Religion

From the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, a hugely entertaining and irreverent (Adam Gopnik, New Yorker) account of the art of translating the Hebrew Bible into English

In this brief book, award-winning biblical translator and acclaimed literary critic Robert Alter offers a personal and passionate account of what he learned about the art of Bible translation over the two decades he spent completing his own English version of the Hebrew Bible.

Alter's literary training gave him the advantage of seeing that a translation of the Bible can convey the text's meaning only by trying to capture the powerful and subtle literary style of the biblical Hebrew, something the modern English versions don't do justice to. The Bible's style, Alter writes, "is not some sort of aesthetic embellishment of the 'message' of Scripture but the vital medium through which the biblical vision of God, human nature, history, politics, society, and moral value is conveyed." And, as the translators of the King James Version knew, the authority of the Bible is inseparable from its literary authority.

For these reasons, the Bible can be brought to life in English only by re-creating its literary virtuosity, and Alter discusses the principal aspects of style in the Hebrew Bible that any translator should try to reproduce: word choice, syntax, word play and sound play, rhythm, and dialogue. In the process, he provides an illuminating and accessible introduction to biblical style that also offers insights about the art of translation far beyond the Bible.

Jesus said, "The truth shall set you free," which, by implication, must mean, "The false will imprison you." From personal experiences in his ministry through comedy, Brad Stine has chosen eleven concepts to consider as a Christian, like:

- All "true" Christians will be offended by the same things and
- Sinners are worse people than I am.

Are they really true, or do we just believe them to be credible--even though there's no biblical support for them? More importantly, how does the belief in their veracity affect non-believers if we're wrong?

Brad has carefully considered these ideas, as well as lived many of them. Some of you reading this may disagree with some of his conclusions, but if this book causes you to reevaluate what your faith means to you and in what shape it can come to you, then it has done its job.

Christians are different from each other in our theology, denominations, and social interactions, and you know what? That's AS IT SHOULD BE! Christians who have taken the "If you don't all behave exactly like me, then you're not really a Christian" road have done the greatest disservice to furthering the Gospel!

"Brad Stine is a treasure! He delivers hard-hitting truth while being insanely funny, as though George Carlin had been filled with the Holy Ghost! We need much more of his voice in our culture."
-- Eric Metaxas, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Bonhoeffer and host of the nationally-syndicated Eric Metaxas Show

Today's right-wing Evangelical Christianity stands as the very antithesis of the message of Jesus Christ. In his new book, Christians Against Christianity, best-selling author and religious scholar Obery M. Hendricks Jr. challenges right-wing evangelicals on the terrain of their own religious claims, exposing the falsehoods, contradictions, and misuses of the Bible that are embedded in their rabid homophobia, their poorly veiled racism and demonizing of immigrants and Muslims, and their ungodly alliance with big business against the interests of American workers.

He scathingly indicts the religious leaders who helped facilitate the rise of the notoriously unchristian Donald Trump, likening them to the "court jesters" and hypocritical priestly sycophants of bygone eras who unquestioningly supported their sovereigns' every act, no matter how hateful or destructive to those they were supposed to serve.

In the wake of the deadly insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol, Christians Against Christianity is a clarion call to stand up to the hypocrisy of the evangelical Right, as well as a guide for Christians to return their faith to the life-affirming message that Jesus brought and died for. What Hendricks offers is a provocative diagnosis, an urgent warning that right-wing evangelicals' aspirations for Christian nationalist supremacy are a looming threat, not only to Christian decency but to democracy itself. What they offer to America is anything but good news.

Scripture's abiding relevance can inspire great goodness, such as welcoming the stranger and extending compassion for the poor. But its authority has also been wielded to defend slavery, marginalize LGBTQ individuals, ignore science, and justify violence. Grounded in close readings of scripture and tradition in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, religious scholar Rachel Mikva shows us that the Abrahamic religions have always been aware of their tremendous power both to harm and to heal. And so they have transmitted their sacred stories along with built-in tools--interpretive traditions--to do the necessary work of taking on dangerous religious ideas and fostering self-critical faith.

By exploring the themes of Scripture, Election, Reward and Punishment, Mikva examines how the interpretive methodologies of these religions have identified and grappled with their perilous power and positive potential. Many readers presume that their understanding of scripture's meaning is absolute, forgetting how these sacred texts and the history of interpretation have valued multiple perspectives and recognized ongoing rhythms of change. It's not a modern phenomenon to debate the nature of truth, hold space open for doubt, value humility, and question our capacity to know things--especially about God and God's will--with certainty. In fact, none of the traditions could remain vital or thrive together without a sustained practice of self-critique. Dangerous Religious Ideas reframes the way we talk about faith to create a space where public discussion of religion is more constructive, nuanced, and socially engaged.

'A masterpiece' - Vanity Fair (Italy)

After the best-seller The End is My Beginning, co-authored with his father Tixiano Terzani, the long-awaited Folco Terzani's comeback with an extraordinary harmony of words and images, a simple and profound story about nature, friendship and the sense of the divine.

