Leviticus is often seen as one of the most uninviting books of the Old Testament. Who wants to read about blood sacrifice, infectious diseases, or ancient dietary restrictions? Yet like visiting any foreign country, to truly appreciate its culture one must become familiar with the language, customs, and ways of the people. This book guides the perplexed reader through the foreign signs, symbols, and beliefs of the ancient Israelites. From blood and atonement to the loveable rock badger, we begin to discover the sacred world of Leviticus and its relationship to a holy God who dwells with his people. The rituals and commands God gave to Israel form the deep roots of the biblical tradition that were not meant to be left in the past. Tapping into these roots helps us understand the life and ministry of Christ and how we might pursue holiness today. Each chapter surveys key aspects of Leviticus and then explores how these relate to the New Testament and the life of faith in the twenty-first century. In this accessible and engaging travel log, Scarlata introduces the depth and beauty of Israelite practices prescribed by God that were further revealed in Christ and continue to speak to the life and faith of Christians today.

Leviticus is often seen as one of the most uninviting books of the Old Testament. Who wants to read about blood sacrifice, infectious diseases, or ancient dietary restrictions? Yet like visiting any foreign country, to truly appreciate its culture one must become familiar with the language, customs, and ways of the people. This book guides the perplexed reader through the foreign signs, symbols, and beliefs of the ancient Israelites. From blood and atonement to the loveable rock badger, we begin to discover the sacred world of Leviticus and its relationship to a holy God who dwells with his people. The rituals and commands God gave to Israel form the deep roots of the biblical tradition that were not meant to be left in the past. Tapping into these roots helps us understand the life and ministry of Christ and how we might pursue holiness today. Each chapter surveys key aspects of Leviticus and then explores how these relate to the New Testament and the life of faith in the twenty-first century. In this accessible and engaging travel log, Scarlata introduces the depth and beauty of Israelite practices prescribed by God that were further revealed in Christ and continue to speak to the life and faith of Christians today.

For many Christians, the book of Leviticus is largely unknown and unread. Yet this book is crucial for understanding the rest of the Bible and the nature of the gospel. In this BST volume, Derek Tidball demonstrates how Leviticus serves as a preliminary sketch of the masterpiece that was to be unveiled in Christ, testifying to a faith that sets God's people free to be holy.

This volume in the popular Interpretation series presents the book of Leviticus. It focuses on the history of Israel during this time when Israel's life was marked by the various ritual sacrifices and observances commanded by God for the ordering of the nation's life. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

Few treatments of the death of Jesus Christ have made a point of accounting for the gruesome, degrading, public manner of his death by crucifixion, a mode of execution so loathsome that the ancient Romans never spoke of it in polite society. Rutledge probes all the various themes and motifs used by the New Testament evangelists and apostolic writers to explain the meaning of the cross of Christ. She shows how each of the biblical themes contributes to the whole, with the Christus Victor motif and the concept of substitution sharing pride of place along with Irenaeus's recapitulation model.

"[The Book of] Revelation has served as a "language arsenal" in a great many of the social, cultural, and political conflicts in Western history. Again and again, Revelation has stirred some dangerous men and women to act out their own private apocalypses. Above all, the moral calculus of Revelation—the demonization of one's enemies, the sanctification of revenge taking, and the notion that history must end in catastrophe—can be detected in some of the worst atrocities and excesses of every age, including our own. For all of these reasons, the rest of us ignore the book of Revelation only at our impoverishment and, more to the point, at our own peril." The mysterious author of the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse, as the last book of the New Testament is also known) never considered that his sermon on the impending end times would last beyond his own life. In fact, he predicted that the destruction of the earth would be witnessed by his contemporaries. Yet Revelation not only outlived its creat∨ this vivid and violent revenge fantasy has played a significant role in the march of Western civilization. Ever since Revelation was first preached as the revealed word of Jesus Christ, it has haunted and inspired hearers and readers alike. The mark of the beast, the Antichrist, 666, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are just a few of the images, phrases, and codes that have burned their way into the fabric of our culture. The questions raised go straight to the heart of the human fear of death and obsession with the afterlife. Will we, individually or collectively, ride off to glory, or will we drown in hellfire for all eternity? As those who best manipulate this dark vision learned, which side we fall on is often a matter of life or death. Honed into a weapon in the ongoing culture wars between states, religions, and citizenry, Revelation has significantly altered the course of history. Kirsch, whom the Washington Post calls "a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing to modern audiences," delivers a far-ranging, entertaining, and shocking history of this scandalous book, which was nearly cut from the New Testament. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Black Death, the Inquisition to the Protestant Reformation, the New World to the rise of the Religious Right, this chronicle of the use and abuse of the Book of Revelation tells the tale of the unfolding of history and the hopes, fears, dreams, and nightmares of all humanity.

Wenham's study on the Book of Leviticus is a contribution to The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Like its companion series on the New Testament, this commentary devotes considerable care to ahieving a balance between technical information and homiletic-devotional interpretation.

A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as "Holy Scripture," a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context--from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries. It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren't), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world--and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible's literal wording--which is impossible to determine--and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.

How can creatures made from dust become members of God's household "forever"? In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Michael Morales explores the narrative context, literary structure and theology of Leviticus, following its dramatic movement from the tabernacle to the temple—and from the earthly to the heavenly Mount Zion in the New Testament.

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the Bible. When we read Scripture we often imagine that the world inhabited by the Bible's characters was much the same as our own. We would be wrong. The biblical world is an ancient world with a flat earth that stands at the center of the cosmos, and with a vast ocean in the sky, chaos dragons, mystical mountains, demonic deserts, an underground zone for the dead, stars that are sentient beings, and, if you travel upwards and through the doors in the solid dome of the sky, God's heaven--the heart of the universe. This book takes readers on a guided tour of the biblical cosmos with the goal of opening up the Bible in its ancient world. It then goes further and seeks to show how this very ancient biblical way of seeing the world is still revelatory and can speak God's word afresh into our own modern worlds.