Genres > Christianity

Old Testament

Most Read This Week

Being God's Image: Why Creation Still Matters

Becoming God's Family: Why the Church Still Matters

Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins

Limping with God: Jacob & the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship

The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)

Typology-Understanding the Bible's Promise-Shaped Patterns: How Old Testament Expectations are Fulfilled in Christ

Five Views on the Exodus: Historicity, Chronology, and Theological Implications (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)

Lists

Biblical Fiction

320 books — 247 voters

The God of the Old Testament Is Not the Father of Jesus by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Paul Destroyed Jesus by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Christianity Presented a Most Confusing Bible and Called it—t... by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Christianity mainly saw Jesus as God, others as man, and stil... by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Christianity made Jesus’ Mission as taking people to heaven, ... by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol

Christianity Destroyed Jesus

13 books — 1 voter

The Price of Redeeming Love by Mike Cleveland

Holland, My Heart by Jennifer J. Coldwater

Book of Ruth - Fiction & Non-Fiction

68 books — 14 voters

The Resurrection Chronicles by Mike MacCarthy

Millionaire Janitor by Lorn Bergstresser

Miracle of the Rising Sun by Joseph Sciuto

The Scarlet Cord: Rahab (Biblical Fictional Retellings)

32 books — 45 voters

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark by Campbell Black

Raiders of the Lost Ark by Lawrence Kasdan

The Ark of the Covenant in Its Egyptian Context by David A. Falk

The Ark of the Covenant

54 books — 6 voters

The Garden of Ruth by Eva Etzioni-Halevy

Best Biblical Romances

9 books — 11 voters

Related Genres

Nonfiction
Religion
Spirituality
Parenting
Theology
Christianity
Faith
Marriage

Catholic
Christian Non Fiction
Church
Lds
New Testament
Old Testament
Religión
Relígion

Featured News & Interviews

Summer Encore: Don’t Miss These Very Recent Hit Books

Read »

“ I like how you call homosexuality an abomination." "I don't say homosexuality's an abomination, Mr. President, the bible does." "Yes it does. Leviticus-" "18:22" "Chapter in verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ...more ”
― Aaron Sorkin

33 likes

“ Though we recognize distinct cultural differences across time and place, the commonalities warrant our attention. To think about how these ancient commonalities need to be differentiated from our modern ways of thinking, we can use the metaphor of a cultural river, where the currents represent ideas and conventional ways of thinking. Among the currents in our modern cultural context we would find fundamentals such as rights, privacy, freedom, capitalism, consumerism, democracy, individualism, gl Though we recognize distinct cultural differences across time and place, the commonalities warrant our attention. To think about how these ancient commonalities need to be differentiated from our modern ways of thinking, we can use the metaphor of a cultural river, where the currents represent ideas and conventional ways of thinking. Among the currents in our modern cultural context we would find fundamentals such as rights, privacy, freedom, capitalism, consumerism, democracy, individualism, globalism, social media, market economy, scientific naturalism, an expanding universe, empiricism, and natural laws, just to name a few. As familiar as these are to us, such ways of thinking were unknown in the ancient world. Conversely, the ancient cultural river had among their shared ideas currents that are totally foreign to us. Included in the list we would find fundamental concepts such as community identity, the comprehensive and ubiquitous control of the gods, the role of kingship, divination, the centrality of the temple, the mediatory role of images, and the reality of the spirit world and magic. It is not easy for us to grasp their shape or rationale, and we often find their expression in texts impenetrable. In today’s world people may find that they dislike some of the currents in our cultural river and wish to resist them. Such resistance is not easy, but even when we might occasionally succeed, we are still in the cultural river—even though we may be swimming upstream rather than floating comfortably on the currents. This was also true in the ancient world. When we read the Old Testament, we may find reason to believe that the Israelites were supposed to resist some of the currents in their cultural river. Be that as it may (and the nuances are not always easy to work with), they remain in that ancient cultural river. We dare not allow ourselves to think that just because the Israelites believed themselves to be distinctive among their neighbors that they thought in the terms of our cultural river (including the dimensions of our theology). We need to read the Old Testament in the context of its own cultural river. We cannot afford to read instinctively because that only results in reading the text through our own cultural lenses. No one reads the Bible free of cultural bias, but we seek to replace our cultural lenses with theirs. Sometimes the best we can do is recognize that we have cultural lenses and try to take them off even if we cannot reconstruct ancient lenses. When we consider similarities and differences between the ancient cultural river and our own, we must be alert to the dangers of maintaining an elevated view of our own superiority or sophistication as a contrast to the naïveté or primitiveness of others. Identification of differences should not imply ancient inferiority. Our rationality may not be their rationality, but that does not mean that they were irrational. Their ways of thinking should not be thought of as primitive or prehistorical. We seek to understand their texts and culture, not to make value judgments on them. ...more ”
― John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

1 likes

More quotes...