2022–23 New Title Catalog

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Baylor University Press 2022–2023


Greetings from Baylor University Press! We are delighted to introduce our new releases for 2022—2023. In this catalog, you will find groundbreaking publications by scholars serving their fields in the subject areas of biblical studies, theology, ethics, philosophy, and religious studies. Highlights include several new entries in our awardwinning Studies in Religion, Theology, and Disability series; Amy Marga’s fascinating exploration of the theme of motherhood in the history of Christian thought; a contribution to the ongoing debate on early Christology by preeminent New Testament theologian Michael F. Bird; and A Reader in Chinese Theology, edited and translated by Chloë Starr. Internationally acclaimed poet Micheal O’Siadhail returns to our catalog with Testament. And Matthew Croasmun and Miroslav Volf summon readers to reimagine meals with a Lukan theology of home in mind. I joined Baylor University Press this past January after a decade working in the commercial publishing world. My new role as Director has opened up possibilities to partner with leading scholars and an outstanding cohort of publishing professionals to bring our “Books for Good” to light. I am honored to have the opportunity to steward this historic program. These are difficult times in the publishing industry, especially for those of us in the international network of university presses. Our inflationary economy has brought unprecedented challenges in production, with rising printing and storage costs impacting every aspect of our business. In these difficult times, we at Baylor University Press are especially grateful for the community of enthusiastic readers we serve. Thank you for taking an interest in our books year after year, for spreading the word about our program to readers unfamiliar with our work, for selecting Baylor University Press books as texts for courses and seminars, and for connecting us with new authors. A department of Baylor University, Baylor University Press is a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization that serves the academic community by publishing works of original scholarship. Our activities and operations are made possible by sales of our books, the generous support of Baylor University, and gifts from donors like you. We invite you to scan the QR code below, partnering with us in our mission by donating to the Press. Your gift to the Baylor University Press Excellence Fund supports the acquisition, publication, and promotion of innovative works of scholarship like those you will find in this catalog, and it enables us to provide opportunities to students and young professionals pursuing careers in publishing.

With appreciation,

R. David Nelson, PhD Director Baylor University Press

GIVE TODAY!


Matthew Croasmun & Miroslav Volf The HUNGER for HOME Food & Meals in the Gospel of Luke ISBN 978-1-4813-1766-5 | $17.99 T | Hardback | 114 pages | 5 x 8 | Now Available

“The Hunger for Home, scene after scene, reveals how home slakes our thirsts and satisfies our deepest longings.” —Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary

“This book will help you to find deeper meaning in something you do every single day.” —Angela W. Gorrell, author of The Gravity of Joy: A Story of Being Lost and Found

“A provocative, historically informed meditation on meals in Luke that can be enjoyed by novice and expert alike.” —Sonja Anderson, Carleton College

“I highly recommend The Hunger for Home for small groups and for personal devotional study. It is a spiritual feast.” —Rich Nathan, Vineyard Columbus What do the fields, rivers, and streams that provide food have to do with the God who created them? How do we become at home in this world where so many hunger for food, for companionship, or for the presence of God? “Scripture is also a feast.” As an invitation to feast at the table of God’s word, The Hunger for Home explores the deepest human longings for home through the simple ingredients of bread, water, wine, and stories. Matthew Croasmun and Miroslav Volf read the meals of the Gospel of Luke as stories of God eating with God’s people. By making a common home with us in this way, God turns all our meals into invitations to eat in God’s home—–a home with a seat open for all who are willing. No longer is bread simply fuel for getting through the day, but also a call to be present to the agricultural workers, grocers, chefs, friends, and strangers with whom food connects us: everyone God is calling to the banquet. As Croasmun and Volf show, Luke gives us an image of creation at home by bringing God into the home, as it was always meant to be. MATTHEW CROASMUN is Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. MIROSLAV VOLF is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.


“A fascinating new step within the ‘New History-of-Religions School.’” —Jörg Frey, University of Zurich

“Bird masterfully develops contemporary Jewish monotheism.” —Janelle Peters, Loyola Marymount University

“A thought-provoking and significant contribution to the conversation about Jesus’ divinity.” —Robyn Whitaker, University of Divinity

“A sure-footed guide for those seeking to understand early Christology.” —Edwina Murphy, Australian College of Theology

“A fresh, nuanced view of Christ’s uniqueness in light of correspondences with ancient intermediary figures.” —Lynn H. Cohick, Northern Seminary

“A straightforward taxonomy of what constituted ‘divinity’ in the ancient world.” —David Capes, Lanier Theological Library


MICHAEL F. BIRD is Academic Dean and Lecturer in Theology and New Testament at Ridley College.

Jesus among the gods Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World

Michael F. Bird CONTENTS Preface Introduction Part One: Jesus and Ancient Divinity 1 Problematizing Jesus’ Divinity 2 The Search for Divine Ontology Part Two: Jesus and Intermediary Figures 3 Putting Jesus in His Place: Scholarship on Early Christology and Intermediary Figures 4 Jesus and the “In-Betweeners”: Comparing Early Christologies and Intermediary Figures 5 Setting Jesus apart from Demiurges, Deities, Daemons, and Divi

After several centuries of controversy, the early church came to an uneasy consensus that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. In his divinity, orthodox Christianity claimed, he shared fully in the nature of the uncreated creator God. But was this doctrinal position crafted from whole cloth in the era of the great ecumenical councils? How did earlier Christ-followers understand Jesus in light of their convictions about the one supreme deity and in the context of a cultural milieu saturated with gods? In Jesus among the gods, Michael Bird gives renewed attention to divine ontology— what a god is—in relation to literary representations of Jesus. Most studies of the origins of early Christology focus on christological titles, various functions, divine identity, and types of worship. The application of ontological categories to Jesus is normally considered something that only began to happen in the second and third centuries as the early church engaged in platonizing interpretations of Jesus. Bird argues, to the contrary, that ontological language and categories were used to describe Jesus as an eternal, true, and unbegotten deity from the earliest decades of the nascent church.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1675-0 $59.99 | Hardback 480 pages 6x9 October 15, 2022

Through comparison with representative authors such as Philo and Plutarch, and a comprehensive analysis of Jesus and various intermediary figures from Greco-Roman religion and ancient Judaism, Bird demonstrates how early accounts of Jesus both overlapped with and diverged from existing forms of religious expression. However Jesus resembled the various divine agents of Greco-Roman religion and Second Temple Judaism, the chorus of early Christian witnesses held Jesus to be simultaneously an agent of and an analogue with the God of Israel. Among the gods, Jesus stood in clear relief, a conviction that may have been refined over time but that belongs to the emerging heart of Christian confession.

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Being and Becoming Human Transformation in the Letters of Paul

Frederick David Carr In Being and Becoming, Frederick David Carr offers a fresh examination of the theme of human transformation and identity in Paul’s letters. Carr structures his investigation beneath two acute questions about Paul’s writings: What does Paul mean when he speaks of people being transformed? What do such transformations tell us about Paul’s understanding of the self? Carr’s study yields new insights into the apostle’s anthropology, shedding light on the interpretation of the Pauline canon.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1726-9 $64.99 | Hardback 366 pages 6x9 September 1, 2022

“Not only does this study situate Paul in continuity and discontinuity with his cultural context, but it also subtly invites readers to scrutinize their own assumptions about the self, subjectivity, and transformation as they encounter Paul’s ways of formulating the issues— a stimulating and sometimes unsettling experience.” —CAROL A. NEWSOM, Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Emory University

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Carr approaches the topic of “new creation” in Paul’s letters analytically, comparatively, and synthetically. Analytically, he gives special attention to specific references to human transformation found in the Pauline epistles. Comparatively, he places Paul’s transformation references into conversation with a range of other ancient writings, and in doing so highlights the distinctiveness of the apostle’s approach to anthropological questions. Synthetically, he considers how these varied references relate to one another and what they entail for how we understand the apostle’s thought. From these categories, Carr develops a phenomenology of human transformation in Paul and analyzes the “models” of selfhood at work in his language of human change. Carr argues that Paul portrays human selfhood as, in part, constituted by transformation. Unlike some writers in antiquity, Paul does not describe change as a threat to the self—it is a fundamental element of subjectivity. Foundational changes in this life produce new moral selfhood in Christ’s body, and eschatological transformation will effect wholesale change. In the present, the believer’s existence is determined by a state of becoming in Christ. For Christ-followers, therefore, transformation is not merely something that happens to the self, or just an aspect of who a believer is, but rather a defining feature of selfhood.

“In this significant analytical, synthetic, and comparative study, David Carr insightfully argues that, for the apostle Paul, each believer in the body of Christ is ‘less a human being than a human becoming.’” —MICHAEL J. GORMAN, Raymond E. Brown Chair in Biblical Studies and Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary & University

FREDERICK DAVID CARR is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan College.

CONTENTS Introduction 1 Human Transformation in Greco-Roman Antiquity 2 Human Transformation in Jewish Antiquity 3 Crucified with Christ: Human Transformation in Galatians 4 Conformity to Christ: Human Transformation in Philippians 5 Becoming Subjects of the New Creation: Human Transformation in the Corinthian Correspondence 6 The Self’s Death and Resurrection: Human Transformation in Romans Conclusion: Transformation and Selfhood in Paul’s Letters

“Carr offers an illuminating and well-crafted study of the theme of transformation in the undisputed letters of Paul and establishes its central place in Paul’s conceptualization of the precise nature of the salvation—the deliverance—from the human predicament that God has put into effect through Christ and by the power of the Spirit.” —DAVID A. DESILVA, Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek, Ashland Theological Seminary


MATTHIAS KONRADT is Professor of New Testament at the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg. His works translated into English include Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew and The Gospel according to Matthew: A Commentary. CONTENTS Editors’ Preface Author’s Preface 1 Matthew in Context: The Relationship of the Matthean Community to Judaism 2 David’s Son and Lord: A Sketch of the Davidic-Messianic Aspects of Matthean Christology 3 The Baptism of the Son of God: Reflections on the Baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew 4 The Perfect Fulfillment of the Torah and the Conflict with the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew 5 The Reception and Interpretation of the Decalogue in the Gospel of Matthew 6 “Blessed Are the Merciful” (Matt 5.7): Compassion and Mercy as Ethical Attitude in the Gospel of Matthew 7 “Take My Yoke upon You and Learn from Me!” (Matt 11.29): Matthew 11.28–30 and the Christological Dimension of Matthean Ethics “This valuable collection of essays is uniformly careful and judicious, unfailingly informed and to the point, and always fair when criticizing others. Konradt has a knack for unpacking assertions, exposing assumptions, and following arguments to their conclusion. The various subjects are of broad importance and so should be of interest not only to Matthean experts but all serious students of early Christianity.”

Christology, Torah, and Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew

MATTHIAS KONRADT translated by

WAYNE COPPINS

BAYLOR-MOHR SIEBECK STUDIES IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Matthias Konradt translated by Wayne Coppins Christology, Torah, and Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew, the tenth and final volume in the Baylor–Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, brings together seven of Matthias Konradt’s most important essays on the Gospel of Matthew. Together they highlight key themes of this major early Christian text and demonstrate its formative role in shaping both the identity and theology of the growing Christian movement. The first chapter on the context of Matthew is foundational. It presents the main points of controversy in recent scholarship on the relationship of the Matthean community to Judaism, identifies the interpretive problems that underlie the disagreements, and sketches out perspectives for subsequent scholarship. The next two chapters deal with central aspects of Matthean Christology: chapter 2 with the Davidic-messianic aspects of Matthean Christology and chapter 3 with the character of the Son of God concept in Matthew alongside the controversial question of the meaning of righteousness in Matthew. With chapters 4 and 5, Konradt works out his sophisticated understanding of Matthew’s Torah hermeneutic, giving special attention to the interpretation of the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount and to Matthew’s reception and interpretation of the decalogue. Finally, with the analysis of mercy in chapter 6 and the detailed interpretation of the invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11:28–30 in chapter 7, the last two chapters show that Matthean ethics are not exhausted in the interpretation of the Torah. Rather, in the way the Gospel of Matthew brings together Old Testament and early Jewish heritage with an orientation toward the ethical potential of the Christ event, it proves to be one of the main testimonies of New Testament ethics.

“Conversant with a wide range of Jewish texts from the Hellenistic-Roman era and displaying remarkable exegetical skill, Konradt offers a series of insightful and thoughtprovoking studies that will be appreciated by anyone interested in understanding the Gospel of Matthew within its historical, literary, and theological context.”

