Analyzes four biblical passages (Genesis 2-3, Hosea 1-3, Ezekiel 23, and Proverbs 7) in which a woman is the source or symbol of sin.

In the tradition of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, Poor Banished Children of Eve is the haunting saga of the Duval/Leveque clan of Maringouin County, Mississippi, a family tormented by a history of incest and insanity. The story revolves around beautiful, tempestuous Angelique Leveque whose mother Solange Duval Leveque had spent the past twenty-one years, since Angelique’s birth, locked in an upstairs bedroom “mad as a hatter,” as the townspeople said, a fact that no one seems to find peculiar. After all, doesn’t everyone have an insane woman locked in an upstairs bedroom? As the story begins, Angelique is about to be married to Charles Carrington, a “suitable young man,” with a secret and twisted torment of his own, and her impending marriage is breaking the hearts of the town’s young swains, not the least of which, two of her brothers. To add fuel to the fire, Antoine Babineaux returns from prison still in love with Angelique and determined to win her back. Thus begins the first tremors of a tidal wave of tragedy that sweeps over the family and the residents of Jezreel, Mississippi in a miasma of murder, insanity, incest and suicide, to finally reach and explosive and unorthodox climax where they find peace at last. Or do they?

In Poor Banished Children of Eve author Charles Cherry explores aspects of his life experiences and exposures, ranging from the trivial to the profound. He concludes that we are best served in navigating our ways by clinging tightly to our illusions, because neither meaning to life nor metaphysical truth in the variety of pathways devised to satisfy man's aspirations can be demonstrated.

An explosion is heard off the coast of seventeenth-century England, and a woman washes up on the shore. She is barely alive and does not speak English, but she asks for a priest . . . In Latin. She has a confession to make and a story to tell, but who is she and from where has she come? Cast out of her superstitious, Maltese family, Warda turns to begging and stealing until she is fostered by an understanding Catholic priest who teaches her the art of healing. Her willful nature and hard-earned independence make her unfit for marriage, and so the good priest sends Warda to serve an anchorite, in the hope that his protégé will discern a religious vocation. Such a calling Warda never has the opportunity to hear. Barbary pirates raid her village, capture her and sell her into slavery in Muslim North Africa. In the merciless land of Warda's captivity, her wits, nerve, and self-respect are tested daily, as she struggles to survive without submitting to total and permanent enslavement. As she is slowly worn down by the brutality of her circumstances, she comes to believe that God has abandoned her and falls into despair, hatred, and a pattern of behavior which, ironically, mirrors that of her masters. Poor Banished Children is the tale of one woman's relentless search for freedom and redemption. The historical novel raises challenging questions about the nature of courage, free will, and ultimately salvation. - An award-winning European novelist presents a powerful story of mystery, adventure, peril, suffering, faith, and courage - A thrilling historical novel that explores the life and cultures of 17th century England, Malta and Africa - A challenging work that tells the story of one woman's relentless search for freedom and redemption amidst great suffering, loneliness and despair

It is 1897 and Victorian Sunderland is preparing to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen. However a more audacious plan is also taking place in the bustling town. A plan that will throw the usually sedate community into turmoil and disarray. Be transported to the nineteenth century by this heart-warming story of intrigue and passion based on a real life event.

Evangelical and feminist approaches to Old Testament interpretation often seem to be at odds with each other. The authors of this volume argue to the contrary: feminist and evangelical interpreters of the Old Testament can enter into a constructive dialogue that will be fruitful to both parties. They seek to illustrate this with reference to a number of texts and issues relevant to feminist Old Testament interpretation from an explicitly evangelical point of view. In so doing they raise issues that need to be addressed by both evangelical and feminist interpreters of the Old Testament, and present an invitation to faithful and fruitful reading of these portions of Scripture.

Notions of women as found in the Bible have had an incalculable impact on western cultures, influencing perspectives on marriage, kinship, legal practice, political status, and general attitudes. Women and Exilic Identity in the Hebrew Bible is drawn from three separate strands to address and analyse this phenomenon. The first examines how women were conceptualized and represented during the exilic period. The second focuses on methodological possibilities and drawbacks connected to investigating women and exile. The third reviews current prominent literature on the topic, with responses from authors. With chapters from a range of contributors, topics move from an analysis of Ruth as a woman returning to her homeland, and issues concerning the foreign presence who brings foreign family members into the midst of a community, and how this is dealt with, through the intermarriage crisis portrayed in Ezra 9-10, to an analysis of Judean constructions of gender in the exilic and early post-exilic periods. The contributions show an exciting range of the best scholarship on women and foreign identities, with important consequences for how the foreign/known is perceived, and what that has meant for women through the centuries.

This book explores the use of the Bible among Latino/a theologians today. Latino/a Theology emerged in the 1980s, alongside a broad variety of contextual theological movements and discourses following the Latino/a movement and the formation of Latino/a Studies in the 1960s and 1970s. While much work has been done on biblical interpretation in Latino/a biblical criticism, little can be found regarding interpretation in Latino/a theological reflection. To address this gap in the literature, the contributors, from various ecclesial affiliations and religious traditions, examine the status and role of the Bible in Latino/a Theology.