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The Subversive Chronicler: Narrative Film Theory and Canon Criticism Refocus his Intention

Published: Nov 2019
£55.00
In 1 and 2 Chronicles, commentators have long noted a pattern of retributive justice whereby kings who comply with Yahweh's will are rewarded with long life and honourable burial, whereas those who do not are disgraced. However, another pattern significantly emerges from a group of kings whose careers display an unexpected reversal. No convincing consensus has yet emerged to explain this reversal pattern. By exploring and adopting the insights of narrative film theory, particularly of cognitive film semiotics, into the effects of macro-repetition, Son uncovers the implications of these unexpected reversals. As the reversal pattern is interwoven with the retributive pattern, the narrative emerges as a falsifying narration, provoking a deep scepticism about the conventional view of retribution theology. Deleuzian film theory offers a crucial insight into how this falsifying narration works. The reversal pattern has a destabilizing effect, which suggests that the Chronicler's theological outlook is more nuanced than that of Samuel —Kings, or perhaps even frankly subversive of it. From a canonical perspective, furthermore, the presence of the Chronicler's work in the Ketuvim points to its potential function as a subtle theological readjustment in the postexilic Jewish community. The Subversive Chronicler is then a challenge to the Chronicler's theology as it is commonly understood and also as a refocusing of its difference from the historiography of Samuel —Kings.
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The Subversive Chronicler: Narrative Film Theory and Canon Criticism Refocus his Intention

£55.00
In 1 and 2 Chronicles, commentators have long noted a pattern of retributive justice whereby kings who comply with Yahweh's will are rewarded with long life and honourable burial, whereas those who do not are disgraced. However, another pattern significantly emerges from a group of kings whose careers display an unexpected reversal. No convincing consensus has yet emerged to explain this reversal pattern. By exploring and adopting the insights of narrative film theory, particularly of cognitive film semiotics, into the effects of macro-repetition, Son uncovers the implications of these unexpected reversals. As the reversal pattern is interwoven with the retributive pattern, the narrative emerges as a falsifying narration, provoking a deep scepticism about the conventional view of retribution theology. Deleuzian film theory offers a crucial insight into how this falsifying narration works. The reversal pattern has a destabilizing effect, which suggests that the Chronicler's theological outlook is more nuanced than that of Samuel —Kings, or perhaps even frankly subversive of it. From a canonical perspective, furthermore, the presence of the Chronicler's work in the Ketuvim points to its potential function as a subtle theological readjustment in the postexilic Jewish community. The Subversive Chronicler is then a challenge to the Chronicler's theology as it is commonly understood and also as a refocusing of its difference from the historiography of Samuel —Kings.
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Simulating Aichele: Essays in Bible, Film, Culture and Theory

Published: Oct 2015
£55.00
Simulating Aichele pays tribute to the title of George Aichele's 2011 book, Simulating Jesus. In contemporary biblical scholarship, Aichele is a notable leader whose writings explore the problems of meaning and referentiality in the Bible and in biblical texts found in non-biblical contexts. His close readings of canonical texts alongside 'the fantastic' in film, television and literature reveal the relationships between texts and intertexts. Such juxtapositions expose gaps and liberate strange voices in the Bible and break the stranglehold of canonical ideologies. Aichele shows how the afterlives of biblical texts simultaneously produce present and past realities by simulating both. These afterlives not only pull ancient texts into the present but in the process also change the precursor text(s). This Festschrift presents some of the afterlives of Aichele's research in Bible, film, culture and theory. Exercises in intertextuality and textual liberation include Yvonne Sherwood's reading of Jacob and Esau alongside a Sierra Leone twin story 'Kanu and the Book'; Richard Walsh's pairing of Jesus' final lament in Mark with Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony'; Tina Pippin's exploration of the afterlives of Jesus' baptism in Mark; Gary A. Phillips's ethical imagining of Martha as the Levinasian Other; and Scott S. Elliott's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 9 in light of Roland Barthes' 'Neutral'. Other contributors explore Bible and film. Robert Paul Seesengood and Jennifer L. Koosed review recent apocalyptic films; Fred W. Burnett analyses the greatest contemporary slacker, the Dude, from The Big Lebowski; and Erin Runions compares the panoptic desire for complete knowledge found in 1 Corinthians and A Scanner Darkly. Finally, Roland Boer looks at the unexpected afterlives of Hebrew and Christian scriptures in Lenin's speeches, and Stephen D. Moore offers a retrospective essay on postmodernism and biblical studies.
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Simulating Aichele: Essays in Bible, Film, Culture and Theory

