Renowned Catholic author Megan McKenna celebrates her 50th book with a controversial interpretation of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John and what they mean for the Church and society today. In many ways, modern audiences have become so familiar with the gospels that we've stopped listening and integreting their wisdom into our everyday lives. Acclaimed author Megan McKenna explores the messages of the four gospels in the context of daily life when they were originally written and interprets their meaning for our modern world. While some argue for the development of new gospels for the 21st century, McKenna argues that we haven't paid due attention to the ones we already have; in many cases, we've ignored sections of these teachings entirely and twisted their meaning to suit our own agendas. McKenna breaks it down, gospel by gospel, and shows us how the lessons of Jesus's apostles continue to resonate.

This Companion provides a definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field, and whose work will be significant for the theologies written in the new millennium. The definitive collection of essays on postmodern theology, drawing on the work of those individuals who have made a distinctive contribution to the field. Each essay is introduced with a short account of the writer's previous work, enabling the reader to view it in context. Discusses the following desciplines: Aesthetics, Ethics, Gender, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Heideggerians, and Derrideans. Edited by Graham Ward, one of the most outstanding and original theologians working in the field today.

The study of midrash—the biblical exegesis, parables, and anecdotes of the Rabbis—has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Most recent scholarship, however, has focused on the aggadic or narrative midrash, while halakhic or legal midrash—the exegesis of biblical law—has received relatively little attention. In Scripture as Logos, Azzan Yadin addresses this long-standing need, examining early, tannaitic (70-200 C.E.) legal midrash, focusing on the interpretive tradition associated with the figure of Rabbi Ishmael. This is a sophisticated study of midrashic hermeneutics, growing out of the observation that the Rabbi Ishmael midrashim contain a dual personification of Scripture, which is referred to as both "torah" and "ha-katuv." It is Yadin's significant contribution to note that the two terms are not in fact synonymous but rather serve as metonymies for Sinai on the one hand and, on the other, the rabbinic house of study, the bet midrash. Yadin develops this insight, ultimately presenting the complex but highly coherent interpretive ideology that underlies these rabbinic texts, an ideology that—contrary to the dominant view today—seeks to minimize the role of the rabbinic reader by presenting Scripture as actively self-interpretive. Moving beyond textual analysis, Yadin then locates the Rabbi Ishmael hermeneutic within the religious landscape of Second Temple and post-Temple literature. The result is a series of surprising connections between these rabbinic texts and Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Church Fathers, all of which lead to a radical rethinking of the origins of rabbinic midrash and, indeed, of the Rabbis as a whole.

Commentaries on the Daily Lectionary readings for the cycle of the Church's liturgy, worship, prayer and preaching.

This book on Jeremiah seeks to place before a broad audience of students and lay readers one of the truly great Hebrew prophets and extraordinary individuals of the ancient world. It lifts up major themes preserved in the book bearing Jeremiah's name, one of the most prominent being Jeremiah's understanding of himself as "the prophet like Moses." Jeremiah remained faithful to his calling during the final days of Israelite nationhood, when the remnant of a once great nation fell to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BC. He suffered along with everyone else, but was nevertheless numbered among the survivors. From his confinement in the court of the guard he gave a dispirited remnant, many of whom would subsequently make the long journey into faraway exile, unambiguous hope for the future, announcing just before the nation's fall a new covenant that God would make with his people in future days.

Sefer ha-Zohar (The Book of Radiance) has amazed and overwhelmed readers ever since it emerged mysteriously in medieval Spain toward the end of the thirteenth century. Written in a unique, lyrical Aramaic, this masterpiece of Kabbalah exceeds the dimensions of a normal book; it is virtually a body of literature, comprising over twenty discrete sections. The bulk of theZohar consists of a running commentary on the Torah, from Genesis through Deuteronomy. This fourth volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition covers the first half of Exodus. Here we find mystical explorations of Pharaoh's enslavement of the Israelites, the birth of Moses, the deliverance from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the Revelation at Mount Sinai. Throughout, the Zohar probes the biblical text and seeks deeper meaningfor example, the nature of evil and its relation to the divine realm, the romance of Moses andShekhinah, and the inner meaning of the Ten Commandments. In the context of the miraculous splitting of the Red Sea, Rabbi Shim'on reveals the mysterious Name of 72, a complex divine name consisting of 216 letters (72 triads), formed out of three verses in Exodus 14. These mystical interpretations are interwoven with tales of the Companionsrabbis wandering through the hills of Galilee, sharing their insights, coming upon wisdom in the most astonishing ways from a colorful cast of characters they meet on the road.

Open the Bible with newcomers and experienced students alike. Both will find much to learn and explore in this helpful introductory study. Stephen Binz offers clear, practical explanations that will make the Bible more familiar, giving readers a sense of the Bible’s structure, a better understanding of its various themes and writing styles, and insight into how to interpret the Bible within the Catholic tradition. This study also provides direction in how to choose a Bible, how to navigate its contents, and how to get the most out of Bible study. Commentary, study and reflection questions, prayers, and access to online lectures are included. 6 lessons.