This is a book about an ancient writer, the J writer—the Yahwist—who produced a work of political imagination. This work is embedded mainly in the first four books of the Bible, best known for some of the most popular and influential biblical stories in Genesis and Exodus. The purpose of the book is to represent the whole of the original story with attention to its own meaning, without the influence of the other literary strands with which it was later supplemented. Therefore the work includes a fresh, complete translation of the text of the J writer, who produced the Bible’s first history. The translation itself helps to establish more clearly than ever the integrity of the J writer. The concern here is WHEN and WHY this history was written, especially in light of the concerns for justice and prosperity. Throughout it is demonstrated HOW and WHY this history comes from the court of David; it is a royal history of David’s subjects as though they were descended from pastoral nomads such as Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. It is argued that the intended audience of the history was probably those bedouin who regularly visited the court of David in Hebron and Jerusalem. Here is a bold and brilliant representation of the J writer’s composition, perhaps as it was originally intended to be read or heard. This ancient tour de force takes on new life in the hands of these skilled interpreters.

The nineteenth century was a time of titanic change. At the very heart of that change – driving it, confounding it, complicating it – was a singular book reputed to be utterly unchanging in its true and perfect expression. This book was the Bible. No other book could rival its ubiquity or cultural potency. Neither was any other book quite so divisive. Many revered it. Others deplored it. Still others used it for creative inspiration or borrowed its authority to bring about particular economic or political ends. But whatever status it enjoyed, whatever purpose it served, it was never far from the centre of Victorian discourse. The essays in this book explore how the Bible shaped and was shaped by the social and cultural forces at work during the nineteenth century -- forces that drove both scientific discovery and the colonial project, provoked unprecedented economic gain and condemned countless workers to urban poverty, gave birth to women's rights movements and reinforced traditional gender norms. Ultimately, all the essays in this book demonstrate one thing: that the nineteenth century emerges in its greatest clarity only when we approach it as the Victorians themselves approached it: through the lens of the Bible.

A history of Kentucky, including soldier lists, important events, and governmental registers, among other topics.

It is regarded as a truism that the King James Bible is one of the finest pieces of English prose. Yet few people are aware that the King James Bible was generally scorned or ignored as English writing for a century and a half after its publication. The reputation of this Bible is the central, most fascinating, element in a larger history, that of literary ideas of the Bible as they have come into and developed in English culture; and the first volume of David Norton's magisterial two-volume work surveys and analyses a comprehensive range of these ideas from biblical times to the end of the seventeenth century, providing a unique view of the Bible and translation.

Explores the influence of the sea myth at the structural and conceptual foundations of the Hebrew Bible.

This volume examines the Bible's role in the modern world, with a focus on its dissemination throughout the Americas, Africa, and Asia.