£55.00
Simulating Aichele pays tribute to the title of George Aichele's 2011 book, Simulating Jesus. In contemporary biblical scholarship, Aichele is a notable leader whose writings explore the problems of meaning and referentiality in the Bible and in biblical texts found in non-biblical contexts. His close readings of canonical texts alongside 'the fantastic' in film, television and literature reveal the relationships between texts and intertexts. Such juxtapositions expose gaps and liberate strange voices in the Bible and break the stranglehold of canonical ideologies. Aichele shows how the afterlives of biblical texts simultaneously produce present and past realities by simulating both. These afterlives not only pull ancient texts into the present but in the process also change the precursor text(s). This Festschrift presents some of the afterlives of Aichele's research in Bible, film, culture and theory. Exercises in intertextuality and textual liberation include Yvonne Sherwood's reading of Jacob and Esau alongside a Sierra Leone twin story 'Kanu and the Book'; Richard Walsh's pairing of Jesus' final lament in Mark with Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony'; Tina Pippin's exploration of the afterlives of Jesus' baptism in Mark; Gary A. Phillips's ethical imagining of Martha as the Levinasian Other; and Scott S. Elliott's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 9 in light of Roland Barthes' 'Neutral'. Other contributors explore Bible and film. Robert Paul Seesengood and Jennifer L. Koosed review recent apocalyptic films; Fred W. Burnett analyses the greatest contemporary slacker, the Dude, from The Big Lebowski; and Erin Runions compares the panoptic desire for complete knowledge found in 1 Corinthians and A Scanner Darkly. Finally, Roland Boer looks at the unexpected afterlives of Hebrew and Christian scriptures in Lenin's speeches, and Stephen D. Moore offers a retrospective essay on postmodernism and biblical studies.
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Biblical Reception 3 (2014)

Published: Oct 2015
£80.00
This is the third volume of the journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec), published in November 2013. When we founded the journal our policy was this: it was high time, we believed, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any 'original' meaning. Our journal was a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation. Editorial Board Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Washington, DC), Alan Cooper (New York), James Crossley (Sheffield), Andrew Davies (Birmingham), Tamara C. Eskenazi (Los Angeles), Philip Esler (Gloucester), Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher (Linz), John Harvey (Aberystwyth), Christine Joynes (Oxford), Carol Newsom (Atlanta), Martin O'Kane (Lampeter), Tina Pippin (Decatur, GA), John F.A. Sawyer (Durham), Reinhold Zwick (Münster).
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Biblical Reception 3 (2014)

£80.00
This is the third volume of the journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec), published in November 2013. When we founded the journal our policy was this: it was high time, we believed, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any 'original' meaning. Our journal was a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation. Editorial Board Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Washington, DC), Alan Cooper (New York), James Crossley (Sheffield), Andrew Davies (Birmingham), Tamara C. Eskenazi (Los Angeles), Philip Esler (Gloucester), Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher (Linz), John Harvey (Aberystwyth), Christine Joynes (Oxford), Carol Newsom (Atlanta), Martin O'Kane (Lampeter), Tina Pippin (Decatur, GA), John F.A. Sawyer (Durham), Reinhold Zwick (Münster).
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The Bible Retold by Jewish Artists, Writers, Composers and Filmmakers

Published: Oct 2015
£60.00
Helen Leneman and Barry Dov Walfish, both specialists in biblical reception history, have compiled an unusually rich collection of new essays by experts in their fields. This book is a pioneering attempt to portray and analyse the visions of twentieth- and twenty-first century Jewish artists working in different media —visual art, literature (novels, poetry and short stories), music (opera, oratorio and song), and film —who have retold biblical narratives through their art. Reading these essays together will bring a new appreciation and understanding of what makes the perspective of these visual artists, writers, composers and filmmakers on the Hebrew Bible uniquely Jewish. All of these Jewish visions can be considered a form of modern midrash, as the artists imaginatively fill in gaps in the biblical narrative, bringing a modern sensibility to the meanings of the stories. Under the heading 'Biblical Women', the stories of the matriarchs, Hagar, and other biblical women are re-imagined in the visual arts, poetry and music. Several further chapters focus on the story of the Aqedah (Binding of Isaac), as represented in the visual arts, literature and music. Other retellings of biblical narratives through short stories are then examined, while yet other chapters explore the books of Esther and Psalms as envisioned and retold in the visual arts, opera, literature and film. These retellings, analysed and discussed by the authors of this ground-breaking volume, will stimulate the reader to view the texts in new ways or to confront their challenge to personal or traditional interpretations of those texts.
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The Bible Retold by Jewish Artists, Writers, Composers and Filmmakers

