For Regina Schwartz, we ignore the dark side of the Bible to our peril. The perplexing story of Cain and Abel is emblematic of the tenacious influence of the Bible on secular notions of identity - notions that are all too often violently exclusionary, negatively defining "us" against "them" in ethnic, religious, racial, gender, and nationalistic terms. In this compelling work of cultural and biblical criticism, Schwartz contends that it is the very concept of monotheism and its jealous demand for exclusive allegiance - to one God, one Land, one Nation or one People - that informs the model of collective identity forged in violence, against the other.

A spine-chilling companion to Long Lankin, here is the story of a wronged witch’s revenge, spanning generations and crossing the shadowy line between life and death. In 1567, baby Aphra is found among the reeds and rushes by two outcast witches. Even as an infant, her gifts in the dark craft are clear. But when her guardians succumb to an angry mob, Aphra is left to fend for herself. She is shunned and feared by all but one man, the leper known as Long Lankin. Hounded and ostracized, the two find solace only in each other, but even this respite is doomed, and Aphra’s bitterness poisons her entire being. Afflicted with leprosy, tortured and about to be burned as a witch, she manages one final enchantment—a curse on her tormentor’s heirs. Now, in 1962, Cora and Mimi, the last of a cursed line, are trapped in an ancient home on a crumbling estate in deepest winter, menaced by a spirit bent on revenge. Are their lives and souls forfeit forever?

How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery. Goldenberg begins by examining a host of references to black Africans in biblical and postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color, and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He goes on to ask when the black African first became identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment of pertinent biblical passages. Authoritative, fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery, and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

For few verses in the Bible is the relationship between scripture and the artistic imagination more intriguing than for the conclusion of Genesis 4:15: "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him." What was the mark of Cain? The answers set before us in this sensitive study by art historian Ruth Mellinkoff are sometimes poignant, frequently surprising. An early summary of rabbinic answers, for examples runs as follows: R. Judah said: "He caused the orb of the sun to shine on his account." Said R. Nehemiah to him: "For that wretch He would cause the orb of the sun to shine! Rather, he caused leprosy to break out on him...." Rab said: "He gave him a dog." Abba Jose said: "He made a horn grow out of him." Rab said: "He made him an example to murderers." R. Hanin said: "He made him an example to penitents." R. Levi said in the name of R. Simeon b. Lakish: "He suspended judgment until the flood came and swept him away." After a review of such early Jewish and Christian exegesis, Mellinkoff divides physical interpretations on the mark into three groups: "A Mark on Cain's Body," "A Movement of Cain's Body," and "A Blemish Associated with Cain's Body." Her discussion of these groups is the heart of her study and offers its richest examples of interplay among medieval art and imaginative literature, on the one hand, and biblical exegesis, on the other. Thus in one remarkable tour de force, she shows us how a poetic misprision of Genesis 4:24 - "Sevenfold vengeance will be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold" - made Lamech the murderer of Cain; how there then grew up the legend that Lamech, a hunter, had killed Cain when he mistook him for an animal; how from that, the notion that the mark of Cain was a horn or horns on Cain's head arose (in the poignant formulation of the Tanhuma Midrash: "Oh father, you have killed something that resembles a man except it has a horn on its forehead!"); and how from that, in the maturity of the legend, there flowered Cornish drama, Irish saga, and stunning reliefs of a dying, antlered Cain in the cathedrals of Vezelay and Autun. Like Genesis 4:15 itself, 'The Mark of Cain' is suggestive rather than comprehensive. Concluding chapters on "Intentionally Distorted Interpretations of Cain's Mark" and "Cain's Mark and the Jews" bring the history down to our own day, but Mellinkoff does not claim to have said the last word on the subject. Her achievement is neither documentary nor exegetical but rather demonstrative: she shows us with brilliant economy how the artistic imagination functioned in a world whose intellectual definition was a closed canonical text.

In an exquisitely chilling debut novel, four children unravel the mystery of a family curse — and a ghostly creature known in folklore as Long Lankin. When Cora and her younger sister, Mimi, are sent to stay with their elderly aunt in the isolated village of Byers Guerdon, they receive a less-than-warm welcome. Auntie Ida is eccentric and rigid, and the girls are desperate to go back to London. But what they don’t know is that their aunt’s life was devastated the last time two young sisters were at Guerdon Hall, and she is determined to protect her nieces from an evil that has lain hidden for years. Along with Roger and Peter, two village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries — before it’s too late for little Mimi. Riveting and intensely atmospheric, this stunning debut will hold readers in its spell long after the last page is turned.

Hailed as "the most radical repackaging of the Bible since Gutenberg", these Pocket Canons give an up-close look at each book of the Bible.

A mystery is solved by folklore and esoteric knowledge of tattooing.

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

Written by Booth's Great-Grandson, thrice removed, "The Curse Of Cain" retells, in dramatic form, another version of the Booth saga. This work will tantalize readers with insights and details known only to the immediate family, giving a new perspective on this crucial moment in American history.

How did Jews understand sacred writing before the concepts of "Bible" and "book" emerged? The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity challenges anachronistic categories to reveal new aspects of how ancient Jews imagined written revelation-a wildly varied collection stretching back to the dawn of time, with new discoveries always around the corner.