CHRISTOLOGY, TORAH, and ETHICS in the GOSPEL of MATTHEW

ISBN 978-1-4813-1568-5 $54.99 | Hardback 256 pages 6x9 October 15, 2022

“Matthias Konradt, internationally known for his many outstanding contributions to Matthean studies, impressively enriches our view with this outstanding volume. The seven main essays of the author, collected and translated in this book, explore with admirable rigor and clarity central issues on the First Gospel. Students and scholars will benefit much from Konradt’s analysis of the Gospel of Matthew.” —UTA POPLUTZ, Professor of Biblical Theology, University of Wuppertal

—LIDIJA NOVAKOVIC, Professor of New Testament, Baylor University

—DALE C. ALLISON JR., Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary

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Qumran and Christian Origins Jörg Frey with Jacob Cerone

Among the archaeological discoveries of the modern era, the Qumran site and the Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the most significant. These finds offer rich understanding of not only Judaism but also the Christian New Testament. Jörg Frey, through careful study and insight, illuminates these texts for the modern reader. Qumran and Christian Origins examines the hermeneutical framework of Qumran scholarship, patterns for relating the scrolls to early Christianity, and the methodological challenges faced by comparisons between Qumran texts and New Testament writings. Drawing on several decades of Frey’s research, this book demonstrates why students of the New Testament must study early Jewish texts, and in particular the Qumran corpus, and how these texts can be aptly applied. In the end, the hope is that we will have learned to see the New Testament more in terms of contemporary Judaism. Such insights are of profound theological importance, enabling us to pay attention to a feature of Christianity that was fundamental in its beginnings and is still significant today. JÖRG FREY is Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Zurich.

“In this volume we have a collection of Frey’s finest work on the Qumran scrolls with a view to their relevance for understanding the New Testament and earliest Christianity.” —MICHAEL F. BIRD, Academic Dean and Lecturer in Theology, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia

ISBN 978-1-4813-1764-1 / $54.99 / Paperback / 503 pages / 6 x 9 / Now Available

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History of Early Christianity Religion, Culture, Identity

Markus Öhler translated by Jason Valdez

This comprehensive textbook presents the history of early Christianity from its beginnings to the time of the Second Judean Revolt against the backdrop of the social and historical developments of the early imperial period. Markus Öhler offers a thorough overview of the historical, social, and religious contexts of the Jesus movement in Judea and the various forms of Christian communities and traditions in the Greco-Roman world. From this foundation Öhler reconstructs the origins and trajectory of the Jesus movement, beginning with the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and the events immediately after his death. Attention is given to the different forms of early Christianity in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria as well as the developments in Syrian Antioch. Special emphasis is placed on the presentation of the ministry of Paul of Tarsus and the social structure of the assemblies of Christ-believers founded by him. An item of central importance for the reconstruction of further developments is the ongoing debate about the significance of the Torah for Christian identity formation. The increasing confrontations with forms of state power are dealt with as well as the further processes of change within early Christianity up to 135 CE. Thus, a coherent overall picture emerges, which is suitable both as an introduction to the history of early Christianity and as a stimulus for further research. MARKUS ÖHLER is Professor for New Testament Studies at the Faculty for Protestant Theology, University of Vienna, Austria. JASON VALDEZ is a predoctoral fellow for New Testament Studies at the Faculty for Protestant Theology, University of Vienna, Austria.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1395-7 / $49.99 / Paperback / 370 pages / 6 x 9 / April 1, 2023


Christ Groups and Associations Foundational Essays

edited by Richard S. Ascough

The use of voluntary associations as a way to begin understanding Christ groups has become accepted practice in much of modern New Testament scholarship. Easy access to influential works in this field enables students and scholars to expand our horizons for studying Christian origins. The chapters in this volume represent some of the key figures and their arguments across three major periods of interest in the development of using associations as a model for understanding early Christ groups. A new introduction orients the reader to the important contributions of each essay and to where the essays fit within broader attempts at reconstructing the development of Christianity. While much work remains in this field, Christ Groups and Associations serves to demonstrate the breadth of existing research and past discoveries on Christ groups enmeshed within the Greco-Roman cultural and social milieu and also the communal patterns that preceded and surrounded such groups. RICHARD S. ASCOUGH is Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies Affiliated Faculty at Queen’s University.

“The book does not claim to be exhaustive, but as a collection of foundational studies, it provides the reader not only with a substantive and rich discussion of ancient associations of all sorts, but also with interesting insights about the modern study of early Christianity.”

Greco-Roman Associations, Deities, and Early Christianity edited by Bruce W. Longenecker

Understanding associations in the Greco-Roman world enhances the study of the rise of early Christianity—whether at the micro-level of interpreting particular texts or at the macro-level of assessing the spread of Christ-devotion in the pre-Constantinian era. The twenty-five contributions contained within Greco-Roman Associations, Deities, and Early Christianity enlarge our perspectives on the extent to which Greco-Roman associations bring features of Christian origins into relief. These essays, all kept to a disciplined length, represent the work of impressive scholars from a range of interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and international contexts. The volume’s symposium of voices and lively scholarly exchange productively expand current conversations about Greco-Roman associations, deities, and early Christianity. BRUCE W. LONGENECKER is Graduate Professor of Religion and W. W. Melton Chair in the Baylor University Department of Religion.

“Taken together, this fascinating collection of essays by leading experts offers a window into the most innovative scholarship on Christ-groups today.” —MARGARET Y. MACDONALD, Professor, Department for the Study of Religion, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax

BATTEN, Professor of Religious Studies and Theological Studies, —ALICIA J. BATTEN Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo

ISBN 978-1-4813-1699-6 / $49.99 / Paperback ISBN 978-1-4813-1821-1 / $59.99 / Hardback 430 pages / 6 x 9 / August 15, 2022

ISBN 978-1-4813-1516-6 / $59.99 / Paperback / 480 pages / 6 x 9 2 b&w illus., 5 b&w photos / October 1, 2022

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BAYLOR HANDBOOKS

on the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Greek New Testament provide a foundational examination of the scriptural texts. The analyses are distinguished by the detailed yet comprehensive attention paid to the texts. The authors’ expositions are convenient pedagogical and reference tools that explain the form and syntax of the biblical texts, offer guidance for deciding between competing semantic analyses, engage important text-critical debates, and address questions relating to the texts that are frequently overlooked or ignored by standard commentaries. Beyond serving as succinct and accessible analytic keys, these handbooks also reflect the most up-to-date advances in scholarship on grammar and linguistics and prove to be indispensable tools for anyone committed to a deep reading of the biblical texts.

Deuteronomy 12–26 A Handbook on the Hebrew Text BAYLOR HANDBOOK ON THE HEBREW BIBLE

Bill T. Arnold and Paavo N. Tucker BILL T. ARNOLD is Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. PAAVO N. TUCKER is Adjunct Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Lipscomb University.

“This is a magnificent contribution to a very useful series. Given the authors’ discourselinguistic sensitivity and the clarity of their comments on fine details of syntax, they have solved many riddles for us. I wish I had had this resource available for exegesis courses on this book that I have taught in the past, not to mention my personal research in how Deuteronomy works with words. Arnold and Tucker’s volume will be an indispensable tool for anyone interested in wrestling seriously with the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 12–26.” —DANIEL I. BLOCK, Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Wheaton College Graduate School

ISBN 978-1-4813-0060-5 / $49.99 / Paperback / 301 pages / 5.25 x 8 / September 1, 2022

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Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai A Handbook on the Greek Text BAYLOR HANDBOOK ON THE SEPTUAGINT

Joshua L. Harper JOSHUA L. HARPER is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Dallas International University.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1632-3 / $44.99 / Paperback / 230 pages / 5.25 x 8 / March 1, 2023


Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

2 Maccabees 8–15 A Handbook on the Greek Text BAYLOR HANDBOOK ON THE SEPTUAGINT

Seth M. Ehorn SETH M. EHORN currently teaches Greek language and linguistics in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at Wheaton College.

“Second Maccabees presents the reader with some of the most challenging Greek in the Septuagint. It is far more complex than almost all of the Greek of the New Testament and poses frequent difficulties that have given rise both to ancient textual variants and modern scholarly emendations in an attempt to make the Greek more intelligible. All who attempt to study 2 Maccabees in its original language will be grateful to Seth Ehorn for providing such a detailed analysis of the grammar and syntax as well as his consistently thorough treatment of the syntactical and textual problems. This two-part work will prove an invaluable vade mecum.” —DAVID A. DESILVA, Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek, Ashland

Acts 1–14 (Volume I) Acts 15–28 (Volume II) A Handbook on the Greek Text BAYLOR HANDBOOK ON THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

Martin M. Culy, Mikeal C. Parsons, and Josiah D. Hall

Theological Seminary

MARTIN M. CULY is Associate Professor of New Testament at Briercrest Biblical Seminary. MIKEAL C. PARSONS is Professor of Religion at Baylor University. JOSIAH D. HALL is a PhD candidate in Religion at Baylor University.

“For too long, a full analysis of the complex grammar and style of 2 Maccabees, one of the most fascinating early Jewish writings in the Greek language, has been neglected. Seth Ehorn’s splendid book fills this desideratum. This volume is full of insights which will be indispensable for my own future work on 2 Maccabees.”

Vol. I / ISBN 978-1-4813-1324-7 / $44.99 / Paperback / 370 pages / 5.25 x 8 / October 15, 2022 Vol. II / ISBN 978-1-4813-1325-4 / $44.99 / Paperback / 320 pages / 5.25 x 8 / October 15, 2022

—TOBIAS NICKLAS, Chair for Exegesis and Hermeneutics of the New Testament, Universität Regensburg, Germany

ISBN 978-1-4813-1602-6 / $59.99 / Paperback / 436 pages / 5.25 x 8 / September 15, 2022

“Rather than trying to make sense of difficult grammar and complex sentences from the usual parsing guide that tells you everything but teaches you nothing, Martin, Culy, and Hall confront the Greek head-on with clear, concise explanations of all the grammatical and syntactical issues that a difficult Greek text like Acts presents.” —DAVID P. MOESSNER, A. A. Bradford Chair of Religion, Texas Christian University “This expanded edition which engages fully with the text of Acts, taking into account changes made to the text in the 2017 Editio Critica Maior, and filling in gaps in morphological and syntactical analysis from the first edition, is an exciting and welcome prospect.” —STEVE WALTON, Professor of New Testament, Trinity College, Bristol

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Cursing with God The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer

Trevor Laurence To the modern ear, the concept of cursing sounds otherworldly, mystical, abhorrent. For some the idea may evoke images of terror—images not of God but of the devil. How then are Christians to understand the imprecatory psalms, which are violent and, for many, disturbing prayers for judgment that seem to contravene Christ’s command to “love thy enemy”?

ISBN 978-1-4813-1636-1 $59.99 | Hardback 408 pages 6x9 November 1, 2022

“An indispensable contribution to Psalms scholarship with the potential to be deeply impactful for the Church.” —HELEN PAYNTER, Tutor in Biblical Studies, Coordinator of Theological Education, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, Bristol Baptist College

Drawing together redemptive-historical biblical theology and narrative ethics, Trevor Laurence’s Cursing with God assesses the imprecatory psalms and the viability of their performance by the Christian church. Laurence argues that prayerful enactment of the imprecatory psalms is an obligatory exercise of the church’s God-given calling as a royal priesthood in God’s story. This study evaluates the imprecations within their intertextually constructed narrative world, presenting a biblical theological reading of their petitions as the faithful prayers of the royal-priestly son of God whose vocation is to guard God’s temple-kingdom from the forces that would defile it and to subdue the earth as sacred space. Attention to the New Testament’s polyvalent interaction with the imprecatory psalms discloses how the New Testament narrates God’s work in Christ with reference to the figures and structures of the imprecations. With the resultant biblical theological synthesis as a narrative framework for ethical reflection, Cursing with God culminates with a proposal for faithful Christian cursing that coheres with the church’s royal-priestly vocation and inter-advent location in God’s narrative and contends that imprecatory performance has the dynamic capacity to stimulate faith, hope, and love while galvanizing the church to work for a more just world. With scholars, students, and trained clergy in view, Cursing with God aims to generate a recovery of the imprecatory psalms in Christian worship and piety.

“A practical theologian as well as a biblical one, Laurence is interested in interpretation and performance, going so far as to include a sample liturgy based on Psalm 58. No doubt some readers will debate or nuance his redemptive-historical and Christological-narratival interpretive framework, but his ultimate conclusion is persuasive: ‘the psalms of wrath’ are necessary for proper communion with God, capable of healing, cultivating virtue, and providing a witness in a world gone horribly wrong. No one who wants to understand the imprecatory psalms can avoid this learned and pastoral study.” —BRENT A. STRAWN, Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law, Duke University

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TREVOR LAURENCE is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence and the Executive Director at the Cateclesia Institute. The Theopolis Institute awarded Laurence’s doctoral dissertation, on which this book is based, the 2022 James B. Jordan Prize for outstanding work in biblical theology.

