The burgeoning use of modern literary theory and cultural criticism in recent biblical studies has led to stimulating--but often bewildering--new readings of the Bible. This book, argued from a perspective shaped by postmodernism, is at once an accessible guide to and an engagement with various methods, theories, and critical practices transforming biblical scholarship today. Written by a collective of cutting-edge scholars--with each page the work of multiple hands--The Postmodern Bible deliberately breaks with the individualist model of authorship that has traditionally dominated scholarship in the humanities and is itself an illustration of the postmodern transformation of biblical studies for which it argues. The book introduces, illustrates, and critiques seven prominent strategies of reading. Several of these interpretive strategies--rhetorical criticism, structuralism and narratology, reader-response criticism, and feminist criticism--have been instrumental in the transformation of biblical studies up to now. Many--feminist and womanist criticism, ideological criticism, poststructuralism, and psychoanalytic criticism--hold promise for the continued transformation of these studies in the future. Focusing on readings from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, this volume illuminates the current multidisciplinary debates emerging from postmodernism by exposing the still highly contested epistemological, political, and ethical positions in the field of biblical studies.

How is the Bible authoritative in this postmodern age? In this exchange from the 1995 Hein/Fry Lectures Series, Fretheim and Froehlich mount important, though divergent, analyses of the contemporary situation regarding Scripture and suggest varying strategies to meet it. What does it mean to say that Scripture has authority for Christian faith and life in light of contemporary forms of biblical criticism? How do we understand a biblical text to be the Word of God when the meaning of the text can vary, depending on the perspective of the reader/hearer? Given the profound hermeneutical challenges of our time, how does Scripture serve as a guide in worship, doctrine, preaching, and ethical decision-making for the people of God? -From the Foreword

J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh offer an introduction, evaluation and response to postmodern culture that comes straight from the heart of the gospel.

Harry Emerson Fosdick's classic volume entitled 'The Modern Use of the Bible' enabled readers in the first part of this century to make the pilgrimage into the 'modern' era and to understand the Bible in an idiom informed by critical and historical assumptions and approaches. The exchange of the historical context for the dogmatic transformed biblical study into an exciting discipline both spiritually and intellectually. The critical distancing of the text in the historical approach, however, has gradually trnasformed biblical writings into museum pieces without contemporary relevance. For contemporary readers, a satisfying approach cannot be uncritical, but it must move beyond the critical. 'Postmodern Use of the Bible' encourages a continual pilgrimage. In this book, readers are provided resources to enable them to make sense for themselves, in the light of challenges to major critical assumptions and strategies of 'The Modern Use of the Bible.' The same goal is in mind--to allow the Bible to speak in a contemporary idiom. --from the Introduction Contents Introduction 1. How Have We Made Sense of the Bible? 2. Toward the Postmodern 3. Literary Perspectives and Resources for Postmodern Use: Structures, Codes, and the Readers 4. The Role of the Reader: Imaging the Sacred 5. The Role of the Reader: Actualizing of Biblical Discourse Conclusion

David Hesselgrave uses the work of ten influential men to describe what is going on in missions. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of the use of the Bible in the church and in mission, from the study of the Bible to teaching biblical principles to church leaders on the mission field. As the first title in the new Evangelical Missiological Society series, this textbook is designed for use in addressing: Contemporary Issues in Missions, Mission Strategy, Theology of Mission, Survey of Mission, Mission Principles and Practices, Strategy for World Evangelization, Church Planting, Church Growth, and Contextualization.

In Critical Entanglements: Postmodern Theory and Biblical Studies, Andrew P. Wilson tracks the various strands of postmodernism threaded through the discipline, drawing on a range of evocative biblical readings as well as key examples from the art world.

The purpose of the book is to revitalize the essentials of Christian living in a way God wants us to be especially when the bible based moral values and the absolute truths to establish the meaning of life were degraded and whitewashed in this postmodern world. At this juncture, it is a definite need to search for hidden and forgotten Judeo-Christian values that define the meaning of human life and its worth in the eyes of the Living God. Its sole purpose is to know Who God is and His standard of living when this world is influenced and reshaped by cultural darkness, revolutions and counter revolutions that are antithetical to the bible.