‘In the Beginning . . .’ also serves as an excellent homiletic resource for priests and pastors.

    Its great themes, epochal events and towering figures set down vectors on which the biblical story is played out. The very shape of the rest of the Old Testament would collapse were the Penteteuch to be removed. The structure of New Testament thought would be barely intelligible without it. Here we meet the great ancestral figures of Israel--Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--and the towering figure of Moses, whose presence dominates four of these five books. The creative act of God, the paradisal garden, the exile of Adam and Eve, the judgment of the great flood, the call of Abraham from among the nations, the covenant of Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the law at Sinai, the plan of the tabernacle, the varied experiences of Israel in the wilderness, and the announcement of the covenant blessings and curses--all of these and more contribute to a work of world-formative power. This dictionary explores the major themes and contours of the Pentateuch. Behind and beneath the grandeur of the Pentateuch, issues of historicity have both puzzled and beckoned. But whereas in the mid-twentieth century many English-speaking scholars were confident of archaeological support for the patriarchal accounts, the climate has now changed. In the most extreme cases, some contemporary scholars have radically challenged the antiquity of the ancestral stories, arguing for their final composition even as late as the Hellenistic era. This dictionary examines and weighs the historical issues and poses possible solutions. The documentary hypothesis, the former reigning critical consensus, is now widely rumored to be on life support with no heir apparent. Meanwhile, conservative scholars reconsider what indeed a claim to Mosaic authorship should entail. This dictionary offers an assessment of the array of questions surrounding these issues and considers some possible ways forward for evangelical scholarship. At the same time, there has been a fruitful turning to the nature, message and art of the received text of the Pentateuch. Literary studies of brief episodes, sprawling sagas, complex narrative and even the fivefold composition of the Pentateuch itself have delivered promising and exciting results. This dictionary offers both appreciative panoramas and close-up assessments of these developments and their methods. TheDictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch is the first in a four-volume series covering the text of the Old Testament. Following in the tradition of the four award-winning IVP dictionaries focused on the New Testament and its background, this encyclopedic work is characterized by close attention to the text of the Old Testament and the ongoing conversation of contemporary scholarship. In exploring the major themes and issues of the Pentateuch, editors T. Desmond Alexander and David W.Baker, with an international and expert group of scholars, inform and challenge through authoritative overviews, detailed examinations and new insights from the world of the ancient Near East. TheDictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch is designed to be your first stop in the study and research of the Pentateuch, on which the rest of the Bible is built.

    Many of the Hebrew scriptures were still evolving when they were translated into Greek, and these Greek translations, alongwith several new Greek writings, became Holy Scripture in the early Church.Yet, gradually the Septuagint lost its place at the heart of Western Christianity. At the end of the fourth century, one of antiquity's brightest minds rejected the Septuagint in favor of the Bible of the rabbis. After Jerome, the Septuagint never regained the position it once had. Timothy MichaelLaw recounts the story of the Septuagint's origins, its relationship to the Hebrew Bible, and the adoption and abandonment of the first Christian Old Testament.

    Reading the Women of the Bible takes up two of the most significant intellectual and religious issues of our day: the experiences of women in a patriarchal society and the relevance of the Bible to modern life.

    

    But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In Laying Down the Sword, “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith.Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditions—nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faith—until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the “holy amnesia” that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bible’s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the whole Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation.Laying Down the Sword presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qur’an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.

    Repelled and repulsed by those who ostensibly represented the Christian faith in his juvenescence, Klaus Kenneth naturally looked elsewhere for the solution to his lonely and tortured existence. In his sincere search for escape from rejection and abuse, Klaus found himself on an odyssey that took him around the world several times, lured him into a vortex of pleasure and power, and initiated him into the great philosophies and religious traditions of our times. Having tried it all, and reaching the very brink of the abyss of despair and the desire for nonexistence, Klaus encounters the One whom he had never thought to look for, the One that he had always discounted: the great I AM, the God of Love and healing, the God of regeneration and eternal life.Klaus KennethKlaus Kenneth was born in a small village west of Prague (Czech Republic), and lives with his wife in Switzerland. In addition to German, his mother tongue, he is fluent in English and French. Desirous to share his remarkable story, Klaus spends most of his time on tour in Europe and the USA, bearing witness to his unexpected discovery of Hope and Love.Published here for the first time in English, Born to Hate, Reborn to Love is already a best seller in several other languages.