£60.00
Helen Leneman and Barry Dov Walfish, both specialists in biblical reception history, have compiled an unusually rich collection of new essays by experts in their fields. This book is a pioneering attempt to portray and analyse the visions of twentieth- and twenty-first century Jewish artists working in different media —visual art, literature (novels, poetry and short stories), music (opera, oratorio and song), and film —who have retold biblical narratives through their art. Reading these essays together will bring a new appreciation and understanding of what makes the perspective of these visual artists, writers, composers and filmmakers on the Hebrew Bible uniquely Jewish. All of these Jewish visions can be considered a form of modern midrash, as the artists imaginatively fill in gaps in the biblical narrative, bringing a modern sensibility to the meanings of the stories. Under the heading 'Biblical Women', the stories of the matriarchs, Hagar, and other biblical women are re-imagined in the visual arts, poetry and music. Several further chapters focus on the story of the Aqedah (Binding of Isaac), as represented in the visual arts, literature and music. Other retellings of biblical narratives through short stories are then examined, while yet other chapters explore the books of Esther and Psalms as envisioned and retold in the visual arts, opera, literature and film. These retellings, analysed and discussed by the authors of this ground-breaking volume, will stimulate the reader to view the texts in new ways or to confront their challenge to personal or traditional interpretations of those texts.
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Trauma Begets Genealogy: Gender and Memory in Chronicles

Published: Apr 2015
£60.00
Establishing a connection to the past while at the same time releasing us into the present is crucial to recalling a traumatic past. Tapping into the Book of Chronicles' genealogies as a memory space, Trauma Begets Genealogy facilitates the transformation of the act of looking back into a key for the present. Using a gender studies perspective, it combines a nuanced analysis of the gendered references in 1 Chronicles 1 —9 with an interdisciplinary approach that conceptualizes genealogies as memory performances and investigates them in diverse media. The genealogies of Chronicles are here read by Ingeborg Löwisch alongside the post-Holocaust documentary My Life Part 2, in which Berlin film-maker Angelika Levi performs her 'gynealogy' at the intersection of her family archive and of discourses that belong to public memory. While Löwisch's close reading of the gendered fragments in Chronicles attest to fissures in the patrilinear succession, the parallel perception of the film deepens our understanding of gendered genealogies in response to trauma by contributing a full female lineage. The resulting reassessment of an obscure set of biblical texts leads into the heart of the genealogical tissue and its fascinating ability to respond to a fractured past. This is the eighth volume of the Amsterdam Studies in the Bible and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner), a sub-series of the Bible in the Modern World and of Hebrew Bible Monographs.
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Trauma Begets Genealogy: Gender and Memory in Chronicles

£60.00
Establishing a connection to the past while at the same time releasing us into the present is crucial to recalling a traumatic past. Tapping into the Book of Chronicles' genealogies as a memory space, Trauma Begets Genealogy facilitates the transformation of the act of looking back into a key for the present. Using a gender studies perspective, it combines a nuanced analysis of the gendered references in 1 Chronicles 1 —9 with an interdisciplinary approach that conceptualizes genealogies as memory performances and investigates them in diverse media. The genealogies of Chronicles are here read by Ingeborg Löwisch alongside the post-Holocaust documentary My Life Part 2, in which Berlin film-maker Angelika Levi performs her 'gynealogy' at the intersection of her family archive and of discourses that belong to public memory. While Löwisch's close reading of the gendered fragments in Chronicles attest to fissures in the patrilinear succession, the parallel perception of the film deepens our understanding of gendered genealogies in response to trauma by contributing a full female lineage. The resulting reassessment of an obscure set of biblical texts leads into the heart of the genealogical tissue and its fascinating ability to respond to a fractured past. This is the eighth volume of the Amsterdam Studies in the Bible and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner), a sub-series of the Bible in the Modern World and of Hebrew Bible Monographs.
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Tales of Posthumanity: The Bible and Contemporary Popular Culture

