In recent years, scholars from both Christian and Jewish backgrounds have tried to rethink the relationship between earliest Christianity and its Jewish milieu; and Paul has emerged as a central figure in this debate. The present book contributes to this scholarly discussion by seeing Paul and his Jewish contemporaries as, above all, readers of scripture. However different the conclusions they draw, they all endeavour to make sense of the same normative scriptural texts - in the belief that, as they interpret the scriptural texts, the texts will themselves interpret and illuminate the world of contemporary experience. In that sense, Paul and his contemporaries are standing on common ground. Far from relativizing their differences, however, it is this common ground that makes such differences possible. This book seeks to show how three distinct bodies of literature in fact constitute a single intertextual field. It is therefore necessary to dismantle artificial scholarly boundaries between the Pauline letters, other extant Jewish writings of the period, and the scriptural texts themselves. The method adopted is to set a Pauline and a non-Pauline reading of a scriptural text alongside one another, to compare the ways in which the different readings seek to realize the semantic potential of the scriptural text, and to construct communal identity on that basis. Contrary to the view that these early readers merely impose their own pre-existing viewpoints on the scriptural texts, it becomes clear that they are profoundly engaged in fundamental hermeneutical issues.

Product Description: What role does the interpretation of Scripture play in theological construction? In Reading the Decree David Gibson examines the exegesis of election in John Calvin and Karl Barth, and considers the relationship between election and Christology in their thought...read more

Product Description: Contends that new literary, canonical and feminist approaches make it possible to rethink the relationship of biblical studies to Christian theology.

Product Description: Issues of gender and sexuality have recently come to the fore in all humanities disciplines, and this book reflects this broad interdisciplinary situation. It focuses on issues of gender and sexuality (eros) in the light of the comprehensive divine-human love (agape) which, for the New Testament, lies at the heart of Christian faith and practice...read more

"a challenging new history of modern India, the authors explore the imaginative and institutional structures that have changed and sustained the country. While previous histories have been composed as handmaids of British nationalism or as products of emerging nationalist identities, this book challenges the notion that a continuous meaning can be applied to social categories such as "caste," "Hindu," "Muslim," or even "India, ." An initial chapter focuses on the period of Muslim dynasties that preceded colonial conquest, while the final chapter analyzes the dramatic recent events of the 1990s, including economic change, religious nationalism and India's emergence as a nuclear power. Illustrations and quotations from historical sources are integral to the narrative. Thomas R. Metcalf is Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley. His previous books inlcude An Imperial Vision (California, 1989) and Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1997). Barbara Metcalf is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. She is the editor of Making Muslim Space in North America " from Good Reads 192 pages

Product Description: Contends that new literary, canonical and feminist approaches make it possible to rethink the relationship of biblical studies to Christian theology. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Francis Watson advocates an approach in which biblical interpretation seeks to contribute directly to the work of Christian theological construction, thus restoring the status of the Bible as the holy scripture of the Christian community.

This book is novel in its questioning of the adequacy of interpreting Paul from the perspective of the Reformation and in its application of sociological methods to the New Testament.

An up-to-date survey of Western furniture styles and designs, from Roman to contemporary times, with hundreds of color photographs of individual pieces, accessories, and rooms

Surveys the centuries-old history of the sub-continent, from the lost Indus civilization to the modern independent state of India

Product Description: Art, Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures