The Story: We know next to nothing of the man Saul of Tarsus. Sauls home was Tarsus. He was a Jew and proudly a Pharisee. More importantly, he was a zealot. He studied under the great rabbi Gamaliel. We know nothing of his father, not even his name, except he was a Roman citizen. Since Sauls living came from tent-making, we can speculate that his father was a tent-maker I have endeavored to recreate Sauls early life and experiences on the basis of what we do know from the scriptures and from first-century Jewish culture. To this are added logical suppositions. This is a fictionalized history of Saul up to the beginning of his ministries to the Gentiles, when he became the Apostle Paul. The book introduces Sauls family and presents a theory of why Scripture is silent about them. Its narrative explores his early developing of zeal for the Law. It suggests early romance and why Saul never married. It explores his early training under the great Rabbi Gamaliel. It shows Sauls growing hatred of Christians and his zeal at persecuting them. It examines Sauls conversion and the changed and disruptions that entails. It speculates his being in the school of Christ during three years in Nabatean desert. It follows Saul in his first evangelistic ventures. It looks into his tentative approach to the Disciples of Jesus. It speculates on initial meetings and development of relationships with Barnabus and Silas. It explores some of the chastisements Saul received as a result of preaching the Gospel.

"A masterpiece of contemporary Bible translation and commentary."—Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books of 1999 Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

Offers a lively and provocative account of what we can learn about Jesus by reading the letters of Paul, providing fresh new insights into both Jesus and Paul. The author painstakingly recreates the world of Christ, a time rich with ideas, prophets, factions, priests, savants and god-drunk fanatics. He insistently stresses throughout the Jewishness of Jesus (e.g., referring to Jesus and Paul as Yeshua and Saul, as they were then known). Equally important, he dismisses the traditional method of searching for facts about Jesus by looking for parallels among the four Gospels; they were handed down to us as a unit by a later generation, he argues. Saul, although he did not know Yeshua personally, knew his most important followers and wrote immediately after Yeshua's death. His teachings were approved (though sometimes reluctantly) by Yeshua's brothers and other early leaders.

“They know the world is dying, but they hope not in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, they’re top dogs and will do anything to stay that way.” Doig Gray is fifteen when his father is killed in a mining accident, which Doig comes to realizes was no accident. Torn from his mother and sister, Doig is sent off to college, his every movement monitored in case he has inherited his dissident father’s unacceptable attitudes . . . or passwords. Doig has nothing but his own sense that there’s something desperately wrong with the world—and a last name that evokes the assumption that he’s destined to be the next traitor-hero. The Traitor’s Son is a science fiction novel about a colony world where everything that could go wrong already has. Stuck on the wrong world at the wrong site, with the wrong leaders, the colony is doomed to extinction unless immediate steps are taken to correct—everything. But 500 years of hiding from the reality of their situation has created an unchallengeable status quo—and the Accident Squad, determined to ensure it remains that way. The Traitor’s Son is a fast-paced SF adventure in the best tradition of Duncan’s Hero, West of January, and Eocene Station.

A sustained close reading of 1 Samuel 8 to 2 Samuel 1 from the perspective of the intended ancient audience. A conscious effort is made here to read and understand the text 'through the eyes of an ancient Israelite', to the extent that the world-view and idioms of late seventh-century Judah can be reconstructed. The study reveals a coherent, carefully developed narrative of Saul's career as the first king of Israel.

King Saul is based on the Biblical story of the first king of Israel. It retells the story in a fresh way, offering new looks at the three major characters--Saul, Samuel, and David--and the events that brought them together at the very foundation of the nation of Israel three millennia ago. Holbert's retelling reveals how this old story is surprisingly modern as it turns its gaze on power politics, personal rivalries, and religious use and abuse as the life of early Israel unfolds.

This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. The Bible portrays King David as an exceptional man and a paragon of godly devotion. But was he? Some scholars deny that he existed at all. Did he? This challenging book examines the written and archaeological evidence critically in an effort to paint an accurate picture of one of the Bible's central figures. Neither defending nor rejecting the traditions about David, Baruch Halpern, a leading scholar of biblical history and the ancient Near East, traces the origins of development of David's persona. Because the biblical text clearly responds to concerns that can only be contemporary with David himself, we can believe that David was both real and a central actor in the historical drama of ancient Israel. Yet at the same time, the written record also shows that contemporaries understood David's character to be much more unsavory trhan the tradition has hitherto allowed. Halpern digs beneath the layers of tradition to understand David as an individual, as a person. The man he uncovers turns out to have been complex, ambiguous, and -- above all -- surprising. According to Halpern, the image of David grew over time. He was the founder of the dynasty that perpetuated the texts about him, and they progressively exaggerated his accomplishments. But in the earliest writings David remains a modest figure, as this book shows for the first time. To understand David as a human being, one must keep in mind that he was primarily a politicians who operated in a rough-and-tumble environment in which competitors were ready literally to slit throats. Halpern's work raises many provocative questions: Was David an Israelite or a Philistine? Was Solomon really David's son? Did David take the throne of Israel by the consent or against the will of the people? How many murders did he commit on his way to the crown? Indeed, was David someone it would have been wise to even invite to dinner? The challenging arguments in David's Secret Demons are sure to provoke all kinds of discussion among biblical scholars and general readers alike. In addition -- a big bonus -- Halpern's accessible, at times humorous prose will itself draw readers everywhere into the compelling story of David found between these covers.

These stories simplify what can be a confusing period of biblical history, presenting events in the order in which they occurred. Stories taken from the first and second books of Samuel, Psalms, and First and Second Chronicles tell of Saul's hunt for David and David's rise to power as King.