The first sustained conversation between Marxism, postcolonialism, and psychoanalysis in biblical studies This volume pursues critical readings of the Bible that put psychoanalysis into conversation with Marxist and postcolonial criticism. In these essays psychoanalysis provides a way to mediate between Marxism's materialist groundings and postcolonialism's resistance against empire. The essays in the volume illuminate the way empire has shaped the biblical text by looking at the biblical texts' silences, ruptures, oversights, over-emphases, and inexplicable elements. These details are read as symptoms of a set of oppressive material relations that shaped and continue to haunt the text in the ascendancy of the text in the name of the West. Features: Essays and responses from multiple perspectives and geographical locations, including Africa, Australia, Oceania, Latin America, and North America Psychoanalysis that considers how the traumas of colonialism manifest both materially and psychically Close readings of biblical texts

"The field of Synoptic studies traditionally has had two basic foci. The question of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke are related to each other, what their sources are, and how the Gospels use their sources constitutes the first focus. Collectively, scholarship on the Synoptic Problem has tried to address these issues, and recent years have seen renewed interest and rigorous debate about some of the traditional approaches to the Synoptic Problem and how these approaches might inform the understanding of the origins of the early Jesus movement. The second focus involves thematic studies across the three Gospels. These are usually, but not exclusively, performed for theological purposes to tease out the early Jesus movement's thinking about the nature of Jesus, the motivations for his actions, the meaning of his death and resurrection, and his relationship to God. These studies pay less attention to the particular voices of the three individual Synoptic Gospels because they are trying to get to the overall theological character of Jesus"--

This book makes a case, from an ecumenical Christian perspective, for a theological anthropology and a missiology that are based on the essential significance of story, body, imagination, and relationality, in order to understand what it means to be human vis-à-vis God, the other, and creation. Such an interpretation, moreover, enables seeking and pursuing a common life for the whole creation in the force field of God’s radical and transformative reign. To advance its argument, it engages contemporary culture, including cinema and, to a lesser extent, fiction and music.

This essential introduction to contemporary constructive theology charts the most important disciplinary trends of the moment. It gives a historical overview of the field and discusses key hermeneutical and methodological concerns. The contributors apply a constructive perspective to a wide range of approaches, ranging from biblical hermeneutics and postcolonial studies to comparative, political, and black theology. What is Constructive Theology? shows how diverse and interdisciplinary constructive theology can be by exploring key themes in the field. The contributors explore the porous boundaries between Christianity and other religions, reflect on contextual, liberation and constructive theologies from Africa and from Black British perspectives, explore the connection between embodiment, epistemology and hermeneutics, and take a constructive approach to the dangerous memories and theologies of colonial histories in Belgium and Native Americans in the United States. This sampler of the field will help you rethink theologies and find constructive alternatives.

Over several decades, scholarship in New Testament and early Christianity has drawn attention both to the ways in which ancient Mediterranean conceptions of embodiment, sexual difference, and desire were fundamentally different from modern ones and also to important lines of genealogical connection between the past and the present. The result is that the study of "gender" and "sexuality" in early Christianity has become an increasingly complex undertaking. This is a complexity produced not only by the intricacies of conflicting historical data, but also by historicizing approaches that query the very terms of analysis whereby we inquire into these questions in the first place. Yet at the same time, recent work on these topics has produced a rich and nuanced body of scholarly literature that has contributed substantially to our understanding of early Christian history and also proved relevant to ongoing theological and social debates. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament provides a roadmap to this lively scholarly landscape, introducing both students and other scholars to the relevant problems, debates, and issues. Leading scholars in the field offer original contributions by way of synthesis, critical interrogation, and proposals for future questions, hypotheses, and research trajectories.

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism is a comprehensive treatment of a relatively new form of scholarship-one of the most compelling and contested theories to emerge in recent times, and a topic that actively seeks to expand the ways in which the Bible can be studied, interpreted, and applied. Generally speaking, postcolonialism aims to critique and dismantle hegemonic worldviews and power structures, while giving voice to previously marginalized peoples and systems of thought. This approach, often varied in form, has inevitably engaged with the text and reception of the Bible, a scripture that Western colonizers introduced to-and often imposed upon-their colonial subjects. With a globally diverse list of contributors, the Handbook aims to cover the perspective and context of the authors of the Bible, as well as the modern experiences of imperialism, resistance, decolonization, and nationalism. Moreover, the volume includes both a theoretical overview and an exploration of how the field intersects with related areas, such as gender studies, race, postmodernism, and liberation theology.

What is the current state of the field known as biblical studies? How will biblical studies continue to develop in this diverse, globalized, and digital age? In this book, a diverse group of scholars who are known for their innovative practice of biblical interpretation come together to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the critically acclaimed journal, Biblical Interpretation, by sharing their thoughts on and questions about the assumptions, practices, and parameters of biblical studies as well as their desires and fears about its disciplinary future. Covering a wide range of topics, geographical regions, resources, understandings, and viewpoints, this exceptional collection of essays will make you and help you rethink the conventions and convictions of biblical studies as an academic discipline.

This book surveys the current landscape of New Testament studies, offering readers a concise guide to contemporary discussions. Bringing together a diverse group of experts, it covers research on the most important issues in New Testament studies, including new discipline areas, making it an ideal supplemental textbook for a variety of courses on the New Testament. Michael Bird, David Capes, Greg Carey, Lynn Cohick, Dennis Edwards, Michael Gorman, and Abson Joseph are among the contributors.

Responses to the recent pandemic have been driven by fear, with social distancing and locking down of communities and borders as the most effective tactics. Out of fear and strategies that separate and isolate, emerges what has been described as the “new normal” (which seems to mutate daily). Truly global in scope, with contributors from across the world, this collection revisits four old responses to crises – assure, protest, trick, amend – to explore if/how those might still be relevant and effective and/or how they might be mutated during and after a global pandemic. Together they paint a grounded, earthy, context-focused picture of what it means to do theology in the new normal.

In this follow-up to They Were All Together in One Place? (2009) and Reading Biblical Texts Together (2022), biblical scholars from different racial/ethnic minoritized communities move beyond defining and pursing cross-cultural interpretation to investigating how spatial-geographical and temporal-historical locations affect the purposes and practices of minoritized biblical criticism today. Through an examination of a range of contemporary issues from HIV/AIDS to US immigration policy, contributors establish that how and why they engage the Bible are the result of the intersection of social and cultural factors. Contributors Cheryl B. Anderson, Hector Avalos†, Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Yii-Jan Lin, Vanessa Lovelace, Francisco Lozada Jr., Roger S. Nam, Aliou Cissé Niang, Hugh R. Page Jr., Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Fernando F. Segovia, Abraham Smith, and Vincent L. Wimbush demonstrate that interpretations carry broader implications for society and that scholars have ethical and political responsibilities to their communities and to the world.