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In this book accompanying his BBC radio series, the former director of the British Museum explores the role of shared beliefs in the life of human communities around the globe. Rather than focusing on religious doctrine, he concentrates on practices, objects and places, tracing how societies from the Ice Age onwards have used stories and rituals to mark their identity and strengthen cohesion: ‘for in deciding how we live with our gods we also decide how to live with each other’. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

A devout Christian, Dickens wrote this version of the New Testament expressly for his own children, and it was not published until 1934 after they had all died. This edition includes 60 illustrations, two prayers, and A Child’s Hymn. The idiosyncrasies of the original manuscript have been retained in the text, to preserve the personal nature of its creation.

The books of the Apocrypha, which are omitted from many editions of the Bible, include the Wisdom of Solomon, the story of Judith’s decapitation of Holofernes and an account of the Maccabees’ revolt in the 2nd century BCE. This volume reproduces the translation from the 1894 Revised Version and features colour plates depicting important historical figures from the texts.

While the Bible contains numerous tales of deceit and murder, love and forgiveness, it can be hard to read in its traditional form. This volume provides background information and accessible retellings of Old and New Testament stories, created in consultation with expert scholars and illustrated with photographs of ancient artefacts, Biblical sites and artworks from across the centuries.

This boxed set comprises ten pocket-size editions of selected books from the King James Bible. Each volume is introduced by a modern writer who gives a personal response to the text. These include the Dalai Lama on four New Testament epistles, PD James on the ‘complex, fascinating and occasionally puzzling’ Acts of the Apostles and Peter Ackroyd on Isaiah, which he describes as ‘not unlike the texts of Anglo-Saxon poetry’.

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The first book printed in North America, this 1640 translation of the Psalms of David was made for the Massachusetts Puritans. Communal singing of the psalms held a unique importance for the pioneers and their Psalter is in rhyming metrical verse. It was designed not for elegance but, as MacCulloch writes in his introduction, to be ‘roared out by a congregation exalting in its common voice, taking comfort from communal purpose amid a wilderness’. This facsimile is of the Bodleian Library copy. No jacket.

Meals appear in many Bible stories, including the manna that fell from heaven, the feast in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son and the miracle of the loaves and fishes. This book brings together 160 images to show how artists have depicted such meals, ranging from wall decorations in the ancient Roman catacombs to paintings by Rembrandt and Velázquez.

This volume collects 20 previously published papers in which Young developed her ideas on patristic exegesis. They focus on themes including religious language, metaphor and allegory and early Christianity’s creative interactions with its cultural and intellectual environment.

Writing in 1828, Lord Macaulay described the King James Bible as ‘a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power’, and for many people today, this 400-year-old translation remains the finest. Marking Collins’s 200th anniversary, this edition continues the company’s tradition of Bible publishing; it presents the complete Old and New Testaments, with a foreword by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. Bound in white covers with gold lettering.

In this detailed analysis of the Hebrew Scriptures’ most sensual text, Gillow Reynolds offers a fresh interpretation, reading the Song of Songs not as a symbolic expression of longing for God but as representing the human embodiment of divine love and wisdom.

The New Testament is here rearranged so that each gospel is placed at the beginning of a group of closely related books, allowing the reader to have a more meaningful encounter with their different theological traditions. The New International Version’s text is used, but without the distraction of chapter numbers and headings. The book accompanies the four Lumo Project films of the gospels and includes photographs from them.

In 1859 Constantin Tischendorf brought to Europe the Codex Sinaiticus, the earliest known copy of the New Testament, previously kept at the remote Sinai monastery of St Catherine's. Gottschlich describes his own visit to Sinai, reflecting on his predecessor’s obsessions and the continuing controversy over the manuscript’s removal.

In this book accompanying his BBC radio series, the former director of the British Museum explores the role of shared beliefs in the life of human communities around the globe. Rather than focusing on religious doctrine, he concentrates on practices, objects and places, tracing how societies from the Ice Age onwards have used stories and rituals to mark their identity and strengthen cohesion: ‘for in deciding how we live with our gods we also decide how to live with each other’.

