Download or read book A History of the Bible written by John Barton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as "Holy Scripture," a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context--from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries. It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren't), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world--and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible's literal wording--which is impossible to determine--and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.
Download or read book The Book of Genesis written by Ronald Hendel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During its 2,500-year life, the book of Genesis has been the keystone to important claims about God and humanity in Judaism and Christianity, and it plays a central role in contemporary debates about science, politics, and human rights. The authors provide a panoramic history of this iconic book, exploring its impact on Western religion, philosophy, literature, art, and more.
Download or read book The Jefferson Bible written by Peter Manseau and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and times of a uniquely American testament In his retirement, Thomas Jefferson edited the New Testament with a penknife and glue, removing all mention of miracles and other supernatural events. Inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, Jefferson hoped to reconcile Christian tradition with reason by presenting Jesus of Nazareth as a great moral teacher—not a divine one. Peter Manseau tells the story of the Jefferson Bible, exploring how each new generation has reimagined the book in its own image as readers grapple with both the legacy of the man who made it and the place of religion in American life. Completed in 1820 and rediscovered by chance in the late nineteenth century after being lost for decades, Jefferson's cut-and-paste scripture has meant different things to different people. Some have held it up as evidence that America is a Christian nation founded on the lessons of the Gospels. Others see it as proof of the Founders' intent to root out the stubborn influence of faith. Manseau explains Jefferson's personal religion and philosophy, shedding light on the influences and ideas that inspired him to radically revise the Gospels. He situates the creation of the Jefferson Bible within the broader search for the historical Jesus, and examines the book's role in American religious disputes over the interpretation of scripture. Manseau describes the intrigue surrounding the loss and rediscovery of the Jefferson Bible, and traces its remarkable reception history from its first planned printing in 1904 for members of Congress to its persistent power to provoke and enlighten us today.
Download or read book The Book of Job written by Mark Larrimore and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and times of this iconic and enduring biblical book The book of Job raises stark questions about the meaning of innocent suffering and the relationship of the human to the divine, yet it is also one of the Bible's most obscure and paradoxical books. Mark Larrimore provides a panoramic history of this remarkable book, traversing centuries and traditions to examine how Job's trials and his challenge to God have been used and understood in diverse contexts, from commentary and liturgy to philosophy and art. Larrimore traces Job's reception by figures such as Gregory the Great, William Blake, and Elie Wiesel, and 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.
Download or read book The Making of the Bible written by Konrad Schmid and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative new account of the BibleÕs origins, illuminating the 1,600-year tradition that shaped the Christian and Jewish holy books as millions know them today. The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories, as well as the underappreciated contest between them, from which the Bible arose. Recent scholarship has overturned popular assumptions about IsraelÕs past, suggesting, for instance, that the five books of the Torah were written not by Moses but during the reign of Josiah centuries later. The sources of the Gospels are also under scrutiny. Konrad Schmid and Jens Schrter reveal the long, transformative journeys of these and other texts en route to inclusion in the holy books. The New Testament, the authors show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. Rather the two evolved in parallel, in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing mutual influence of Jewish and Christian traditions. Indeed, Schmid and Schrter argue that Judaism may not have survived had it not been reshaped in competition with early Christianity. A remarkable synthesis of the latest Old and New Testament scholarship, The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet told of the worldÕs best-known literature, revealing its buried lessons and secrets.
Download or read book The Bible written by and published by . This book was released on 1616 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Book of Books written by Melvyn Bragg and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The King James Bible has often been called the "Book of Books," both in itself and in what it stands for. Since its publication in 1611, it has been the best–selling book in the world, and many believe, it has had the greatest impact. The King James Bible has spread the Protestant faith. It has also been the greatest influence on the enrichment of the English language and its literature. It has been the Bible of wars from the British Civil War in the seventeenth century to the American Civil War two centuries later, and it has been carried into battle in innumerable conflicts since then. Its influence on social movements—particularly involving women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and politics was profound. It was crucial to the growth of democracy. It was integral to the abolition of slavery, and it defined attitudes to modern science, education, and sex. As Lord Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English explored the history of our language, so The Book of Books reveals the extraordinary and still–felt impact of a work created 400 years ago.
Download or read book The Jefferson Bible written by Thomas Jefferson and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jefferson regarded Jesus as a moral guide rather than a divinity. In his unique interpretation of the Bible, he highlights Christ's ethical teachings, discarding the scriptures' supernatural elements, to reflect the deist view of religion.
Download or read book National Geographic Essential Visual History of the Bible written by and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated history of the Bible provides detailed coverage of the Old and New Testaments, from the patriarchs to the epistles of Paul, and includes timelines and informational sidebars.