CONTENTS Foreword, by Peter Leithart Introduction: Ethics, Biblical Theology, and the Imprecatory Psalms 1 From Israelite Psalms to Christian Prayer: Paths Old and New 2 Cursing in the Psalms: The Imprecatory Psalms in RedemptiveHistorical Perspective 3 Cursing and Christ: The Imprecatory Psalms and the New Testament 4 Cursing in Christ: Ethically Faithful Christian Performance of the Imprecatory Psalms Conclusion: Cursing with God Appendix: Cursing in Corporate Worship: A Sample Liturgy of Imprecation

“A remarkable work—lyrically inspiring and imaginatively compelling. For many, it will represent a paradigm shift. Laurence not only rehabilitates the imprecatory psalms for use by the church, but he demonstrates their compatibility with Jesus’ call to love our enemies.” —CARMEN JOY IMES, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Biola University and editor of Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends


SARAH J. MELCHER is Professor Emerita of Hebrew Scriptures at Xavier University.

Prophetic Disability Divine Sovereignty and Human Bodies in the Hebrew Bible STUDIES IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND DISABILITY

Sarah J. Melcher CONTENTS Introduction: Disability and Divine Sovereignty in the Hebrew Prophets 1 “The Hands of All Will Go Limp”: The Book of Isaiah 2 “Their Ears Are Closed”: The Book of Jeremiah 3 “I Will Cleanse You from All Your Uncleanness”: The Book of Ezekiel 4 “Assemble the Lame and Outcast”: The Book of the Twelve Conclusion: Prophetic Disability and Theological Ethics “This book demonstrates why Sarah Melcher is a recognized authority on theological interpretations of disability in the Hebrew Bible. She has an excellent command of the latest critical biblical scholarship on disability, and her ethical and theological insights are well-grounded in her close and sensitive readings of the text. Built on two decades of careful study and reflection on disability and the Bible, Prophetic Disability is Melcher at her best.” —JEREMY SCHIPPER, Professor in the Departments for the Study of Religion and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto

At first glance it may seem that the Hebrew prophets offer little resolution on contemporary concerns of inclusivity and defense for persons deemed “other.” Bound by their time and culture, the prophets’ message seems obscure and irrelevant. However, on closer look, we see that the prophets offer a call to justice for those who are wrongly oppressed and marginalized, those on the fringes of society—the downcast and the disabled. In Prophetic Disability, Sarah Melcher opens our eyes to the prophetic corpus’ ongoing theological relevance in the first book-length treatment of disability in the Bible’s prophetic literature. Melcher takes a deep exegetical dive into Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, analyzing passages that mention disability explicitly and those that offer complementary relevance. With careful and detailed exegetical work, she shows us the profound relationship between disability and the sovereignty of God, the latter being the dominant theme shaping all other motifs in the prophets. Influenced by the prominent work of Tom Shakespeare’s critical-realist approach to disability studies, she sets forth her own method in conversation with rhetorical and literary criticism. Melcher’s engagement with these ancient texts is informed throughout by a respect for the context and circumstances that generated the texts relevant to disability, as well as a sensitivity to the lived experiences of people with disabilities. To that end, Prophetic Disability maintains the central theme from Shakespeare: that labels describe but do not “constitute” disease. Who we are is a reality beyond our distinct experience with disability and impairment. What emerges from Melcher’s analysis are ways in which the theological implications arising from the prophetic corpus might guide us toward more ethical practice in our encounters with disabilities.

“Sarah J. Melcher’s book Prophetic Disability gathers into one place the abundance and variety of prophetic images of the human body, often beaten and deformed. Melcher is particularly concerned with images of disabled and broken bodies in relation to questions of divine sovereignty. What do the prophets posit as the divine role in breaking and restoring human bodies, and what are the consequences of such theological perspectives? This book will open discussions about ancient and modern attitudes toward disabled bodies and provide material for future research.” —KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Emerita, Columbia Theological Seminary

ISBN 978-1-4813-1024-6 $39.99 | Hardback 145 pages 5.5 x 8.5 October 1, 2022

“In her discerning line-by-line analysis of the prophetic texts, Melcher traces out the way that bodily existence (including disabled bodies) is lived out in the presence of divine sovereignty and providence. She has brought off this daring venture in a way that will serve well both scripture studies and disability studies. She shows that the prophetic tradition has in purview disabled persons. This book is a significant contribution to our belated attention to disability studies. It is well-done, and attention must be paid.” —WALTER BRUEGGEMANN, author of Money and Possessions

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From Inclusion to Justice

Disciples and Friends

Disability, Ministry, and Congregational Leadership

Investigations in Disability, Dementia, and Mental Health

STUDIES IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND DISABILITY

Erin Raffety

edited by Armand Léon van Ommen and Brian R. Brock Essays in Honor of John Swinton

American Christianity tends to view disabled persons as problems to be solved rather than people with experiences and gifts that enrich the church. Churches have generated policies, programs, and curricula geared toward “including” disabled people while still maintaining “able-bodied” theologies, ministries, care, and leadership. Ableism—not lack of ramps, of finances, or of accessible worship—is the biggest obstacle for disabled ministry in America. In From Inclusion to Justice, Erin Raffety argues that what our churches need is not more programs for disabled people but rather the pastoral tools to repent of able-bodied theologies and practices, listen to people with disabilities, lament ableism and injustice, and be transformed by God’s ministry through disabled leadership. Without a paradigm shift from ministries of inclusion to ministries of justice, our practical theology falls short. Drawing on ethnographic research with congregations and families, pastoral experience with disabled people, teaching in theological education, and parenting a disabled child, Raffety, an able-bodied Christian writing to able-bodied churches, confesses her struggle to repent from ableism in hopes of convincing others to do the same. ERIN RAFFETY is a Research Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry, a cultural anthropologist, and an ordained PCUSA pastor.

“This prophetic book offers a paradigm shift in our understanding of persons with disabilities within the life of Christian congregations. —WILLIAM STORRAR, Director, Center of Theological Inquiry

ISBN 978-1-4813-1694-1 / $29.99 / Paperback / 236 pages / 6 x 9 / September 1, 2022

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John Swinton has indelibly shaped the discipline of practical theology not only in the United Kingdom but globally, and has been especially influential in the areas of disability theology, dementia, health care, and chaplaincy. Swinton presses one question with a special intensity: What does it mean to be human? The chapters in this volume display why this question unifies his wide-ranging corpus of work and show how Swinton has answered it in the various domains he has explored. The chapters range as widely as his work, from “Swintonian” practical theological methodology, to specific themes like friendship, peace, and belonging. Several chapters offer concrete testimonies of how Swinton’s work has influenced scholars and practitioners alike. Disciples and Friends, as a survey of John’s key methodological and theological stances, will become an indispensable resource for students and scholars of practical theology, disability theology, mental health, dementia, and cognate fields. ARMAND LÉON VAN OMMEN is Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. BRIAN R. BROCK is Professor in Moral and Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

“This winsome book is an excellent introduction to and dialogue with the work of one of our most original living theologians, John Swinton. It explores and expands important themes in Swinton’s work, including embodiment, belonging, hospitality, disability, friendship, vulnerability, spirituality, and peace.” —STEPHEN PATTISON, Emeritus Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Practice and H. G. Wood Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

ISBN 978-1-4813-1700-9 / $59.99 / Hardback / 330 pages / 6 x 9 4 b&w photos / September 15, 2022


SARAH JEAN BARTON is Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy and Theological Ethics at Duke University, with a dual appointment in Duke Divinity School and Duke University School of Medicine.

Becoming the Baptized Body

CONTENTS

Baptism offers the distinctive practice of Christian initiation, rooted in Jesus’ own baptism, ministry, death, and resurrection. Too often, however, people with intellectual disabilities are excluded from this core Christian practice and so barred from full inclusion in the life of discipleship. How can the work of the Triune God in baptism renew Christian imagination toward an embrace of baptismal identities and vocations among disabled Christians?

Foreword, by John Swinton Introduction 1 Entering the Conversation 2 Drawing from a Multitude of Witnesses 3 The Bible and Baptism 4 A New Creation: Paul and Baptismal Identity 5 Baptismal Liturgy and Disability 6 Practicing and Proclaiming Baptismal Identity 7 Practices of the Baptized Body: Preparation, Testimony, and Reaffirmation Conclusion “Sarah Barton has provided disability theology and the church a consequential vision for and instantiation of collaborative theology alongside people with intellectual disabilities. Barton and her conversation partners demonstrate how the lived experience of intellectual disability can serve as a hermeneutical lens through which congregations can be challenged to rethink disablement, identity, and community. The baptismal font is presented as the orienting site for developing an inclusive theology of personhood in a way that contests dominant theological evaluations and articulations of personhood. In its method and its message, this book is profound.”

Disability and the Practice of Christian Community STUDIES IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND DISABILITY

Sarah Jean Barton

In Becoming the Baptized Body Sarah Jean Barton explores how baptismal theologies and practices shape Christian imagination, identity, and community. Privileging perspectives informed by disability experience through theological qualitative research, Becoming the Baptized Body demonstrates how theology done together can expansively enliven imagination around baptismal practices and how they intersect with the human experience of disability. Through a lively tapestry of stories, theological insights, and partnerships with Christians who experience intellectual disability, Barton resists theological abstraction and engages and expands the field of disability theology. With a methodological commitment to inclusive research and a focus on ecclesial practice, Barton brings theologians of disability, biblical accounts of baptism, baptismal liturgies, and theological voices from across the ecumenical spectrum in conversation with Christians shaped by intellectual disability. Becoming the Baptized Body explores how the real-world experiences of disabled Christians enrich and expand received Christian theological traditions and illustrates avenues for vibrant participation and formation for all believers.

“What is baptism? What is it for? To read this book is to receive, with its author, the baptismal witness of Christians with intellectual disabilities. That witness illumines, inter alia, the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ baptism, the Book of Common Prayer’s baptismal choreography, and the practice of pastoral care. Sarah Barton’s inquiries traverse ecclesiology, pneumatology, and hamartiology. Finally, with her co-researchers, Barton is after nothing less than what baptism shows us about being human.” —LAUREN F. WINNER, Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality, Duke Divinity School

ISBN 978-1-4813-1687-3 $44.99 | Hardback 252 pages 5.5 x 8.5 Now Available

“Critically important and advancing disability research with concrete examples of the ethnographic turn, Barton’s participatory research methods and conclusions witness persons with intellectual disability as ‘people inextricably caught up in one another’ in the communion of the faithful, as the image of God, and by a baptismal hermeneutic of inclusion as members of the Body of Christ/ the Church. Practical, insightful, and liberating, Barton’s work is welcome to the corpus of Baylor’s commitment to disability studies.” —MARY JO IOZZIO, Professor of Moral Theology, School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College

—BENJAMIN T. CONNER, Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Center for Disability and Ministry, Western Theological Seminary

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Testament Micheal O’Siadhail Testament is an imaginative improvisation on the Bible that engages with the intensities, the ups and downs, of existence in our complex and fragmented world. PSALTER, the first part, comprises 150 psalm-like poems that sound the depths and heights of life lived in the presence of God. Here, shaped into powerful, accessible poetry, is the wisdom of a mature and practical faith that knows love, grief, doubt, fear, disappointment, and overwhelming delight and joy. Micheal O’Siadhail stretches heart, mind, and imagination to open up profound questions of God, suffering and aging, truth and trust, freedom and surprise, desire and love. There are passionate exchanges with God and daring leaps of insight. Through them all runs a gripping conversational relationship expressed in praise, thanks, lament, and distilled wisdom, embracing a dazzling variety of forms and rhythms.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1628-6 $24.99 | Hardback 230 pages 5x8 August 15, 2022

“Many devotional poets have explored the great lyric themes of love, age, nature, art, and loss. Few have had as much fun in the process as O’Siadhail. Tender, exuberant, and physical, these poems celebrate the richness and variety of an inner life focused on spiritual experience, within a consciousness that also ‘cannot get enough of earthly things.’ This is a joyous collection, full of energy, self-acceptance, and hope.” —HAZEL HUTCHISON, Professor of English Literature, University of Leeds

GOSPEL, the second part, retells in poetry stories from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The emphasis is on the plain sense of the stories, newly imagined. We are invited to reread them, to discover insights and nuances, angles and depths, and above all to encounter afresh the familiar yet endlessly mysterious central character— Jesus. The world’s bestselling book shows yet again its capacity to excite and inspire. O’Siadhail’s acclaimed The Five Quintets engaged with the ways in which the arts, economics, politics, the sciences, philosophy, and theology have shaped our twentyfirst-century world. Here in Testament is an imaginative faith and wise spirituality that can inspire day-to-day living in that world, revealed through the inner life and penetrating discernment of a great poet.

