This reading offers a traveller's guide through the book of Acts, charting both narrative features (plot development, character building and shifting points of view) and cultural scenarios informing the story (honor-shame contests, patron-client relations and purity-pollution boundaries). Within this 'literary-cultural' framework, Spencer undertakes to map the temporal, spatial and social settings of each segment of the Acts journey. While often detecting internal repetitive patterns along the way as well as comparative links with the preceding Lukan gospel and Jewish scriptures, this reading also exposes certain dramatic tensions within Acts (such as a 'double message' regarding women's prophetic ministry) and distinctive moves beyond prior narratives. The element of surprise is maximized, so that the commentary reads somewhat like a first-time exploration of the text.

Arguably the biggest blockbuster love song ever composed, the Song of Songs holds a unique place in Jewish and Christian canons as the "holiest" book, in the minds of some readers, and the sexiest in its language and imagery. This commentary aims to interpret this vibrant Song in a contemporary feminist key, informed by close linguistic-literary and social-cultural analysis. Though finding much in the Song to celebrate for women (and men) in their embodied, passionate lives, this work also exposes tensions, vulnerabilities, and inequities between the sexes and among society at large-just what we would expect of a perceptive, poignant love ballad that still tops the charts. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

"Reading Acts Today" provides a 'state of the art' view of study of Acts from a variety of perspectives and approaches. It is a fresh and stimulating collection of scholarly essays at the cutting edge of the discipline. The contributions come at "Acts" from many different angles including historical, theological, socio-economic, literary, narrative, and exegetical approaches. This enables a thorough examination of the way that other ancient writings illuminate "Acts" and locates the book in its ancient context. The wide range of contributors features some of the most influential names in modern New Testament studies, providing a remarkable assessment of current scholarship on the book of "Acts". These include James D.G. Dunn, I. Howard Marshal, and Richard Burridge. It was formerly the "Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement", a book series that explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches.

The classic novel that has been translated into over twenty languages and has sold more than two million copies worldwide

One of the most celebrated novels of its time, Endless Love remains perhaps the most powerful book ever written about young love. Riveting, compulsively readable, and ferociously sexual, Endless Love tells the story of David Axelrod and his overwhelming love for Jade Butterfield.

David and Jade are consumed with each other: their rapport, their desire, their sexuality, take them further than they understand. And when Jade's father banishes David from the home, he fantasizes the forgiveness his rescue of the family will bring, and he sets a "perfectly safe" fire to their house. What unfolds is a nightmare, a dark world in which David's love is a crime and a disease, a world of anonymous phone calls, crazy letters, and new fears--and the inevitable and punishing pursuit of the one thing that remains most real to him: his endless love for Jade and her family.

Published in 1979 and hailed as "one of the best books of the year" by the New York Times, Endless Love is the novel that first established Scott Spencer as "the contemporary American master of the love story" (Publishers Weekly).

"Journeying through Acts" explores the literary and cultural aspects of Acts and offers a fresh reading of this dramatic volume.
Acts is unique in the New Testament canon in part because it is not a gospel or a Pauline letter. It presents a dynamic story of the spread of the Christian gospel from Jerusalem to Rome. The gospel was propelled by the earliest followers of the risen and ascended Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who is arguably the chief protagonist in the narrative.
Spencer's reading offers a traveler's guide through the book of Acts. He charts narrative features--plot development, character building, and shifting points of view--and explores cultural scenarios that affect the events in Acts--honor/shame contests, patron-client relations, and purity-pollution boundaries. Within this literary-cultural framework, Spencer undertakes to map the temporal, spatial, and social settings of each segment of the Acts journey.
"Journeying through Acts" offers students, pastors, scholars, and lay readers a satisfying--although by no means exhaustive--understanding of the overall narrative of Acts in light of recent academic scholarship.

A man, a woman, a child, and an unforgettable dog combine forces in this gripping and surprising psychological thriller, the most stunning novel yet from Scott Spencer--named one of "Publishers Weekly"'s Top Ten Books of 2010.

Can we ever get away with murder? Are there secrets that cannot remain hidden no matter how deeply we try to bury them? And do the things we hide control our destinies even more than the things we choose to reveal?

Paul Phillips has been on his own since he was a teenager, leading a life of freedom and independence, beholden to no one and nothing. Once he thought his life would have no particular rhyme or reason, touched only by transient strangers. Then he met the beautiful, intelligent, loving Kate Ellis, who offered order and constancy. But Paul is a man of deep convictions, and the compromises we all make to get along in the world elude him.

On his way home after a particularly trying day, Paul discovers a man beating a dog, and in a few fateful moments is plunged into a world of violence and onto a tumultuous journey of self-knowledge, guilt, and redemption.

