Contending that its characterization as a Christian document has hindered interpretation, Marshall aims to uncover the formerly hidden Jewishness of the Book of Revelation of John. The focus is on four text complexes which describe the "synagogue of Satan;" those who keep the commandments of God; the 144,000 gathered on Zion; and the holy city. Coverage extends to a description of the social and cultural context of the diaspora during the Judean war. Marshall teaches early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism at the U. of Toronto. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Amos Wilder is widely known as a pioneer of an indigenously North American approach to biblical interpretation which takes language to be an expression not only of psychological but also of sociological and concrete reality. Recording the history of his interest in eschatological language, Wilder further advances the literary and rhetorical criticism of Scripture, especially by alerting interpreters to the deeper modes of language and communication often overlooked. The essays in this volume, recaptured and edited to clarify their relatedness, are presented in two groups. The first group includes essays that situate the parables of Jesus within the broader context of the biblical narrative. The second is a series of essays dealing with the problem of adequately interpreting the "kingdom language" of Jesus. The book includes an essay in which Wilder chronicles and advances his long interest in the task of doing justice to the imaginative dimension of biblical language. Wilder develops a contemporary hermeneutic that combines the full range of historical-critical methods with approaches generated by various modern disciplines which attempt to do full justice to the interrelationship of language and reality. The preface by James Breech offers an exposition of the main features of Wilder's hermeneutic, together with a discussion of Wilder's understanding of parabolic narrative and Jesus' symbolics.

Parables of Permanent War is a political, and, inescapably, moral chronicle of U.S. responses to the 9/11 attacks and the grave consequences at home and abroad. There is, or ought to be, no such thing as a 'permanent war, ' but U.S. elites are determined to pursue one. Bush's administration transformed a heinous criminal act of mass murder into a self-serving undeclared "war" against stateless foes. The authors reveal how a 'permanent war' suited the neoconservative advisors and the core of corporate and private donors that helped George W. Bush into office and shine a new light on the Bush administration's actions. Parables of Permanent War arranges essays around a number of parables, indicating the deeper dysfunctions and delusions that drive this ongoing "permanent war."

The parables of Jesus seem designed to sneak up on us and upend our assumptions. The familiar takes an unexpected turn and the listener's secret thoughts are exposed. In these twelve-session LifeGuide® Bible Study, John White invites us to lend an ear to thes greatest stories ever told—stories with power to reveal us to ourselves.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, competing scholarly communities sought to define a Spain that was, at least officially, entirely Christian, even if many suspected that newer converts from Islam and Judaism were Christian in name only. Unlike previous books on conversion in early modern Spain, however, Parables of Coercion focuses not on the experience of the converts themselves, but rather on how questions surrounding conversion drove religious reform and scholarly innovation. In its careful examination of how Spanish authors transformed the history of scholarship through debate about forced religious conversion, Parables of Coercion makes us rethink what we mean by tolerance and intolerance, and shows that debates about forced conversion and assimilation were also disputes over the methods and practices that demarcated one scholarly discipline from another.

Although the body has been the focus of much contemporary cultural theory, the models that are typically applied neglect the most salient characteristics of embodied existence—movement, affect, and sensation—in favor of concepts derived from linguistic theory. In Parables for the Virtual Brian Massumi views the body and media such as television, film, and the Internet, as cultural formations that operate on multiple registers of sensation beyond the reach of the reading techniques founded on the standard rhetorical and semiotic models. Renewing and assessing William James's radical empiricism and Henri Bergson's philosophy of perception through the filter of the post-war French philosophy of Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault, Massumi links a cultural logic of variation to questions of movement, affect, and sensation. If such concepts are as fundamental as signs and significations, he argues, then a new set of theoretical issues appear, and with them potential new paths for the wedding of scientific and cultural theory. Replacing the traditional opposition of literal and figural with new distinctions between stasis and motion and between actual and virtual, Parables for the Virtual tackles related theoretical issues by applying them to cultural mediums as diverse as architecture, body art, the digital art of Stelarc, and Ronald Reagan's acting career. The result is an intriguing combination of cultural theory, science, and philosophy that asserts itself in a crystalline and multi-faceted argument.

