A leading womanist biblical scholar reads passages from the New Testament in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. The narratives and letters of the New Testament emerged from a particular set of historical contexts that differ from today’s, but they resonate with us because of how the issues they raise “rhyme” with subjects of contemporary relevance. Listening for these echoes of the present in the past, Love Sechrest utilizes her cultural experience and her perspective as a Black woman scholar to reassess passages in the New Testament that deal with intergroup conflict, ethnoracial tension, and power dynamics between dominant and minoritized groups. After providing an overview of womanist biblical interpretation and related terminology, Sechrest utilizes an approach she calls “associative hermeneutics” to place select New Testament texts in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. Topics include: antiracist allyship and Jesus’s interaction with marginalized individuals in the Gospel of Matthew cultural assimilation and Jesus’s teachings about family and acceptance in the Gospel of Luke gendered stereotypes and the story of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John the experience of Black women and girls in the American criminal justice system and the woman accused of adultery in the Gospel of John group identity and the incorporation of Gentiles into the early Jesus movement in Acts privilege and Paul’s claims to apostolic authority in 2 Corinthians coalition-building between diverse groups and the discussion of unity in Ephesians government’s role in providing social welfare and early Christians’ relationship to the Roman Empire in Romans and Revelation Through these creative and illuminating connections, Sechrest offers a rich bounty of new insights from Scripture—drawing out matters of justice and human dignity that spoke to early Christians and can speak still to Christians willing to listen today.

Includes CD with templates and project samples.

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If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content has obscured hip hop's revolution of poetic craft and experience: Only in rap music can the beat of a song render poetic meter audible, allowing an MC's wordplay to move a club-full of eager listeners. Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.

This book began as a learning exercise as the author endeavored to explain to his Russian-speaking students how rhyme and meter were used in the English language. Designed primarily as a reading aid and an educational tool, it's been created with the following ideas in mind: 1) Reading should be a fun experience. 2) It is not necessary to simplify the Bible to make it understandable for young audiences. 3) Pronounceability leads to usability. Children do not naturally have a harsh distinction between hard and easy words. Either a word is familiar or unknown. There's no need to shy away from advanced vocabulary if it is explainable. Vividly illustrated and meticulously crafted in a poetic style, while appealing to young readers, this is the Bible as it has never been rendered before. This first volume covers the entire book of Genesis, from Adam and Eve and the fall of Mankind to the eve of Israel's dramatic Exodus from Egypt.

Awards and honors for "Not So True Stories and Unreasonable Rhymes: Bank Street College, Best Books of the Year.