Download or read book Judges and Saviors Deborah and Samson written by Hillel I. Millgram and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about a book: it is an in-depth yet reader friendly analysis of the Book of Judges, one of the most dramatic books of the Bible. Against the commonly-held view that this remarkable work is no more than a collection of hero tales stemming from Israel’s earliest days in its land—its “Heroic Age,” so to speak—this study makes the case that the Book of Judges is a unified composition with a single focused message: that it is the values held by a people and not its politics that determine its fate. Further, Judges contends that there is a direct connection between the kind of values people internalize and the level of violence that racks their society, both inflicted from without and generated from within. And not least, that the presence of violence is a symptom that a society has abandoned the moral values of monotheism for the Machiavellian politics of a pagan worldview that worships power as the ultimate reality. The larger-than-life heroes and heroines—Ehud and Jael, Deborah and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson—who people the pages of Judges serve by their example to illustrate the way this thesis works out in the world.

Download or read book The Elijah Enigma written by Hillel I. Millgram and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of the intertwining tales of Elijah and Ahab--mercurial prophet and Machiavellian king--this book is an accessible treatment of one of the most dramatic and well-known episodes in the Bible. In contrast to the popular image of Elijah as a courageous wonder-worker who calls down fire from heaven and ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot, this book contends that the prophet was a deeply conflicted man, torn between a burning idealism and a deep disillusionment over his failure to achieve his ideals. Despite his profound sense of failure, Elijah's struggle against the paganizing regime of King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel, managed to save monotheism from eclipse, and in so doing alter the course of human history. This work further proposes that the tale presented by the Bible is more than an account of an ancient battle between two historic figures: it is a paradigm of the struggle between the ideals of human dignity and justice, and the alternative of expediency in the pursuit of power, a conflict that pervades human life to this very day.

Download or read book Agnostic at the Altar written by John Van Hagen and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Agnostic at the Altar, former Catholic priest and psychologist John Van Hagen engages the voices of the ancient Jewish prophets in an effort to find something of a universal voice that speaks to all people. He builds upon the work of Scripture scholars, religious writers, and his own experiences to pave a path by which readers can engage in religion, while at the same time defending against harmful religious claims and practices. The prophets, who first appeared in Palestine in the Axial Age, translated their experience of the transcendent into magnificent stories that began with a time of intimacy with their God, a later time of betrayal and turmoil, and a future reconciliation at the end of time. Later, Christians adopted these themes as their own. Their stories emphasize justice and right worship as a way toward a meaningful and peaceful future. Their insights into a spiritual dimension of reality brought purpose to millions of lives. In this uncertain time of increasing global tension and strife, they could do the same for us. Agnostic at the Altar makes a compelling case that the ancient prescriptions for a just way of living together are not only historically significant, but in perfect keeping with an evolutionary-based desire that all people live in harmony.

Download or read book The Book of Kings and Exilic Identity written by Nathan Lovell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nathan Lovell proposes that 1 and 2 Kings might be read as a work of written history, produced with the explicit purpose of shaping the communal identity of its first readers in the Babylonian exile. By drawing on sociological approaches to the role historiography plays in the construction of political identity, Lovell argues the book of Kings is intended to reconstruct a sense of Israelite identity in the context of these losses, and that the book of Kings moves beyond providing a reason for the exile in Israel's history, and beyond even connecting its exilic audience to that history. The book recalls the past in order to demonstrate what it means to be Israel in the (exilic) present, and to encourage hope for the Israelite nation in the future. After developing a reading strategy for 1–2 Kings that treats the book as a coherent narrative, Lovell examines the construction of Israelite identity within Kings under the headings of covenant, nationhood, land, and rule. In each case he suggests that the narrative of the book creates room for a genuine but temporary expression of Israelite identity in exile: genuine to show that it remains possible for Israel to be Yahweh's people during the exile, but temporary to encourage hope for a future restoration.

Download or read book Defiant Prophets written by Hillel I. Millgram and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-04-27 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the tales of three remarkable figures of the biblical world: the tragic prophet Jeremiah, and the two atypical prophets Jonah and Balaam. Jeremiah was cursed from birth and condemned to a lifelong losing battle against national disaster. Jonah was notorious for his connection with a whale, whereas Balaam was best known as the owner of a talking donkey. Yet these prophets (servants of their deity) are portrayed as rebels against their god. This book contends that these tales, beyond their intrinsic appeal as stories, were written to serve as metaphors. Although set in ancient times and in the exotic Near East, the issues that underlie these gripping tales are not unfamiliar to modern times and Western lives. These prophets represent "everyman" and these unusual dramas explore the phenomenon of revolt against restrictive conditions and against authority.