The Dog, was always used to the comforts and safety of domestic life, suddenly finds himself abandoned on the street, convinced that without his beloved master he will not be able to survive. Then a mysterious Wolf appears that will lead him to the discovery of the wild nature that the city hides and forbids. Thus, begins a long pilgrimage, a journey of initiation to the north, in the company of a pack of wolves, through caves, waterfalls, forests, mountains and lightning storms. In order to survive, the Dog will learn to hunt and will be forced to face many dangers, until he arrives at Moon Mountain where, immersed in the blinding glacier light, he will finally have to face the biggest question of all.

"Listen and attend with the ear of your heart." - Saint Benedict.

Dolores Hart stunned Hollywood in 1963, when after ten highly successful feature films, she chose to enter a contemplative monastery. Now, fifty years later, Mother Dolores gives this fascinating account of her life, with co-author and life-long friend, Richard DeNeut.

Dolores was a bright and beautiful college student when she made her film debut with Elvis Presley in Paramount's 1957 Loving You. She acted in nine more movies with other big stars such as Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn and Myrna Loy. She also gave a Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway play The Pleasure of His Company and appeared in television shows, including The Virginian and Playhouse 90. An important chapter in her life occurred while playing Saint Clare in the movie Francis of Assisi, which was filmed on location in Italy.

Born Dolores Hicks to a complicated and colorful Chicago family, Mother Dolores has travelled a charmed yet challenging road in her journey toward God, serenity and, yes, love. She entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, at the peak of her career, not in order to leave the glamorous world of acting she had dreamed of since childhood, but in order to answer a mysterious call she heard with the "ear of the heart." While contracted for another film and engaged to be married, she abandoned everything to become a bride of Christ.

Bible journaling is an incredible way to connect to Scripture. By creating art next to sacred text, your understanding of it will deepen, as will the meaning of your most precious hopes and prayers. But while you may be excited to start journaling, it can be hard to know where and how to start! That's where A Girl's Guide to Bible Journaling comes in.

With an easy-to-follow introduction on lettering, explanations of the various tools you'll need, step-by-step instructions on creating the alphabet, and tips on how to design your layout, you'll be journaling in your Bible in no time! From colored pencil to watercoloring, you'll learn how to create beautiful, inspired artwork in the margins of your Bible, even if you're a complete beginner.

Looking to delve deeper? You'll also learn other strategies for Bible journaling, including utilizing the margins for sermon notes, personal prayers, Bible study, Scripture meditation, and more.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the most revered religious leaders of the 20th century, and God in Search of Man and its companion volume, Man Is Not Alone, two of his most important books, are classics of modern Jewish theology. God in Search of Man combines scholarship with lucidity, reverence, and compassion as Dr. Heschel discusses not man's search for God but God's for man--the notion of a Chosen People, an idea which, he writes, signifies not a quality inherent in the people but a relationship between the people and God. It is an extraordinary description of the nature of Biblical thought, and how that thought becomes faith.

A great mystery lies at the heart of the Bible. Early on, people seem to live in a world entirely foreign to our own. God appears to Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and others; God buttonholes Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah and tells them what to say. Then comes the Great Shift, and Israelites stop seeing God or hearing the divine voice. Instead, later Israelites are "in search of God," reaching out to a distant, omniscient deity in prayers, as people have done ever since. What brought about this change?
The answers come from ancient texts, archaeology and anthropology, and even modern neuroscience. They concern the origins of the modern sense of self and the birth of a worldview that has been ours ever since. James Kugel, whose strong religious faith shines through his scientific reckoning with the Bible and the ancient world, has written a masterwork that will be of interest to believers and nonbelievers alike, a profound meditation on encountering God, then and now.

What happens when we die? A recent Pew Research poll showed that 72% of Americans believe in a literal heaven and 58% believe in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. But eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught.

So where did these ideas come from?

In this "eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for those who are damned. Some of these accounts take the form of near death experiences, the oldest on record, with intriguing similarities to those reported today.

One of Ehrman's startling conclusions is that there never was a single Greek, Jewish, or Christian understanding of the afterlife, but numerous competing views. Moreover, these views did not come from nowhere; they were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. Only later, in the early Christian centuries, did they develop into notions of eternal bliss or damnation widely accepted today.

In this "elegant history" (The New Yorker), Ehrman helps us reflect on where our ideas of the afterlife come from. With his "richly layered-narrative" (The Boston Globe) he assures us that even if there may be something to hope for when we die, there certainly is nothing to fear.

New York Times Bestseller

The renowned and beloved New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World and Learning to Walk in the Dark recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching the world's religions to undergraduates in rural Georgia, revealing how God delights in confounding our expectations.

Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey begun in Leaving Church of finding out what the world looks like after taking off her clergy collar. In Holy Envy, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students' eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques.

Troubled and inspired by what she learns, Taylor returns to her own tradition for guidance, finding new meaning in old teachings that have too often been used to exclude religious strangers instead of embracing the divine challenges they present. Re-imagining some central stories from the religion she knows best, she takes heart in how often God chooses outsiders to teach insiders how out-of-bounds God really is.

Throughout Holy Envy, Taylor weaves together stories from the classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been complicated and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions--even those whose truths are quite different from hers. The one constant in her odyssey is the sense that God is the one calling her to disown her version of God--a change that ultimately enriches her faith in other human beings and in God.