From celebrated translator of the Hebrew Bible Robert Alter, the "groundbreaking" (Los Angeles Times) book that explores the Bible as literature, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Renowned critic and translator Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative has radically expanded our view of the Bible by recasting it as a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In this seminal work, Alter describes how the Hebrew Bible's many authors used innovative literary styles and devices such as parallelism, contrastive dialogue, and narrative tempo to tell one of the most revolutionary stories of all time: the revelation of a single God. In so doing, Alter shows, these writers reshaped not only history, but also the art of storytelling itself.

An examination of the relationship between art and the Holy Scriptures.

Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year Named one of the best novels of the year by Time, Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune, Esquire, BBC, and many others National Bestseller "A blistering little classic." —Ron Charles, Washington Post A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.

Rediscover the incomparable literary richness and strength of a book that all of us live with an many of us live by. An international team of renowned scholars, assembled by two leading literary critics, offers a book-by-book guide through the Old and New Testaments as well as general essays on the Bible as a whole, providing an enticing reintroduction to a work that has shaped our language and thought for thousands of years.

Biblical allusions are found in great literature and in the daily newspaper as well. Rock musicians, screenwriters, television producers, and advertisers use the Bible as a source. Politicians use the words and accounts of the Bible to frame their debates.

In recent years biblical scholars and students have become increasingly interested in studying retellings of biblical stories in the arts, not only for their relation to the biblical text but also for the ‘story’ they have to tell (or, if they are not strictly ‘retellings’, for the light they might shed on the biblical text). The eight lively contributions to this volume illustrate a range of exciting approaches to retellings of the Bible in literature, music, art and film and reveal something of the scope of this fascinating and rapidly expanding area of inquiry. The present collection of essays appears concurrently in a special issue of the journal Biblical Interpretation. Since it was founded in 1993, Biblical Interpretation has played a key role in fostering the publication of articles in the newly developing area of the reception history of the Bible in the arts. (Originally published as issue 4-5 of Volume 15 (2007) of Brill's journal Biblical Interpretation)

The Academy of Parish Clergy’s 2018 Top Five Reference Books for Parish Ministry Beauty and holiness are both highly significant subjects in the Bible. In this comprehensive study of Christian fine art David Lyle Jeffrey explores the relationship between beauty and holiness as he integrates aesthetic perspectives from the ancient Hebrew Scriptures through Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant down to contemporary philosophers of art. From the walls of the Roman catacombs to the paintings of Marc Chagall, visual art in the West has consistently drawn its most profound and generative inspiration from biblical narrative and imagery. Jeffrey guides readers through this artistic tradition from the second century to the twenty-first, astutely pointing out its relationship not only to the biblical sources but also to related expressions in liturgy and historical theology. Lavishly illustrated throughout with 146 masterworks, reproduced in full color, In the Beauty of Holiness is ideally suited to students of Christian fine art, to devotees of biblical studies, and to general readers wanting to better understand the story of Christian art through the centuries.

Explores the works of five major American Jewish artists: Jack Levine, George Segal, Audrey Flack, Larry Rivers, and R. B. Kitaj. Focuses on the use of imagery influenced by the Bible.

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions, and passages from Alter's own critically acclaimed biblical translations, The Art of Biblical Poetry is an indispensable tool for understanding the Bible and its poetry.