This heartwarming picture book (based on a true story) depicts a day in the life of Hosea Taylor, a musician who--with his charm, talent, and generosity--brought joy to everyone he met. Every day, Hosea takes the Number 42 bus into the city to play his shiny brass saxophone--and to hopefully earn enough money. Setting up in his favorite place, Hosea makes sweet music as people greet him with a smile, a little girl dances, and crowds surround him. A surprise ending reveals what the money is really for. Kathleen Blasi's delightful text and Shane Evan's colorful images capture the real-life closeness between the much-loved Hosea--who shared his passion for music and life with everyone--and his community. An Author's Note explains how Blasi learned about Hosea Taylor (1948-2016), and what compelled her to write his story.

In this volume, a list of esteemed scholars engage with the literary readings of prophetic and poetic texts in the Hebrew Bible that revolve around sensitivity to the complexity of language, the fragility of meaning, and the interplay of texts. These themes are discussed using a variety of hermeneutical strategies. In Part 1, Poets and Poetry, some essays address the nature of poetic language itself, while others play with themes of love, beauty, and nature in specific poetic texts. The essays in Part 2, Prophets and Prophecy, consider prophets and prophecy from a number of interpretive directions, moving from internal literary analysis to the reception of these texts and their imagery in a range of ancient and modern contexts. Those in Part 3, on the other hand, Texts in Play, take more recent works (from Shakespeare to Tove Jansson's Moomin books for children) as their point of departure, developing conversations between texts across the centuries that enrich the readings of both the ancient and modern pieces of literature.

J. Andrew Dearman considers the prophetic figure's historical roots in the covenant traditions of ancient Israel, includes his own translation of the biblical text, and masterfully unpacks Hosea's poetic, metaphorical message of betrayal, judgment, and reconciliation. --from publisher description

Hosea, Joel, and Obadiah Through the Centuries The first book devoted solely to the reception history of Hosea, Joel, and Obadiah How have readers through the centuries understood the prophet Hosea’s marriage to an unfaithful woman? Does the prophet Joel really speak about a locust invasion, or is he referring to invading armies? How should we understand the harsh rhetoric that Obadiah uses about Judah’s neighbor Edom? In Hosea, Joel, and Obadiah Through the Centuries, Bradford A. Anderson provides historical context for these prophetic texts and traditions while offering original insights into their interpretation, use, and impact. Chapter-by-chapter commentary examines the use of these texts in different religious communities, surveys various commentaries and interpretive traditions, and addresses the social and cultural employment of these prophetic works in literature, music, the visual arts, and more. Each prophetic text is introduced by a chapter containing a brief history of interpretation and discussion of key historical, literary issues, theological, thematic, and rhetorical issues, as well as the religious, social, and cultural reception of the prophet and the book. Throughout the text, recurring “conversation partners” high-light important and interesting trajectories in the afterlives of the prophetic books. Encompassing Christian, Jewish, and modern critical reception, Hosea, Joel, and Obadiah Through the Centuries is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students working on these prophetic works, and a must-have resource for scholars, clergy, and religious leaders interested in how the prophets have been employed over the millennia.

Hosea's bold imagery--a recounting of his own marriage to a prostitute--sets the stage for his message of God's enduring love, righteous judgment and persistent offer of reconciliation. David Allan Hubbard explores the historical, cultural, literary and theological dimensions of Hosea's life and message.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Nina Dobrev, with Logan Marshall Green and Eric Dane, special appearance by Famke Janssen. Distributed by Universal Pictures with a screenplay by Francine Rivers and D.J. Caruso. California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep. Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside. Then she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything. Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw. But with her unexpected softening comes overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband’s pursuing love, terrified of the truth she no longer can deny: her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael does . . . the One who will never let her go. A powerful retelling of the story of Gomer and Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love. Includes a six-part reading group guide!

Sharon Moughtin-Mumby considers the often unrecognised impact of different approaches to metaphor on readings of the prophtic sexual and marital metaphorical language. She outlines a practical and consciously simplified approach to metaphor, placing strong emphasis on the influence of literary context on metaphorical meaning. Drawing on this approach, she read Hosea 4-14, Jeremiah 2:1-4:4, Isaiah, Ezekiel 16 and 23, and Hosea 1-3 with fresh eyes. Her lucid new readings reveal the way in which scholarship has repeatedly stifled the prophetic metaphorical language by reading it within the 'default contexts' of 'the marriage metaphor' and 'cultic prostitution', which for so many years have been simply assumed. Readers are encouraged instead to read these diverse metaphors and similes within their distinctive literary contexts in which they have the potential to rise vividly to life, provoking the question: how are we to respond to these disquieting, powerful texts in the midst of the Hebrew Bible?