Category Archives: Books

Summary: Changing Our Mind is an apologia. It is an apologia by one of the most respected and highly credentialed conservative religion scholars and thinkers of our times. Enter it with anticipation, certainly, but also with gratitude—gratitude that a man of such stature as David Gushee has paid us, as his readers, the ultimate compliment.Continue reading “Changing Our Mind: The Call for Inclusion of LGBTQ Christians”

Summary: Love Lost in Translation systematically examines the biblical stories and passages that are generally assumed to deal with, or comment on, homoerotic relationships: Noah and Ham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Judges 19, Romans 1:26–27, and 1 Corinthians 6:9. K. Renato Lings convincingly demonstrates that mistranslations of these texts into Greek, LatinContinue reading “Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible”

Summary: Here, from a great scholar and gifted translator, is a landmark publication: the first single-author literary translation of the complete Hebrew Bible. Robert Alter’s award-winning translation delivers the Hebrew Bible as powerful, finely wrought literature, registering the distinctive meanings and rhythms of the ancient Hebrew in a lucid, supple English. The accompanying commentary offersContinue reading “The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary”

Summary (from Back Cover): How to Read the Bible is, quite simply, the best, most original book about the Hebrew Bible in decades. James Kugel guides the reader chapter by chapter through the “quiet revolution” of recent biblical scholarship, introducing the host of research findings that have fundamentally challenged the long-standing interpretations of the ancientContinue reading “How to Read the Bible”

Summary (from Back Cover): If Jesus knew these writings, shouldn’t you? To understand Jesus of Nazareth, it is essential to read writings from the four-century gap between the Old and New Testaments. Matthias Henze introduces this period and its writings, discusses how they have been read through history, guides students’ encounters with select texts, thenContinue reading “Mind the Gap”

My Tuesday small group spent just over four months reading and discussing James L. Kugel’s incredibly detailed and informative book, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. It is a whopping 36 chapters and 771 pages in its paperback edition. The “Then” in the title refers to how “the ancientContinue reading “Book Review: “How to Read the Bible””