Biblical Limits is a new series which brings to the traditional field of Biblical Studies literary criticism, anthropology and gender-based approaches, thus reaching new ways of understanding Biblical texts.
Jesus Framed is a collection of essays on reading the gospel of Mark. It uses literary theory, most notably the writings of Roland Barthes, to examine some of the difficulties in the text of Mark. A series of close readings of the gospel of Mark is compared to similar texts, both biblical and otherwise. Drawing on Mark's famous phrase that to those who are outside all comes through parables (Mark 4:11-12), Jesus Framed explores the boundaries between insiders and outsiders, those who can and those who cannot find a meaning in the text.

Can the different pictures of Jesus in the New Testament be reconciled? Or are they simply simulations, the products of a virtual Gospel? 'Simulating Jesus' argues that the gospels do not represent four versions of one Jesus story but rather four distinct narrative simulacra, each of which is named "Jesus". The book explores the theory and evidence justifying this claim and discusses its practical and theological consequences. The simulations of Jesus in each of the gospels are analysed and placed alongside Jesus simulacra elsewhere in the Bible and contemporary popular culture. 'Simulating Jesus' offers a radical understanding of Scripture that will be of interest to students and scholars of biblical studies.

Can the different pictures of Jesus in the New Testament be reconciled? Or are they simply simulations, the products of a virtual Gospel? Simulating Jesus argues that the gospels do not represent four versions of one Jesus story but rather four distinct narrative simulacra, each of which is named "Jesus". The book explores the theory and evidence justifying this claim and discusses its practical and theological consequences. The simulations of Jesus in each of the gospels are analysed and placed alongside Jesus simulacra elsewhere in the Bible and contemporary popular culture. Simulating Jesus offers a radical understanding of Scripture that will be of interest to students and scholars of biblical studies.

This Guide surveys the more important historical, socio-cultural, theological, and literary factors we must grapple with in understanding the two letters of Jude and Second Peter, between which there are very strong similarities. It appears that the letter of Jude was almost entirely 'plagiarized' by the letter of Second Peter. George Aichele's main approach is the method of semiotics, examining signifying mechanisms in each of the texts both independently and when they are read together. In both of the letters, Jesus Christ is called the 'master', with a Greek word that means 'slave-owner', and the authors of both books refer to themselves and other Christians as the slaves of Christ. Furthermore, both writings report situations of paranoid fear within Christian communities of their time as they picture heretical infiltrators who threaten to pervert and perhaps even destroy the community. In addition to this, in an adventurous excursion, the letter of Jude is read intertextually with the classic science fiction/horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel 1956), in order to explore the dynamics of paranoia.

Dieser Buchtitel ist Teil des Digitalisierungsprojekts Springer Book Archives mit Publikationen, die seit den Anfangen des Verlags von 1842 erschienen sind. Der Verlag stellt mit diesem Archiv Quellen fur die historische wie auch die disziplingeschichtliche Forschung zur Verfugung, die jeweils im historischen Kontext betrachtet werden mussen. Dieser Titel erschien in der Zeit vor 1945 und wird daher in seiner zeittypischen politisch-ideologischen Ausrichtung vom Verlag nicht beworben.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ The Caisson As A New Element In Concrete Dam Construction: A Proposal Made In Connection With The Columbia River Power Project Ordulf George Aichel Spon & Chamberlain, 1916 Caissons; Columbia River; Dams

Screening Scripture offers a unique new perspective on religion and film. The book proposes that there is no natural connection between scripture and film-even for those movies that seem to have an obvious relationship to religious text. It is only the viewer that makes this connection. From this perspective, Screening Scripture opens up new possibilities for viewing these movies and reading these texts with each other.The contributors to this volume serve as creative viewers who make these connections for some of today's most popular and provocative films. The scriptures discussed include not only the Bible, but apocryphal, heretical, and non-Western scriptures. In the hands of these writers, the films provide fresh insights into the scriptures. Contributors to this volume: George Aichele (Adrian College) on PleasantvilleRoland Boer (Monash University) on Total RecallRalph Brabban (Chowan College) on Midnight CowboyFred Burnett (Anderson University) on Lethal WeaponCarl Dyke (Methodist College) on The Life of BrianJulie Kelso (University of Queensland) on David and BathshebaNeal McCrillis (Columbus State University) on The Giant BehemothTina Pippin (Agnes Scott College) on DraculaJennifer Rohrer-Walsh (Methodist College) on The Prince of EgyptMark Roncace (Emory University) on Sling BladeErin Runions (Barnard College) on Boys Don't CryJeffrey Staley (Seattle University) on Patch AdamsRichard Walsh (Methodist College) on End of DaysGeorge Aichele is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan and is the author of The Control of Biblical Meaning.Richard Walsh is Professor of Religion, co-director of the Honors Program, and Assistant Academic Dean at Methodist College, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is the author of Mapping the Myths of Biblical Interpretation.