Avery Jankowsky is a thirty-seven-year-old Manhattan writer scraping by on freelance assignments. Despite his lack of ambition, and very much to his own surprise, he has won the affections of Deirdre, a Columbia grad student many years his junior. But when Deirdre tells him that she has been having an affair, Avery's world is shattered. Beside himself with jealousy and grief, Avery heads across town to meet his uncle Ezra for their monthly lunch date. Ezra senses his nephew's fragile emotional state and makes a startling proposition: Avery should use his tickets to an all-expenses-paid international sex tour.Sensing a white-hot book idea (and a chance to get back at Deirdre), Avery agrees to go as an undercover journalist. As the tour bounces from one Nordic country to another, Avery and his fellow travelers - most of them wealthy and accomplished - descend ever deeper into a blinding world that is equal parts hilarity and nightmare, until Avery suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the one person he never expected to see.

Senior New Testament scholar F. Scott Spencer focuses on a neglected area in the study of Jesus and the Gospels: the emotional life of Jesus. This book offers a fresh reading of the Gospels through the lens of Jesus's emotions--anger, grief, disgust, surprise, compassion, and joy. These emotions motivate Jesus's mission and reveal to Gospel readers what matters most to him. Amid his passions, Jesus forges his character as God's incarnate Messiah, wholly embodied and emotionally engaged with others and thoroughly embedded in the surrounding environment.

Daniel Emerson lives with Kate Ellis, and he is like a father to her daughter, Ruby. But he cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, the African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend. During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris's house, and they begin a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race-blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people.

Reading Acts Today provides a 'state of the art' view of the study of Acts from a variety of perspectives and approaches. It is a fresh and stimulating collection of scholarly essays at the cutting edge of the discipline. The contributions approach Acts from many different angles including historical, theological, socio-economic, literary, narrative, and exegetical approaches. This enables a thorough examination of the way that other ancient writings illuminate Acts and locates the book in its ancient context. The wide range of contributors features some of the most influential names in modern New Testament studies, providing a remarkable assessment of current scholarship on the book of Acts. These include James D.G. Dunn, I. Howard Marshall, and Richard Burridge.

Engaging feminist hermeneutics and philosophy in addition to more traditional methods of biblical study, Salty Wives, Spirited Mothers, and Savvy Widows demonstrates and celebrates the remarkable capability and ingenuity of several women in the Gospel of Luke. While recent studies have exposed women's limited opportunities for ministry in Luke, Scott Spencer pulls the pendulum back from a negative feminist-critical pole toward a more constructive center. Granting that Luke sends somewhat "mixed messages" about women's work and status as Jesus' disciples, Spencer analyzes such women as Mary, Elizabeth, Joanna, Martha and Mary, and the infamous yet intriguing wife of Lot -- whom Jesus exhorts his followers to "remember" -- as well as the unrelentingly persistent women characters in Jesus' parables.

Join Jessica and Keith in a dangerous adventure when they stumble upon grainy war-time footage of a forgotten Nazi flying machine as well as plans for its construction. Jessica, an intelligent beautiful young psychic, and Keith, her deeply troubled lover, have no business leaving Hollywood to creep in flooded underground war-time ruins that may collapse at any moment. They should have stayed where they belong, helping their friend David direct the world's first TV parody of the porno film industry. Why leave the excitement and sex to crawl through freezing tunnels amidst the stink of corpses and concentration camp skeletons? They could have stayed home in a soft warm bed enjoying the sensual pleasures of being twenty-five and deeply in love. Only Jessica can tell us why she is blindly following visions from a ghost, an ancestor who drags them relentlessly toward their own deaths. Although this is a work of fiction, serious books such as AREA-51 and THE HUNT FOR ZERO POINT lend credence to the belief that much that was invented in gruesome labs deep behind enemy lines years ago remains hidden. Jessica's story might turn out to be close to the truth, perhaps too close. Jessica and Keith first appeared in "SENIORS HAVE IT TOUGH, A Walletectomy Hits The Big Screen," which describes their crazy lives just before the book you are holding.

Action and uncommon adventure as two Stanford students unravel the messages our ancient extraterrestrial ancestors scattered across the planet before the last ice age. Two Stanford students unravel messages ancient ancestors scattered across the planet before the last ice age. An unusual young Gypsy woman and a nerdy, but good-looking guy, use scientific skills to uncover clues that have gone unnoticed for millennia. She's into biotech, genetics, and other people's locks, while he's all math and computers without a clue about girls. Follow them down the tunnels, across the campus, and through secret passages, as they struggle against ignorance and the deadly Alienologists who would rather kill than let the truth be known. Read this book tonight. Tomorrow, amaze your friends with new-found bizarre ideas and strange interpretations of ancient history. Join the excitement as they scam the internet, kill the goons, and break through the wall of unscientific bunk surrounding Egyptology. You'll laugh, cry, and laugh again as their crazy ideas shake your gray cells and dislodge old beliefs about human history.