“This book with 150 poems inspired by the Psalms, and 50 inspired by stories from the Gospels, is Micheal O’Siadhail’s dialogue with the transcendent. It is a book that is both analeptic and proleptic in that O’Siadhail looks back at a life well lived, as well as looking forward to love, experience, and old age. At its core this is a conversation with God: ‘Now in my mid-seventies, I dare to be more open.’ This is achieved through a use of language that shows a poet at the peak of his powers, as he praises, rails, doubts, probes but ultimately basks, in a relationship with God. His complex use of rhyme, rhythm, assonance, and pararhyme bonds the lines together and makes the couplets, tercets, quatrains, and quinzaines of the poems into remarkably solid, yet fluid, structures. There are hints of John Donne in the Holy Sonnets here as God becomes a presence in the lyric dialogue of the poems, while the philosophical influence of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is here to be seen. It is a valid, fluent, and complex testament to the poet’s relationship with the divine.” —EUGENE O’BRIEN, Department of English Language and Literature, Mary Immaculate College

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MICHEAL O’SIADHAIL is an internationally acclaimed poet whose works include The Five Quintets, Collected Poems, and One Crimson Thread. He is Distinguished Poet in Residence at Union Theological Seminary.

“Micheal O’Siadhail stands tall in an illustrious line of Christian poets through the centuries. Conceptually savvy and artistically brilliant, his poetry is breathtaking in its range and beauty. In this new book, O’Siadhail offers a powerful improvisation on classic biblical texts. This book reflects a rich and profound example of a ‘scriptural imagination’ at work. Take and read . . . and savor.” —L. GREGORY JONES, President of Belmont University and Dean and Williams Professor Emeritus, Duke Divinity School


“A way of wise faith and mature love, alert to both the personal and the public challenges of our time.” —David F. Ford, University of Cambridge

“Love and prayer are the intertwined themes of every poem in this book.” —Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School

“Daring and captivating reckonings with and re-imaginings of scriptural texts from the Psalms and the Gospels.” —Richard Rankin Russell, Baylor University

“No less than a spiritual classic.” —Paul S. Fiddes, University of Oxford

“A deeply personal struggle before God.” —Peter Ochs, University of Virginia

“A spiritual tour de force by one whom I consider to be the greatest living poet writing in English.” —Tom Greggs, FRSE, University of Aberdeen 15


Lyric Theology Art and the Doctrine of Creation

Thomas Gardner Art is an outworking of God’s creative process, a tangible participation in the shaping of the world. Through our artistic endeavors, we both express our understanding of creation and imbue that creation with new meaning. Four artists in particular—the poet Czeslaw Milosz, filmmaker Terrence Malick, novelist Marilynne Robinson, and lyric essayist Annie Dillard—actively wrestle with a world that reflects God’s glory while remaining at times deeply and troublingly obscure.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1620-0 $64.99 | Hardback 256 pages 6x9 October 15, 2022

“With an appropriate eloquence, and a measured theological intelligence, Thomas Gardner has provided us with a remarkably instructive demonstration of ‘lyric theology.’ It is hard to imagine how anyone who cares about the interface between theology and literature could not be inspired by this book.” —JEREMY BEGBIE, Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and the McDonald Agape Director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, Duke University

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In Lyric Theology, Thomas Gardner unfolds the ways these four important contemporary figures, drawing on modes of thinking rooted in lyric poetry, explore what the world looks like when seen as created and received as a gift. Lyric thinking, he argues, dramatizes a mind and spirit reaching toward a beauty and complexity that can never be fully grasped but yet can be lifted up in praise and wonder, bafflement and song. The specific lyric responses on display here—resisting meaninglessness, wrestling with contrary impulses to both celebrate and turn away, embracing as revelatory the failure to see fully, and redeeming the world by lifting its particulars into song—can be seen as acts of theological thinking, deepening and extending the doctrine of creation by living out its implications in the world. If the world were created out of nothing save the desire to extend the love expressed within the Trinity to creatures who might reflect it back in wonder and praise, lyric ways of making sense of the world—breaking free of straightforward conceptualization and argument and exploring inward, nuanced, and continually made and remade responses to the world’s particulars—bring this idea forward as a living thing. Drawing on his own work as a literary scholar and a lyric essayist, Gardner here gives us the tools to both understand and join in performing creative theological explorations of great subtlety, beauty, and originality.

“Not all theology is undertaken in the same mode. This masterly study helps us identify and appreciate some of the great theological voices of recent times. That they are not academic but lyric voices is, Gardner persuades us, a sign of genuine hope and a reason to be thankful.” —TREVOR HART, Honorary Professor, University of St Andrews

THOMAS GARDNER is Alumni Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech. He has written several books, including John in the Company of Poets: The Gospel in Literary Imagination.

CONTENTS Introduction 1 Czeslaw Milosz: The Immense Call of the Particular 2 Terrence Malick: Always You Wrestle Inside Me 3 Marilynne Robinson: But if the While I Think on Thee 4 Annie Dillard: In Touch with the Absolute at Base

“Lyric Theology simultaneously deepens and enriches our understanding of lyric thinking and illuminates the work of four contemporary American ‘lyric artists.’ Gardner’s readings make a persuasive and engaging case for the importance of lyric theology, which considers ‘what the world looks like from within the theological idea,’ both in the making of contemporary art and in our response to it.”

—MIRIAM MARTY CLARK, Associate Professor of English, Auburn University


JOHN GREENING is a versatile scholar, critic, editor, playwright, and teacher. He has authored a half dozen studies in modern English poetry and has also written, produced, and published a number of libretti and plays. KEVIN J. GARDNER is professor and department chair of English at Baylor University. CONTENTS Reaching the Stillness: An Introduction by the Editor Two Roads: A Preface by the Author Prelude Pilgrim Hieroglyphs Home English Flight America Wartime Eurozone Words Notes Intimations Coda An Interview with John Greening “John Greening’s welcome and timely publication, The Interpretation of Owls: Selected Poems, is full of riches, of shaped and compelling poems drawn from a deep well of lived experience. Greening is a man with his own voice, and at ease with it. This volume demonstrates to great effect the formation and fruition of his staunch lyricism, wit, wryly observant eye, and keen ear. His poems shine with the grace of perception, the clarity of lovely realized purpose. Their innate sophistication and respect for spiritual matters further commend these poems to any reader of contemporary poetry.”

The Interpretation of Owls Selected Poems, 1977–2022

John Greening edited by Kevin J. Gardner The Interpretation of Owls is a representative selection of one of the UK’s most prolific and respected poets. Edited by Kevin Gardner in consultation with John Greening himself, this first American collection showcases highlights of a remarkable forty-year poetic journey, displaying extraordinary variety and technical skill. The contents (arranged thematically to illustrate Greening’s abiding interests and influences) comprise more than 250 poems chosen from twenty individual collections published between 1982 and the present. Kevin Gardner has also made a welcome selection of previously uncollected and unpublished work. Readers of John Greening’s accessible and musical lines will find themselves transported from America to England to Iceland to Ireland, with a long stay in Egypt and brief stopovers in several other countries. Passing from the present to the ancient world and back, these poems reimagine historical figures, look inward at the poetic self, and explore the very meaning of home. This outward journeying through time and space is reinforced by a constant questing for spiritual meaning—reminiscent of T. S. Eliot, whose influence on Greening has been profound. Though we are unlikely to find him wrestling with angels, Greening is nevertheless constantly hoping for revelation, attuned to the numinous, treating creation as sacred, and ready to find a world of spirituality in history, myth, or even a lump of East Anglian clay. The Interpretation of Owls features an author’s preface, an editor’s introduction, two indexes, and for readers who want to experience the work in its order of original publication, a chronological table of contents. Additionally, there is an invaluable new interview with the poet in which he discusses with the editor the background to some of the works.

“To enter the expansive lines and many-angled sequences of John Greening’s poetry is to be engaged in the best of conversations, with a voice whose easy depth of knowledge and breadth of reference is always rooted in attention to immediate experience—a voice that also, generously, listens. Its invitation to the reader is to inhabit, truly, each of its particular places, whatever the country, culture, or historical moment—and so, by extension, the world. Nowhere has the sheer range of Greening’s work been better displayed than in this rich selection.”

ISBN 978-1-4813-1734-4 $34.99 | Hardback 310 pages 5.5 x 8.5 March 1, 2023

“For some four decades, John Greening has been a centering figure in the poetic landscape of Britain: a poet whose unbounded curiosity has taken him through the wide (and often conflicted) world with a passion for details that root his work in place. He finds, in a broad range of settings and circumstances, a language adequate to his emotions. Like Auden, he seeks out memorable language in a variety of poetic forms. I hope this marvelous selection brings a grateful audience to his splendid, moving, spiritually adept, and always provocative work.” —JAY PARINI, author of New and Collected Poems: 1975–2015

—PHILIP GROSS, Professor Emeritus, University of South Wales

—PENELOPE SHUTTLE, Poet and Novelist

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“Written in accessible and lively prose, In the Image of Her is an enjoyable read that also gives readers a glimpse into one of the most understudied subjects of Christian theology.” —Natalie Carnes, Associate Professor of Theology, Baylor University

“A remarkable contribution that is also instructive to anyone who wants to grasp the dynamics of families and children today.” —Bonnie Miller-McLemore, author of Also a Mother: Work and Family as Theological Dilemma

“Amy Marga’s careful analysis is a brilliantly constructed tribute to motherhood in the Christian tradition, long deserving of this kind of clearsighted yet hopeful treatment.” —Kimberly Vrudny, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of St. Thomas


AMY E. MARGA is Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary.

In the Image of Her Recovering Motherhood in the Christian Tradition

CONTENTS Introduction: The Institution of Motherhood in Western Civilization 1 Early Christian Skepticism of the MotherChild Bond 2 Eve’s Sin and the Generosity of the Maternal Body 3 The Vulnerable Sinner’s Attachment to Mother Mary 4 Maternal Piety, Magic, and Sisterhood 5 The Prayers and Tears of Christian Mothers 6 White Mothers’ Theology, Black Mothers’ Bible Conclusion: Mothers and the Christian Imagination

Amy E. Marga The body of the mother is both everywhere and nowhere in the Christian imagination. Western Christianity has long viewed the mother’s body as a vessel. Through her, nothing less than the sin and the salvation of all humanity entered history. Eve birthed children into sin, and the Virgin Mary brought forth the savior of the world. Christian theologians across the centuries have largely focused on these two idealized mothers at the expense of actual biological mothers. By the same token, modern feminist theology has shied away from seeing mothers as feminist agents in God-talk in its drive toward equity in religious leadership. With In the Image of Her, Amy Marga argues that a feminist, maternal theology is an overlooked and yet critical perspective for our understanding of God’s work in the world. Far from only being vessels of new creation, the bodies of mothers are distinct ecosystems of God’s creative agency and demonstrate how God’s work involves both cooperation and competition. Marga seeks to broaden the Christian imagination about women and creativity and to liberate actual biological mothers from myths of Christian motherhood. Two kinds of historical evidence give us some sense of what Christians imagined about mothering and women who were mothers: discourse from within the all-male theological writing establishment and documented practices of women around the events of motherhood, such as magical customs around pregnancy and birth; the pilgrimages women took in order to pray for safe delivery; and ecclesiastical rituals such as postpartum rites of purification.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1738-2 $42.99 | Hardback 208 pages 5.5 x 8.5 1 color illus., 1 color plate, 9 color photos October 1, 2022

It may seem that mothers’ perspectives and practices did not influence the Christian theological imagination. Marga, however, maps historical and theological developments around Christian perspectives on mothering to show that Christian mothers—along with and in spite of male-dominated institutions and ideas—have continued to shape their own motherhoods, creatively and boldly adapting the received traditions of the faith to their circumstances for their own survival and the survival of their children.

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Hearing and Doing The Speeches in Acts and the Essence of Christianity

CHRISTOPHER R. J. HOLMES is Professor of Systematic Theology at University of Otago.