This introduction to Christianity’s foundational documents is also a guide to the main approaches that scholars have used in discussing them. Telford begins by describing the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts of the early church. He then outlines the dating and classification of the New Testament’s 27 books before providing a closer analysis of the Synoptic Gospels and the sources of their traditions about Jesus. Off-mint.

‘Religiously motivated violence must be fought religiously as well as militarily, and with passionate intensity.’ So writes the former Chief Rabbi in this powerful exploration of the roots of religious extremism. By analysing stories of sibling rivalry in the biblical texts shared by the Abrahamic faiths, he shows how centuries of misreadings have led to the ‘altruistic evil’ by which murder is seen as a moral act – an idea against which those of all faiths and none must stand together. Off-mint.

As distant in time from the Pentateuch of Moses as Updike is from Shakespeare, these later books of the Old Testament are innovative and entertaining works of literature, in which women are often centre stage. The Song of Songs is a sensuous celebration of young love, Queen Esther’s shrewd triumph is a sly sexual comedy, while the story of Ruth celebrates loyalty, charity and love. Robert Alter’s award-winning translation from the Hebrew captures all their freshness and immediacy.

Why do the creation stories in Genesis contradict each other? Did the Exodus really happen? In a discussion which ‘neither requires, nor rejects, belief’, Loveday brings a literary critic’s eye to the Biblical authors. Presenting insights from modern scholarship, he shows how to read their texts ‘with our brains in gear’, by viewing the Bible as a structure of the imagination rather than through modern concepts of ‘history’ and ‘truth’.

These 15 essays on aspects of Latin exegesis up to the 9th century discuss topics ranging from the controversy over Methuselah’s death and the concept of inerrancy to the mysticism of number.

This series introduces the texts that have helped shape Western civilization, every volume providing a detailed examination of the central ideas and arguments of a seminal text and discussion of its lasting significance.

Intended as first introductions for students new to a subject, each of these guidebooks gives an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in an accessible format and jargon-free language.

Intended as first introductions for students new to a subject, each of these guidebooks gives an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in an accessible format and jargon-free language.

In short essays, each of these volumes focuses on the 50 essential writers, movements, works or themes in disciplines ranging from ancient history to modern media studies.

With 1,450 articles written by scholars from the USA's National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, but including a broad range of opinion and approach, this dictionary aims to provide the student with accurate, relevant and interesting information about the history, traditions and literature of the Bible. The well-illustrated A–Z includes outlines of each canonical book and articles on key people, places and terms, non-canonical books and Biblical scholarship.

This study for pastors, Bible students and general readers offers a running exposition on the texts of the New Testament Books of 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude, providing reflection and response to the texts.

First published in 1913, this scholarly commentary includes Batten's introduction to the original form of Ezra-Nehemiah, and addresses topics including the reigns of Cyrus, Darius I and Artaxerxes I and II. No jacket.

The New Jerusalem Bible translation of the book of Romans, with a brief explanatory introduction and easy-to-reference chapter divisions. 6”x4”

Although the 'historical' life and personality of Mark is irretrievable, Clifton Black argues that 'the figure of Mark is marvellously intricate and potentially informative for our understanding of some early Christian traditions'. His highly acclaimed study probes early Christian images of Mark and why the patristic church identified Mark as the author of the Second Gospel.

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With this book John Dancy has set out to restore the Old Testament to 'the reading list of the general educated public' by selecting sections of the text for their artistic merit and intrinsic interest. These dramatic narratives and the heightened speech of Hebrew poetry are accompanied by Dancy's commentary, which provides parallels with other ancient Near Eastern and Greek texts, and highlights features of Hebrew language and story-telling techniques.

Using a newly designed statistical analysis of Luke and Acts, Walters's study points to highly significant differences in their prose style and also reveals ancient prose compositional patterns that distinguish Luke and Acts beyond reasonable doubt.