Erich S. Gruen investigates a remarkable phenomenon in religious and literary history: the freedom with which Jewish writers in antiquity retold and recast, sometimes distorted or bypassed, biblical narratives that ostensibly had the status of sacred texts. Gruen asks the question of what prompted such tampering with tales that carried divine authority, and what implications this widespread practice of liberal revising had for attitudes toward the sacrality of the scriptures in general. Gruen focuses upon writings of the Second Temple period, an era of the deep integration of Jewish history and the Greco-Roman world. Gruen brings to the task the training of a classicist and ancient historian rather than that of a biblical textual critic or a rabbinics scholar, not pursuing the commentaries of the later rabbis with their very different approaches, methods, and goals. As such, Gruen's emphasis rests upon narrative rather than legal matters, the haggadic rather than the halakhic. The former lends itself most readily to the creative instincts of the re-tellers.

Originally published: Oxford: Lion, 2003.

Introduces noted Bible stories, including those of the Creation, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Samson, David, Daniel, Jonah, the Nativity and other events from the life of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Resurrection. On board pages.

An illustrated collection of thirty-two Bible stories retold for children.

A unique contribution to the God/religion debate: a scientific take on the Bible that doesn't take sides. Many of the subjects studied by physicists or by biologists are found in the texts of the world's religions: the origins of the universe, of life and of mankind; fate, sex, age and death; and the prospects of eternal life or of fiery doom. The Bible is a handbook for understanding Nature and, in its own way, it succeeds. As a factual account, of course, it is out of date, but many of its statements can be rephrased in modern terms. Distinguished geneticist Steve Jones has done that: written a rivetingly accessible work on recent advances in our understanding of ourselves, using the Bible as a framework. His narrative is structured around the Good Book's grand themes, from Genesis to Revelations, and weaves a series of unexpected facts into a coherent whole. The struggle of rationalism with its opposite has, after decades of torpor, returned to centre stage. Polemics against and in favour of religion and atheism fill the shelves. Instead of adding to that pile, Steve Jones stands back and take a fresh look at that issue in a volume that is not an attack or a defence but which explores scriptural motifs--Creation, the Garden of Eden, original sin, the Exodus, virgin birth, the Resurrection, and the Last Judgment--using the methods and results of the latest scientific research. It is a remarkably quick jump, shows Professor Jones, from Adam to astrophysics. Although some of the questions raised are beyond the capabilities of science, at least a scientist can ask them in a new way. Steve Jones shows there is a better route to understanding the universe than through doctrine.