Kenneth E. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus's relationship to women, and especially Jesus's parables.Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead listeners into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context. With a sure but gentle hand, Bailey lifts away the obscuring layers of modern Western interpretation...

Preaching Magazine Year's Best Book for PreachersWhere is the cross in the parable of the prodigal son?For centuries, Muslims have called attention to the father's forgiveness in this parable in order to question the need for a Mediator between humanity and God. In The Cross and the Prodigal, Kenneth E. Bailey--New Testament scholar and long-time missionary to the Middle East--undertakes to answer this question.Dra...

This volume is a combined edition of Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Kenneth Bailey's intensive studies of the parables in the gospel of Luke.Bailey begins by surveying the development of allegorical, historical-eschatological, aesthetic, and existential methods of interpretation. Though figures like Julicher, Jeremias, Dodd, Jones, and Via have made important advances, Bailey sees the need to go beyond them by combining an examination of the poetic structures of...

Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, steeped in the learning of his people.But he was also a Roman citizen who widely traveled the Mediterranean basin, and was very knowledgeable of the dominant Greek and Roman culture of his day. These two mighty rivers of influence converge in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.With razor-sharp attention to the text, Kenneth Bailey examines the cultural milieu and rhetorical strategies that shaped this pivotal epistle. H...

"The Lord is my shepherd."Thus begins the most beloved of all Psalms—and thus begins a thousand-year journey through the Bible. Prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself took up this image from David, reshaping it, developing it, and applying it to their own situations and needs. Kenneth Bailey uses his celebrated insights into Middle Eastern culture, especially his familiarity with Middle Eastern shepherding customs, to bring new light and life to our understanding of this ce...

The result of over thirty years of research and lecturing, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes is a ground-breaking study of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Bailey examines this canonical letter through the lenses of Paul's Jewish socio-cultural and rhetorical background and the Mediterranean context of the Corinthian recipients. In a set of connected essays, he draws the reader's attention to the letter's rootedness in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, the intentional theological struc...

Brings new light and life to our understanding of one of the most beloved and central images of the Christian faith. The Lord is my shepherd. Thus begins the most beloved of all Psalms - and thus begins a thousand-year journey through the Bible. Prophets, apostles and Jesus himself took up this image from David, reshaping it, developing it and applying it to their own situations and needs. Kenneth Bailey uses his celebrated insights into Middle Eastern culture and especially his familiarit...

These fifteen original stories, donated by authors to help keep local theater alive, are fun, quirky, imaginative, and bold - the perfect way to tide over audiences until local stage curtains can once again rise! Each tale turns the spotlight on some unusual snapshot of life or imagination. Sales from this book, along with generous donations from others in the community, will help local theaters survive and eventually thrive despite this most unfortunate "intermission." With new shows - an...