Christopher R. J. Holmes In reading Scripture, we encounter not only the living God, but an invitation to the mysteries of the text itself. As readers dig through the soil of the text, they eventually discover living water—a wellspring of life. The speeches of Acts offer an accessible entry point into this life, eloquently demonstrating what Calvin calls the sum total of Christian faith.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1786-3 $42.99 | Hardback 214 pages 5.5 x 8.5 October 15, 2022

“I find myself driven to Scripture with renewed vigour and vision of God. By drawing on the riches of the Christian tradition, Holmes spurs a life of repentance, faith, and witness. He practices theological reflection and spiritual exegesis such that contemporary theology might be of God.” —REBEKAH EARNSHAW, Collaborative Partner, Angelina Noble Centre

In Hearing and Doing, Christopher Holmes invites us to feast upon the speeches of Paul and Peter. As a work of constructive theological exegesis, he engages Aquinas and Calvin and some of the most important theologians of our day, notably Rowan Williams and Katherine Sonderegger. At the heart, Holmes aims to draw us to the speeches themselves so that we might become encompassed in their divine beauty. By the same token, he treats the doctrine of God and that of the church, articulating something of what the speeches urge us to say regarding God and the shape of life in relation to God. In sum, Holmes argues that the speeches provide a window into the faith’s essentials, inspiring reverence and obedience toward God. Hearing and Doing submits to divine tutoring via the speeches, passing on the fruits of that contemplation to the reader with nuance and clarity, unfolding in an exegetically charged fashion the Christian faith’s horizon.

“Deeply informed by Calvin and Aquinas, and in constant dialogue with the recent masters of his Anglican tradition—from Sonderegger and Mascall to Rowan Williams—Professor Holmes exposits the book of Acts from the perspective of one who believes that the divine realities described therein are real. Holmes’ trenchant insights penetrate to the heart of Christian faith.” —MATTHEW LEVERING, James N. Jr. and Mary D. Perry Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary

CONTENTS Introduction Part One: Peter and the Metaphysical Dimension 1 The Mercy of God 2 The Grace of Christ 3 The Hope of the Spirit Part Two: Paul and the Moral Dimension 4 The Invocation of God 5 The Fear of God 6 Other Principal Points of Heavenly Teaching Conclusion

“In this extraordinary study, Holmes practices a kind of theological exegesis of Acts in which the speeches of Peter and Paul become transparent to their ultimate source and ground: nothing less than the triune identity and being of the God of the gospel. Written in focused conversation with Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Rowan Williams, and Katherine Sonderegger, the result is an essay in systematic theology marked by concision, intensity, directness, and a compelling confidence in the power of thinking and speaking of God ‘substance-wise’ to instruct faith and to take us to the heart of the matter.” —PHILIP G. ZIEGLER, Chair of Christian Dogmatics, University of Aberdeen

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KENDALL WALSER COX is Director of Academic Affairs at Eastern University.

Prodigal Christ A Parabolic Theology

CONTENTS Introduction 1 Prodigal Reading 2 Prodigal Christ 3 Prodigal Mother 4 Prodigal Son of God 5 Parabolic Theology

“Many lament the division between biblical studies and systematic theology. This learned and original book does something about it. With keen literary and theological analysis, Cox’s creative pairing of Julian of Norwich and Karl Barth reimagines narrative theology as parabolic. Prodigal Christ is well worth reading, and not only by those interested in these figures or parable studies.” —ERIC GREGORY, Professor of Religion, Princeton University

Kendall Walser Cox The parable of the prodigal son stands as one of the most powerful imaginings of the grace of God extended to fallen humanity: its themes of departure, longing, and embrace speak to the very heart of human existence. In Prodigal Christ Kendall Cox engages this timeless story as not only a parable of salvation but also a parable of atonement and election, and therefore a parable of the divine life. Far more than a depiction of God’s abstract, general, or unmediated love for humankind, what it recounts is the primordial prodigality of the second person of the Trinity. Setting in conversation two innovative and highly resonant christological readings of the parable, found in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Cox shows that the identity of Jesus Christ with the wayward son is a textually faithful interpretive trajectory arising from the Lukan story itself. Such an identification is illuminated by a Ricoeurean account of parable as metaphorized narrative and by an alignment of the parable along the intertextual threads to which both Julian and Barth appeal. The extraordinary divine welcome figured in the lost son’s homecoming prompts Julian’s unprecedented excursus on divine motherhood and compels Barth to speak, irreducibly, of the humanity of God. This famous story of God’s tender condescension is theologically fecund not only because of its content but also because of its parable form. Through their creative retellings, Cox argues that Julian and Barth are not simply interpreting scripture christologically but rather doing Christology in the mode of parable. Embodying what we might call “parabolic theology,” these authors invite us to consider this narrative form as an exemplary and enduring theological genre particularly well suited to christological discourse. What emerges from this reading is a striking image of Christ the divine Son and Servant who goes into the far country in order to bear humanity’s burden as his own, taking on an alien identity, taking it up into the divine life. This is our story, and the story of God.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1312-4 $64.99 | Hardback 288 pages 6x9 November 1, 2022

“With this book Kendall Cox achieves the near impossible—casting new light on both Julian of Norwich and Karl Barth and doing so with an elegance and depth of reading that does honor to both, and to the text of scripture which enfolds them.” —JANET SOSKICE, William K. Warren Distinguished Research Professor of Catholic Theology, Duke Divinity School

“This is a beautifully written, elegantly argued, and thoroughly persuasive book. Anyone who wants to learn more about Barth, Julian, Jesus, or the parable of the prodigal son will enjoy reading Kendall Cox’s impressive new study.” —ADAM NEDER, Bruner-Welch Professor of Theology, Whitworth University

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A Media Ecology of Theology Communicating Faith throughout the Christian Tradition

Paul A. Soukup, S.J. In the Christian tradition, the faithful do theology—defined in Anselm’s phrase as “faith seeking understanding”—in different media. The contemporary emphasis on written or academic theology obscures the long history in which people sought to understand and express their faith by way of various outlets and formats. Because historical Christianity has embraced every communication medium, the media ecology approach to communication study offers a powerful tool to examine that history and the affordances of the media for theological expression. Just so, the history of theology offers a variety of test cases to illustrate media ecology at work.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1775-7 $39.99 | Paperback 240 pages 6x9 4 b&w photos September 15, 2022

“Superbly written, this book tells a compelling (and enjoyable) story of how ‘form matters,’ making readers aware of how old and new mediated ways to communicate faith have played a role in the shaping of communities, mentalities, and, inevitably, theology.” —ELENA LAMBERTI, North American Literatures, University of Bologna

In A Media Ecology of Theology Paul Soukup invites us to explore the interaction between communication media, broadly defined, and the Christian theological heritage. Soukup follows a media ecology methodology, moving from a description of a communication medium to an examination of its affordances to a discussion of how those affordances shape the faith-seeking-understanding practiced in each. He shows that, in some cases, different media support different theological conclusions, and different theological stances shape media. The case studies range from the first to the twenty-first centuries, with a limitation imposed by selection, language, and culture. As an introductory work, A Media Ecology of Theology addresses communication scholars and students, theological scholars and students (primarily those interested in the history of theology or in practical theology), and those with an interest in various media (art, architecture, etc.). With an interdisciplinary focus and a willingness to argue for a wider theological ecosystem—one in which the medium influences both content and selection of ideas—Soukup creates new vistas for understanding the life of faith, and how societies and communities express their most cherished ideas.

“In A Media Ecology of Theology, Paul Soukup provides a fascinating account of the various ways in which the Christian Church’s thinking can be explored in the context of ideas rooted in the media ecology intellectual tradition. By examining the nature and function of theology through the lens of communication forms, with particular attention to the theological expressions throughout history, from the earliest Christian communities to contemporary culture, the book offers a systematic reflection and important addition to the conversation about belief and religious experience.” —PAOLO GRANATA, Book & Media Studies Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator, University of Toronto

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PAUL A. SOUKUP, S.J., is Professor of Communication at Santa Clara University. CONTENTS Introduction: The Culture of FaithSeeking-Understanding 1 Orality and Christian Theology: A Media Ecology Perspective 2 The Stories of Faith: Narrative and Theological Meaning 3 Educational Systems: Managing the Content of Faith 4 Writing and Printing: Shifting Theological Authority 5 Translation: Experiencing Scripture as Applied Communication 6 Art: Shaping the Sacramental Imagination 7 Music: Hearing the Divine 8 Architecture: Building Up the Faith 9 Ritual: Expressing Belief in Action 10 Film: Expanding the Sacramental Horizon 11 Social Media: Opening Up the Theological Ecosystem Conclusion: Faith-SeekingUnderstanding in Popular Culture “As one of our leading scholars in the field of media ecology, Paul Soukup provides a masterful examination of the relationship between theology and communication. Building on the work of scholars such as Marshall McLuhan, Susanne Langer, James W. Carey, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Joshua Meyrowitz, and above all, Walter Ong, he takes us from orality to literacy, typography to electricity, and cinema to social media.” —LANCE STRATE, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University


AMOS YONG is Professor of Theology & Mission and Dean of the School of Mission & Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. His books include Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity, Spirit of Love: A Trinitarian Theology of Grace, and Renewing Christian Theology: Systematics for a Global Christianity. DALE M. COULTER is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Pentecostal Theological Seminary. CONTENTS Preface 1 Introduction: World Christianity and the Future of Christian Higher Education Part One: What Difference Has the Holy Spirit Made? Historical Lessons 2 Revisiting Ancient Didaskalia: Patristic Foundations, Medieval Renewal, and Renaissance and Reform 3 (Re)constructing the University: Modernity and the Quest for Alternative Paradigms 4 Reimagining Christian Higher Education: Populism and the Transformation of Folk Culture Part Two: What Difference Can the Holy Spirit Make? Constructive Proposals 5 Renewing the Mind: Scholarship and Pneumatological Imagination 6 Reordering the Heart: Teaching, Learning, and the School of the Spirit 7 Revitalizing the Hands: The Spirit’s Mission in and through Christian Higher Education 8 Conclusion: The Spirit Says Come! Renewing the Christian University

The Holy Spirit and Higher Education Renewing the Christian University

Amos Yong and Dale M. Coulter Christian higher education (CHE) is increasingly a transnational and global endeavor, with over one-sixth of the almost two hundred institutional members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) located in nineteen countries outside the United States. Much of this is related to the shift of the Christian center of gravity to the global South over the last half century, and in particular to the explosion of pentecostal and charismatic forms of churches across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, all of which also feeds back via migration to the so-called “browning” of the churches of North America. Networks like the CCCU have sought to bridge faith and learning through a certain form of Christ-centeredness and biblical orientation. While these theological priorities of the evangelical Protestant tradition have gained wide currency, the pneumatic spirituality of the pentecostal and charismatic movements is rarely considered when thinking about a distinctively Christian vision of higher education. When even God is showing up at secular universities, one wonders what difference considerations of the Holy Spirit might make to complement and perhaps revitalize the christocentrism renowned across CHE. The Holy Spirit and Higher Education responds along two interrelated lines: by reconsidering historic Christian education itself from this pentecostal perspective, and by formulating an approach to CHE around the charismatic, sanctifying, and missional dimensions of the Spirit’s activity. Yong and Coulter show that CHE should be both Christ-centered and Pentecost-inspired, both biblically faithful and pneumatically empowered, both faith-committed and charismatically propelled.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1814-3 $44.99 | Paperback 416 pages 6x9 April 15, 2023

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A Reader in Chinese Theology edited and translated by Chloë Starr

CHLOË STARR is Professor of Asian Theology and Christianity at Yale Divinity School.

FEATURED AUTHORS From the writings of Jingjing, a monk in the eighth century, to essays from contemporary church leaders and academics, Chinese theology offers distinct perspectives within the world church on matters from sin and salvation to ConfucianChristian practice and Marxist materialism.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1210-3 $39.95 | Paperback ISBN 978-1-4813-1209-7 $79.99 | Hardback 524 pages 7 x 10 October 15, 2022

“A rich collection and wonderful translation of the representative writings in Chinese theology, this book by Chloë Starr not only connects traditional China and the contemporary world, nonreligious universities and church-based seminaries, academic studies and faith testimonies, but also encourages mutual reflection and interpretation between China and the West.” —YANG HUILIN, Distinguished Professor and Vice-Chair of the University Academic Council, Renmin University of China

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Chloë Starr draws together the writings of Chinese theologians for an English-speaking audience, providing a much-needed resource for scholars and general readers. This anthology, based on He Guanghu and Daniel H. N. Yeung’s Sino-Christian Theology Reader (漢語神學讀本), presents an extensive selection of ecclesial and scholarly theological writings from mainland China and provides explanatory context of the historical and theological background for each pre-modern and early twentieth-century text, along with brief biographies of the authors. Ecumenical in scope, A Reader in Chinese Theology brings God to new light through a variety of sources: early Church of the East texts; Roman Catholic writings from the Ming and Qing; singular Taiping treatises; twentieth-century Protestant writings across the church spectrum; and an assortment of academic essays showcasing “SinoChristian theology” from the Reform Era (1978–).