Published: Oct 2014
£50.00
Images and concepts of the ‘posthuman’ go back at least as far as the famous ‘madman parable’ in F. Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, and their ‘roots’ go back much further still. In turn, the image or theme of the posthuman has played an increasingly important role in recent literature, film, and television, where the notion of humanity as a ‘larval being’ (G. Deleuze) that transforms itself or is being transformed into something else, for better or worse, has become increasingly common. This book explores these concepts in relation to biblical texts, particularly texts from the gospel of Mark but also from the books of Daniel, Jonah and Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), and the Acts of the Apostles. At the same time, texts from recent popular culture are examined, including novels by J. Morrow, C. Miéville and G. Ryman, the movies Local Hero and Lars and the Real Girl, and the Heroes TV series among others. Through a kind of inverted causality, recent texts in various media such as these transform earlier and otherwise unrelated ones, including biblical texts, into precursors, giving them new, postmodern meanings, just as the older texts once signified in still other ways before the advent of the familiar modern world. As a result, biblical texts signify in remarkably different ways in relation to the posthuman. Posthuman beings appear in both biblical and non-biblical texts, and the biblical phrase ‘sons of men’ (in both plural and singular versions) plays a crucial role, where it too takes on meanings that range far beyond the conventional or traditional ones.
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Tales of Posthumanity: The Bible and Contemporary Popular Culture

£50.00
Images and concepts of the ‘posthuman’ go back at least as far as the famous ‘madman parable’ in F. Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, and their ‘roots’ go back much further still. In turn, the image or theme of the posthuman has played an increasingly important role in recent literature, film, and television, where the notion of humanity as a ‘larval being’ (G. Deleuze) that transforms itself or is being transformed into something else, for better or worse, has become increasingly common. This book explores these concepts in relation to biblical texts, particularly texts from the gospel of Mark but also from the books of Daniel, Jonah and Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), and the Acts of the Apostles. At the same time, texts from recent popular culture are examined, including novels by J. Morrow, C. Miéville and G. Ryman, the movies Local Hero and Lars and the Real Girl, and the Heroes TV series among others. Through a kind of inverted causality, recent texts in various media such as these transform earlier and otherwise unrelated ones, including biblical texts, into precursors, giving them new, postmodern meanings, just as the older texts once signified in still other ways before the advent of the familiar modern world. As a result, biblical texts signify in remarkably different ways in relation to the posthuman. Posthuman beings appear in both biblical and non-biblical texts, and the biblical phrase ‘sons of men’ (in both plural and singular versions) plays a crucial role, where it too takes on meanings that range far beyond the conventional or traditional ones.
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‘Say You Are My Sister’: Danger, Seduction and the Foreign in Biblical Literature and Beyond

Published: Oct 2013
£50.00
Throughout biblical and Jewish literature we encounter a repeated story of a Hebrew or Jewish character who becomes involved in a dangerous erotic relationship. The sexual tension in these tales articulates the ambivalence between the national identities of the character and of the foreign other. The first exemplification of the topos occurs in Genesis, where the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah are handed over (or almost so) by their husbands to a foreign king. The other biblical cases are those of Joseph, who experiences the danger of seduction by Potiphar's wife, and Esther, who is taken by force into the harem of the Persian emperor. In modern Hebrew literature, the theme reappears in the short story by the Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon, 'The Lady and the Pedlar' from 1943, in which the Jewish pedlar is at risk of becoming the prey of a foreign cannibalistic woman, and in the novel Inta Omri (1994) by the poet-author Smadar Herzfeld, which describes a desperate love affair between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man against the backdrop of the Intifada in the late 1980s. Between the chapters devoted to these works lies a discussion of the film by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, The Touch (1971), the story of a Jewish archaeologist who falls in love with a Swedish woman, which Keshet reads as another instance of the same theme, but this time as a metaphor of Jewish —Christian relations from the perspective not of the Jewish character but of the foreign other.
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‘Say You Are My Sister’: Danger, Seduction and the Foreign in Biblical Literature and Beyond

£50.00
Throughout biblical and Jewish literature we encounter a repeated story of a Hebrew or Jewish character who becomes involved in a dangerous erotic relationship. The sexual tension in these tales articulates the ambivalence between the national identities of the character and of the foreign other. The first exemplification of the topos occurs in Genesis, where the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah are handed over (or almost so) by their husbands to a foreign king. The other biblical cases are those of Joseph, who experiences the danger of seduction by Potiphar's wife, and Esther, who is taken by force into the harem of the Persian emperor. In modern Hebrew literature, the theme reappears in the short story by the Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon, 'The Lady and the Pedlar' from 1943, in which the Jewish pedlar is at risk of becoming the prey of a foreign cannibalistic woman, and in the novel Inta Omri (1994) by the poet-author Smadar Herzfeld, which describes a desperate love affair between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man against the backdrop of the Intifada in the late 1980s. Between the chapters devoted to these works lies a discussion of the film by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, The Touch (1971), the story of a Jewish archaeologist who falls in love with a Swedish woman, which Keshet reads as another instance of the same theme, but this time as a metaphor of Jewish —Christian relations from the perspective not of the Jewish character but of the foreign other.
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Son of Man: An African Jesus Film