Download or read book Mission after Pentecost Mission in Global Community written by Amos Yong and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing Pentecostal theology into the Bible and mission conversation, Amos Yong identifies the role of the divine spirit in God's mission to redeem the world. As he works through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, Yong emphasizes the global missiological imperative: "People of all nations reaching out to people of all nations." Sidebars include voices from around the globe who help the author put the biblical text into conversation with twenty-first-century questions, offering the church a fresh understanding of its mission and how to pursue it in the decades to come.

Download or read book The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy written by Michael Rydelnik and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 1474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate, all-in-one resource on what the Old Testament says about Jesus As Jesus walked the Emmaeus road, he showed his companions how the whole of Scripture foretold his coming. Yet so often today we’re not quite sure how to talk about Jesus in the Old Testament. How do you know what applies to Jesus? And how do you interpret some of the strange prophetic language? Get answers and clarity in this authoritative and reliable guide to messianic prophecy from some of the world’s foremost evangelical Old Testament scholars. In this in-depth, user-friendly one volume resource you get: -essays from scholars on the big ideas and major themes surrounding Messianic prophecy -A clear and careful commentary on every passage in the Old Testament considered Messianic -Insights into the original Hebrew and helpful analysis of theological implications Watch the Scriptures come into full color as you see new meaning in familiar passages and further appreciate God’s masterful handiwork in preparing the way for Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah.

Download or read book Transformed by Truth written by Joseph Tkach and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Worldwide Church of God rejects the teachings of founder Herbert W. Armstrong and embraces historic Christianity. This is the inside story. In this fast-paced narrative, Joseph Tkach, son of Armstrong's handpicked successor and head of the church, tells this remarkable account of the transforming power of the Gospel.

Download or read book Depression and the Divine written by David C. Wilson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Wilson's initial research into the phenomenon of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible suggested that many of the passages featuring prophets, and hitherto considered to be bizarre myths (or much-edited collections of traditions) were, in fact, sequences of dreams. Moreover, it was possible to compare the structure of these sequences with the structure of a night's sleep (hypnogram)--as revealed by modern sleep research--to demonstrate that the "sleeper" was depressed. This characteristic, depressive sleep architecture was then used to show that three characters in particular, Elijah, Jonah, and Adam--compared in the New Testament with Jesus--were all, in fact, depressed. Quite naturally, this raised further questions concerning the nature of Jesus himself: Was he merely a prophet? If he wasn't, how did he differ? If he was depressed, how was he able to function (and succeed in his mission) when Elijah and Jonah clearly had such great difficulties? These and other questions are raised throughout this book, and many of them are not new, but they are, however, changed forever when asked against a contextual background of altered states of consciousness (ASCs), and dreamform in particular.

Download or read book Theological Adventures written by Phillip Michael Garner and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theological Adventures began as a challenge to the teachers of The Institute for Global Outreach Developments International to provide me with those passages of Scripture they found the most difficult to produce an interpretive theology consistent with nonviolence and a nonviolent God. The allegorical method for dealing with OT violence has not led to a constructive theology capable of eradicating violence from the Christian tradition. However, genre identification of particular books enables a reader to discern the prejudicial nature of a book claiming to speak for God, e.g., Joshua as conquest narrative. Judges, as a reflection on violence and male-female relationships, qualifies as a “social critique” on Israelite society. This is wonderfully portrayed in the study of Samson as the archetypal strongman who represents Israel as a people. It is healthy to be honest enough about OT Scripture to require basic morality as a guide for reading its claims and stories. The gift of a moral conscience is a powerful voice for God’s image in us. I have found the OT to be consistent with the revelation of God in Christ Jesus when a person learns to read it correctly. The guiding interpretive lens is honesty about the intolerable violence sanctioned in the OT.

Download or read book It is the Spirit that Gives Life written by Gitte Buch-Hansen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-05-27 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Origen and Chrysostom, John’s Gospel has been valued as the most spiritual among the New Testament writings. Although Origen recognizes the Stoic character of John’s statement that “God is pneuma” (4:24), an examination of the gospel in light of Stoic physics has not yet been carried out. Combining her insight into Stoic physics and ancient physiology, the author situates her thesis in the major discussions of modern Johannine scholarship – e.g. the role of the Baptist and the function of the Johannine signs – and demonstrates new solutions to well-known problems. The Stoic study of the Fourth Gospel reveals a coherent narrative tied together by the spirit. The problem with which John’s Gospel wrestles is not the identity of Jesus, but the transition from the Son of God to the next generation of divinely begotten children: how did it come about? A reading carried out from a Stoic perspective points to the translation of the risen body of Jesus into spirit as the decisive event. The provision of the spirit is a precondition of the divine generation of believers. Both events are explained by Stoic theory which allows of a transformation of fleshly elements into pneuma and of multiple fatherhood. In fact, in his Commentary on John, Origen described Jesus’ ascension as an event of anastoixeiôsis, which is the Stoic term for the transformation of heavily elements into lighter and pneumatic ones.

