Vanessa Ochs retells well known stories of Biblical women in terms that will inspire women today. Beginning with Eve, she adds a reflection on the lesson each story has to offer, then offers a ritual for each.

From Eve's rebellious taste of wisdom to the righteous anger of Job's wife, Judaic scholar Vanessa Ochs' vivid collection of stories breathes new life into biblical matriarchs. Intimate, familiar, and wise, the heroines in "Sarah Laughed" are revealed to be inspiring role models for women today. 0-07-140290-X$24.95 / McGraw Hill Professional

Poetry. SARAH LAUGHED is the second collaboration between poet Judith Goldhaber and artist Gerson Goldhaber, a husband-and-wife team from Berkeley, California. Following the formal model of their previous work, SONNETS FROM AESOP, which won the Independent Publishers Book Award, Judith Goldhaber imbues familiar Biblical folklore with equal parts humor and wisdom. Gerson's delightfully childlike illustrations accompany the poetry, rendering the work a storybook of sorts, open to young and old alike. "In the hands of Petrarch and Shakespeare, the sonnet became associated with the inner paradoxes of erotic psychology. Like Pushkin and Vikram Seth, Judith Goldhaber has adapted the sonnet to the paradoxes of social narrative as well" -- Peter Dale Scott. "The poetry and illustrations work their magic together, delighting the eye and beckoning the mind to wonder" -- Daniel Matt.

When Sarah Laughed is a picture book for children from 4 years to 9 years old. The story is a playful adaptation of an Abraham and Sarah story from the Old Testament. It begins with God noticing that something is missing on his Beautiful Earth. The watching how Abraham and Sarah express their gratitude in their everyday lives leads to a discovery of what is missing and brings an unexpected gift to Sarah and Abraham.

Sarah’s Laughter provides a reflection on suffering that is deeply personal and both theologically and philosophically astute. Vinoth Ramachandra draws on his distinctive positioning as a Sri Lankan Christian theologian – one who has lived and ministered in contexts shaped by the destruction of natural disasters and the violence of human evil – to confront the intellectual, moral, and political challenges posed to faith in the increasingly broken world of the twenty-first century. Yet far from being an abstract discussion of theodicy, this book is intimate and vulnerable, embracing the biblical practice of lament and inviting an authentic response to grief – one that makes space for serious doubt and profound questioning. Sharing his own ongoing journey with suffering and a questing faith, Ramachandra reminds us that lament and joy, faith and protest, clarity and ambiguity, belong together in faithful Christian discipleship. It is not in bypassing the darkness of the world, but in embracing it – in imitation of the incarnate God – that we may glimpse the new creation.

Who is a Jew? In this colorful, eye-opening work, bestselling author and lecturer Jonathan Kirsch takes us on a three-thousand-year tour of Jewish identity and diversity and offers answers to this complex and difficult question. Kirsch reveals that Judaism has never been a religion of strict and narrow orthodoxy. For every accepted tradition in Jewish faith there are countertraditions rooted in biblical antiquity: the Maccabee freedom fighters who closed the Bible and picked up swords, dervish-like ecstatics who claimed to enjoy direct communication with God even after they had been excommunicated by a distrustful rabbinate, and courageous men and women who were the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. With drama and narrative verve, Kirsch explores these and many other "Judaisms" that make up the rich tapestry of Jewish identity.