Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry , his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative , Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew po…
In a history of a religiously controversial subject, of which the Book of Mormon is a premiere example, the disputability of the facts is too obvious to bear repeating on every page. I have therefore avoided constructions like “Joseph Smith’s alleged vision,” or “the purported visit of Moroni,” as they would become tiresome and pedantic if repeated on every page. My focus in any case …
R. C. Sproul helps us dig out the meaning of Scripture for ourselves. He lays the groundwork by discussing why we should study the Bible and how our own personal study relates to interpretation. Then he presents in simple, basic terms the science of interpretation and gives practical guidelines for applying this science. Here is a basic book for both beginning Bible readers and those who have b…
The book of Genesis contains foundational material for Jewish and Christian theology, both historic and contemporary, and is almost certainly the most appealed-to book in the Old Testament in contemporary culture. R. W. L. Moberly’s The Theology of the Book of Genesis examines the actual use made of Genesis in current debates, not only in academic but also in popular contexts. Traditional iss…
A collection of critical essays on C.S. Lewis's work.
The Language of Creation is a commentary on the primeval stories from the book of Genesis. It is often difficult to recognize the spiritual wisdom contained in these narratives because the current scientific worldview is deeply rooted in materialism. Therefore, instead of looking at these stories through the lens of modern academic disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, or the physical sci…
In his Exposition of Romans 13 Lloyd-Jones deals with the tensions of life in two kingdoms as he addresses topics such as; the function of the state, fearing God and honoring the king, the already and the not yet, Christ's coming, motives to holy living, reading Scripture and glory begun below. These are just a very few of the topics covered in the 23 chapters of an Exposition of Romans 13: Lif…
In these sermons we see that the truths experessed by the Apostle Paul are not only a fitting conclusion to Romans 9-11, and indeed to the preceding chapters as well, but are also an interpretative key to the past and the future. They explain the history of Israel in the Old Testament and that of the Jews and the church in the New, while also anticipating the future of the Jewish people in the …
In this volume the Apostle brings his argument concerning assurance of salvation to a grand climax. The way in which he advances surely from argument to argument, piling one upon another, is astonishing, and constitutes the supreme example of inspired logic. In doing so he brings us face to face with the fundamental theme of the Bible -- God's plan and purpose of redemption conceived before tim…
When a spiritual history of the 20th century comes to be written it will be bound to include mention not only the far-reaching influence of Dr. Lloyd-Jones' ministry at Westminster Chapel in London, England from 1938-68, but of the remarkable fact that his published volumes of expository sermons have had an unprecedented circulation for such material, selling in millions of copies.
As scholars Borg and Crossan reacted to questions about the blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events leading up to the Crucifixion. Here they present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first, that of Roman governor Pon…
The introductions from Westermann's three-volume commentary on Genesis in one volume.
We all know the story of how Eve was created from Adam's rib. But what if, perhaps, "rib" was a mistranslation and the body part she was really created from was Adam's penis bone? This would explain why human males don't have such a bone, unlike other male mammals. That's only one of many surprising and fun biblical twists readers will encounter in The Uncensored Bible . Here readers will learn…
A wide ranging survey of the secondary literature on the books of Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, Ben Sira, and the Wisdom of Solomon in which the author summarizes not only modern scholarship, but also Church Fathers, Medieval authorities, and contemporary interpretations by artists and theologians.
This volume addresses the most important issues related to the study of New Testament writings. Two respected senior scholars have brought together a team of distinguished specialists to introduce the Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman backgrounds necessary for understanding the New Testament and the early church. Contributors include renowned scholars such as Lynn H. Cohick, David A. deSilva, Jame…
The sixteen essays assembled in this volume, four of them co-authored, chart the successive phases of a professional life lived in the interstices of Bible and "theory." Engaging such texts as the Song of Songs, 4 Maccabees, Mark, Luke-Acts, John, and Romans, and such themes as the quest for the historical Jesus, the essays simultaneously traverse postmodernism, deconstruction, New Historicism,…
Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) is one of the most important writers in the Western tradition. His two great, giant novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are regarded as pinnacles of the genre; they cover an enormous range of basic human experiences with a precision and probing spirit that, in the words of one critic, are simply 'unmatched by any other writer.'. This guide offers s…
This collection of essays highlights a dimension of Paul's theology of justification that has been neglected -- that his teaching emerged as an integral part of his understanding of his commission to preach the gospel to non-Jews and that his dismissal of justification "by works of the law" was directed not so much against Jewish legalism but rather against his fellow Jews' assumption that the …
A companion to Reading Biblical Narrative, this volume provides an authoritative introduction and overview to biblical poetry. Fokkelman describes, in step-by-step fashion, how to understand the Bible's poetry. Full of examples, Reading Biblical Poetry makes available a holistic and integrative approach to understanding poetry found nowhere else.
