Ancient stories invoking contemporary questions and providing insight for an uncertain future The Road to Kingship is the second volume in the A People and a Land trilogy and presents a chapter-by-chapter interpretation of 1–2 Samuel, based on the author’s translation. Johanna van Wijk-Bos reacquaints readers with familiar stories like David and Goliath while also introducing them to lesser-known biblical personalities like Doeg the Edomite and the wily servant Ziba. She offers guidance along the path taken by the Israelites during the rise of the united monarchy. The books of Samuel unfold before us with multiple voices. One voice endorses a spontaneous charismatic form of leadership, alongside another that argues for hereditary kingship. In listening to the different voices, we will prefer some rather than others; we may turn our backs on texts that sing a melody we are no longer able to join. As readers, we enter into the text with our questions and in our very questioning tentatively find a way forward and draw closer to the presence of the Most Holy.

From a renowned medieval historian comes a new biography of King John, the infamous English king whose reign led to the establishment of the Magna Carta and the birth of constitutional democracy King John (1166-1216) has long been seen as the epitome of bad kings. The son of the most charismatic couple of the middle ages, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and younger brother of the heroic crusader king, Richard the Lionheart, John lived much of his life in the shadow of his family. When in 1199 he became ruler of his family's lands in England and France, John proved unequal to the task of keeping them together. Early in his reign he lost much of his continental possessions, and over the next decade would come perilously close to losing his English kingdom, too. In King John, medieval historian Stephen Church argues that John's reign, for all its failings, would prove to be a crucial turning point in English history. Though he was a masterful political manipulator, John's traditional ideas of unchecked sovereign power were becoming increasingly unpopular among his subjects, resulting in frequent confrontations. Nor was he willing to tolerate any challenges to his authority. For six long years, John and the pope struggled over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a clash that led to the king's excommunication. As king of England, John taxed his people heavily to fund his futile attempt to reconquer the lands lost to the king of France. The cost to his people of this failure was great, but it was greater still for John. In 1215, his subjects rose in rebellion against their king and forced upon him a new constitution by which he was to rule. The principles underlying this constitution -- enshrined in the terms of Magna Carta -- would go on to shape democratic constitutions across the globe, including our own. In this authoritative biography, Church describes how it was that a king famous for his misrule gave rise to Magna Carta, the blueprint for good governance.

What does power and responsibility look like for Christian men in our world today? Becoming a King offers men a guide to becoming one to whom God can entrust his kingdom. Journey with Morgan Snyder as he walks alongside men (and the women who love and encourage them) to rediscover the path of inner transformation. Becoming a King is an invitation into a radical reconstruction of much of what we’ve come to believe about God, masculinity, and the meaning of life. Curated and distilled over more than two decades and drawn from the lives of more than seventy-five men, Morgan shares his discovery of an ancient and reliable path to restoring and becoming the kind of man who can wield power for good. With examples from the lives of the great heroes of faith as well as wise men from Morgan’s own life, break through doubt and discover the power of restoration. In Becoming a King, you will: Reconstruct your understanding of masculinity and who God truly intended you to be Learn to become a man of unshakable strength and courage Reclaim your identity, integrity, and purpose Traveling this path isn’t easy. But the heroic journey detailed within the pages of Becoming a King leads to real life—to men becoming as solid and mighty as oak trees, teeming with strength and courage to bring healing to a hurting world; and to sons, husbands, brothers, and friends becoming the kind of kings to whom God can entrust his kingdom.

The End of the Beginning presents a chapter-by-chapter interpretation of Joshua and Judges, based on the author’s translation. Johanna van Wijk-Bos accompanies the reader through the story of Israel from the entry into Canaan up to the time of Samuel. van Wijk-Bos weaves together the memories of ancient Israel’s past into a story that speaks to the traumatic context of postexilic Judah. The books of Joshua and Judges were written for education, edification, and entertainment. Some of the stories may exhilarate us, some may appall; all will speak to the imagination if we let them. They show a people forging a path forward into an uncertain future in the hope that God will forgive past failures and begin again with them. Christians enter the stories of Israel’s past as outsiders, while at the same time claiming a bond with the same God. We expect more from the text than lessons of the past intended for a different people. These are not our stories, but we too hope for insight and for a guiding word in our own uncertain future. This is the first volume of A People and a Land, a multi-volume work on the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.

In How Chiefs Became Kings, Patrick Vinton Kirch addresses a central problem in anthropological archaeology: the emergence of “archaic states” whose distinctive feature was divine kingship. Kirch takes as his focus the Hawaiian archipelago, commonly regarded as the archetype of a complex chiefdom. Integrating anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, traditional history, and theory, and drawing on significant contributions from his own four decades of research, Kirch argues that Hawaiian polities had become states before the time of Captain Cook’s voyage (1778-1779). The status of most archaic states is inferred from the archaeological record. But Kirch shows that because Hawai`i’s kingdoms were established relatively recently, they could be observed and recorded by Cook and other European voyagers. Substantive and provocative, this book makes a major contribution to the literature of precontact Hawai`i and illuminates Hawai`i’s importance in the global theory and literature about divine kingship, archaic states, and sociopolitical evolution.

France and England are often seen as monarchies standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of seventeenth-century European political culture. On the one hand the Bourbon monarchy took the high road to absolutism, while on the other the Stuarts never quite recovered from the diminution of their royal authority following the regicide of Charles I in 1649. However, both monarchies shared a common medieval heritage of sacral kingship, and their histories remained deeply entangled throughout the century. This study focuses on the interaction between ideas of monarchy and images of power in the two countries between the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the Glorious Revolution. It demonstrates that even in periods when politics were seemingly secularized, as in France at the end of the Wars of Religion, and in latter seventeenth- century England, the appeal to religious images and values still lent legitimacy to royal authority by emphasizing the sacral aura or providential role which church and religion conferred on monarchs.

David, King of the Jews, possessed every flaw and failing a mortal is capable of, yet men and women adored him and God showered him with many more blessings than he did Abraham or Moses. His sexual appetite and prowess were matched only by his violence, both on the battlefield and in the bedroom. A charismatic leader, exalted as "a man after God's own heart," he was also capable of deep cunning, deceit, and betrayal. Now, in King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel, bestselling author Jonathan Kirsch reveals this commanding individual in all his glory and fallibility. In a taut, dramatic narrative, Kirsch brings new depth and psychological complexity to the familiar events of David's life--his slaying of the giant Goliath and his swift challenge to the weak rule of Saul, the first Jewish king; his tragic relationship with Saul's son Jonathan, David's cherished friend (and possibly lover); his celebrated reign in Jerusalem, where his dynasty would hold sway for generations. Yet for all his greatness, David was also a man in thrall to his passions--a voracious lover who secured the favors of his beautiful mistress Bathsheba by secretly arranging the death of her innocent husband; a merciless warrior who triumphed through cruelty; a troubled father who failed to protect his daughter from rape and whose beloved son Absalom rose against him in armed insurrection. Weaving together biblical texts with centuries of interpretation and commentary, Jonathan Kirsch brings King David to life in these pages with extraordinary freshness, intimacy, and vividness of detail. At the center of this inspiring narrative stands a hero of flesh and blood--not the cartoon giant-slayer of sermons and Sunday school stories or the immaculate ruler of legend and art but a magnetic, disturbingly familiar man--a man as vibrant and compelling today as he has been for millennia.