Published: Apr 2013
£50.00
The remarkable, award-winning film, Son of Man (2005), directed by the South African Mark Dornford-May, sets the Jesus story in a contemporary, fictional southern African Judea. While news broadcasts display the political struggles and troubles of this postcolonial country, moments of magical realism point to supernatural battles between Satan and Jesus as well. Jesus' Judean struggle with Satan begins with a haunting reprise of Matthew's 'slaughter of the innocents' and moves forward in a Steve Biko-like non-violent, community-building ministry, captured in graffiti and in the video footage that Judas takes to incriminate Jesus. Satan and the powers seemingly triumph when Jesus 'disappears', but then Mary creates a community that challenges such injustice by displaying her son's dead body upon a hillside cross. The film ends with shots of Jesus among the angels and everyday life in Khayelitsha (the primary shooting location), auguring hope of a new humanity (Genesis 1.26). This book's essays situate Son of Man in its African context, exploring the film's incorporation of local customs, music, rituals, and events as it constructs an imperial and postcolonial 'world'. The film is to be seen as an expression of postcolonial agency, as a call to constructive political action, as an interpretation of the Gospels, and as a reconfiguration of the Jesus film tradition. Finally, the essays call attention to their interested, ideological interpretations by using Son of Man to raise contemporary ethical, hermeneutical, and theological questions. As the film itself concisely asks on behalf of the children featured in it and their politically active mothers, 'Whose world is this'?
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Son of Man: An African Jesus Film

£50.00
The remarkable, award-winning film, Son of Man (2005), directed by the South African Mark Dornford-May, sets the Jesus story in a contemporary, fictional southern African Judea. While news broadcasts display the political struggles and troubles of this postcolonial country, moments of magical realism point to supernatural battles between Satan and Jesus as well. Jesus' Judean struggle with Satan begins with a haunting reprise of Matthew's 'slaughter of the innocents' and moves forward in a Steve Biko-like non-violent, community-building ministry, captured in graffiti and in the video footage that Judas takes to incriminate Jesus. Satan and the powers seemingly triumph when Jesus 'disappears', but then Mary creates a community that challenges such injustice by displaying her son's dead body upon a hillside cross. The film ends with shots of Jesus among the angels and everyday life in Khayelitsha (the primary shooting location), auguring hope of a new humanity (Genesis 1.26). This book's essays situate Son of Man in its African context, exploring the film's incorporation of local customs, music, rituals, and events as it constructs an imperial and postcolonial 'world'. The film is to be seen as an expression of postcolonial agency, as a call to constructive political action, as an interpretation of the Gospels, and as a reconfiguration of the Jesus film tradition. Finally, the essays call attention to their interested, ideological interpretations by using Son of Man to raise contemporary ethical, hermeneutical, and theological questions. As the film itself concisely asks on behalf of the children featured in it and their politically active mothers, 'Whose world is this'?
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Biblical Reception 2

Published: Oct 2012
£80.00
This is the second volume of the new journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec),  published in November 2013. For the first volume, click here. Our policy for the journal is this. It is high time, we believe, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any 'original' meaning. Our  journal is a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation.
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Biblical Reception 2

£80.00
This is the second volume of the new journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec),  published in November 2013. For the first volume, click here. Our policy for the journal is this. It is high time, we believe, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any 'original' meaning. Our  journal is a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation.
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Biblical Reception 1

Published: Oct 2012
£80.00
This is the first volume of a new journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec), published in November 2012. It is high time, we believe, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any ‘original’ meaning. Our new journal is a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation. Editorial Board Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Washington, DC), Alan Cooper (New York), James Crossley (Sheffield), Andrew Davies (Birmingham), Tamara C. Eskenazi (Los Angeles), Philip Esler (Gloucester), Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher (Linz), John Harvey (Aberystwyth), Christine Joynes (Oxford), Carol Newsom (Atlanta), Martin O'Kane (Lampeter), Tina Pippin (Decatur, GA), John F.A. Sawyer (Durham), Reinhold Zwick (Münster).
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Biblical Reception 1

