical teaching and practice. This picture contradicts the common impression of Paul as an abstract theologian, someone who wrestled with deep theological doctrine while hovering six feet above everyday reality. But in fact, it was the philosopher's of Paul's day--and even some of Paul's Christian opponents--who traded heavily in abstractions, one-way rhetoric and top-down hierarchies while depreciating the currency of common experience. By contrast, Paul the tentmaker was a conversationalist of God's good news, a storyteller of Jesus Christ, an apostle who walked the avenues and back alleys of everyday reality. His passion was for communities of grace and conversation where the new reality of Christ was explored and embodied within the daily messiness of life. Reframing Paul unveils this Paul in his original context and invites us to engage him on new terms. Courageously author Mark Strom draws Paul into vital conversation with contemporary evangelicalism. His book is for those who wonder why people leave churches for alternative spiritual paths--and who may even be tempted to do so themselves. More than anything, his book is for those who wonder what's gone wrong and who want to learn how the church can be an attractive community of transforming grace and conversation.

Fitzroy Dearborn is pleased to announce an historic event in religious reference publishing -- Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Already eight years in development under the general editorship of Thomas C. Oden, the first six volumes have now been released: Mark; Romans; Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians; I Corinthians; Colossians; and the General Epistles.

Scripture today is interpreted primarily from the perspective of post-Enlightenment thinkers. Earlier commentary, particularly that of the renowned church fathers -- Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, etc. -- has largely been lost to us. These early patristic writings are now rarely consulted -- not because they lack interest but because many of them have not been translated; still others are not readily available in reliable editions.

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a truly unique resource: when completed, it will include 27 volumes encompassing the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, plus the Apocrypha. On each page readers will find the text of scripture, line by line, accompanied by the relevant commentary (in English) of the early church fathers. The salient insights, rhetorical power and unique exegeses of these great thinkers will now be available to readers in the 21st century.

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is possible only now, for it relies on computer searches of the ancient Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac patristic texts to identify and isolate commentary on individual books of the Bible. Volume editors (who together constitute an illustrious team of Biblical scholars) review and select the best expositions and analyses from dedicated Biblical commentary as well as from theentire range of patristic writings, including sermons, homilies, letters, and theological translations. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is thus an unprecedented international undertaking, involving the expertise of computer experts and translators as well as that of hundreds of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic scholars from around the world.

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is dedicated to reclaiming for the modern reader classic commentary on the entire Christian canon: 21st century scholars, librarians, teachers, and students of the Bible will gain unequalled access to the most profound and enduring commentary by the early church fathers, from Element of Rome in the 2nd century to John of Damascus in the 8th century.

Fitzroy Dearborn expects great demand from libraries around the world for this extraordinary reference project, and very large initial printings allow us to price individual volumes at only $40 each. It is our hope that, at this price, even the smallest libraries will be able to afford this landmark work, which will be issued over a period of five years. Fitzroy Dearborn will record standing orders.

Images from Scripture, storytelling, and memories blend together, shaping a warm and heartfelt picture of God s goodness and love. In Reflections of God, Father Delich draws upon Scripture to comfort and affirm you in a search that finds God s beauty in the extraordinary and in the everyday. A collection of analogies from Scripture and daily life which are meant to make the unknownable God a little less so. Depicting the grace and love of God for all people from childhood experiences to the inner-working of an orchestra and the Cross of Jesus Reflections of God primes the pump of divine contemplation. Twenty-one chapters of storytelling for the hearth and the pulpit, this inviting book asks everyone to search within their own memories and uncover their individual likeness of God.

Richard Bauckham explores the historical and literary contexts of the Epistle of James, discussing the significance of James as the brother of Jesus and leader of the early Jerusalem church. He gives special attention to the aphorisms which encapsulate James' wisdom, and to the way that James' teaching closely resembles that of Jesus.

This volume contains the first English translation of Bede's allegorical commentary on the tabernacle of Moses, which he interpreted as a symbolic figure of the Christian Church. Written in the early 720s at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, On the Tabernacle (De tabernaculo) was the first Christian literary work devoted entirely to this topic and the first verse-by-verse commentary on the relevant portions of the Book of Exodus. On the Tabernacle was one of Bede's most popular works, appearing in a great many manuscripts from every period of the Middle Ages.

