While history, literature, and theology are important in biblical studies, it is fundamental to recognize that the biblical texts convey meanings derived through a specific culture with distinctive values and particular social arrangements. Ancient documents like the Bible refer to their contemporary social systems only indirectly for the most part. They assume that their readers share their world and know what they mean by "tribute," what sort of marriage arrangements were employed, or ho...

The Lazarus Project is a collection of poems based on photos found in antique stores, junk shops, and over the internet, separated from their history, lost in boxes, drawers, or attics until their families are gone or whoever finds them no longer knows who they were or what they did. In a sense they represent the history which the poet Thomas McGrath said we threw out the back of the wagon train on our way out west. K.C. Hanson gives voice to the people in the pictures—rescues them, and us...

The authors investigate well-known concerns in natural resource management in Africa while focusing on the capacity dimension of the problems. They examine dynamics of leadership, governance, criminality, structural transformation, as well as emerging issues such as green growth.

Biblical faith is passionately and relentlessly material in its accent. This claim is rooted in the conviction that the creator God loves and cares for the creation and summons creation to be in sync with the will of the creator God. This collection of essays is focused on the bodily life of the world as it is ordered in all of its problematic political and economic forms. The phrase of the title, "all flesh," in the flood narrative of Genesis 9, refers to all living creatures who are in c...

Throughout Walter Brueggemann's career, he has repeatedly found his way back to the David and royal traditions. From some of his earliest articles and essays to monographs, commentaries, and sermons, he has explored this rich field in literary, social, and theological depth. As he has said, "My preoccupation with David rests on the awareness that David occupies a central position in the imagination of ancient Israel and in the rendering of 'faith and history' by that community. As the gene...

Contents 1 The Practice of Homefulness 2 A Myriad of "Truth and Reconciliation" Commissions 3 Bragging about the Right Stuff 4 A Culture of Life and the Politics of Death 5 Elisha as the Original Pentecost Guy 6 The Stunning Outcome of a One-Person Search Committee 7 The Non-negotiable Price of Sanity 8 The Family as World-Maker

"Walter Brueggemann is the master of finding fresh and compelling dimensions of meaning in texts so familiar they barely scratch the surface of our consciousness. In this exciting collection, Brueggemann finds that when we admit we are dust, we can be liberated. Why? Because we are free from acting like God. We are free to choose obedience to the one living, true Sovereign. The idols lose their grip on us and we live faithfully and in authentic joy." --Ronald J. Allen, Christian Theologica...

For the past several decades, Erhard Gerstenberger has been a leader in the study of the Psalms. These essays bring together some of the key contributions that both reflect on the history of interpretation and the path forward for research. Both the student and the experienced researcher will be enriched by the depth and clarity of perspective that Gerstenberger brings. Two of the essays appear here in English for the first time. Contents 1. The Lyrical Literature 2. Psalms 3. The Psalm Ge...

"Like athletes, preachers carry inside them the voices of their most challenging coaches--people who have encouraged them to dig deeper, stretch farther, and more faithfully pursue their craft and calling. In these crystalline essays, Walter Brueggemann is that voice again, shaking us free of the dust of our own diminished expectations, bolstering our best instincts, and consistently pointing us toward a gospel that would make the powers and principalities tremble." --Scott Black Johnston,...

Contents 1. Social Criticism and Social Vision in the Deuteronomic Formula of the Judges 2. A Poem of Summons (Isa 55:1-3), a Narrative of Resistance (Dan 1:1-21) 3. Psalms 9-10: A Counter to Conventional Social Reality 4. Prophetic Imagination toward Social Flourishing 5. A Royal Miracle and Its Nachleben 6. The Living Afterlife of a Dead Prophet: Words That Keep Speaking 7. The Tearing of the Curtain: Matthew 27:51 8. Five Strong Rereadings of the Book of Isaiah

"Elijah, Yahweh, and Baal is a masterpiece presented with authority by a twentieth-century accomplished and unsurpassed exegete. It is now translated by a disciple, whose elegant rendition sounds as if Hermann Gunkel had originally written himself the book in English." --Andre LaCocque, The Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL "Written a century ago for a church audience eager to learn how the best scholarship of the day could illuminate one of the Bible's most absorbing stories, this...

This collection of essays is drawn from a series of previous collections to which the author has contributed that were designed to honor senior scholars in the discipline of Old Testament study. Each of these essays reflects a distinct intention depending on the nature of the original collection in which they appeared and the scholar who was being honored. Taken together, however, this collection amounts to an articulation of Brueggemann's distinctive approach to theological interpretation...