Showing titles in Commentaries

Perhaps the greatest American evangelist of the 19th century, Dwight L. Moody inspired millions with his sermons. Although a century and a half separates us from his impassioned explications of the Bible, Moody's ardor rings with overtones of today's fundamentalist Christianity and can offer critical clues to understanding the orthodox religious outlook still dramatically influencing our culture in the 21st century.

"Why would a loving God make the whole human race suffer just because Adam took one bite of the apple?" "Wasn't it cruel of God to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in the first place?" "I think the vineyard workers who worked all day should have been paid more." These questions and observations reflect some of the basic misunderstandings about the Bible caused by not knowing its literary forms.

In The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor, acclaimed author and translator Dr. Joel M. Hoffman gives us the stories and other texts that didn’t make it into the Bible even though they offer penetrating insight into the Bible and its teachings. The Book of Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, but not their saga after they get kicked out or the lessons they have for us about good and evil.

The Bible makes big claims for itself. But do those claims stand up? Aren't the stories just legends? Hasn't the information been corrupted over time? Isn't the Bible full of mistakes? And isn't it culturally outdated? In this absorbing little book, Barry Cooper explores these questions—and many others—with warmth, wit and integrity.

A scientist and former evangelical argues that holding onto a belief in a literal, historical Adam has forced many Christians to reject science and become intellectually isolated from the modern world.

Each Christmas, adults and children alike delight at the story of the kings from the East who followed the star to Bethlehem to offer gifts to the newborn Christ. While this familiar tale is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, another little-known version later emerged that claimed to be the eyewitness account of the wise men. This ancient manuscript has lain hidden for centuries in the vaults of the Vatican Library, but through the determined persistence of a young scholar, Brent Landau, this astonishing discovery has been translated into English for the very first time as the Revelation of the Magi.

Ha detto Steiner, nella sua autobiografia, che ciò che ha scritto nei volumi da lui pubblicati è stato certamente pensato ed elaborato a lungo prima di essere dato alle stampe, mentre quello che deriva dalla trascrizione delle conferenze riguarda sia il suo pensiero che le esigenze del pubblico presente, e quindi è frutto di una interazione, e potrebbe modificarsi a seconda della differenza di pubblico.

This volume in the Revolutions Series presents Jesus Christ as a figure akin to revolutionaries like Robespierre, Marx, and Che Guevara. In this new presentation of the Gospels, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful and provocative argument for Jesus Christ as a social, political and moral radical, a friend of anti-imperialists, outcasts and marginals, a champion of the poor, the sick and immigrants, and as an opponent of the rich, religious hierarchs, and hypocrites everywhere

Nick Cave reads from his introduction to the earliest of the four Gospels, which portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconnected disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. Cave's reading is preceded by Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh, reading an extract from the gospel.

During its 2,500-year life, the book of Genesis has been the keystone to almost every important claim about reality, humanity, and God in Judaism and Christianity. And it continues to play a central role in debates about science, politics, and human rights. With clarity and skill, acclaimed biblical scholar Ronald Hendel provides a panoramic history of this iconic book, exploring its impact on Western religion, philosophy, science, politics, literature, and more.

"Chi legge l'Antico Testamento con la mente disincantata e vi si avvicina con l'atteggiamento sereno che avrebbe verso qualsiasi libro scritto dall'umanità, non ha alcuna difficoltà a cogliere l'evidenza dei fatti."

An examination of sex and the Bible by one of the leading biblical scholars in the United States. For several decades, Michael Coogan's introductory course on the Old Testament has been a perennial favorite among students at Harvard University. In God and Sex, Coogan examines one of the most...

Cinq conférences du Père Paul Beauchamp, théologien et exégète, spécialiste de l'Ecriture Sainte.

Offering rare insights into this iconic and enduring book, Larrimore reveals how Job has come to be viewed as the Bible's answer to the problem of evil and the perennial question of why a God who supposedly loves justice permits bad things to happen to good people.

The Septuagint, the name given to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures between the third century BC and the second century AD, played a central role in the Bible's history. Many of the Hebrew scriptures were still evolving when they were translated into Greek, and these Greek translations, along with several new Greek writings, became Holy Scripture in the early Church. Yet gradually the Septuagint lost its place at the heart of Western Christianity.

Traditional translations - from those of the medieval Jewish commentator Rashi to early Christian commentators to the King James version—have downplayed anger at God and reinterpreted the Psalms in ways that would be doctrinally more palatable, but which flatten the richness and subtlety of the Hebrew verse. Greenberg's translation aims to restore the poetry and vibrancy of the Psalms as a prayerful act, replicating their emotional passion while both wrestling with the text as living liturgy and remaining as true as possible to the originals.

Home Tonight follows the path of Henri Nouwen's spiritual homecoming. More than three years prior to writing his great classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen suffered a personal breakdown followed by a time of healing solitude when he encountered Rembrandt's famous painting. Within his solitude he reflected on and identified with the parable’s characters and experienced profound and inspiring life lessons.

The apostle Paul was kind of a jerk. He was arrogant and stubborn. He called his opponents derogatory, racist names. He legitimized slavery and silenced women. He was a moralistic, homophobic killjoy who imposed his narrow religious views on others. Or was he? Randolph Richards and Brandon O'Brien explore the complicated persona and teachings of the apostle Paul. Unpacking his personal history and cultural context, they show how Paul both offended Roman perspectives and scandalized Jewish sensibilities.

Who was Lazarus anyway? He doesn’t speak a single word in the Bible. We have no record of his great acts of faith. Yet he is described as the one Jesus loves. This audio book is the final in Joanna Weaver’s life-changing Bethany trilogy, Lazarus Awakening invites us to experience a divine shift in how we view our relationship with God.

A uniquely attractive, compact edition of Thomas Jefferson's classic abridgment of the Bible, in which Jefferson sculpted the words and ideas of Christ into a resounding moral philosophy. "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself."...