Modern critical scholars divide the Pentateuch into distinct components, identifying areas of unevenness in the scriptural tradition, which point to several interwoven documents rather than one immaculate whole. While the conclusions reached by such critical scholarship are still matters of dispute, the inconsistencies which it has identified stand clearly before us and pose a serious challenge to the believer in divine revelation. How can a text marred by contradiction be the legacy of Sinai? How can there be reverence for holy scriptures that show signs of human intervention? David Weiss Halivni explores these questions, not by disputing the evidence itself or by defending the absolute integrity of the Pentateuchal words at all costs, but rather by accepting the inconsistencies of the text as such and asking how this text might yet be a divine legacy.Inconsistencies and unevenness in the Pentateuchal scriptures are not the discovery of modern textual science alone. Halivni demonstrates that the earliest stewards of the Torah, including some of those represented in the Bible itself, were aware of discrepancies within the tradition. From the Book of Chronicles through the commentaries of the Rabbis, sensitive readers have perceived maculations, which mitigate against the notion of an unblemished, divine document, and have responded to these maculations in different ways.Revelation Restored asserts that acknowledging and accounting for human intervention in the Pentateuchal text is not alien to the Biblical or Rabbinic tradition and need not belie the tradition of revelation. Moreover, it argues that through recognizing textual problems in the scriptures, as well as efforts to resolve them in tradition, we may learn not only about the nature of the Pentateuch itself but also about the ongoing relationship between its people and its source.

Word and Glory challenges recent claims that Gnosticism, especially as expressed in the Nag Hammadi tractate Trimorphic Protennoia, is the most natural and illuminating background for understanding the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel. Scriptural allusions and interpretive traditions suggest that Jewish wisdom tradition, mediated by the synagogue of the diaspora, lies behind the Prologue and the Fourth Gospel as a whole, not some form of late first-century Gnosticism. Several features of the Fourth Gospel reflect the synagogue and nascent Christianity's struggle to advance and defend its beliefs about Jesus who, as God's son and Agent, was understood as the embodiment of the Divine Word. All of the ingredients that make up Johannine christology derive from dominical tradition, refracted through the lens of Jewish interpretive traditions. There is no compelling evidence that this christology derived from or was influenced by gnostic mythology. Word and Glory also develops and tests criteria for assessing the relative value of post-New Testament sources for the interpretation of New Testament documents.>

Luke's Gospel provides a comprehensive and schematic reading of Luke's Gospel, one of the most important books detailing the life and works of Christ, in six main parts. Knight introduces the Gospel and the narrative theory on which the Gospel rests. He offers a detailed, chapter-by-chapter exposition of the Gospel and also alternative perspectives, such as feminism and deconstruction. He considers the principal motifs of the Gospel, particularly the theme of the temple, which has been previously overlooked in Luke scholarship, arguing that Jesus pronounces the present temple forsaken by God to introduce himself as the cornerstone of the eschatological temple. Finally, he examines earlier readings of Luke's Gospel.
Jonathan Knight presents an accessible and jargon-free introduction to the Gospel and makes a valuable addition to the New Testament Readings series.

Using both ancient and modern rhetoric, linguistics, and argumentation theory, this study offers a fresh approach to 1 Peter and New Testament ethics. It is often claimed that the growing interest in paraenesis, or ethical teaching, among early Christians indicates how Jesus' revolutionary teaching and the Pauline notion of justification by faith were gradually replaced by an emphasis on good works and ethics borrowed from the surrounding Hellenistic and Jewish culture. The Motivation of the Paraenesis challenges this traditional view of ethics in early Christianity, arguing that paraenesis was an original, essential part of early Christian doctrine and life. The book also provides a new, well-balanced picture of 1 Peter and its message, giving a natural interpretation to many puzzling sections and clarifying the internal logic of the text and the theology behind it.>

Explore the biblical context for Advent in this series of contemplations. The pieces of the beginning of the Christian story come together, not from one set of hands, but many. For instance, in the four Gospels, Mark makes no mention of the events leading up to and surrounding the birth of Jesus. John, for the most part, points back to Genesis. Most of the historical pieces come to us primarily from Matthew and Luke. The scriptures together are the key to telling the story of the season. Allusions and references to other scriptures are accompanied by brief meditations so that readers may step more deeply into the Advent story and find its meaning and impact for their own lives.

