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The Old Testament book of Samuel is an intriguing narrative that offers an account of the origin of the monarchy in Israel. It also deals at length with the fascinating stories of Saul and David. In this volume, John Goldingay works through the book, exploring the main theological ideas as they emerge in the narratives about Samuel, Saul, and David, as well as in the stories of characters such as Hannah, Michal, Bathsheba, and Tamar. Goldingay brings out the key ideas about God and God's involvement in the lives of people, and their involvement with him through prayer and worship. He also delves into the mystery and complexity of human persons and their roles in events. Goldingay's study traces how God pursues his purpose for Israel and, ultimately, for the world in these narratives. It shows how this pursuit is interwoven with the realities of family, monarchy, war, love, ambition, loss, failure, and politics.
Is it possible to violate God's moral law without experiencing guilt and shame? Can a person silence their conscience from the strange emotions that emerge when one sin? An examination of the original design of humanity in the imago Dei suggests one cannot sin and avoid the debilitating duo. Humanity is created to live within the moral structure established by God. Therefore, a violation of the divine laws, which is sin, leads to guilt and shame. The strange emotions were innate sensation imparted to humanity to stop rebellion against the moral laws and to compel an offender to acknowledge the offense through the confession of sin. Unconfessed sin debilitates the physical and mental functions of a person created in the image of God. Guilt and shame are the strange emotions that serve as mental guardians for an individual as well as for the society in general. The duo was given as silent deterrents to immoral behaviors.
In his sermon “What Is Man?,” John Wesley spoke of the human being as a “curious machine,” reflecting the eighteenth-century view of the person as a set of complex mechanisms animated by the soul. The rapid rate of technological development in recent decades is opening toward a future in which the centrality and uniqueness of human beings is undergoing a shift. Developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, surveillance, autonomous weapons, human enhancement, and genetic modification raise an array of questions for the Christian tradition. The awareness of the negative impact of human activity on the natural environment is challenging the traditional view of humanity as having a uniquely privileged role at the heart of creation. This collection of essays addresses Wesleyan and broadly Christian voices that explore the theological, philosophical, biblical, ethical, and practical implications of emerging technologies, their impact upon different aspects of human life, and the possibilities that are opening up toward a posthuman future.
Isaiah's servant songs reveal a true and better Adam In Charged with the Glory of God, Caroline Batchelder provides a synchronic, theological, and canonical reading of the four Servant Songs in Isaiah (42:1–9; 49:1–13; 50:3–11; 52:13–53:12), showing how they relate to one another and the message of the prophetic book. Reading Isaiah as a compositional unity in conversation with other texts such as Genesis results in a coherent presentation of the mysterious servant. The polemic against idolatry reveals rebellious Israel to be false imagers of God. In contrast, Isaiah's servant is an ideal embodiment of Yahweh's image and likeness. Thus, the servant is a paradigm for those who wish to recapture and realize God's good creation purposes for all humanity. The servant poems are not only a call to reorient oneself as a servant towards God and his creation, but also a map and means for doing so. In this study, Batchelder offers fresh insights from Isaiah for understanding God's true image and its idolatrous counterfeits.
Evangelical and feminist approaches to Old Testament interpretation often seem to be at odds with each other. The authors of this volume argue to the contrary: feminist and evangelical interpreters of the Old Testament can enter into a constructive dialogue that will be fruitful to both parties. They seek to illustrate this with reference to a number of texts and issues relevant to feminist Old Testament interpretation from an explicitly evangelical point of view. In so doing they raise issues that need to be addressed by both evangelical and feminist interpreters of the Old Testament, and present an invitation to faithful and fruitful reading of these portions of Scripture.
With a title adapted from Deuteronomy 6:24, For Our Good Always is a collection of 25 essays from evangelical scholars on the message of Deuteronomy and its inflence on Christian Scripture. No other book colors the tapestry of biblical thought quite like Deuteronomy. It synthesized the theology of the Pentateuch, provided Israel with a constitution for guiding their covenant relationship with Yahweh in the promised land, and served as a primary lens through which later biblical authors interpreted Israel’s covenant history. Recent advances in scholarship on Deuteronomy and developments in biblical interpretation are raising fresh questions and opening new paths for exploration. This colle...