“This pathbreaking reader provides English readers a rare window into the world of Chinese theology from the eighth century to the present. Comprehensive in scope, the reader covers many subjects, such as the indigenization of Christianity in China, Confucian-Christian dialogue, Christianity and socialism, Christian mission, and the construction of Sino-Christian theology. It is indispensable for anyone interested in the present and future development of Chinese Christianity.” —KWOK PUI-LAN, Dean’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Chen Cunfu Liang Fa Xu Guangqi Liang Gong He Guanghu Ding Guangxun (K. H. Ting) Yang Huilin Jing Jing Wu Jingxiong (John C. H. Wu) Wu Leichuan Zhao Lin Wang Mingdao Zhang Qingxiong Li Qiuling Matteo Ricci Sun Shangyang Cao Shengjie Gao Shining Li Tiangang Yang Tingyun Ni Tuosheng (Watchman Nee) Wang Weifan Ma Xiangbo Liu Xiaofeng Zhuo Xinping Hong Xiuquan Wu Yaozong (Y. T. Wu) Gao Ying Jia Yuming Chen Zemin Luo Zhenfang Wang Zheng Li Zhizao Zhao Zichen (T. C. Chao) Xu Zongze (P. Joseph Zi, S. J.)


DARYL R. IRELAND is Research Assistant Professor of Mission at Boston University and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. He is the author of John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man. CONTENTS Introduction, by Daryl R. Ireland 1 Social Reform: The Role of Christianity, by Peter Zarrow 2 Nationalism: The Great Convergence, by Zexi Sun 3 Women: Public Health, Hygiene, and Nurses, by Connie Shemo 4 Childhood: The Foundation for True Health, by Margaret Mih Tillman 5 Evangelism: The China Inland Mission and the Use of “Gospel Posters,” 1925–1935, by Dana L. Robert 6 Theology: The Cross in Popular Chinese Christianity, by Daryl R. Ireland and David Li 7 Biblical Interpretation: The Art of Scripture, by Chloë Starr 8 Roman Catholicism: Painting, Printing, and Selling Morality in Modern China, by Stephanie M. Wong 9 Fine Art: Images of Beauty, by James He Qi 10 Visual Culture: The Convergence of Transnational Images, by Joseph W. Ho

Visions of Salvation Chinese Christian Posters in an Age of Revolution

edited by Daryl R. Ireland Between the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the Communist Revolution of 1949, Chinese Christians had to compete with Nationalist and Communist ideologies over how best to save the nation. They, along with China’s political parties, adopted propaganda posters and relied on their eye-catching colors and potent symbolism to win the hearts of the masses. Because these images were meant to attract the public, we can look at the posters and ask, What did Christian artists and evangelists believe would appeal to viewers? How did they choose to present the gospel to a Chinese audience? The answers may come as a surprise, as Jesus is scarcely present. Instead, playful children, the Chinese flag, lotus flowers, clean teeth, and other images became the vehicles Christians used to address the felt needs and aspirations of a nation struggling to survive. Unpacking the significance of these and other visual cues, Visions of Salvation offers a fresh look at Chinese history and theology. Drawing on a landmark collection of more than 200 color prints, assembled and analyzed here for the first time, leading scholars in Chinese Studies, mission history, Chinese Christianity, and visual culture reassess various facets of Chinese life in the second quarter of the twentieth century. In an age of revolution, political activists were not the only ones advancing prescriptions for change. Chinese Christians also pursued a New China, as one poster explicitly put it. Though later suppressed and largely forgotten, Christian posters placarded the country for thirty years with an alternative vision of national salvation.

“The Chinese Christian posters of the early twentieth century are fascinating popular art reflective of the era. This volume puts them in social and cultural contexts, and together they show the active agency of Chinese Christians for social reforms, nation building, and modernization. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Christian evangelism, social change, and modern history of China.” —FENGGANG YANG, Professor of Sociology and Director, Center on Religion and the Global East, Purdue University This book opens the study of this valuable source base with sophisticated scholarship on theology, art history, visual and material culture, and gender in Chinese history, pointing the way for fruitful work to come. Fascinating visuals and incisive text combine to make this an accessible volume that will be valued by students and scholars alike; I eagerly look forward to using it in the classroom.” —AMY O’KEEFE, Assistant Professor of History, Meredith College

ISBN 978-1-4813-1624-8 $69.99 | Hardback 350 pages 7 x 10 April 15, 2023

“The essays in this outstanding volume, authored by leading experts on Chinese Christianity, take the engaging images for the Chinese Christian Posters collection and contextualize them in time, space, and denomination. The posters and the essays demonstrate the ‘in-betweenness’ of the Chinese Christian milieu in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Chinese Christians grappled with the new opportunities of faith, modernity, and popular culture, they sought ways to express their worldviews and educate others. Printed on cheap paper and priced to sell, these posters capture the concerns and motifs of ordinary people in China during a turbulent era. These essays help us to appreciate how these concerns and motifs have significance for understanding Chinese society both in the past and in the present.” —MELISSA INOUYE, Professor of Chinese Studies, The University of Auckland

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Christianity Remade The Rise of Indian-Initiated Churches STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY

Paul Joshua edited by Joel A. Carpenter

If there is one question that haunts Indian Christians, it is this: “What does it mean to be Indian and Christian?” This matter of identity presents a unique challenge, especially today, in the face of a Hindu nationalist challenge insisting that to be truly Indian, one must be Hindu. Christianity Remade, however, offers a unique path forward by studying the rise and character of Indian-initiated churches (IICs), Christian movements founded by Indians to address Indian issues, needs, and opportunities. IIC is not a common term in Indian church life or theology today. Only a few scholars have focused on Christian movements arising in India. Based on firsthand experience from research conducted through the Mylapore Institute for Indigenous Studies, Paul Joshua’s groundbreaking work presents a truly striking discovery: IICs represent a pivotal, re-formative phase in the nearly twenty-century history of Indian Christianity. They result from critiques of the inherited structures and outlook of mission-founded Christianity. They respond to the deep needs of people on the lower rungs of Indian society, and they fashion their spiritual answers and modes of being from deeply Indian religious materials. Thus, they engage in a creative combination of Indian popular piety and the gospel of Jesus Christ as found in an Indian reading of the Bible. PAUL JOSHUA, who died in 2016, was Lecturer in Theology at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore, India. JOEL A. CARPENTER is provost and professor emeritus of Calvin University. He is a senior research fellow at Calvin’s Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, and he is the editor of the Studies in World Christianity series with Baylor University Press.

Birthing Revival Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France

Michèle Miller Sigg

The nineteenth century witnessed a flurry of evangelical and missionary activity in Europe and North America. This was an era of renewed piety and intense zeal spanning denominations and countries. One area of Protestant flourishing in this period has received scant attention in Anglophone sources, however: the French Réveil. Born of a rich Huguenot heritage but aimed at recovering the religion of the heart, this awakening gave birth to a dynamic missionary movement—and some of its chief agents were women. In Birthing Revival, Michèle Sigg sheds light on the seminal role French Protestant women played in launching and sustaining this movement of revival and mission. Out of the concerted efforts of these women arose a holistic mission strategy encompassing the home front and the foreign field. MICHÈLE MILLER SIGG is Executive Director of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography and Editor of the Journal of African Christian Biography at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University School of Theology.

“By tracing the spiritual leadership of Huguenot women across several centuries and national boundaries, Michèle Sigg boldly demonstrates the importance of the French Réveil to transnational history. She shows that putting French Protestant women into the center of historical narrative produces fresh insights into the development of nineteenth-century global evangelicalism, female philanthropy, children’s education, and francophone missions. This book is a superb example of why recovering the voices of women is essential to the study of world Christianity.” —DANA L. ROBERT, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University

ISBN 978-1-4813-0405-4 / $54.99 / Hardback / 263 pages / 6 x 9 / Now Available

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ISBN 978-1-4813-1654-5 / $54.99 / Hardback / 268 pages / 6 x 9 4 b&w illus., 1 b&w photo / August 15, 2022


Protesting Poverty Protestants, Social Ethics, and the Poor in Brazil

Raimundo Barreto translated by Stephen Di Trolio Coakley

At a time when Latin American Protestantism has increasingly become a force to be reckoned with in the public realm and has attracted growing scholarly interest, this book contributes to the understanding of the sociopolitical relevance of the Protestant presence in Brazilian history and society. Raimundo Barreto argues that progressive Evangélicx Christianity, a branch of Brazilian Christianity that combines charismatic spirituality and sociopolitical progressive action, offers valuable sources for Christian social ethics in contemporary Brazil. Drawing on the typology proposed by José Míguez Bonino in his Faces of Latin American Protestantism (1993), which examined the Latin American Protestant field through the analogy of fundamental “faces,” Protesting Poverty interrogates three Protestant faces— ecumenical, evangelical, and Pentecostal—in the Brazilian context as well as their respective responses to realities of suffering, injustice, and oppression. The common thread of the argument is the search for a Brazilian Protestant social ethics, a progressive Christian sociopolitical praxis in a Protestant key. At a time when ecumenical relations are being relocated and reinvented to address the conflicts and demands of a new era, this sociohistorical study points to new ecumenical possibilities. RAIMUNDO BARRETO is Associate Professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1683-5 / $54.99 / Paperback / 300 pages / 6 x 9 / April 15, 2023

The Gospel in Latin America Historical Studies in Evangelicalism and the Global South

edited by David W. Bebbington

The Gospel in Latin America includes a broad range of studies in the history of Latin American evangelicalism from experts in the field. Five chapters address issues affecting the whole of Latin America, including the relationship of evangelicalism to demography and the rise of the political ideology of Dominionism. A further five concentrate on developments in specific nations, such as evangelical intellectual life in Brazil and the forging of evangelical identity in Argentina. Pentecostalism is included, but space is given to the full range of religious groups. Politics is not omitted, but the volume’s main concern is the core religious priorities of the movement associated with the spread of the gospel. DAVID W. BEBBINGTON is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He is the author of Baptists through the Centuries: A History of a Global People, Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought, The Evangelical Quadrilateral: Characterizing the British Gospel Movement, and The Evangelical Quadrilateral: The Denominational Mosaic of the British Gospel Movement.

“The Gospel in Latin America is a valuable, timely, and authoritative exploration of this momentous trend in world Christianity.” —TIMOTHY LARSEN, McManis Professor of Christian Thought, Wheaton College

ISBN 978-1-4813-1723-8 / $39.99 / Paperback ISBN 978-1-4813-1722-1 / $49.99 / Hardback 256 pages / 6 x 9 / Now Available

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LOUGH, University of California, San Diego

lume presents a compendium of esearch, both quantitative and on religion’s prosocial impact duals and communities.”

N L. IDLER, Emory University

uished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion.

Problems, Prosociality, Progress

mmentators have predicted the death of religion, the han ever before. And yet, despite the persistence of understudied phenomenon. With Objective Religion, ylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion have combined Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that wide-ranging and diverse scope, but also advance the ment of topics with ongoing relevance, all treated with pect warranted by matters of faith. This multivolume derstanding of religion and spirituality in general as efs and practices. The articles in this second volume, examine the many ways in which religion is linked er through classes, retreats, small groups, mission eer work, or any number of related group functions, s people to multiple networks of social support that ful. These faith-infused, supportive social networks ense of belonging and serve as powerful independent es.

Objective Religion (Volume II)

Johnson

OBJECTIVE RELIGION vol. ii |

as assembled an impressive set of h chapter is outstanding on its own, ey make an even more impressive ion’s long reach into our social lives.”

Problems, Prosociality, Progress

edited by Byron R. Johnson

Objective Religion II Problems, Prosociality, Progress

edited by Byron

R. Johnson

Religion/Sociology

I S B N 978-1-4813-1771-9

9

781481 317719

ISBN 978-1-4813-1365-0 $29.99 | Paperback ISBN 978-1-4813-1771-9 $39.99 | Hardback 400 pages 6x9 Now Available

BYRON R. JOHNSON is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University and the founding director of the Institute for Studies of Religion.

Though many scholars and commentators have predicted the death of religion, the world is more religious today than ever before. And yet, despite the persistence of religion, it remains a woefully understudied phenomenon. With Objective Religion, Baylor University Press and Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion have combined forces to select articles from the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that not only highlight the journal’s wide-ranging and diverse scope, but also advance the field through a careful arrangement of topics with ongoing relevance, all treated with scientific objectivity and the respect warranted by matters of faith. This multivolume project seeks to advance our understanding of religion and spirituality in general as well as particular religious beliefs and practices. The articles in this second volume, Problems, Prosociality, Progress, examine the many ways in which religion is linked to prosocial behavior. Whether through classes, retreats, small groups, mission trips, church-sponsored volunteer work, or any number of related group functions, religious participation connects people to multiple networks of social support that are consequential and meaningful. These faith-infused, supportive social networks allow people to build a strong sense of belonging and serve as powerful independent predictors of beneficial outcomes.

