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The Great Lady: Restoring Her Story

Published: Apr 2023
£85.00
In this, the eighteenth of Margaret Barker’s sequence of works on Temple Theology, she returns to give further and fuller attention to the figure of the Great Lady. Barker surveys the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament and non- canonical texts from both Jewish and Christian traditions—and undertakes a re-telling of the story of the Great Lady’s shadowy but enduring presence in community memory and later writings. This extensive volume has three parts: The Great Lady in the first temple, revered as the heavenly Mother of the Davidic kings until King Josiah’s purge in 623BCE. The Great Lady in the Book of Revelation, present in her ancient symbols and the hopes of her prophets, which Jesus knew. The Great Lady hidden in the teaching of Jesus and stories about him, explaining why she was so important in the world of the early Church. This close study of the Great Lady shows new significance in the words of the Hebrew prophets and the Qumran texts, and offers a new context for early Christian writings and so-called Gnostic texts. Barker shows how the first Christians brought the Great Lady back to their Temple Theology. She proposes that in this community Jesus her Son was the expected MelchiZedek and great high priest, and Mary of Nazareth was honoured as the Mother of God.  
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The Great Lady: Restoring Her Story

£85.00
In this, the eighteenth of Margaret Barker’s sequence of works on Temple Theology, she returns to give further and fuller attention to the figure of the Great Lady. Barker surveys the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament and non- canonical texts from both Jewish and Christian traditions—and undertakes a re-telling of the story of the Great Lady’s shadowy but enduring presence in community memory and later writings. This extensive volume has three parts: The Great Lady in the first temple, revered as the heavenly Mother of the Davidic kings until King Josiah’s purge in 623BCE. The Great Lady in the Book of Revelation, present in her ancient symbols and the hopes of her prophets, which Jesus knew. The Great Lady hidden in the teaching of Jesus and stories about him, explaining why she was so important in the world of the early Church. This close study of the Great Lady shows new significance in the words of the Hebrew prophets and the Qumran texts, and offers a new context for early Christian writings and so-called Gnostic texts. Barker shows how the first Christians brought the Great Lady back to their Temple Theology. She proposes that in this community Jesus her Son was the expected MelchiZedek and great high priest, and Mary of Nazareth was honoured as the Mother of God.  
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Habitats of the Basileia: Essays in Honour of Elaine M. Wainwright

Published: Jan 2024
£65.00
Habitats of the Basileia brings together some of the current and important work in biblical studies and theology, which takes seriously the demands and possibilities of applying contextual, feminist, decolonial, and ecological approaches to the critical study of the Bible and religion. The volume is inspired by the engaging work of Elaine M. Wainwright RSM; and invites us to imagine what thriving conditions and communities of the human and more-than-human might look like across multiple contexts. - What did it mean for those living in biblical times, or for the early Jesus movement who proclaimed an alternative basileia or kingdom against the backdrop of Roman imperial power? - What does it mean for various communities today, as we seek to understand and re-imagine what thriving conditions might look like in our own complex and often rapidly changing environments? Written by a diverse range of biblical, theological, and religious studies scholars, the chapters in this volume collectively argue for and demonstrate the importance of context and being attuned to social location in the production of biblical and theological scholarship. The essays are divided into three categories: the first seven chapters deal with the Gospel of Matthew, given the importance of this book to Elaine’s work. The next nine chapters explore biblical texts beyond Matthew through various lenses including those of gender, colonialism, the environment, animal studies, contextual hermeneutics, and class. The final three chapters are concerned with the legacies of both Elaine’s lifework and the broader avenues in current biblical research that have been nurtured and influenced through her efforts.