This provocative book pursues a series of questions associated with canon(s) of the Bible. How does the canon influence the meaning of the texts of which it is composed? Could texts be "liberated" from the canon, and what would this liberation do to them or to the canon? What does the biblical canon signify about its constituent texts? What does canonical status imply about texts that are included in the Bible, as well as texts that are excluded from it? How does a canon a cultural and ideological product influence or create ideology and culture? In The Control of Biblical Meaning, George Aichele draws deeply on the insights of postructuralist literary theory as he pursues these questions. He also engages in close readings of specific biblical and nonbiblical texts to demonstrate ways that canon controls the meanings of its texts. With dazzling skill, Aichele interrogates the form and function of canon as a mechanism that both reveals and conceals texts from its readers. George Aichele teaches at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan. He is the author of Sign, Text, Scripture: Semiotics and the Bible and Jesus Framed and is a contributor to The Postmodern Bible. For: Advanced undergraduates; graduate students; biblical scholars; course text>

This book is an introduction to the field of semiotics specifically directed to students of the Bible as well as to biblical scholars trained in other methodologies. The primary focus is on what semiotics is now-how contemporary scholars actually approach the Bible semiotically. Attention is given to the history and varieties of semiotic theory, because as it has influenced the work of more recent thinkers, and because postmodern reappraisals of semiotics call for rereading of biblical texts. The book is organized according to topics ('Sign', 'Message', 'Text', etc.), which provide a way to interrogate semiotics as a system. This stimulating account also includes, for good measure, reflections on what theology has become, for believer and unbeliever alike, in a post-Nietzschean, post-Heideggerian world: What does it mean to see theology as 'ideology'-a complex and never wholly conscious network of understandings, preconceptions, and expectations about 'the way things are'.>

This topical volume deals with the adoption of biblical language and narrative and the presentation of 'biblical' images and themes in popular literature, art and mass media. The chapters, all written by experts in cultural studies of the Bible, explore how ideologies are produced, in various ways, when biblical texts are brought into play with each other, with other texts, and with the inevitable and continual demands for cultural and historical "translation"-or "recycling"-of the scriptures. The volume contains some theoretical reflections, but focuses on specific examples of cultural translation, and is directed primarily at advanced (graduate) students and scholars in biblical studies, popular studies, media studies, literature, and the arts, although some articles will also be of value and interest to introductory students and the general public. The contributors to this volume are Fiona Black, Susan Lochrie Graham, Chris Heard, Helen Leneman, Phyllis Silverman Kramer, Tina Pippin, Caroline Vader Stichele, Lori Rowlett, Erin Runions, Jan William Tarlin and Richard Walsh.