A bright young man, Matthew, and a posh young woman, Azur, struggle to understand strange psychic phenomena. Matt, a practical Engineer, cannot believe what he sees and feels, while Azur, a snooty English parapsychology expert, thinks she knows all about it. A difficult romance develops as they interact with undead creatures who were Matt's ancestors. These entities are playful one moment and deadly the next, powerful in some ways, surprisingly weak in others, with strong interests in practical jokes and sex. Matt is fascinated by their invisibility, but Azur is afraid they will kill her. The setting for these adventures is a dilapidated English country house that is falling into the sea. Matt is torn between heartaches over Azur and his fight to install steel beams under the large house before it washes away. He is determined to stop the erosion and restore the house to its former glory, even though bureaucrats are trying to demolish it and build a power plant on the site. Perhaps his weird grandparents can help . . . .perhaps he can somehow win Azur . . . . perhaps the rock under the house won't crush him before he installs enough steel . . . . Details from both the psychic and the engineering worlds are extensive, and somewhat authentic. A complete but not-overly-technical description of the structural engineering is in an Appendix for those who wish to learn more.

"A bizarre and exciting blend of fiction and fact, set in Hollywood behind-the-scenes as a young film crew struggles to make a most unusual movie, a comedy about hilarious human transplants run amok on a secret clone farm. The book's main character Keith, a Soundman-Writer, struggles to forget a mysterious death while falling in love with a cold-bodied Wardrobe Girl. To their horror, fiction becomes reality as real doctors snatch living parts for a bloody transplant. Although the medical activities are an outrageous parody, the ethical questions raised are serious in today's bio-engineering world. The author worked on Hollywood stages for twelve years so the details and nuances of film production are exact and informative. The writing style is irreverent, un-sanitized and far from political correctness. The author's website, escottspencer.com, includes further information about the book as well as commentary on the world of self-publishing."

Death & Taxes: How Senator Savage almost escaped both. An exciting bizarre story of the making of a hilarious film about crazy old people who grow their own replacement parts on a secret clone farm. Pandemonium erupts when the young virgin clones escape. The book's central character Keith, a twenty-something Soundman-Writer, struggles to forget a mysterious death while falling in love with a cold-bodied psychic Wardrobe girl, Jessica. To their horror, fiction becomes reality as real doctors snatch real parts for a bloody transplant. Although the medical activity in this book is satirical, the nuances of actual Hollywood film production are described in depth since the author worked behind the scenes for many years in Hollywood. The writing style is irreverent, un-sanitized, and far from political-correctness: nothing has been dumbed-down.

What Would Jesus Do? is a popular phrase in Christian circles, but answers to that question might be more on-target if we spent more time exploring, as Scott Spencer has, What Did Jesus Do? Spencer examines both the Synoptics and the Gospel of John as he tries to catch a wide-angled vision of Jesus' behavior in the gospels. Rather than focus on sayings or pronouncements as an authoritative code of conduct, he studies Jesus' deeds or actions as keys to his identity and vocation. While not ignoring Jesus' teaching, this study is more interested in discovering how Jesus personally lived up to his own moral instruction -- his personal conduct. Chapters are devoted to Jesus' actions with respect to his family, his friends, his body, his possessions, his work, his reputation, and the environment. Spencer suggests paths -- and pitfalls -- for relating Jesus' personal conduct to individual behavior, how we might move from what Jesus did in the New Testament to what we should do today. F. Scott Spencer is Professor of New Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia and is the author of The Portrait of Philip in Acts: A Study of Roles and Relations and Acts. He is the Chair of the New Testament section for the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion.

The women in Jesus' life are a raucous and rowdy bunch, including "riotous" foremothers, "loose women," and "distressed daughters of Israel." Reading these new ways of interpreting women in the Gospels, male New Testament scholars have discovered liberating perspectives. In seven scintillating studies, Spencer explores among others the genealogy of Matthew's Gospel to discover the riotous yet righteous nature of Jesus' foremothers, slave girls and prophetic daughters in Luke-Acts, and women leading men in the Gospel of Mark 5-7. Scott Spencer, a virtuoso young New Testament scholar, provides his own lively forays into reading the Gospels through women's eyes. He shows what it is like for a man to read stories about the women in Jesus' life from a new perspective. Spencer is an able and inventive scholar whose broad-ranging insights and engaging style make his work very accessible.