This is Greg Bahnsen's response to criticisms of the theonomic position that have been published or circulated over the last ten years. Bahnsen deals not only with Westminster Theological Seminary's Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, but also with two other brief critical books against him, and with various published articles and typewritten, photocopied responses. One by one, Bahnsen takes his cri…
Examines the Bible as a work of literature, focusing on its language and verbal structures and on the imaginative quality of its thought.
The chief aims of this book are: to consider methodologically how to compare two (or more) related but different religions; to destroy the view of Rabbinic Judaism which is still prevalent in much, perhaps most, New Testament scholarship; to establish a different view of Rabbinic Judaism; to argue a case concerning Palestinian Judaism (that is, Judaism as reflected in material of Palestinian pr…
It can no longer be assumed that most people--or even most Christians--have a basic understanding of the Bible. Many don't know the difference between the Old and New Testament, and even the more well-known biblical figures are often misunderstood. It is getting harder to talk about Jesus accurately and compellingly because listeners have no proper context with which to understand God's story o…
This groundbreaking work by Darrell Bock thoroughly explores the theology of Luke's gospel and the book of Acts. In his writings, Luke records the story of God working through Jesus to usher in a new era of promise and Spirit-enablement so that the people of God can be God's people even in the midst of a hostile world. It is a message the church still needs today. Bock both covers major Lukan t…
This Tragic Gospel suggests that the "Gospel" of John intended to supplant the first three gospels and succeeded in gaining undue influence on the early churches. This study focuses on the tragic moment when Jesus prays for deliverance from his impending death in the garden of Gethsemane. Ruprecht contends that John rewrote this scene in order to convey a very different dramatic meaning from th…
James Kugel's The Bible As It Was (1997) has been welcomed with universal praise. Here now is the full scholarly edition of this wonderfully rich and illuminating work, expanding the author's findings into an incomparable reference work. Focusing on two dozen core stories in the Pentateuch--from the Creation and Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and journey to the Promised Land…
This thoroughly revised edition of Bruce M. Metzger's classic work is the most up-to-date manual available for the textual criticism of the New Testament. The Text of the New Testament, Fourth Edition, has been invigorated by the addition of Bart D. Ehrman--author of numerous best-selling books on the New Testament--as a coauthor. This revision brings the discussion of such important matters as…
Reading the books of the Law, the Pentateuch, in their original context is the crucial prerequisite for reading their citation and use in later interpretation, including the New Testament writings, argues Ben Witherington III. Here, he offers pastors, teachers, and students an accessible commentary on the Pentateuch, as well as a reasoned consideration of how these books were heard and read in …
In this volume Robert Kysar chronicles the history of interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the twentieth century. His study reveals four distinct critical approaches to understanding the Fourth Gospel―historical, theological, literary, and postmodernist readings. The use of these methods mirrors the history of biblical studies and influences the present state of scholarship.
Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads readers on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead us into a deeper u…
All too often, argues Ben Witherington, the theology of the New Testament has been divorced from its ethics, leaving as isolated abstractions what are fully integrated, dynamic elements within the New Testament itself. As Witherington stresses, "behavior affects and reinforces or undoes belief." Having completed commentaries on all of the New Testament books, a remarkable feat in itself, Wither…
All too often, argues Ben Witherington, the theology of the New Testament has been divorced from its ethics, leaving as isolated abstractions what are fully integrated, dynamic elements within the New Testament itself. As Witherington stresses, "behavior affects and reinforces or undoes belief." Having completed commentaries on all of the New Testament books, a remarkable feat in itself, Wither…
Outline : Westminster John Knox Press is proud to offer an exciting new phase in the renowned Interpretation commentary series. Instead of focusing on individual books of the Bible, these additions focus on the Bible's most enduring passages and most vital themes, bringing to these topics the insight and faithful wisdom that are longtime hallmarks of the Interpretation commentary series. This e…
Outline: Westminster John Knox Press is proud to introduce an existing new phase in the renowned Interpretation commentary series. Instead of focusing on individual books of the Bible, these additions will focus on the Bible's most enduring passages and most vital themes, bringing to these topics the insighand faithful wisdom that are longtime hallmarks of the Interpretation commentary series. …
Outline: How can we make sense of Violence in the Bible? Joshua commands the people of Israel to wipe out everyone in the promised land of Canaan, while Jesus commands of God's people to love their enemies. How are we to interpret biblical passages on violence when it is sanctioned at one point and condemned at another? The Violence of the Biblical God by L. Daniel Hawk presents a new framework…
Outline: The Prophets have spoken. History is strewn with wars and scrapping over religion. With the advent of the global village, people of different beliefs are being pressed up against each other, and the potential for major conflict is enormous. What did they say? It behooves us to know what our neighbors believe and why they believe it. Though we may never agree with them, when we know w…
Outline : This groundbreaking work by Darrell Bock thoroughly explores the theology of Luke’s gospel and the book of Acts. In his writing, Luke records the story of God working through Jesus to usher in a new era of promise and Spirit-enablement so that the people of God can be God’s people even in the midst of a hostile world. It is a message the church still needs today. Bock both cove…
Outline : What is evangelical theology today? In response to increasing evangelical fragmentation, Kevin Vanhoozer and Daniel Treier offer a clarion call to reconceive to reconceive evangelical theology theologically by reflecting on the God of the gospel as mirrored in Scripture. Such "mere" evangelical theology will be an exercise in Christian wisdom for the purpose of building up the fellows…
Outline: The debate over the role of women in the church is not diminishing, Complementarian argue that men and women are equal but have distinctive roles, while egalitarians argue against role distinctions. The egalitarians' redemptive-movement hermeneutic has gained support. Advocates concede many of the exegetical conclusions made by complementarians about relevant Bible passages, but then a…
Outline: In this illuminating festschrift, sixteen well-known evangelical scholars celebrate the work of a man who greatly contributed to Evangelical biblical scholarship as we know it today. G. K. Beale is renowned for his studies that explore how the writers of the New Testament used the Old Testament Scriptures in their letters, Gospels, narrative, and apocalypse. These collected essays, wri…
Outline: Covenant Theology. From Noah to David, successive covenants are seen in the Old Testament as expressions of divine purpose. The argument for and against the close relation of these "terms of agreement" between humankind and God have, for the past fifty years, been at the heart of biblical studies. Old Testament scholar W. J. Dumbrell reaffirms one facet of this study - the theory of co…
Outline : The Lord's commitment to make himself known throughout the nations is the overarching missionary theme of the Bible and the central theological concern of Exodus. Countering scholarly tendencies to fragment the text over theological difficulties, Ross Blackburn contends that Exodus should be read as a unified whole, and that an appreciation of its missionary theme in its canonical con…
Outline: When the book of Acts is mentioned, a cluster of issues inevitably springs to mind including speaking in tongues and baptism with the Holy Spirit, church government and practice, and missionary methods and strategies. At the popular level at least, Acts is still often used more for answers to debates that were not necessarily Luke's concern than listened to for his own emphases. Alan T…
Outline: The Psalms are undeniably beautiful. They are also difficult, and readers often come away convinced that tremendous riches remain just beyond their grasp. In this book, W. Robert Godfrey invites us to accompany him on a journey into a greater understanding and love for these sacred poems. The timeless beauty of the Psalms, their depth of expression, and testimony to the greatness of Go…
Outline: Readers will understand a book's final chapter only if they have understood all that came before it. Likewise, " in order to undersand biblical eschatology," writes Ketih Mathison, "we must understand the entire Bible." From Age to Age looks not only at the fulfillment of God's purposes at the end of history, but also at the stages along the way. The millennium and second coming of Chr…
Outline: Christians instinctvely desire to be like Jesus. Yet evangelical and Reformed thinkers have done little to wed this desire to sound theology and responsible biblical interpretation. With careful attention to Luke's gospel, Jimmy Agan demonstrates that we can - and must - follow Christ's example precisely because we embrace him as Savior.
Outline: "This is interpretation at its most daring and at its best" Widely respected scholar J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and explains that God desires more than silent obedience in difficult times.