£80.00
This is the first volume of a new journal, Biblical Reception (BibRec), published in November 2012. It is high time, we believe, for the new and burgeoning field of the reception of the Bible to have a publication medium of its own. What the biblical text has meant to its readers down the centuries should be as much the subject of scholarly attention as any ‘original’ meaning. Our new journal is a substantial annual volume covering all kinds of use of the Bible — in art, literature, music, film and popular culture, as well as in the history of interpretation. Editorial Board Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Washington, DC), Alan Cooper (New York), James Crossley (Sheffield), Andrew Davies (Birmingham), Tamara C. Eskenazi (Los Angeles), Philip Esler (Gloucester), Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher (Linz), John Harvey (Aberystwyth), Christine Joynes (Oxford), Carol Newsom (Atlanta), Martin O'Kane (Lampeter), Tina Pippin (Decatur, GA), John F.A. Sawyer (Durham), Reinhold Zwick (Münster).
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Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women, Second Revised Edition

Published: Oct 2012
£25.00
Plotted, Shot, and Painted stakes out new territory for feminist biblical criticism. It considers what happens to biblical women in popular culture, in art and in film, and it foregrounds questions about how gender interests affect interpretation and about the roles and responsibilities of commentators and readers. This second revised edition contains an additional chapter, 'Lot and his Daughters', and an expanded chapter on Delilah.
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Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women, Second Revised Edition

£25.00
Plotted, Shot, and Painted stakes out new territory for feminist biblical criticism. It considers what happens to biblical women in popular culture, in art and in film, and it foregrounds questions about how gender interests affect interpretation and about the roles and responsibilities of commentators and readers. This second revised edition contains an additional chapter, 'Lot and his Daughters', and an expanded chapter on Delilah.
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Preposterous Revelations: Visions of Apocalypse and Martyrdom in Hollywood Cinema 1980-2000

Published: Jan 2012
£50.00
This is an ambitious attempt to produce an interdisciplinary reading of a set of relatively recent Hollywood films that appear to make references to the biblical genre of apocalyptic and associated ideas of Christian martyrdom and eschatology: End of Days , Armageddon , Alien3 , The Rapture , The Seventh Sign . It is a 'preposterous' reading (Mieke Bal's term), reversing a common-sense impulse to view what comes first chronologically (the biblical text) as an unproblematic template rather than as itself the consequence of subsequent, contextualized readings. The cinematic reworkings Copier describes shift our understanding of both texts (biblical and cinematic) and genre. Within this process, the apocalyptic subject —the martyr —adopts variable poses that reflect the effects of this disorienting reversal: across the five films analysed, the martyr moves from identifiably Christian motivations to the representation of patriotic American masculinity, or even to something that, in a contrary sense, powerfully challenges the conventional masculinity of any martyrdom that counts as significant. To achieve a genuine interdisciplinarity, Copier not only avoids reading each film as if it were simply the visual counterpart to a (biblical) narrative, but also analyses in the case of each film what the 'shot list' of a key sequence reveals about the semiotics at work within its construction. Unlike most encounters between religion and film, her film analysis goes far beyond the identification of themes and motifs. Here the author engages with the larger field of film studies, and especially with film as a visual medium.
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Preposterous Revelations: Visions of Apocalypse and Martyrdom in Hollywood Cinema 1980-2000

£50.00
This is an ambitious attempt to produce an interdisciplinary reading of a set of relatively recent Hollywood films that appear to make references to the biblical genre of apocalyptic and associated ideas of Christian martyrdom and eschatology: End of Days , Armageddon , Alien3 , The Rapture , The Seventh Sign . It is a 'preposterous' reading (Mieke Bal's term), reversing a common-sense impulse to view what comes first chronologically (the biblical text) as an unproblematic template rather than as itself the consequence of subsequent, contextualized readings. The cinematic reworkings Copier describes shift our understanding of both texts (biblical and cinematic) and genre. Within this process, the apocalyptic subject —the martyr —adopts variable poses that reflect the effects of this disorienting reversal: across the five films analysed, the martyr moves from identifiably Christian motivations to the representation of patriotic American masculinity, or even to something that, in a contrary sense, powerfully challenges the conventional masculinity of any martyrdom that counts as significant. To achieve a genuine interdisciplinarity, Copier not only avoids reading each film as if it were simply the visual counterpart to a (biblical) narrative, but also analyses in the case of each film what the 'shot list' of a key sequence reveals about the semiotics at work within its construction. Unlike most encounters between religion and film, her film analysis goes far beyond the identification of themes and motifs. Here the author engages with the larger field of film studies, and especially with film as a visual medium.
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Reel Revelations: Apocalypse and Film