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Habitats of the Basileia: Essays in Honour of Elaine M. Wainwright

£65.00
Habitats of the Basileia brings together some of the current and important work in biblical studies and theology, which takes seriously the demands and possibilities of applying contextual, feminist, decolonial, and ecological approaches to the critical study of the Bible and religion. The volume is inspired by the engaging work of Elaine M. Wainwright RSM; and invites us to imagine what thriving conditions and communities of the human and more-than-human might look like across multiple contexts. - What did it mean for those living in biblical times, or for the early Jesus movement who proclaimed an alternative basileia or kingdom against the backdrop of Roman imperial power? - What does it mean for various communities today, as we seek to understand and re-imagine what thriving conditions might look like in our own complex and often rapidly changing environments? Written by a diverse range of biblical, theological, and religious studies scholars, the chapters in this volume collectively argue for and demonstrate the importance of context and being attuned to social location in the production of biblical and theological scholarship. The essays are divided into three categories: the first seven chapters deal with the Gospel of Matthew, given the importance of this book to Elaine’s work. The next nine chapters explore biblical texts beyond Matthew through various lenses including those of gender, colonialism, the environment, animal studies, contextual hermeneutics, and class. The final three chapters are concerned with the legacies of both Elaine’s lifework and the broader avenues in current biblical research that have been nurtured and influenced through her efforts.

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Judges: Once Upon a Time in Israel

Published: Jun 2023
£60.00
Judges is the Bible’s end-of-the-frontier epic. It depicts the first generations of Israelite life in Canaan and portrays a set of memorable protagonists, the “judges,” who were wild enough to tame a wilderness, but too wild to persist into the next era of royal courts, central shrines, and political states. The core of Judges consists of a series of narratives about the outlaws, warlords and war-ladies, mercenaries, and jackleg and priests and prophets from ancient Ephraim whose exploits were recounted in a series of redacted documents that, to the chagrin of pious readers over the centuries, ended up in the Bible, of all places. There is Ehud, the left-handed assassin on a grim solo labyrinthine mission in and out of an enemy fortress. There is Deborah, the alpha female who, in one chapter, commands an army and, in another, is credited with uttering her eponymous song, which deserves to be counted among the world’s great war poetry. There is Jael, the man-slaughtering Bedouin woman who is handy with a hammer. There is Gideon, the insecure hero who leads, in one story, an outnumbered elite band of warriors to victory over an enemy force of uncountable proportions and, in another story, a clannish vendetta filled with torture, arson, and revenge killings. There is the tale of Abimelech which traces the rise and fall of a gangster. There is Jephthah, the outcast summoned to rescue his tribe when they need his desperado skill set, but whose rash vow has fatal consequences for his daughter. Finally, there is Samson, one of folk literature’s most memorable characterizations, a walking, talking incarnation of unshaved, unbalanced hyper-masculinity. This reading of the tales of Judges as a set of adventure stories from the early centuries of alphabetic literacy requires that we dig through mounds of didactic, theological, moralistic, messianic, and nationalistic landfill in order to reclaim the full glory—and horror—of their dark violence and eroticism, as well as to marvel at the coarse folk poetry in the tales’ narration and dialogue.
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Judges: Once Upon a Time in Israel

£60.00
Judges is the Bible’s end-of-the-frontier epic. It depicts the first generations of Israelite life in Canaan and portrays a set of memorable protagonists, the “judges,” who were wild enough to tame a wilderness, but too wild to persist into the next era of royal courts, central shrines, and political states. The core of Judges consists of a series of narratives about the outlaws, warlords and war-ladies, mercenaries, and jackleg and priests and prophets from ancient Ephraim whose exploits were recounted in a series of redacted documents that, to the chagrin of pious readers over the centuries, ended up in the Bible, of all places. There is Ehud, the left-handed assassin on a grim solo labyrinthine mission in and out of an enemy fortress. There is Deborah, the alpha female who, in one chapter, commands an army and, in another, is credited with uttering her eponymous song, which deserves to be counted among the world’s great war poetry. There is Jael, the man-slaughtering Bedouin woman who is handy with a hammer. There is Gideon, the insecure hero who leads, in one story, an outnumbered elite band of warriors to victory over an enemy force of uncountable proportions and, in another story, a clannish vendetta filled with torture, arson, and revenge killings. There is the tale of Abimelech which traces the rise and fall of a gangster. There is Jephthah, the outcast summoned to rescue his tribe when they need his desperado skill set, but whose rash vow has fatal consequences for his daughter. Finally, there is Samson, one of folk literature’s most memorable characterizations, a walking, talking incarnation of unshaved, unbalanced hyper-masculinity. This reading of the tales of Judges as a set of adventure stories from the early centuries of alphabetic literacy requires that we dig through mounds of didactic, theological, moralistic, messianic, and nationalistic landfill in order to reclaim the full glory—and horror—of their dark violence and eroticism, as well as to marvel at the coarse folk poetry in the tales’ narration and dialogue.
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Effective Stories: Genesis Through the Lens of Resilience

