A fragile peace teeters on the brink of collapse; new players threaten the colonial world order in this award-winning debut historical fantasy novel.Damien Flynn is going to die. And it's going to happen because he finally stood up for what's right.After years of observing and taking part in the enduring corruption and oppression of the Ricchan people, Damien Flynn's conscience wakes. He pushes for the Ricchan right to a vote, for control of their own destiny.He soo...

Contemporary nativism gathers much of its steam from what many Westerners fear to be a free-for-all of desperate refugees invading peaceful Western countries to seek shelter from dictatorial violence and civil war, but in antiquity its impact is much more difficult to measure, given (a) that so few extant texts overtly or covertly reference it; and (b) that so many of those which do are inadequately, incompetently, even speciously interpreted. Complicating this is the fact that at root the...

Today there are many books about worship and many books about the book of Psalms, but only a few books about the relationship between the two. Contemporary studies of the Psalter are in flux between those focused upon each psalm in its literary-historical environment (micro-structuralists) and those focused upon the Psalter as a great literary text comparable to other "great texts" from the ancient world (macro-structuralists). Contemporary worship is also in flux between traditionalists (...

The Mediterranean diet is a well-established dietary pattern that has garnered significant attention and praise from health professionals and researchers. Its emphasis on whole, minimally processed foods, abundant plant-based ingredients, healthy fats, and moderate consumption of lean proteins makes it a highly nutritious and balanced approach to eating.Numerous studies have consistently shown that following the Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of various chronic ...

The purpose of this book is to introduce the Pentateuch to (under)graduate students by approaching it from the perspective of five theological polarities: chaos-creation (Genesis), slavery-freedom (Exodus), defilement-holiness (Leviticus), wilderness-homeland (Numbers), and conflict-covenant (Deuteronomy). It examines these polarities in light of other great texts from the ancient Near East (and Qur'an) in the hope of ushering the reader into a deeper understanding of the one God revered b...

Like the first two books in this series (WealthWatch and WealthWarn), this volume 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 and WealthWarn focuses on the Prophets, WealthWise focuses on wisdom literature. The texts examined here include the Instructions of Shuruppak,...

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 t...

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry leads and serves The United Methodist Church in the recruitment, preparation, nurture, education, and support of Christian leaders—lay and clergy—for the work of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Its vision is that a new generation of Christian leaders will commit boldly to Jesus Christ and be characterized by intellectual excellence, moral integrity, spiritual courage, and holiness of heart and life. Th...

Here is the full story of one man's adventures as he seeks out the poor and sick in China as a medical missionary, and who was still busily at work in the Far East in his 80's. In that time he built 15 hospitals and clinics, improvised and improved operation techniques, becoming one of the most widely practiced surgeons in the world, made new discoveries in preventive medicine, invented and developed soybean milk, which is responsible today for saving thousands of lives in undernourished a...

The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions, basing itself on the presumption that (a) nobody can understand themselves apart from some recognition of their spiritual roots, and (b) that these roots sink deeper into the pages of the Bible than most Westerners realize. Focusing upon that part of the Bible most widely recognized to be its ideological core--that which is called Torah by some, Pentateuch by others-...

Mormon conversion stories are like the ones in The Bible---the same redemptive pattern runs through both. Mine's no exception. But that's where the similarity ends Instead of recounting my conversion in a conventional narrative style, I offer readers two sets of contrasting papers by which they can judge its authenticity Indeed, if the prodigal son had kept copies of his letters during & after his years of "riotous living," he might've published a book like this one. To expand on the short...

This book is a collection of revised-and-updated essays about the Hebrew Bible written by a North American scholar over a period of several decades. Subdivided into three parts--Torah, Prophecy/Apocalyptic, and Wisdom--these seventeen essays attempt to model for younger scholars and students what the discipline of biblical interpretation can look like, attending carefully to literary, historical, canonical, and comparative intertextual methods of investigation.