'[W]hen they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost (phantasma), and cried out; for they all saw him, and were terrified' (Mark 6:49, RSV). There is a growing awareness among biblical scholars and others of the potential value of modern and postmodern fantasy theory for the study of biblical texts. Following theorists such as Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gilles Deleuze (among others), we understand the fantastic as the deconstruction of literary realism. The fantastic arises from the text's resistance to understanding; the "meaning" of the fantastic text is not its reference to the primary world of consensus reality but rather a fundamental undecidability of reference. The fantastic is also a point at which ancient and contemporary texts (including books, movies, and TV shows) resonate with one another, sometimes in surprising ways, and this resonance plays a large part in my argument. Mark and its afterlives "translate" one another, in the sense that Walter Benjamin speaks of the tangential point at which the original text and its translation touch one another, not a transfer of understood meaning but rather a point at which what Benjamin called "pure language" becomes apparent. Mark has always been the most "difficult" of the canonical gospels, the one that requires the greatest amount of hermeneutical gymnastics from its commentators. Its beginning in media res, its disconcerting ending at 16:8, its multiple endings, the "messianic secret," Jesus's tensions with his disciples and family - these are just some of the more obvious of the and many troublesome features that distinguish Mark from the other biblical gospels. If there had not been two other gospels (Matthew and Luke) that were clearly similar to Mark but also much more attractive to Christian belief, it seems likely that Mark, like the gospels of Thomas and Peter, would not have been accepted into the canon. Reading Mark as fantasy does not "solve" any of these problems, but it does place them in a very different context, one in which they are no longer "problems," but in which there are different problems. A fantastical reading of the gospel of Mark is not the only correct understanding of this text, but rather one possibility that may have considerable appeal and value in the contemporary world. This fantastic reading is a "reading from the outside," inspired by the parable "theory" of Isaiah 6:9-10 and Mark 4:11-12: "for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand." Reading from the outside counters a widespread belief that only those within the faith community can properly understand the scriptures. It is the "stupid" reading of those who do not share institutionalized understandings passed down through catechisms and creeds, i.e., through the dominant ideology of the churches.

Institutions and ideologies lay down parameters of accepted reading for those who wish to maintain acceptable status in their guilds. This is equally true in the church and in the academy. However, interpretation can refuse and transgress such boundaries. The Greek god, Hermes was both a thief and a conveyor of messages, and "hermeneutics," the practice of interpretation, shares in this joint heritage of Hermes. Indeed, interpretative thieves constantly transgress the boundaries of both the permitted and the decorous. Readings of the canonical gospels have a particular place in this history. Indeed, the gospels are the pride and joy of the church(es), as they are of an academy that scarcely separates itself from the church. The following essays, however, all share a desire to read Herme(s)tically, in heterodox or even heretical directions. In this volume, and against the traditional readings and their keepers, the contributors practice interpretative thefts or, put differently, they pursue "lines of flight" (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), not movements of escape but rather creative ways of contesting prevailing ideologies (cf. also Cohen and Taylor). This pursuit results in marginal readings, readings excluded by dominant Christian and academic ideologies. These readings trace the contours and the effects of the canonical and creedal, as well as the academic, captivity of the gospels. Every ideology has inherent points of weakness, fractures in its assemblage where resistance and deviation become possible - not escape to some ideology-free zone, but sufficient disturbance to open up a space for thoughts and new understandings. The keepers of the various guilds/myths inevitably see this disturbance as, at best, noxious and, at worst, as demonic, but we para-critics see our lines of flight as opening space for human living (Smith 1978: 291). Parabolic interpretations create a living space by negotiating and exploiting difference, not by acquiescing to the deadly sameness of any imperial (political, ecclesiastical, or academic) system (cf. Serres 1982).Many of the contributors read "from outside" by playing the gospels off a wide variety of secular texts, including recent film and literature. Thus, in "Jesus's Two Fathers," Aichele views the Lukan Christmas story eccentrically by reading it with China Mieville's urban fantasy novel, "King Rat". The result is a rather unorthodox understanding of the incarnation. In "Tempting Jesuses," Pippin views askew the identities (God and Satan, gender), ethics, and power of the temptation narratives. She does so by joining those gospel narratives with literary works by Saramago, Kazantzakas, Morrow, McNally, Langguth, and others. In "Matthew 11:28 and Release From the Burden of Sin," Kreitzer traces a peculiar afterlife of one Christian image of salvation by moving from Matthew through Bunyan to Joffee's "The Mission". Staley's target is the liberation of the story of the woman taken in adultery. To do so, he lumps that (already suspicious) "Johannine" story with "Liar, Liar" and moves from a rhetorical to an intertextual reading. Each of these juxtapositions render their respective gospel (texts) newly seen precursors.

Inspired by and engaging with the provocative and prolific work of Stephen D. Moore, Bible and Theory showcases some of the most current thinking emerging at the intersections of critical methods with biblical texts. The result is a plurality of readings that deconstruct customary disciplinary boundaries. These chapters, written by a wide range of biblical scholars, collectively argue by demonstration for the necessity and benefits of biblical criticism inflected with queer theory, literary criticism, postmodernism, cultural studies, and more. Bible and Theory: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Stephen D. Moore invites the reader to rethink what constitutes the Bible and to reconsider what we are doing when we read and interpret it.