Bruce Chilton focuses on Jesus' teaching of the kingdom in this volume, part of the Studying the Historical Jesus series, a series devoted to exploring key questions concerning the historical Jesus within recent scholarly discussion.

In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women. In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Pure is “a revelation... Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account" (The Cut) of society’s larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).

How can Jesus said to be "missing"? References to Jesus are not missing, but rather a dimension of his identity. This text demonstrates that in order for us to understand Jesus and his influence, we need to see him within the context of the Judaism that was his own natural environment.

This classic survey (in its much revised edition of 1883) of the geography, government, literature, social life, arts and history of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants remains a valuable source of reference to scholars of the nineteenth century.

First published in 1900, this account of an American engineer's travels explores the industrial and economic development of China.

The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels is unique among reference books on the Bible, the first volume of its kind since James Hastings published his Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels in 1909. In the more than eight decades since Hastings, our understanding of Jesus, the Evangelists and their world has grown remarkably. New interpretive methods illumined the text, the ever-changing profile of modern culture has put new questions to the Gospels, and our understanding of the Judaism of Jesus's day has advanced in ways that could not have been predicted in Hastings's day. But for many readers of the Gospels the new outlook on the Gospels remains hidden within technical journals and academic monographs. The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels bridges the gap between scholars and those pastors, teachers, students and lay people desiring in-depth treatment of select topics in an accessible and summary format. The topics range from cross-sectional themes (such as faith, law, Sabbath) to methods of interpretation (such as form criticism, redaction criticism, sociological approaches), from key events (such as the birth, temptation and death of Jesus) to each of the four Gospels as a whole. Some articles - such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic traditions and revolutionary movements at the time of Jesus - provide significant background information to the Gospels. Others reflect recent and less familiar issues in Jesus and Gospel studies, such as divine man, ancient rhetoric and the chreiai. Contemporary concerns of general interest are discusses in articles covering such topics as healing, the demonic and the historical reliability of the Gospels. And for those entrusted with communicating the message of the Gospels, there is an extensive article on preaching from the Gospels. The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels presents the fruit of evangelical New Testament scholarship at the end of the twentieth century - committed to the authority of Scripture, utilising the best of critical methods, and maintaining dialog with contemporary scholarship and challenges facing the church.