    Browne had her first clairvoyant experience at the age of seven. For more than thirty years since then, her visions of the other side and her communication with her teachers, both in spirit and on the earth plane, have helped to form not just her understanding of death, but her philosophy of life.In this fascinating, inspiring book, Mary T. puts our lives into a much broader context than most of us have ever imagined. LIFE AFTER DEATH describes in detail exactly where we go when we die. Mary T.'s psychic connection to the spirit world and her ability to receive messages from those who have made the transition will inspire us to see death not as an ending, but as a new beginning.Mary T. shows us that the spirit world is a place of harmony. It is a realm of beauty, light, art, music, literature, and friendship. We do love beyond the grave, and we will be reunited with our loved ones in the spirit world. The touching stories of those reunions will help ease the fear of leaving the physical world. Mary T. takes the mystery out of death, and leaves us with clear examples of the miraculous journey that lies ahead of us.

    But the Jesus we find in Revelation and some portions of the Gospels leads an army of angels bent on earthly destruction. Which is the true revelation of the Messiah—and how can both be in the same Bible?How to Read the Bible and Still be a Christian explores this question and offers guidance for the faithful conflicted over which version of the Lord to worship. John Dominic Crossan reconciles these contrasting views, revealing how different writers of the books of the Bible not only possessed different visions of God but also different purposes for writing. Often these books are explicitly competing against another, opposing vision of God from the Bible itself.Crossan explains how to navigate this debate and offers what he believes is the best central thread to what the Bible is all about. He challenges Christians to fully participate in this dialogue, thereby shaping their faith by reading deeply, reflectively, and in community with others who share their uncertainty. Only then, he advises, will Christians be able to read and understand the Bible without losing their faith.

    Professor Christine Hayes guides her readers through the complexities of this polyphonous literature that has served as a foundational pillar of Western civilization, underscoring the variety and even disparities among the voices that speak in the biblical texts. Biblical authors wrote in many contexts and responded to a sweeping range of crises and questions concerning issues that were political, economic, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, and moral. In probing chapters devoted to each of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, Hayes reconstructs the meanings and messages of each book and encourages a deeper appreciation of the historical and cultural settings of ancient biblical literature.

    James Carwin serves as a medium who delivers messages from his Pleiadian spirit guide, Deltavash. This compilation of channeled writings features astounding information told from an extraterrestrial perspective. Learn about the true history of Earth, extraterrestrials, the nature of good and evil, ascension into the 4th dimension, world predictions and the future of humanity as we approach a transformative window of opportunity leading up to the year 2020 that can forever change our world and affect the entire universe.

    This new updated edition of How the Swans Came to the Lake includes much new information about recent events in Buddhist groups in America and discusses such issues as spiritual authority, the role of women, and social action.

    That went against her faith. Her own God asked her to walk away. That went against her calling.Until she is ordered by Pharaoh to kill newborn Hebrew males, Puah thought she had an easy profession. If she obeys, it means the deaths of untold innocents. If she doesn't, it means her death.As Pharaohs rise and fall, Puah’s people are forced into deeper oppression. Men are forced labor and women are sent to serve their Egyptian counterparts. Only Puah and her recently acquired guild are free. For now.Moses, one of the hidden babies who was adopted by the Princess, is being groomed to take over. When he denies his right to rule and mistakenly kills an Egyptian, he is forced to flee into the desert.Forty years later, he returns as the instrument of God.With her medical training and passion for helping pregnant women, Puah places herself in the heart of hell on earth as the intensity of plagues increases.After the last plague falls, she must make the decision to stay in Egypt or face the unknown wilderness. Puah’s heart has always been for the women of Egypt. How can she obey God to walk away from them in their greatest hour of need? She can only make the choice once and morning won’t wait.

    Its portable size in no way compromises the readability of both text and critical apparatus, which retains a bold, clear font.

    Celebrating three decades in publication with a special 30th-anniversary edition, this classic work reminds us to learn "that we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world." It is time again to listen to Vine Deloria Jr.'s powerful voice, telling us about religious life that is independent of Christianity and that reveres the interconnectedness of all living things.