Published: Oct 2010
£50.00
In the last decades, writers and directors have increasingly found the Book of Revelation a fitting cinematic muse for an age beset by possibilities of world destruction. Many apocalyptic films stay remarkably close to the idea of apocalypse as a revelation about the future, often quoting or using imagery from Revelation, as well as its Old Testament antecedents in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. The apocalyptic paradigm often instigates social criticism. Kim Paffenroth examines how zombie films deploy apocalyptic language and motifs to critique oppressive values in American culture. Lee Quinby shows how Richard Kelly's Southland Tales critiques not only social and economic crises in the USA but also Revelation's depictions of Good versus Evil as absolute oppositions. Frances Flannery points out how Josh Whedon's Serenity deconstructs the apocalypse precisely by using elements of it, depicting humans as their own created monsters. Jon Stone notes how apocalyptic fictions, while presenting nightmare scenarios, are invariably optimistic, with human ingenuity effectively responding to potential disasters. Mary Ann Beavis examines the device of invented scriptures (pseudapocrypha), deployed as a narrative trope for holding back the final cataclysm. John Walliss studies evangelical Christian films that depict how the endtime scenario will unfold, so articulating and even redefining a sense of evangelical identity. Richard Walsh analyses the surreptitious sanctification of empire that occurs in both Revelation and End of Days under the cover of a blatant struggle with another 'evil' empire. Greg Garrett examines how the eschatological figure of 'The Son of Man' is presented in the Matrix trilogy, the Terminator tetralogy, and Signs. Elizabeth Rosen shows how a postmodern apocalyptic trend has been working its way into children's fiction and film such as The Transformers, challenging the traditionally rigid depictions of good and evil found in many children's stories.
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Reel Revelations: Apocalypse and Film

£50.00
In the last decades, writers and directors have increasingly found the Book of Revelation a fitting cinematic muse for an age beset by possibilities of world destruction. Many apocalyptic films stay remarkably close to the idea of apocalypse as a revelation about the future, often quoting or using imagery from Revelation, as well as its Old Testament antecedents in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. The apocalyptic paradigm often instigates social criticism. Kim Paffenroth examines how zombie films deploy apocalyptic language and motifs to critique oppressive values in American culture. Lee Quinby shows how Richard Kelly's Southland Tales critiques not only social and economic crises in the USA but also Revelation's depictions of Good versus Evil as absolute oppositions. Frances Flannery points out how Josh Whedon's Serenity deconstructs the apocalypse precisely by using elements of it, depicting humans as their own created monsters. Jon Stone notes how apocalyptic fictions, while presenting nightmare scenarios, are invariably optimistic, with human ingenuity effectively responding to potential disasters. Mary Ann Beavis examines the device of invented scriptures (pseudapocrypha), deployed as a narrative trope for holding back the final cataclysm. John Walliss studies evangelical Christian films that depict how the endtime scenario will unfold, so articulating and even redefining a sense of evangelical identity. Richard Walsh analyses the surreptitious sanctification of empire that occurs in both Revelation and End of Days under the cover of a blatant struggle with another 'evil' empire. Greg Garrett examines how the eschatological figure of 'The Son of Man' is presented in the Matrix trilogy, the Terminator tetralogy, and Signs. Elizabeth Rosen shows how a postmodern apocalyptic trend has been working its way into children's fiction and film such as The Transformers, challenging the traditionally rigid depictions of good and evil found in many children's stories.
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The Way the World Ends? the Apocalypse of John in Culture and Ideology

Published: Mar 2009
£60.00
The richly varied collection of 15 essays in this volume showcase the afterlife of the Book of Revelation. It is a biblical book that has left its mark in many fields of intellectual endeavour: literature, film, music, philosophy, political theology, and religious ideology. It is perhaps paradoxical that this book, which promises God's punishment upon anyone expanding on its contents, has nevertheless accumulated to itself over two millennia vast amounts of commentary, exposition, and appropriation. Offered at the close of the 'Blair/Bush years', this volume also exposes and highlights the often deeply ironic resonances generated while studying the reception history of Revelation during a period when the book has both significant public currency and a potentially terrifying global impact.
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The Way the World Ends? the Apocalypse of John in Culture and Ideology

£60.00
The richly varied collection of 15 essays in this volume showcase the afterlife of the Book of Revelation. It is a biblical book that has left its mark in many fields of intellectual endeavour: literature, film, music, philosophy, political theology, and religious ideology. It is perhaps paradoxical that this book, which promises God's punishment upon anyone expanding on its contents, has nevertheless accumulated to itself over two millennia vast amounts of commentary, exposition, and appropriation. Offered at the close of the 'Blair/Bush years', this volume also exposes and highlights the often deeply ironic resonances generated while studying the reception history of Revelation during a period when the book has both significant public currency and a potentially terrifying global impact.
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Recent Releases: The Bible in Contemporary Cinema