Download or read book I Am the Way written by Philip Wesley Comfort and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2001-12-17 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gospel of John follows Jesus on a journey that will take the disciples to God. Herein is the pattern for every pilgrim. In this textual and literary study, Philip Wesley Comfort traces the "journey motif" around which John organized his account of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and final days with his disciples. When Jesus says in John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth and the life," modern disciples can see an immediate reference to his own journey from heaven to earth, and back to heaven. But that message has important implications for us as well. Jesus did not return alone to the Father. All believers went with him. While Comfort has written an in-depth literary study, the relevance of his theme for Christian living makes I Am the Way a sound basis for reflective preaching, teaching, and devotional reading.

Download or read book WealthWarn written by Michael S. Moore and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-08-15 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like the first volume in this series (WealthWatch, Pickwick, 2011) this book attempts to do two things: (a) examine the primary socioeconomic motifs in the Bible from a comparative intertextual perspective, and (b) trace the trajectory formed by these motifs through Tanak into early Jewish and Nazarene texts. Where WealthWatch focuses on Torah, WealthWarn focuses on the single largest section of the Bible--the Prophets. Where the ancient Near Eastern texts surveyed in WealthWatch include the Epic of Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and the Epic of Erra, the texts examined here include Inanna's Descent, the Babylonian Creation Epic (enūma elish), the Disappearance of Telipinu, and the Ba`al Epic. Where the Jewish texts surveyed in WealthWatch include historical and sectarian texts, the texts studied here include Ezra-Nehemiah, the Epistle of Jeremiah and Tobit. Where the Nazarene texts in WealthWatch focus on the stewardship parables found in the Gospel of Luke, the texts examined here focus on several prophetic vignettes from the Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles.

Download or read book In the Name of Elijah Muhammad written by Mattias Gardell and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1996-09-26 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Name of Elijah Muhammad tells the story of the Nation of Islam—its rise in northern inner-city ghettos during the Great Depression through its decline following the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975 to its rejuvenation under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan. Mattias Gardell sets this story within the context of African American social history, the legacy of black nationalism, and the long but hidden Islamic presence in North America. He presents with insight and balance a detailed view of one of the most controversial yet least explored organizations in the United States—and its current leader. Beginning with Master Farad Muhammad, believed to be God in Person, Gardell examines the origins of the Nation. His research on the period of Elijah Muhammad’s long leadership draws on previously unreleased FBI files that reveal a clear picture of the bureau’s attempts to neutralize the Nation of Islam. In addition, they shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the murder of Malcolm X. With the main part of the book focused on the fortunes of the Nation after Elijah Muhammad’s death, Gardell then turns to the figure of Minister Farrakhan. From his emergence as the dominant voice of the radical black Islamic community to his leadership of the Million Man March, Farrakhan has often been portrayed as a demagogue, bigot, racist, and anti-Semite. Gardell balances the media’s view of the Nation and Farrakhan with the Nation’s own views and with the perspectives of the black community in which the organization actively works. His investigation, based on field research, taped lectures, and interviews, leads to the fullest account yet of the Nation of Islam’s ideology and theology, and its complicated relations with mainstream Islam, the black church, the Jewish community, extremist white nationalists, and the urban culture of black American youth, particularly the hip-hop movement and gangs.

Download or read book The Enigmatical entertainer and mathematical associate written by and published by . This book was released on 1827 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Caleb Collection written by Ted Dekker and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enjoy New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker's Caleb stories as an e-book collection! Blessed Child The young orphaned boy was abandoned and raised in an Ethiopian monastery. He has never seen outside its walls—at least, not the way most people see. Now he must flee those walls or die. A Man Called Blessed One man holds the key to locating the Ark of the Covenant—but he’s hidden deep in the desert and no one has seen him since he was a boy.

Download or read book The Son of Man in Myth and History written by Frederick Houk Borsch and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Borsch has not answered all the questions, of course. Who can? But his view of the Man tradition makes more sense to me than, for example, Perrin's rather cavalier dismissal of the evidence, and it not only enlightens but also enlivens the discussion. As against the extreme skeptics, Borsch is also convincing to me in arguing the case for a large measure of authenticity in the Son of man tradition in the Gospels. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the book constantly calls me back to its pages for insight regarding the problem, both in its historical dimension and in its bearing upon the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth for faith today. --'Theology' ""The author is well aware of the difficulties involved in entering a field wherein so much investigation has been done. And of this, with the positive and negative conclusions, he gives an excellent survey, crisp and critical . . . . The lines opened up will engage the attention of a new and more positive chapter in the form-critical argument. --'London Quarterly and Holborn Review' Frederick H. Borsch is the retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and Professor of New Testament and Chair of Anglican Studies at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He is also the former Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University. His other books include 'The Spirit Searches Everything: Keeping Life's Questions', 'The Bible's Authority in Today's Church', 'Introducing the Lessons of the Church Year: A Guide for Lay Readers and Congregartions', and 'The Christian and Gnostic Son of Man'.