Male alliances, partnerships, and friendships are fundamental to the Hebrew Bible. This book offers a detailed and explicit exploration of the ways in which shared sexual use of women and women’s bodies engenders, sustains, and nourishes such relationships in the Hebrew Bible.Hebrew Bible narratives demonstrate that women and women’s bodies are not merely used to foster and cultivate male homosociality, male friendship, and toxic hegemonic masculinity, but rather to engender them a...

Rape Culture and the Bible: Scholars Reflect offers readers the opportunity to hear from prominent and influential biblical scholars and scholar activists as they reflect on their work on sexual violence vis-a-vis the Bible. This book covers major points of inquiry in the field, focusing primarily on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. It explores debates on appropriate terminology; intersectionality of sexual violence, gender, and race; how survivor perspectives inform the re...

Rape Culture in the House of David: A Company of Men describes a biblical rape culture sustained and maintained by Yhwh and a host of men—from royal kings and princes to their relatives, counselors, generals, and servants.This volume reveals that sexual violence in the house of David is not simply perpetrated by its most powerful men. Rather, in the pursuit of power, status, authority, and honor, men form alliances and networks that support the use and abuse of women’s bod...

An examination of one of the most controversial aspects of the Hebrew Scripture: What the Old Testament really says about sex, and how contemporary understanding of those writings is frequently misunderstood or misrepresented.In the engaging and witty voice generations of students have appreciated, Michael Coogan explores the language and social world of the Bible, showing how much innuendo and euphemism is at play, and illuminating the sexuality of biblical figure...

Reading the Women of the Bible takes up two of the most significant intellectual and religious issues of our day: the experiences of women in a patriarchal society and the relevance of the Bible to modern life.

The question of how the church deals with homosexuality has become the great moral and spiritual issue of this generation.How do we respond to gay people who tell us how much they love the Lord and experience God's power? How do we answer them when they say that the greatest law is the law of love, and that love requires us to embrace them as they are? What do we do with the argument that the Old Testament laws (such as the prohibition against homosexuality and the ...

Of all the teachings of Christianity, the doctrine of hell is easily the most troubling, so much so that in recent years the church has been quietly tucking it away. Rarely mentioned anymore in the pulpit, it has faded through disuse among evangelicals and been attacked by liberal theologians. Hell is no longer only the target of those outside the church. Today, a disturbing number of professing Christians question it as well. Perhaps more than at any other time in history, hell is under f...

For millennia, people have used the Bible as a touchstone on important social and political questions, and rightly so. But many use the Bible simply as a weapon to wield against opponents in a variety of debates--without knowing what the Bible actually says about the issue in question. In The Bible Now, two respected biblical scholars, Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, tell us carefully what the Hebrew Bible says or does not say about a wide range of issues--including ...

"Uses textual and archaeological evidence to give substance to women's roles in the Bible and women's lives in the ancient Near East. . . . intriguing." —Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D., UCLA, author, Whence the Goddesses: A Source BookEve's Bible is for every woman who has ever said, "I've always wanted to read the Bible but . . ."Whatever the reason, Eve's Bible helps readers explore the Old Testament regardless of religious affilia...

A study of the Watchtower Society's supposed restoration of the name Jehovah in the version of the New Testament used by all Jehovah's Wiitnesses.

It is traditional to think we should praise Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son as proof of his love for God. But have we misread the point of the story? Is it possible that a careful reading of Genesis 22 could reveal that God was not pleased with Abraham's silent obedience?Widely respected biblical theologian, creative thinker, and public speaker J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and shows that God desires ...

Just below the surface of any Christian view of the Bible is the knotty issue of the biblical canon. How and when was it decided which books would make up the Bible? What makes a book canonical? In this volume, respected Old Testament scholar Christopher Seitz helps readers understand how the Old Testament fits into the canon's development. Brief and readable yet substantive, this volume challenges current understandings of the formation of the Christian canon, utilizing the latest researc...