2020 Christian Book Award winner! Written by VeggieTales(R) creator Phil Vischer, the Minno Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids is more than a children's storybook Bible . . . it's a deep, engaging, and whimsical gospel experience. The Minno Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids guides readers ages 4 to 8 from Genesis to Revelation, retelling beloved Bible stories AND tackling tricky questions like "What is sin?" Each story is vividly illustrated, takes just five minutes to read, and includes a Family Connection section to encourage family Bible study and help readers learn, talk, and pray together! PLUS, bonus content connects the dots of each Bible story, making the Minno Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids a family devotional Bible that provides a big picture, applicational view of the Biblical narrative. Key Features: Written by VeggieTales(R) creator Phil Vischer Includes 52 beautifully-illustrated Bible stories from Genesis to Revelation Family Connection at the end of each story makes this children's Bible perfect for family devotional time. Features bonus content including maps, charts, and other tools not usually found in a Bible for kids Clearly teaches kids ages 4 to 8 about God's love and the gospel Previously published as the Laugh and Learn Bible for Kids.

The Book of Hiding offers a fluent and erudite analysis of the parallels between the Bible and contemporary discussions of gender, ethnicity and social ambiguity. Beal focuses particularly on the traditionally marginalised book of Esther, in order to examine closely the categories of self and other in relation to religion, sexism, nationalism, and the ever-looming legacies and future possibilities of annihilation. Beal applies the critical tools of contemporary theorists, such as Cixous, Irigaray and Levinas, challenging widely held assumptions about the moral and life-affirming message of Scripture and even about the presence of God in the book of Esther. The Book of Hiding draws together a variety of different perspectives and disciplines, creating a unique space for dialogue raising new questions and reconsidering old assumptions, which is profoundly interesting and well-articulated.

The Book of Hiding offers a fluent and erudite analysis of the parallels between the Bible and contemporary discussions of gender, ethnicity and social ambiguity. Beal focuses particularly on the traditionally marginalised book of Esther, in order to examine closely the categories of self and other in relation to religion, sexism, nationalism, and the ever-looming legacies and future possibilities of annihilation. Beal applies the critical tools of contemporary theorists, such as Cixous, Irigaray and Levinas, challenging widely held assumptions about the moral and life-affirming message of Scripture and even about the presence of God in the book of Esther. The Book of Hiding draws together a variety of different perspectives and disciplines, creating a unique space for dialogue raising new questions and reconsidering old assumptions, which is profoundly interesting and well-articulated.

This book questions the long-standing and pervasive view that 'flesh' is a force within the life of the Christian that he or she must continually struggle against and overcome only by choosing to walk in the power of God's 'Spirit.' This internal dualism between the forces of 'flesh' and 'Spirit' emerges as both a central paradigm for the spiritual life and a major construct in approaching Paul's theology. It is the central thesis of this book that this internal dualism, while accurate in some respects, is nonetheless significantly flawed in viewing 'flesh' and 'Spirit' as an internal polarity. Contents: DEGREESI The Flesh/Spirit Conflict in Theology, Lexicography and History; A Rhetorical Analysis of Galatians and the Flesh/Spirit Conflict; The Social Dynamics of the Flesh/Spirit Conflict; A Thematic Analysis of the Flesh/Spirit Conflict in Galatians; The Flesh/Spirit Conflict in Galatians 5:13-26; The Flesh/Spirit Conflict in Galatians 6:1-18; Some Conclusions about the Flesh/Spirit Conflict; Works Cited; Index of Scripture Refer

This volume offers the first full commentary on the Gospel of Thomas, a work which has previously been accessible only to theologians and scholars. Valantasis provides fresh translations of the Coptic and Greek text, with an illuminating commentary, examining the text line by line. He includes a general introduction outlining the debates of previous scholars and situating the Gospel in its historical and theological contexts.
The Gospel of Thomas provides an insight into a previously inaccessible text and presents Thomas' gospel as an integral part of the canon of Biblical writings, which can inform us further about the literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition and early Christianity.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203131479

This volume offers the first full commentary on the Gospel of Thomas, a work which has previously been accessible only to theologians and scholars. Valantasis provides fresh translations of the Coptic and Greek text, with an illuminating commentary, examining the text line by line. He includes a general introduction outlining the debates of previous scholars and situating the Gospel in its historical and theological contexts.
The Gospel of Thomas provides an insight into a previously inaccessible text and presents Thomas' gospel as an integral part of the canon of Biblical writings, which can inform us further about the literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition and early Christianity.