Published: July 2023
£70.00
This book is the first monograph-length reading of a biblical book through the lens of resilience. Megan Warner first defines the lens and outlines its boundaries, before training it upon Genesis—to draw new, and often surprising, meaning out of a much-mined text. This innovative reading responds to the need for sustained readings of biblical text, not just in the spheres of resilience and vulnerability, but also in the closely connected interpretative field of trauma.

Warner demonstrates that the authors and editors of Genesis wrote and presented ‘effective stories’—i.e. stories designed to effect change. The devastation of the destruction of Jerusalem, the exile and dispiriting return are nowhere explicitly addressed in Genesis. It relates the history of much earlier events. Nevertheless, this reading exposes intimate engagement with these seminal disasters and the formulation of responses to them. Genesis reaches back into ancient history for the purpose of preparing a new and resilient road into an uncertain future. Amongst the contributions of this volume are:
 a presentation of Genesis’ two creation stories as concerted and complementary responses to the Babylonian crisis;
 the identification of an extensive book-wide project, focused on Abraham, to present a history of a united (albeit Judah-centred) Israel designed to challenge the Mosaic Yahwisms of the pre-exilic and exilic periods;
 exploration of patterns of use and recruitment of female characters for political means; and
 a sustained reading of the resilience of a single character, Joseph. Warner’s critical approach exposes limitations of the use of resilience as lens, but ultimately demonstrates its potential to go beyond trauma-centred approaches, to recognise innovative, practical and above all, effective, strategies for the construction of viable futures.
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Effective Stories: Genesis Through the Lens of Resilience

£70.00
This book is the first monograph-length reading of a biblical book through the lens of resilience. Megan Warner first defines the lens and outlines its boundaries, before training it upon Genesis—to draw new, and often surprising, meaning out of a much-mined text. This innovative reading responds to the need for sustained readings of biblical text, not just in the spheres of resilience and vulnerability, but also in the closely connected interpretative field of trauma.

Warner demonstrates that the authors and editors of Genesis wrote and presented ‘effective stories’—i.e. stories designed to effect change. The devastation of the destruction of Jerusalem, the exile and dispiriting return are nowhere explicitly addressed in Genesis. It relates the history of much earlier events. Nevertheless, this reading exposes intimate engagement with these seminal disasters and the formulation of responses to them. Genesis reaches back into ancient history for the purpose of preparing a new and resilient road into an uncertain future. Amongst the contributions of this volume are:
 a presentation of Genesis’ two creation stories as concerted and complementary responses to the Babylonian crisis;
 the identification of an extensive book-wide project, focused on Abraham, to present a history of a united (albeit Judah-centred) Israel designed to challenge the Mosaic Yahwisms of the pre-exilic and exilic periods;
 exploration of patterns of use and recruitment of female characters for political means; and
 a sustained reading of the resilience of a single character, Joseph. Warner’s critical approach exposes limitations of the use of resilience as lens, but ultimately demonstrates its potential to go beyond trauma-centred approaches, to recognise innovative, practical and above all, effective, strategies for the construction of viable futures.
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