“This valuable volume presents a compendium of peer-reviewed research, both quantitative and qualitative, on religion’s prosocial impact on individuals and communities. With studies from mostly US sources, the authors whose work is collected here demonstrate clearly—with empirical data—that the social dimensions of religious participation are associated with greater involvement in a wide range of other-minded activities such as caregiving, volunteering, charitable giving, social justice, and advocacy for the less advantaged. It will be useful to researchers in a wide variety of social science research on religion and more.” —ELLEN L. IDLER, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Sociology and Director, Religion and Public Health Collaborative, Emory University

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CONTENTS Foreword by Jeff Levin Part One: Volunteerism 1 Religion and Volunteering in Four Sub-Saharan African Countries (Meredith J. Greif, Amy Adamczyk, and Jacob Felson) 2 Religion and Philanthropic Giving and Volunteering: Building Blocks for Civic Responsibility (Stephen V. Monsma) 3 Religious Motivations and Social Service Volunteers: The Interaction of Differing Religious Motivations, Satisfaction, and Repeat Volunteering (Richard M. Clerkin and James E. Swiss) 4 Women Religious in a Changing Urban Landscape: The Work of Catholic Sisters in Metropolitan Cleveland (Robert L. Fischer and Jennifer Bartholomew) Part Two: Social Capital 5 Religious Tradition and Involvement in Congregational Activities That Focus on the Community (Jennifer M. McClure) 6 God, Guts, and Glory: An Investigation of Relational Support Mechanisms for War Veterans Provided by Religious Communities (Terry Shoemaker) 7 The Impact of Church Attendance on the Decline in Female Happiness in the United States (G. Alexander Ross) 8 The Socioeconomic Contribution of Religion to American Society: An Empirical Analysis (Brian J. Grim and Melissa E. Grim) Part Three: Addressing Social Problems 9 Religion, Intact Families, and the Achievement Gap (William H. Jeynes) 10 Religion and Academic Achievement among Adolescents (Benjamin McKune and John P. Hoffmann) 11 The Faith Factor and Prisoner Reentry (Byron R. Johnson) 12 Does Change in Teenage Religiosity Predict Change in Marijuana Use over Time? (Scott A. Desmond, George Kikuchi, and Kristen Budd) 13 Religiosity as a Buffer in the Association between Economic Disadvantage and Violence (Cassady Pitt and Alfred DeMaris)


JOHN D. BARTON is Professor of Teaching in the Religion and Philosophy Division at Pepperdine University where he also serves as director of the Pepperdine Center for Faith and Learning.

CONTENTS Part One: An Aerial View of Religion 1 Toward Religion’s “Better” 2 Setting Coordinates for Hope 3 Describing Religion 4 Observing Religions Part Two: The Geography of Dissonance and Peace 5 Silos, Sheilas, and Sets: On Religious Identity 6 Magnets, Markets, and Fields: On Religious Agency 7 Trails, Mountains, and Elephants: On Religious Similarity 8 Bubbles, Bombs, and Bridges: On Dissonance and Peace “Better Religion blazes a beautifully winding path with clear conceptual frameworks and compelling imagery, leading to the not-so-simple work of interreligious peacebuilding. In place of a how-to manual, Barton offers an engaging, learned guide to religion in the twenty-first century with a clear sense of why it matters.” —RACHEL S. MIKVA, author of Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Better Religion A Primer for Interreligious Peacebuilding

John D. Barton In the twenty-first century, humanity faces both unprecedented existential threats and remarkable possibilities for development. While no one knows how things will unfold by century’s end, it is increasingly clear that religion will play a major role in shaping the outcomes, for better or worse. In Better Religion, philosopher and religion scholar John Barton explores how grassroots interreligious peacebuilding can help ensure the “better.” More specifically, the book argues that for religion’s “better” to be realized, interreligious peacebuilding must honor and directly engage religious differences. This challenges a common assumption that religious differences inevitably lead to hostilities, and must therefore be minimized or functionally neutralized for collaborative peacebuilding to be possible. Better Religion explains why such assumptions are misguided, and charts a more realistic and hopeful way forward. Using a blend of data analysis, theoretical models, and real-life anecdotes, the book makes sense of global religious diversity and projects the possibilities of peacebuilding across even the most irreconcilable of differences. Written for academic and professional audiences, this “conceptual primer” will equip readers to understand religion in the twenty-first century and pursue constructive collaborations for human flourishing, all for the sake of the world we currently share and the world we want our grandchildren to inherit.

“In this brilliant and insightful book, John Barton, a serious believer, thinks seriously on how the great religions, which are as vibrant as ever, can work together for a better world. I applaud and join his noble hopes that people who are not exactly on ‘common ground’ can still join forces for ‘common good.’” —MUSTAFA AKYOL, author of Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance

ISBN 978-1-4813-1783-2 $39.99 | Paperback 220 pages 6x9 2 b&w illus., 9 graphs October 1, 2022

“John Barton is the ideal guide through the landscape of religious diversity and the field of interfaith peacemaking. Bridges between diverse faiths do not rise from the ground or fall from the sky—people build them. This book will show you how and will tell you why such work is so important.” —EBOO PATEL, Founder and President, Interfaith America and author of We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy

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Adaptive Church Collaboration and Community in a Changing World

Dustin D. Benac

DUSTIN D. BENAC is Visiting Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. CONTENTS

Christian organization, education, and leadership are changing. Headlines note rising religious disaffiliation (“the Nones”), moral failures by religious leaders, and the mounting crisis for religious education. Research on congregations, Christian higher education, and theological education also paints a dismal picture: declining engagement and growing fragility. These trends have changed the landscape that surrounds Christian thought and practice, but the story of local communities presents a more complex portrait: communities are also coalescing around vitality, wisdom, and hope.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1708-5 $54.99 | Hardback 348 pages 6x9 3 maps, 10 graphs, 1 figure, 6 color photos Now Available

“Adaptive Church is a fascinating exploration of how churches can and should respond to uncertainty and institutional change. The book is a good example of the way that empirical research can be used to help develop deep and important theological insights. As such, it is a significant contribution to practical theology and the emerging field of Theological Ethnography.” —JOHN SWINTON, Professor of Practical Theology, University of Aberdeen

Adaptive Church explores what it takes for communities of faith to respond to uncertainty and shifting organizational environments. Based on fifty-two interviews and four years of empirical work, Dustin Benac charts a theological paradigm for collaboration and community in a changing world. He pioneers an interdisciplinary method that identifies the ecclesial ecology as the primary site to discern how Christian communities and leaders adapt to mounting challenges. Moreover, he provides the first in-depth analysis of a novel form of organizing religious life—a “hub”—by telling the story of how collaborative partnerships are creating new structures of belonging in the Pacific Northwest. Neither megachurches nor denominations, these hubs are networks that anchor religious life within a particular community and facilitate webs of connection across Christian institutions. Illumined by wisdom drawn from the Christian tradition, they pursue a particular way of life, one sustained by six complementary forms of leadership that express the possibility of collaboration and community in a changing world. Benac contributes to a new and emerging field at the intersection of practical theology, organizational theory, sociology of religion, and leadership studies. For leaders and communities facing uncertainty, Adaptive Church provides a template for change within and beyond the forms that have historically guided Christian organization, education, and leadership.

“In this study of two different experimental church ‘hubs,’ Benac illumines three key clues: the grounding-orienting power of place; the luminous revelatory shift from individualism to the profound connectivity of all life; and the call to pay attention to the ongoing creative-confounding activity of Spirit. Timely and evocative, this study points toward practical wisdom for a new reformation of Church now well underway.” —SHARON DALOZ PARKS, author of Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World

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Introduction: Collaboration, Community, and Change in the Pacific Northwest Part One: Organizational Environments 1 “The Church Has Always Been Nimble”: Church Engagement on the Edge of Christendom 2 “Hope and Care in the Neighborhood”: Refounding the Church in Local Community Part Two: The Nexus of Collaborative Work 3 The Structure of Adaptive Change: Organizing Challenges and Values for Communities of Faith 4 Anchors and Webs: Hubs as Fields, Networks, and Ecologies Part Three: A Practical Theology for an Adaptive Church 5 Reimagining Church: Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination for Adaptive Change 6 Adaptive Church: Patterned Practice for a Way of Life Part Four: A Theological Paradigm for a Changing World 7 “We’re Better Together”: Wisdom, Presence, and Leadership for Adaptive Change 8 A Moment of Renovating Virtue: Adaptive Possibility beyond Certainty Appendices “Bucking the trend of gloom and doom predictions, Adaptive Church points to possibilities where most see only problems. With nuanced scholarship, top-tier research, and a radically collaborative style, Benac invites us on the journey of imagining new paradigms for faithful Christian community.” —MARK DEVRIES, author, pastor, founder of Ministry Architects, and co-founder of Ministry Incubators


DAVID LYLE JEFFREY is Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities at Baylor University. Jeffrey earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and is also the author or editor of many books, including The King James Bible and the World It Made. CONTENTS Preface: The Way We Were 1 The Sabbath 2 Outhouse Theology 3 Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting 4 Baptism 5 The Missionary Conference 6 Churchy Expletives 7 Youth Groups and the New Music 8 Sin 9 Salvation 10 Grace 11 Grave Matters 12 Gratitude 13 A Reckoning Appendix: The Necessity of Biblical Language “Baptists are peculiar enough, and old-time-strict-and-particular Scottish Baptists are peculiarly peculiar, but who knew they could be so interesting? Whatever you think you might know about this branch of the Baptist tree, bracket those thoughts and read this book. Jeffrey will not disappoint.” —CURTIS W. FREEMAN, Research Professor of Theology and Director of the Baptist House of Studies, Duke University Divinity School

We Were a Peculiar People Once Confessions of an Old-Time Baptist

David Lyle Jeffrey Most Baptists today have adapted rather well to the modern world—that is, they worship as they live, in ways that don’t much deviate from the general cultural milieu. It was not always so. In the past, the ways of Baptists were eccentric, their children were sometimes embarrassed by them, and their grandchildren were astonished by many features of their communal Christian life and practice, some of which now seem hilarious. Yet David Lyle Jeffrey shows that in their firm faith and strong character, these forebears still have much to teach. The legacy of “old-time” Baptists is rich: in ways we might not recognize, we are still living on spiritual capital they built up a century ago. In this fast-paced and thought-provoking memoir, Jeffrey recalls growing up in the “old-time” Scottish Baptist tradition in rural Canada. With nostalgia, good humor, and sometimes lament, he considers his own theological and spiritual formation in a nearly vanished variety of Christian culture. Jeffrey reflects on events and customs that today may seem esoteric or quaint, perhaps even comical. Along the way, he considers the lessons a fading brand of Baptist life may hold for Baptists in the twenty-first century. Jeffrey offers witty and insightful commentary on theological matters such as sin, salvation, and grace, and practices like baptism, worship, and Sabbath-keeping. The Baptists of Jeffrey’s youth encouraged abstinence from pleasures most folks took for granted. Their churches were often small, but they were the vital, stable hub of family and communal life through good times and bad, and had an extraordinary missional and evangelistic impact that belied their marginal status. This confessional recollection of a world of weird and wonderful “peculiar people” is an expression of Jeffrey’s gratitude to the ones he knew.