Download or read book The Reforming Power of the Scriptures written by Mary Metzner Trammell and published by Writings of Mary Baker Eddy. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of the End of the World written by Jonathan Kirsch and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-08-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[The Book of] Revelation has served as a "language arsenal" in a great many of the social, cultural, and political conflicts in Western history. Again and again, Revelation has stirred some dangerous men and women to act out their own private apocalypses. Above all, the moral calculus of Revelation—the demonization of one's enemies, the sanctification of revenge taking, and the notion that history must end in catastrophe—can be detected in some of the worst atrocities and excesses of every age, including our own. For all of these reasons, the rest of us ignore the book of Revelation only at our impoverishment and, more to the point, at our own peril." The mysterious author of the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse, as the last book of the New Testament is also known) never considered that his sermon on the impending end times would last beyond his own life. In fact, he predicted that the destruction of the earth would be witnessed by his contemporaries. Yet Revelation not only outlived its creat∨ this vivid and violent revenge fantasy has played a significant role in the march of Western civilization. Ever since Revelation was first preached as the revealed word of Jesus Christ, it has haunted and inspired hearers and readers alike. The mark of the beast, the Antichrist, 666, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are just a few of the images, phrases, and codes that have burned their way into the fabric of our culture. The questions raised go straight to the heart of the human fear of death and obsession with the afterlife. Will we, individually or collectively, ride off to glory, or will we drown in hellfire for all eternity? As those who best manipulate this dark vision learned, which side we fall on is often a matter of life or death. Honed into a weapon in the ongoing culture wars between states, religions, and citizenry, Revelation has significantly altered the course of history. Kirsch, whom the Washington Post calls "a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing to modern audiences," delivers a far-ranging, entertaining, and shocking history of this scandalous book, which was nearly cut from the New Testament. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Black Death, the Inquisition to the Protestant Reformation, the New World to the rise of the Religious Right, this chronicle of the use and abuse of the Book of Revelation tells the tale of the unfolding of history and the hopes, fears, dreams, and nightmares of all humanity.
Download or read book How the Bible Became a Book written by William M. Schniedewind and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-10 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past two hundred years biblical scholars have increasingly assumed that the Hebrew Bible was largely written and edited in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. As a result, the written Bible has dwelled in an historical vacuum. Recent archaeological evidence and insights from linguistic anthropology, however, point to the earlier era of the late-Iron Age as the formative period for the writing of biblical literature. How the Bible Became a Book combines these recent archaeological discoveries in the Middle East with insights culled from the history of writing to address how the Bible first came to be written down and then became sacred Scripture. This book provides rich insight into why these texts came to have authority as Scripture and explores why Ancient Israel, an oral culture, began to write literature, challenging the assertion that widespread literacy first arose in Greece during the fifth century BCE.
Download or read book The First Book of Moses Called Genesis written by and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 1999 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed as "the most radical repackaging of the Bible since Gutenberg", these Pocket Canons give an up-close look at each book of the Bible.
Download or read book The Biography of the Bible written by Ernest Sutherland Bates and published by Jazzybee Verlag. This book was released on 2012 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the extended and annotated edition including * an extensive annotation of more than 5.000 words about the history and evolution of the book we call 'The Bible' * an interactive table-of-contents * perfect formatting for electronic reading devices (e.g. no more annoying page numbers in the text) A great book is a living organism. Months, years, or centuries may go into its gestation. When finally composed and written down, it can be said to be born, but only born. It then grows and develops through the interpretations of generation after generation of readers, critics, editors, and translators, each adding something, great or little, to its expanding magnitude. The life of the Bible, above all other books, is a life made up of countless lives, embodying their joys and agonies, their visions, their defeats and aspirations. Four thousand years cling about it. A full millennium of myths and legends passed into it; another millennium was consumed in the writing; bitter battles over canon and creed occupied a third; a fourth has seen the ever-continuing translations into modern tongues. Contents: ONE - General Character TWO - The Authors THREE - The Conflict over Creed and Canon FOUR - The Bible under Medievalism FIVE - The Great Translations SIX - The Higher Criticism SEVEN - The Bible and the Stream of Life
Download or read book A Complete Alphabetically Arranged Biblical Biography written by Thomas G. Beharrell and published by . This book was released on 1867 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book God A Biography written by Jack Miles and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-30 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE What sort of "person" is God? What is his "life story"? Is it possible to approach him not as an object of religious reverence, but as the protagonist of the world's greatest book—as a character who possesses all the depths, contradictions, and abiguities of a Hamlet? This is the task that Jack Miles—a former Jesuit trained in religious studies and Near Eastern languages—accomplishes with such brilliance and originality in God: A Biography. Using the Hebrew Bible as his text, Miles shows us a God who evolves through his relationship with man, the image who in time becomes his rival. Here is the Creator who nearly destroys his chief creation; the bloodthirsty warrior and the protector of the downtrodden; the lawless law-giver; the scourge and the penitent. Profoundly learned, stylishly written, the resulting work illuminates God and man alike and returns us to the Bible with a sense of discovery and wonder.
Download or read book The history of the english bible written by S.G. Ayres, B.D. and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
