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The Church’s Book

From the December 2018 Print Edition

The Bible in a Disenchanted Age:  The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith by r. w. l. moberly baker, 240 pages, $24.99 The Book of the People:  How to Read the Bible by a. n. wilson harper, 224 pages, $26.99  The Bible and the Believer:  How to Read the Bible Critically & . . . . Continue Reading »

Figure It In

From the June/July 2017 Print Edition

Time and the Word:Figural Reading of the Christian Scripturesby ephraim radnereerdmans, 326 pages, $50 Moderns are accustomed to taking premodern interpretations of the Bible to be products of a bygone time, when outmoded worldviews permitted naive, anachronistic interpretations of scriptural texts. . . . . Continue Reading »

All Things to All People

From the October 2016 Print Edition

Paul as a Problem in History and Culture: The Apostle and His Critics through the Centuriesby patrick graybaker, 274 pages, $32.99 Albert Schweitzer once remarked that the quest for the historical Jesus revealed more about the questers than it did about Jesus: They saw in the historical figure . . . . Continue Reading »

Go Figure

From the December 2015 Print Edition

Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness by richard b. hays baylor, 177 pages, $34.95 I n the heady days of the early Christian Church, Marcion was considered a very dangerous man. In the second half of the second century, bishops and theologians all over the Christian . . . . Continue Reading »

Treasury in Heaven

From the October 2014 Print Edition

Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition by gary a. anderson yale, 232 pages, $30 In the last few years there has been a subtle shift in our social and political discourse. While an earlier generation commenced a War on Poverty, we now deploy our military metaphors in the fight for . . . . Continue Reading »

Criticism’s Limits

From the January 2014 Print Edition

Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture, 1300–1700 by scott w. hahn and benjamin wiker crossroad, 624 pages, $59.95 What was once a bold and ­disciplined endeavor to recover the truth of the Scriptures had become, argued Cardinal Joseph . . . . Continue Reading »

Some Assembly Required

From the March 2013 Print Edition

Holy Scripture and the Quest for Authority at the End of the Middle Ages by Ian Christopher Levy University of Notre Dame, 332 pages, $38 As long as the Church has endured, the “quest for authority” has been a problematic enterprise. Christians have always agreed that the Scriptures are . . . . Continue Reading »

Payne’s Books of Job

From the May 2012 Print Edition

At the center of Alexander Payne’s moral vision stands the Little Human Being. His clever, contemporary comedies—most recently About Schmidt, Sideways, and The Descendants—are sympathetic to human fragility and yet not sentimental, honest about moral weakness but not cynical. The . . . . Continue Reading »