“Jeffrey’s book is a treasure, full of stories and reflections that are at once wise, funny, and poignant. More than a spiritual memoir, however, it is an encouragement to become more aware and grateful for all those “peculiar people” who, in big and small ways, shape our own stories of coming to faith. These are the kind of stories and vision that the church needs to remember and proclaim for its future.” —DARIN H. DAVIS, Director, Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University

ISBN 978-1-4813-1876-1 $32.99 | Hardback 160 pages 5x8 April 1, 2023

“Perspective, lament, gratitude, humor, hope—all these are here in this wonderful memoir by David Lyle Jeffrey. Step back into the world of bygone Baptists who, for all their quaintness, still speak gospel truth into our own fragile world. A delightful read!” —TIMOTHY GEORGE, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School

“Jeffrey skillfully weaves his family history, with its delights and disasters, into a rich cultural and religious history of this ‘peculiar people’ in the Canadian countryside. At once memoir, history, and entreaty, this entertaining and gripping volume is a lesson in striving for a life of true holiness.” —HOLLY FAITH NELSON, Professor of English, Trinity Western University

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The Life of Solitude Petrarch edited by Scott H. Moore translated by Jacob Zeitlin

De vita Mosis (Book I) An Introduction with Text, Translation, and Notes

Philo of Alexandria translated and edited by Jeffrey M. Hunt

α Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) is universally regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets and considered to be the “Father of Renaissance Humanism.” Petrarch is best known for his poetry, and especially for his sonnets, composed in the vernacular Italian dialect of his homeland. But Petrarch was also the author of an extraordinary body of prose works in Latin, including numerous books, essays, and volumes of his letters, which, with Cicero as his model, he collected, edited, and preserved for posterity. Included among these Latin prose works is The Life of Solitude (De vita solitaria), which Petrarch began during Lent of 1346, and then sent in 1366—after twenty years of reflection, addition, and correction—to its dedicatee. Book I contains an argument for why a life of solitude and contemplation is superior to a busy life of civic obligation and commerce. Book II contains a long enumeration of exemplars of the solitary life drawn from history and literature (and occasionally mythology). Included in Book II are provocative digressions on whether one has an obligation to serve a tyrant and on the failures of contemporary monarchs to recover the holy sites in the East. This updated edition of Jacob Zeitlin’s 1924 English translation restructures and numbers the text to make it consistent with the best available scholarly editions of De vita solitaria. The volume includes a new introduction by Scott H. Moore which situates Petrarch and the text within the larger traditions of virtue ethics, renaissance humanism, and reflections on the solitary life. SCOTT H. MOORE is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts and Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1712-2 / $39.99 / Paperback ISBN 978-1-4813-1809-9 / $49.99 / Hardback 256 pages / 6 x 9 / April 1, 2023

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ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CONTEXTS

This volume, a translation of book I of Philo of Alexandria’s De vita Mosis, with introduction and commentary, aims to introduce new readers, both students and scholars, to Philo of Alexandria through what is widely considered to be one of his most accessible works and one that Philo himself may have intended for readers unfamiliar with Judaism. The introduction provides historical, intellectual, and religious context for Philo, discusses major issues of scholarly interest, considers the relation of De vita Mosis to the Septuagint, and explores the immediate Nachleben of Philo’s works. The author’s translation is paired with Cohn’s edition of the Greek text, thereby providing not only a rendering of the Greek but also the Greek itself for those who wish to read Philo’s own words. The English rendering of the Greek aims at clarity and accuracy while retaining as many of Philo’s unique stylistic features as possible. Finally, the notes are designed to elucidate the text, especially for new readers, on a variety of levels: extrapolating on points more fully discussed elsewhere in the Philonic corpus, observing specific divergences from the Septuagint, and suggesting aspects of contemporary historical influence on Philo’s retelling of the biblical narrative. The volume serves as a succinct entry into the basics of Philo while also preparing the reader for some of Philo’s more challenging works. JEFFREY M. HUNT is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1673-6 / $49.99 / Paperback / 230 pages / 6 x 9 / March 15, 2023


EN ESPAÑOL N. T. WRIGHT es Profesor de investigación de Nuevo Testamento y cristianismo primitivo en St. Mary’s College, Universidad de St Andrews. Anteriormente se desempeñó como obispo de Durham en la Iglesia de Inglaterra y es uno de los eruditos bíblicos más importantes del mundo. Es autor de más de setenta libros. ÍNDICE Prefacio 1 Pablo y el Mesías ¿Conocer el nombre o tener la mente? 2 Cómo comenzar con Jesús ¿Qué sabía Pablo, y cómo llegó a saberlo? 3 Apocalíptico ¿Narrativa del pacto o invasión cósmica? 4 El pueblo justificado de Dios ¿Israel mesiánico o pecadores salvos? 5 Teología, misión y método De Pablo y nuestros Revisar las citas

El Debate de Pablo Preguntas críticas para comprender al apóstol

N. T. Wright traducido por Javier Elizondo En las últimas dos décadas N. T. Wright ha producido una sucesión de volúmenes conectados que exploran la naturaleza y los orígenes del cristianismo. Wright ha argumentado constantemente que el cristianismo, aunque está en deuda con el judaísmo del Segundo Templo, representa un nuevo acontecimiento explosivo. Con libros importantes ya impresos sobre método, y trasfondo, Jesús y la resurrección, en Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Wright agregó un estudio integral del apóstol de los géntiles. En El debate de Pablo, Wright responde a sus críticos. El debate de Pablo es una lectura esencial para aquellos que están de acuerdo y en desacuerdo con Wright, y para todos los que quieren entender la convincente voz de uno de los eruditos paulinos más productivos y leídos de las últimas décadas.

“Quizás el resumen más legible y destilado del relato de Wright sobre el apóstol Pablo.” —MICHAEL F. BIRD “Una refutación retórica que contiende sin ser contenciosa.”

ISBN 978-1-4813-1817-4 $19.99 | Libro de bolsillo ISBN 978-1-4813-1818-1 $29.99 | Libro de tapa dura 122 páginas 5.5 x 8.5 15 de diciembre de 2022

—BEN WITHERINGTON III “Este libro es una ventana particularmente útil a los debates sobre apocalíptica, epistemología, justificación y otros más que se están actualmente librando dentro de los estudios paulinos.”

TAMBIÉN DISPONIBLE

—CHRIS TILLING

THE PAUL DEBATE Critical Questions for Understanding the Apostle N. T. Wright 978-1-4813-0468-9 | Paperback | $24.99

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Wonderful Words of Life

TODD D. STILL is Charles J. and Eleanor McLerran DeLancey Dean & William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University. He is also the editor of Image and Word: Reflections on the Stained Glass in the Paul W. Powell Chapel, Texts and Contexts: Gospels and Pauline Studies, God and Israel: Providence and Purpose in Romans 9–11, the Baylor Annotated Study Bible, and With Radiant Hope: Timely and Timeless Reflections from George W. Truett.

Scripture, Proclamation, and Community

edited by Todd D. Still

ISBN 978-1-4813-1805-1 $44.99 | Hardback 175 pages 5.5 x 8.5 November 15, 2022

Sometimes described as “people of the book,” Christ-followers the world over have found Scripture to offer life-giving words. What is true of any number of Christian institutions is also true of Baylor University and of Baylor’s Truett Seminary—various verses from the Bible, meant to upbuild the community, are strategically (and hopefully, tastefully!) displayed on their campuses. This valuable volume, replete with images, contains ten sermons preached by Truett Seminary faculty and staff on biblical passages explicitly cited or referenced at the school’s Baugh-Reynolds campus in Waco, Texas. These messages illustrate how “the Word” can be skillfully employed to punctuate and animate a community’s life together.

MORE FROM TODD D. STILL

BAYLOR ANNOTATED STUDY BIBLE 978-1-4813-0825-0 Hardback | $54.99

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WITH RADIANT HOPE Timely and Timeless Reflections from George W. Truett

GOD AND ISRAEL Providence and Purpose in Romans 9–11

IMAGE AND WORD Reflections on the Stained Glass in the Paul W. Powell Chapel

978-1-4813-1399-5 Hardback | $19.99

978-1-4813-0702-4 Hardback | $39.99

978-1-6025-8234-7 Hardback | $24.99

CONTENTS 1 Doing Our Best for God, by William J. Abraham 2 I Will Be with You, by Jared Alcantara 3 The Center and the Periphery, by Kimlyn Bender 4 The Law’s Inability to Check Sin and Generate the Obedience It Demands, by David Garland 5 Tall Orders, by Scott M. Gibson 6 Well, Well, Well, by Joel C. Gregory 7 The Joy of the LORD Is Our Strength, by Jenny Howell 8 Spiritual Friendship, by Ben Simpson 9 Gospel People, by Todd D. Still


MARK LANIER is a nationally renowned trial lawyer; founder of the Lanier Theological Library and the Christian Trial Lawyers Association; and author of Psalms for Living: Daily Prayers, Wisdom, and Guidance, Torah for Living: Daily Prayers, Wisdom, and Guidance, and Christianity on Trial: A Lawyer Examines the Christian Faith. He and his wife, Becky, have five children and live near Houston, Texas. “Mark Lanier’s studies from the Gospels for the formation of a 365day devotional book are remarkable for several reasons. First, the daily readings are personal, historically informative, and theologically insightful and thus do what a devotional should do: that is, move us toward greater love for and service to our Lord. Second, these scriptural reflections make use of the Christian calendar and thus serve as a delightful introduction to the great moments and themes of the Christian year. Readers not accustomed to using the calendar in the annual cycle of worship will find them especially helpful. And third, whether discussing the Christian calendar or explaining the Scriptures for a given day, these Gospel studies are full of historical nuggets. I highly recommend this wonderful addition to our daily devotional literature. It not only reflects Mark Lanier’s wide learning but also accomplishes many things at once, especially in combining theological warmth and historical intelligence.”

Jesus for Living Daily Prayers, Wisdom, and Guidance

Mark Lanier

A trial lawyer by trade, a Christian by heart—author Mark Lanier has trained in biblical languages and devoted his life to studying and living the Bible. Facing daily the tension between the demands of his career and the desire for a godly life, Lanier recognizes the importance and challenge of finding daily time to spend in God’s Word. His meditations on the Gospels reveal the need for daily devotion from the teachings of Jesus. In Jesus for Living, Lanier shares a year’s worth of meditations centered around the church calendar. Unlike his other devotionals, these are meant to be read according to the rhythms of the liturgical seasons—Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time. Lanier reflects on the actions and teachings of Jesus, offering insight on how our lives might imitate Jesus, and concludes each reading with a prayer of encouragement. MORE FROM MARK LANIER

ISBN 978-1-4813-1881-5 $24.99 | Paperback 381 pages 5.5 x 8.5 | 1 b&w illus. December 1, 2022

“We don’t call them ‘daily’ devotions for nothing. Devotion to God is a daily discipline, rooted in time and tied to the calendar. In this thoughtful new book, Mark Lanier walks us through the year, a meaningful day at a time, focusing our hearts, minds, and imaginations on the only One who is worthy of our devotion.” —MICHAEL CARD, Author, Songwriter, and Musician

TORAH FOR LIVING Daily Prayers, Wisdom, and Guidance ISBN 978-1-4813-0982-0 Paperback | $19.99

PSALMS FOR LIVING Daily Prayers, Wisdom, and Guidance ISBN 978-1-4813-0806-9 Paperback | $19.99

—ROBERT B. SLOAN, President, Houston Baptist University

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A History of the Waco Mammoth Site In Pursuit of a National Monument 1845 BOOKS

Calvin B. Smith and David O. Lintz

CALVIN B. SMITH is Archaeological Scholar in Residence and Library Coordinator at Trinidad State Junior College, Trinidad, Colorado. DAVID O. LINTZ is Director of the Red Men Museum and Library. CONTENTS

In paleontology there are certain encounters considered breakthroughs. Occasionally a unique event is discovered that permanently impacts our interpretation of an entire species.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1770-2 $19.99 T | Paperback 120 pages 7 x 10 | Fully illustrated March 1, 2023

The Waco Mammoth Site represents one such landmark moment. At the edge of the city, mammoth skeletons were unearthed from twelve feet of overburden, a find that has since been called one of the most important ancient proboscidean sites in the world. The discovery was made in 1978 by Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin with subsequent excavations by David Lintz, who along with volunteers from Baylor University’s Strecker Museum conducted the initial investigations. George Naryshkin, in his senior thesis for Baylor University’s Department of Geology, identified the five partial skeletons as Mammuthus columbi. Work was halted at the site from 1981 until Calvin Smith became the director of the Strecker Museum in 1983 and reopened the excavations in 1984. By the end of that year there were a total of sixteen specimens exposed in a cluster resembling a herd dying from a singular event. A news conference held by Baylor’s Department of Public Relations received an enormous amount of interest that resulted in international coverage. Many colleagues contacted the museum wanting to see the site. Among them was Dr. Gary Haynes, who had done extensive research on both extinct and modern elephants through the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. When he visited the site, he confirmed that it contained a nursery herd that succumbed to a single event, making it the largest such accumulation known to the scientific community. During the next few years, the site was expanded and new discoveries unearthed: a forty-five-year-old female trying to extricate a juvenile out of the mud flow, as well as the herd bull with a juvenile on top of his tusks, a first in prehistoric mammoth behavior. In 2015, after thirty-seven years of preservation and perseverance—and a whole lot of work and support from numerous individuals, especially volunteer Mr. Ralph Vinson, as well as many other organizations and entities—and at the proposal of the National Park Service, the site was federally recognized as the Waco Mammoth National Monument.

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Authors’ Preface Foreword, by Charlie Walter 1 The Land, the Environment, and Proboscideans through Time 2 Mammoths, Mastodons, and Early Explorations 3 To Clone or Not to Clone 4 The Initial Discovery and Beginning Excavations 5 Introductions and Surprises 6 What Lies Ahead? 7 The Next Step Epilogue Glossary “A History of the Waco Mammoth Site will be an important document for decades to come as it provides a remarkable story of the perseverance by scientists, governments, and benefactors alike that led to its eventual anointment as a National Monument. The book also serves as a foundation for future geological and paleontological research because it provides the basis for placing the plethora of artifacts in their proper context.” —LEE NORDT, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, Baylor University


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