Outlines the parables of Jesus and discusses how each of the parables can be taught and preached.

What are the influences on war correspondents as they report on news in war-torn countries? Originally published in 1995, Mark Pedelty explores the lives, work and culture of an international press corps. He writes about the reporters who covered El Salvador’s civil war. Going beyond those specifics to look at the institutions, practices, myths, and rituals that pattern the work of journalists everywhere. He tells us the stories of war correspondents at work and at play, as they cover the news. The myth, developed in part from the movies we watch and from CNN, is that war is reported from the front lines. More often, it is reported from the front office as journalists sit around waiting for something "big" to happen. Pedelty looks at the context in which they construct their reports. "Unnamed" diplomats in the US Embassy feed stories to reporters, who are careful not to alienate these crucial sources by adding background information that might be perceived as ideological. Reporters are also constrained by the pens and preferences of editors who work to narrow the focus of news reporting, removing necessary context in the process. By examining how news stories are actually produced, Pedelty highlights the elusiveness of the goal of "objective" journalism. We see how the biases of war correspondents are connected to structures of power, and how these biases affect actual journalistic practices. Pedelty also explores alternative possibilities for war reporting, including emerging alternative international news services and ways to deepen reporters’ understandings of the countries and problems they cover. Influenced by anthropology, communication studies, cultural studies, and sociology, this book will interest scholars and students in those fields, as well as journalists and anyone who watches, reads or listens to news.

"Day of War" is a gritty, intense, stylistic portrait of the Mighty Men of Israel--a rag-tag band of disgruntled warriors on the run with David, the soon-to-be king, whose legendary deeds are recorded in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11.

Reagan’s War Stories examines the relationship between Ronald Reagan, the public and popular culture. From an overview of Reagan’s youth and the pulp fiction he consumed, we get a sense of the future president’s good/evil outlook. Carrying that over into Reagan’s reading and choices as president, Griffin situates narrative at the center of Reagan’s political formation and leadership providing a compelling account of both Reagan’s life, his presidency, and a lens into non-traditional strategy formulation. Author Ben Griffin tells three stories about an American president who ushered in the end of the Cold War. A survey of Reagan’s youth and the fiction he consumed and created as an announcer and actor, reveals how the future president’s worldview developed. A look at the rise of fiction and popular culture rife with pro-Americanism in the 1980s details a uniquely symbiotic relationship between the chief executive and popular culture in framing the Cold War as a struggle with an “Evil Empire” in the Soviet Union. Finally, Griffin outlines how presidential personality and reading preferences shaped President Reagan’s pursuit of the “Star Wars” initiative and belief in the transformative combination of freedom and technology. Griffin demonstrates that novels by Tom Clancy, Louis L’Amour, and science fiction influenced Reagan’s view of 1980s geopolitics. His identification with fiction led Ronald Reagan to view European Cold War issues with more empathy but harmed the president's policymaking when the narrowness of his reading led him to apply a white-hat/black-hat framework that did not match the reality of conflict in Latin America. Reagan treated fictional portrayals seriously, believing they shaped public views and offered valid ways to think through geo-political issues. Seeking to shape the reading habits of the public, his administration sought to highlight authors who shared his worldview like Tom Clancy, Louis L’Amour, and Allen Drury over other popular writers like Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre who portrayed the Cold War in less stark moral terms. The administration’s favored popular authors in turn intentionally incorporated Reagan-era policies into their work to advocate for them through fiction, thus reaching a broader audience than via official government releases and speeches. Showing how Reagan used narrative as both a consumer and a communicator, Griffin notes that Reagan identified with certain stories and they shaped him as a political leader and later and influenced his approach to complex issues. When handled deftly, incorporating fiction created a common language across the administration and provided a way to convey messages to the masses in a memorable fashion.