Judging Q and saving Jesus is characterised by careful textual analysis, showing a piercing critical eye in its impressive engagement with the secondary literature and sharp, insightful critique. This book takes the stance that the hypothetical document Q can be reconstructed with sufficient precision and that this enables biblical scholars to study with confidence its genre and its thematic and ideological profile. The genre issue is central to the book’s overall structure, and the alternative proposals are discussed at length and with sophistication. The author’s inference is that Q’s macrogenre is sapiential with occasional insertions of apocalyptic microstructures and motifs. This finding embodies progress in Historical Jesus studies. An opposing trend has been to label Jesus an apocalypticist, so that the great ‘either-or’ of contemporary Jesus scholarship has been ‘either eschatological or not’, an alternative that dates back to Albert Schweitzer. The author finds that generally, and even when used apocalyptically, the term Son of Man tends to support arguments best understood as sapiential in outlook. This is consistent with the sapiential genre of the document as a whole. This finding is supported by the close and careful exegesis of Q 6:37?38 (on not judging). He reconstructs the original wording of this saying ‘on not judging’ and explores the idea of ‘weighing’ in judgment (psychostasia), determining in the end that the saying is entirely sapiential.

The Gospel Behind the Gospels portrays all the major areas of current discussion and debate regarding the early source of Jesus' sayings known as Q. Sixteen gospel scholars have advanced the debate about this source's nature, history and significance. Contributors discuss Q's existence, its relationship to Mark's gospel and to the Gospel of Thomas, its genre, its redactional history with special reference to the Son of Man and to wisdom and prophetic traditions, its social history with respect to family structures and the Cynics, a feminist analysis of Q, its significance for the historical Jesus and for Jesus' parables. The volume sheds important light on Jesus and Christian origins as well as upon Q itself, and it is significant for the diversity of major North American, European and Japanese scholarship which is represented.

For decades, social scientists have assumed that “fictive kinship” is a phenomenon associated only with marginal peoples and people of color in the United States. In this innovative book, Nelson reveals the frequency, texture and dynamics of relationships which are felt to be “like family” among the white middle-class. Drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, Nelson describes the quandaries and contradictions, delight and anxiety, benefits and costs, choice and obligation in these relationships. She shows the ways these fictive kinships are similar to one another as well as the ways they vary—whether around age or generation, co-residence, or the possibility of becoming “real” families. Moreover she shows that different parties to the same relationship understand them in some similar – and some very different – ways. Theoretically rich and beautifully written, the book is accessible to the general public while breaking new ground for scholars in the field of family studies.

Future Families explores the variety of family forms which characterize our contemporary culture, while addressing the implications of these increasingly diverse family units on child development. Reveals the diversity of new family forms based on the most current research on fathers, same-gender parents, new reproductive technologies, and immigrant families Illustrates that children and adults can thrive in a variety of non-traditional family forms Shows the interrelatedness of new trends in family organization through the common themes of embedded families and caregiving in community and cultural contexts Features an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from works in areas that include child development, family studies, sociology, cross-cultural scholarship, ethnic studies, biology, neuroscience, anthropology and even architecture Sets an agenda for future research in the area of families by identifying important gaps in our knowledge about families and parenting

Terence L. Donaldson's scholarship in the field of New Testament studies is vital, as he has pressed scholars to pay closer attention to the complex relations between early Christ-followers-who were mostly non-Jews-and the Jewish matrix from which the narrative of the Christian proclamation comes from. This volume allows prominent New Testament scholars to engage Donaldson's contributions, both to sharpen some of his conclusions and to honour him for his work. These essays are located at the intersections of three bodies of literature-Matthew, Paul and Second Temple Jewish Literature-and themes and questions that have been central to Donaldson's work: Christian Judaism and the Parting of the Ways; Gentiles in Judaism and early Christianity; Anti-Judaism in early Christianity. With contributions ranging from remapping Paul within Jewish ideologies, and Paul among friends and enemies, to socio-cultural readings of Matthew, and construction of Christian Identity through stereotypes of the Scribes and Pharisees, this book provides a multi-scholar tribute to Donaldson's accomplishments.

Tina and Maurice Shaw meet in the turbulent days of World War 11. They fall in love and marry before Maury joins the Medical Corps in France. When they return to the States, the couple move to a small town in Pennsylvania with Maury’s two Army buddies. The bowling alley they jointly purchase fails, and Maury finds a sales job in Philadelphia. The couple has four children and the young family flourishes. But Tina discovers Maury’s infidelity and they undergo a contentious divorce. Three of the children, Billy, Darlene and Matthew, reside with their mother, who goes through a dark period of alcohol dependence, and neglects her children. Are the siblings able, using their own resources, to weather the crisis? After several trying years, Tina rises out of despair and the family goes through a healing process. Billy becomes attached to a band of teenage friends and they go on risky and comic adventures. Billy earns his driver’s license and he and Matt go for a joy ride, with tragic consequences. Drowning in guilt, Billy loses the will to live. He isolates himself from everyone, until he receives a letter from his estranged father, inviting him for a visit. The young man embarks on a journey, not sure whether he wants to have any kind of relationship with a man he views as selfish and a failure as a parent. Will the reunion lead to strife or rapprochement? Reaching an answer, Billy returns to his mother’s home with renewed purpose and resolve to place the family tragedy in the past and get on with his life.