Tina Beattie has written a stunning book on the theology of woman. Her stated objective is to discern the place of the female body in the Christian story of salvation and she has done so from the very heart of Christian stylisations of the female--the figures of Mary and Eve.Beattie has pursued her subject with the aid of French psychoanalytic feminism--these writers are preoccupied, as is Catholic theology, with questions of language and symbolism. But she deliberately puts herself at odds with neo-orthodoxy and feminist liberal theology; she believes that theologians like von Balthasar depart from the best Patristic tradition of Marian theology with disastrous effect. Nor does she offer any solace to the Marina Warners of this world in a book which is strong in defence of classical Marian theology.She defends with passion and theological insight not only the Virgin Birth, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption but also the perpetual virginity of Mary.Virginal desire, according to Beattie, need not be seen negatively but as an affirmation of the integrity of women's desire before God, in a way not dependent on the phallus nor reducible to geniality.

Exalting Jesus in Psalms, Volume 2, Psalms 101-150 is part of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series. Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, this commentary series, to include 47 volumes when complete, takes a Christ-centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition presented as sermons and divided into chapters that conclude with a “Reflect & Discuss” section, making this series ideal for small group study, personal devotion, and even sermon preparation. It’s not academic but rather presents an easy reading, practical, and friendly commentary. The authors of Exalting Jesus in Psalms, Volume 2, Psalms 101-150 are Daniel Akin, Johnny Hunt, and Tony Merida.

In this fascinating book, Evelina Gužauskytė uses the names Columbus gave to places in the Caribbean Basin as a way to examine the complex encounter between Europeans and the native inhabitants. Gužauskytė challenges the common notion that Columbus’s acts of naming were merely an imperial attempt to impose his will on the terrain. Instead, she argues that they were the result of the collisions between several distinct worlds, including the real and mythical geography of the Old World, Portuguese and Catalan naming traditions, and the knowledge and mapping practices of the Taino inhabitants of the Caribbean. Rather than reflecting the Spanish desire for an orderly empire, Columbus’s collection of place names was fractured and fragmented – the product of the explorer’s dynamic relationship with the inhabitants, nature, and geography of the Caribbean Basin. To complement Gužauskytė’s argument, the book also features the first comprehensive list of the more than two hundred Columbian place names that are documented in his diarios and other contemporary sources.

St. Augustine and Roman law are the two bridges from Athens and Jerusalem to the world of modern law. Augustine's almost eerily modern political realism was based upon his deep appreciation of human evil, arising from his insights into the human personality, the product of his reflections on his own life and the history of his times. These insights have traveled well through the ages and are mirrored in the pages of Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt. The articles in this volume describe the life and world of Augustine and the ways in which he conceived both justice and law. They also discuss the little recognized Augustinian contributions to the field of modern hermeneutics - the discipline which informs the art of legal interpretation. Finally, they include Augustine's valuable discussion of church/state relations, the law of just wars, and proper role and limits of coercion, and the procreative dimensions of marriage. The volume also includes an extremely useful, definitive bibliography of Augustine and the law, and will leave readers with an increased appreciation of the contributions which Augustine has made to the history of jurisprudence. No one can read Augustine and these articles on his view of the law without taking away a new view of the law itself.