Throughout the last several decades professional biblical scholars have adapted concepts and theories from the social sciences – particularly social and cultural anthropology – in order to cast new light on ancient biblical writings, early Jewish and Christian texts that circulated with the Scriptures, and the various contexts in which these literatures were produced and first received. The present volume of essays draws much of its inspiration from that same development in the history of biblical research, while also offering insights from other, newer approaches to interpretation. The contributors to this volume explore a wide range of broadly social-scientific disciplines and discourses – cultural anthropology, sociology, archaeology, political science, the New Historicism, forced migration studies, gender studies – and provide multiple examples of the ways in which these diverse methods and theories can shed new and often fascinating light on the ancient texts. The fruit of scholarly work that is both international in flavour and truly collaborative, this volume provides fresh perspectives not only on familiar portions of Jewish and Christian Scripture but also on select passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library and previously untranslated French texts.

Although the cry for justice in human society is an important theme in the Bible, in many church and academic circles action for and discourse about social justice is carried on without a thorough exploration of this theme in Scripture. This volume brings together chapters by experts in the various sections of the Old and New Testaments to give a full spectrum of what the Bible has to say about social justice, and to point to ways forward for Christians seeking to think and act in harmony with God in pursuing social justice in the world today.

These essays provide a panoramic view of current thinking on biblical texts that play important roles in contemporary struggles for social justice. Here, from the hands of an ecumenical array of leading biblical scholars, are fresh and compelling resources for thinking biblica...

This book centres on the use of the Bible within contemporary digital social media culture and gives an overview of its use online with examples from brand-new research from the CODEC Research Centre at Durham University, UK. It examines the shift from a propositional to a therapeutic approach to faith from a sociological standpoint. The book covers two research projects in particular: the Twitter Gospels and Online Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It explores the data as they relate to Abby Day’s concept of performative belief, picking up on Mia Lövheim’s challenge to see how this concept works out in digital culture and social media. It also compares the data to various construals of contemporary approaches to faith performative faith, including Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton’s concept of moralistic therapeutic deism. Other research is also compared to the findings of these projects, including a micro-project on Celebrities and the Bible, to give a wider perspective on these issues in both the UK and the USA. As a sociological exploration of Digital Millennial culture and its relationship to sacred texts, this will be of keen interest to scholars of Biblical studies, religion and digital media, and contemporary lived religion.

What do Christians do with the Bible? How do theyùindividually and collectivelyùinteract with the sacred texts? Why does this engagement shift so drastically among and between social, historical, religious, and institutional contexts? Such questions are addressed in a most enlightening, engaging, and original way in The Social Life of Scriptures. Contributors offer a collection of closely analyzed and carefully conducted ethnographic and historical case studies, covering a range of geographic, theological, and cultural territory, including: American evangelicals and charismatics; Jamaican Rastafarians; evangelical and Catholic Mayans; Northern Irish charismatics; Nigerian Anglicans; and Chinese evangelicals in the United States. The Social Life of Scriptures is the first book to present an eclectic, cross-cultural, and comparative investigation of Bible use. Moreover, it models an important movement to outline a framework for how scriptures are implicated in organizing social structures and meanings, with specific foci on gender, ethnicity, agency, and power.

For the first time, one volume includes a discourse analysis of every writing in the New Testament. Discourse analysis of written texts involves examining units of language higher than the sentence and considering how the author used those units of language to accomplish communicative purposes. But discourse analysis is not a clearly defined method. Rather, it is a linguistic perspective that provides numerous ways to approach and better comprehend a discourse. For this reason, most analysts bring their own unique research questions about a discourse and, therefore, their own methodology. Each author in this volume explains their methodology, presents a macrostructure of the discourse, and then analyzes microstructures and other aspects of the discourse that support the proposed macrostructure. The reader is able to see each methodology on display, each with their emphases, strengths, and potential weaknesses. Each chapter also provides the reader with a useful analysis of the discourse as a holistic unit, which will aid students, pastors, and scholars in studying entire New Testament writings to see how each part contributes to the whole.

With so many people around the globe migrating, how should Christians and the church respond? Leading Latino-American biblical scholar M. Daniel Carroll R. (Rodas) helps readers understand what the Bible says about immigration, offering accessible, nuanced, and sympathetic guidance for the church. After two successful editions of Christians at the Border, and having talked and written about immigration over the past decade, Carroll has sharpened his focus and refined his argument to make sure we hear clearly what the Bible says about one of the most pressing issues of our day. He has reworked the biblical material, adding insights and broadening the frame of reference beyond the US. As Carroll explores the surprising amount of material in the Old and New Testaments that deals with migration, he shows how this topic is fundamental to the message of the Bible and how it affects our understanding of God and the mission of the church.