New Testament and Christian origins scholarship have historically been influenced by their political and social context. 'Jesus in an Age of Terror' applies the work of critical and media theorists to contemporary Christian origins and New Testament scholarship. Part one examines the influence of the mass media on the writing of contemporary biblical scholars, whose political views - as demonstrated in their 'biblio-blogging' - are shown to have striking similarity to the media s depiction of the 'war on terror' and conflict in the Middle East. Part two argues that the Anglo-American cultural mis-representation of Islam as the 'great enemy' has led New Testament and Christian origins scholarship to collude with intellectual defences of the war in Iraq. Part three examines the influence of the media's approach to Palestine and Israel on biblical studies, exploring the shift towards widespread support for Israel in contemporary scholarship.

This is the shocking truth: Jesus was a zealot who wanted to be King of Israel. The apostles and disciples were members of his family, by blood and by marriage, and they went on to wage a war against Rome. Far from converting, Saul, the false apostle, remained malicious and vindictive to the end. Saul invented Christianity, borrowing the rituals of a pagan religion, Mithraism. The gospels are a deliberately scrambled version of Jewish zealot propaganda with characters, who were Jewish warriors, stolen and subverted by Christian writers.

'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' analyses the ideology underpinning contemporary scholarly and popular quests for the historical Jesus. Focusing on cultural and political issues, the book examines postmodernism, multiculturalism and the liberal masking of power. The study ranges across diverse topics: the dubious periodisation of the quest for the historical Jesus; 'biblioblogging'; Jesus the 'Great Man' and western individualism; image-conscious Jesus scholarship; the 'Jewishness' of Jesus and the multicultural Other; evangelical and 'mythical' Jesuses; and the contradictions between personal beliefs and dominant ideological trends in the construction of historical Jesuses. 'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' offers readers a radical revisioning of contemporary biblical studies.

As biblical studies becomes increasingly fragmented, this collection of essays brings together a number of leading scholars in order to show how historical reconstruction, philology, metacriticism, and reception history can be part of a collective vision for the future of the field. This collection of essays focuses more specifically on critical questions surrounding the construction of ancient Israel(s), 'minimalism', the ongoing significance of lexicography, the development of early Judaism, orientalism, and the use of the Bible in contemporary political discourses. Contributors include John van Seters, Niels Peter Lemche, Ingrid Hjelm, and Philip R. Davies.

How Christians can find hope in today's world of violence and uncertainty by following the model of the Trinity. This theological reflection on evil and suffering, violence and revenge, and identity and otherness attemps to answer an urgent question of our time: "What are we to do now that they have done this to us? How should we respond to this injury, this evil?"

This Companion volume offers a concise and engaging introduction to the New Testament. Including twenty-two especially-commissioned essays, written by an international team of scholars, it examines a range of topics related to the historical and religious contexts in which the contents of the Christian canon emerged. Providing an overview of the critical approaches and methods currently applied to the study of biblical texts, it also includes chapters on each of the writings in the New Testament. The volume serves as an excellent resource for students who have some familiarity with the New Testament and who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the state of academic discussion and debate. Readers will also gain a sense of the new research questions that are emerging from current scholarship.

Harnessing Chaos is an explanation of changes in dominant politicized assumptions about what the Bible 'really means' in English culture since the 1960s. James G. Crossley looks at how the social upheavals of the 1960s, and the economic shift from the post-war dominance of Keynesianism to the post-1970s dominance of neoliberalism, brought about certain emphases and nuances in the ways in which the Bible is popularly understood, particularly in relation to dominant political ideas. This book examines the decline of politically radical biblical interpretation in parliamentary politics and the victory of (a modified form of) Margaret Thatcher's re-reading of the liberal Bible tradition, following the normalisation of (a modified form of) Thatcherism more generally. Part I looks at the potential options for politicized readings of the Bible at the end of the the1960s, focussing on the examples of Christopher Hill and Enoch Powell. Part II analyses the role of Thatcher's specific contribution to political interpretation of the Bible and assumptions about 'religion'. Part III highlights the importance of (often unintended) ideological changes towards forms of Thatcherite interpretation in popular culture and with particular reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian and the Manchester music scene between 1976 and 1994. Part IV concerns the modification of Thatcher's Bible, particularly with reference to the embrace of socially liberal values, by looking at the electoral decline of the Conservative Party through the work of Jeffrey Archer on Judas and the final victory of Thatcherism through Tony Blair's exegesis. Some consideration is then given to the Bible in an Age of Coalition and how politically radical biblical interpretations retain a presence outside parliamentary politics. Harnessing Chaos concludes with reflections on why politicians in English politicians bother using the Bible at all.