Understanding Male Violence: Pastoral Care Issues

by James Newton Poling

Chalice, St. Louis, 2003. 208 pp. $29.99. ISBN 0-8272-3802-9.

A collection of previously published articles that serves as a resource for religious and secular professionals who want to think more carefully about the role of religion in preventing male violence.

Facets Series (Minneapolis: Fortress Press)

Short, affordable volumes provide brief treatments of vital aspects of faith and life. Selected titles include:

John J. Collins, Does the Bible Justify Violence?
(2004), 56 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3689-9.
An edited version of Collins’s Presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature, Toronto, November 23, 2002 that examines the relationship between the portrayals of violence in the Bible and how they have been interpreted throughout history.

Walter Wink, Jesus and Non-Violence: A Third Way
(2003), 119 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3609-0.
The relation of Jesus and his message to politics and non-violence, the history of nonviolent efforts, and the Christian tradition of nonviolence as an alternative to the dominant and death-dealing “powers” of our consumerist culture and fractured world.

Paul E. Capetz, God: A Brief History
(2003), 192 pp. $9.00. ISBN 0-8006-3630-9.
How the Christian doctrine of God evolved in response to tensions within the insights of monotheism.

Richard A. Horsley, Religion and Empire: People, Power, and the Life of the Spirit
2003), 151 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3631-7.
Timely questions about the intersection of religions, rhetoric, and political life.

Karl Barth, The Call to Discipleship
(2003), 76 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3632-5.
Barth’s classic statement, drawn from Church Dogmatics, on what it means to follow Jesus in faith.

Peter T. Nash, Reading Race, Reading the Bible (2003), 72 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3633-3.
The relevance of race in biblical interpretation for today's black church.

Peter J. Paris, Virtues and Values: The African and African American Experience (2004), 84 pp. $6.00. ISBN 0-8006-3661-9.
A discussion of how the religious and moral values of Africa have pervaded African American life and thought.

The Art of Reading Scripture

edited by Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays

Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2003. 354 pp. $32.00. ISBN 0-8028-1269-4.

Based on four years of conversation held at the Center of Theological Inquiry, the authors present Nine Theses on the interpretation of Scripture in postmodern culture. The following essays and sermons amplify and model the Nine Theses to show that the Bible is the story of God’s gracious rescue of our lost and broken world.

History of Biblical Interpretation: A Reader

by William Yarchin

Hendrickson, Peabody, 2004. 444 pp. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 1-56563-720-8.

Yarchin provides an introduction to the history of biblical interpretation from 150 b.c.e. to the present and provides selections from original texts as examples of the major developments and principal approaches to interpreting the Bible.

Biblical Interpretation: The Meanings of Scripture—Past and Present

edited by John M. Court

T & T Clark, New York, 2003. 334 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0-8264-6658-3.

This collection of essays begins with a general introduction to the history of reading the Bible by John M. Court. Individual essays examine presuppositions and factors that condition the way communities read the Bible from the New Testament to the modern period. For the student and non-specialists.

Reading Texts, Seeking Wisdom: Scripture and Theology

edited by David F. Ford and Graham Stanton

Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2004. 297 pp. $28.00. ISBN 0-8028-2763-2.

Originating from the Lady Margaret 500th Lectures at the University of Cambrige in 2002, biblical scholars and theologians explore the history of the relationship between biblical studies and theology by an examination of various biblical texts through the motif of wisdom.

Jews and Christians: People of God

edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson

Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2003. 207 pp. $18.00. ISBN 0-8028-0507-8.

This volume presents the work of Christian and Jewish thinkers introducing readers to a coherent Jewish theology of Christianity and a Christian theology of Judaism. The book also features a testimony by Reidar Dittmann on his experience of the Holocaust and includes the 2000 Jewish statement on Christianity titled Dabru Emet (“Speak the Truth”) followed by four Jewish and Christian responses.

Old Testament Theology: Flowering and Future

edited by Ben C. Ollenburger

Revised edition. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind, 2004. 544 pp. $55.01 (cloth). ISBN 157506-096-5.

Intends to orient students to the work in Old Testament theology from 1930 to the time of publication. The revised edition includes new material published after 1990. This volume includes excerpts from twenty-eight scholars in historical order. Each historical period is prefaced with an introductory essay by Ollenburger.

The Gospel of Matthew: A Contextual Introduction for Group Study

by Daniel Patte

Abingdon, Nashville, 2003. 165 pp. $24.65. ISBN 0-687-02214-2.

This book presents an introduction to the Gospel of Matthew for a small group setting by providing a guide for interpreting selected passages in Matthew. Includes a teacher’s guide.

The Way Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church

edited by Timothy Bradshaw

Second Edition. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2004. 256 pp. $16.00. ISBN 0-8028-2777-2.

The essays in this volume address the full range of Christian responses to the issue of homosexuality and offer informed contributions from key figures on all sides of the debate.

Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza

edited by Shelly Matthews

Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, 2003. 387 pp. $59.00 (cloth). ISBN 1-56338-406-X.

This collection of essays honors the pioneering work of Schüssler Fiorenza in feminist biblical theology and seeks to carry her agenda forward to a new generation of scholarship.