"As . . . newer approaches [to biblical criticism] become more established and influential, it is essential that students and other serious readers of the Bible be exposed to them and become familiar with them. That is the main impetus behind the present volume, which is offered as a textbook for those who wish to go further than the approaches covered in To Each Its Own Meaning by exploring more recent or experimental ways of reading." „from the introduction This book is a supplement and sequel to To Each Its Own Meaning, edited by Steven L. McKenzie and Stephen R. Haynes, which introduced the reader to the most important methods of biblical criticism and remains a widely used classroom textbook. This new volume explores recent developments in, and approaches to, biblical criticism since 1999. Leading contributors define and describe their approach for non-specialist readers, using examples from the Old and New Testament to help illustrate their discussion. Topics include cultural criticism, disability studies, queer criticism, postmodernism, ecological criticism, new historicism, popular culture, postcolonial criticism, and psychological criticism. Each section includes a list of key terms and definitions and suggestions for further reading.

This is a new release of the original 1940 edition.

This book is based on the author’s Forwood Lectures for 1995 in the University of Liverpool. The first two chapters incorporate the full text of these and study early Christian conceptions of signs and signification, and investigate the ways in which Christian authors, especially Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great, made use of theories of meaning in their ways of interpreting scriptures. Their interest in the notions of communities based on shared traditions of reading, understanding and interpretation is given special attention. Markus also considers the question of the ways in which different approaches to the Bible have had more far-reaching implications for their authors’ world-views: to what extent biblical hermeneutics helped to shape their hermeneutics of experience. Their differing ways of approaching the Bible is related to the huge change in Christian self-understanding between Augustine (c. AD 400) and Gregory the Great (c. 600): ascetic habits of reading come to shape a general response to the world as well as to the biblical text. The lecture texts are complemented by further chapters devoted specifically to the theory of signs and meaning, and to some of its applications in special contexts, such as magic and ritual.

Creation Rediscovered, by Jeffery M. Leonard, guides readers through a contextual reading of the Bibles creation stories. Over the last two centuries, few subjects have generated as much controversy for Christians as has creation. The whethers, whens, and hows of creation have often become a battlefield in which the pitched forces of competing sidesDarwinists and creationists, young-earthers and old, figurativists and literalistshave struggled for the upper hand. Like most battles, this fight has tended to inflict a fair amount of collateral damage along the way. This is especially true for those put in the terrible position of feeling they have had to choose between the Bible they have fallen in love with and the science they have studied. In this book, Jeffery Leonard writes to fellow travelers in the faith who want to take the biblical text seriously, while at the same time appreciate sciences exploration of what we consider to be Gods creation. It is his contention that setting the Bibles creation texts back within their ancient context allows us to do both of these things. Indeed, Leonard believes that when we reread what the Bible has to say about creation in its original setting, we find meaning in the text far more profound than what we have previously imagined. Key points and features: • Written by a Bible scholar • Unique, timely, and fresh interpretation • Helps readers see the Bibles creation stories as vessels of healing and hope in Gods larger plan for humanity • Attempts to redirect Christians to read the ancient creation stories within the context in which they were written

How ancient texts could and could not be changed has been in the focus of vibrant scholarly discussions in recent years. The present volume offers contributions from a representative group of prominent scholars from different backgrounds and specialties in the areas of Classical and Biblical studies who were gathered at an interdisciplinary symposium held in May 2015 at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. In the first part of the volume Ancient Scribal and Editorial Practices, the authors approach ancient scribal and editorial techniques in Greek, Latin, and Syriac sources concerning classical and biblical texts, their textual criticism, and editorial history. The second part Textual History of the Hebrew Bible focuses on scribal and editorial aspects of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The third part Writing and Rewriting in Translation deals with a variety of writings from the Old Testament, New Testament, Apocrypha, and Patristic texts in various languages (Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, and Georgian), focusing on issues of textual criticism and translation technique. The volume contains an especially rich assortment of contributions by Georgian textual scholars concerning ancient editorial practices and ancient Georgian translations of biblical and patristic texts. This collection of papers provides insights into a variety of different areas of study that seldom come into contact with each other but are clearly in many ways related.