Foreword by Walter Wink In recent years theologians and biblical scholars have begun to delve into the insights that come from the application of psychology to biblical texts. While these methods continue to be useful and popular, nowhere have the "foundational" texts in the field been collected. Wayne Rollins and Andrew Kille, who have both published and taught widely in the area of psychological biblical criticism, have assembled an excellent guide for those interested in this fascinating topic. Included in this anthology are articles from across the landscape, spanning over one hundred years and including such authors as Franz Delitzsch, M. Scott Fletcher, Max Weber, Walter Wink, and many other scholars.

Gain biblical insight into your heart, mind, and soul. Tracing how you relate to yourself, others, and God, this book explores moral and emotional complexities in light of scriptural truth. You’ll be better equipped to understand your inner life and be challenged to align your thinking with God’s Word.

The first introduction to the history and method of biblical-psychological interpretation.

How are Christians to understand and undertake the discipline of psychology? This question has been of keen interest because of the importance we place on a correct understanding of human nature.This collection of essays edited by Eric Johnson and Stanton Jones offers four different models for the relationship between Christianity and psychology.

For centuries scholars have been developing ways of studying the bible, through exegesis, historical critique, literary critique, form criticism, and narrative analysis. During the last half century new theoretical approaches have come to the fore. Psychological Hermeneutics takes as its starting point the text itself, and its context - the dynamics of the human document created, the person(s) who authored the text, the original audience for which it was intended, the subsequent audiences to which it spoke, and the factors that were at play behind, in, and in front of the text. The contributions to this volume examine the growth of Psychological Hermeneutics as a discipline within biblical studies. The book is structured in two parts. The first assesses the approach taken by Wayne G. Rollins, one of the pioneers of this field. The second provides applications of Rollins' approach. The result is a book which presents a state-of-the-art survey of the discipline and development of Psychological Hermeneutics over the last thirty years.

Following the standard progression of introductory study, the chapters of this book identify and discuss issues in tension between faith and psychology. Faw suggests that Christian perspectives bring needed diversity to the study of mind and behavior.

Fire and brimstone, bellowing prophets, and a good dose of old-fashioned sermonizing — these are the images the Bible brings to mind. But this assortment of sacred writings, in particular the Old Testament, is more than a collection of colorful allegories or miracles-and-morals mythology. Though written in the first millennium BCE, these holy writings are a nostalgic recounting of a lost 'super-religious' mentality that characterized the Bronze Age. The Psychology of the Bible explores how the Old Testament provides perspective into the tumultuous transition from an earlier mentality to a new paradigm of interiorized psychology and introspective religiosity that came to characterize the first millennium BCE. By examining the Old Testament's historical background and theopolitical context, utilizing linguistic analysis, and applying systems and communication theory, this book interprets biblical passages through a new lens. It analyzes divine voices, visions, and appearances of heavenly messengers — angel and prophets — as neurocultural phenomena and explains why they were so common. This book also answers why definitions of God changed so radically, illuminates the divinatory role of idols and other oracular aids (e.g. the Ark of the Covenant), provides a framework for appreciating why ‘wisdom literature' became so significant, and clarifies the linkages among music, poetry, and inspiration.