Published: Aug 2008
£35.00
The relationship between theology and film has always been a complicated one. When film was invented at the end of the nineteenth century, it quickly gained its place in popular culture, far from the orthodoxies of the scholarly world and of the Church. For the better part of the twentieth century popular cinema was considered off limits for serious studies of Bible and culture. Recently, however, there has been a growing understanding of how the Bible is being used in popular culture —not as a historical document or as an authoritative canon, but as part of the cultural intertext. Cinema is a vivid example of the role and impact of the Bible in contemporary society. In this well-theorized collection of essays the issue is treated from several angles. Using the methodology of theology, the question of the alleged escapism of popular cinema is explored. Using the methodology of media studies, the impact of the media on religious communication is analysed. And, using the methodology of religious studies, the influence of the cinema in the creation of new religions, religious behaviour and religious institutions is investigated. In addition, the book offers fruitful analyses of the cinematic use of biblical themes such as Eden, salvation, Mary Magdalene and Jesus —as well as of the cinematic application of ethical themes such as truth-telling, personal growth, suffering, the accomplishment of good and the creating of meaning for human beings.
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Recent Releases: The Bible in Contemporary Cinema

£35.00
The relationship between theology and film has always been a complicated one. When film was invented at the end of the nineteenth century, it quickly gained its place in popular culture, far from the orthodoxies of the scholarly world and of the Church. For the better part of the twentieth century popular cinema was considered off limits for serious studies of Bible and culture. Recently, however, there has been a growing understanding of how the Bible is being used in popular culture —not as a historical document or as an authoritative canon, but as part of the cultural intertext. Cinema is a vivid example of the role and impact of the Bible in contemporary society. In this well-theorized collection of essays the issue is treated from several angles. Using the methodology of theology, the question of the alleged escapism of popular cinema is explored. Using the methodology of media studies, the impact of the media on religious communication is analysed. And, using the methodology of religious studies, the influence of the cinema in the creation of new religions, religious behaviour and religious institutions is investigated. In addition, the book offers fruitful analyses of the cinematic use of biblical themes such as Eden, salvation, Mary Magdalene and Jesus —as well as of the cinematic application of ethical themes such as truth-telling, personal growth, suffering, the accomplishment of good and the creating of meaning for human beings.
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Incarnate Word, Inscribed Flesh: John’s Prologue and the Postmodern

Published: Aug 2007
£50.00
The pre-existent, transcendent Logos, the principal character in the prologue of John's Gospel, is a prime example of a unified and centred concept, such as denounced as illusory by deconstruction. In this ground-breaking study, Nutu offers an unremittingly postmodern scrutiny of the Logos as the incarnate word that becomes visible as it is inscribed in human flesh. Within view also is the reverse process, of becoming 'children of God', which signifies human beings willingly accepting God's word, his tattoo, upon their flesh in order to pertain to the realm of the Logos. A second strand of this book is Nutu's tracing the fragmented afterlives of John's Prologue and their different effects on the formation of subjects (with a particular focus on homo religiosus and feminine 'I's) through postmodern film. At the dawn of a new millennium, films continue to play an important role in the cultural development of society; even moving away from the self-confessed biblical films, new productions like The Pillow Book, The Fifth Element and The Matrix (all engaged here) mediate elements of biblical narrative, theology, allegory, ethics and identity. As the Bible continues its influence on society and the formation of subject positions, biblical texts are re-interpreted, recycled within many discourses. This is a study that skilfully interweaves a number of contemporary theoretical currents such as deconstruction, psychoanalytical criticism, gender and cultural studies and initiates a new approach to interpretation, namely postcommunist, influenced by the writer's own experience of growing up in Romania.
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Incarnate Word, Inscribed Flesh: John’s Prologue and the Postmodern

£50.00
The pre-existent, transcendent Logos, the principal character in the prologue of John's Gospel, is a prime example of a unified and centred concept, such as denounced as illusory by deconstruction. In this ground-breaking study, Nutu offers an unremittingly postmodern scrutiny of the Logos as the incarnate word that becomes visible as it is inscribed in human flesh. Within view also is the reverse process, of becoming 'children of God', which signifies human beings willingly accepting God's word, his tattoo, upon their flesh in order to pertain to the realm of the Logos. A second strand of this book is Nutu's tracing the fragmented afterlives of John's Prologue and their different effects on the formation of subjects (with a particular focus on homo religiosus and feminine 'I's) through postmodern film. At the dawn of a new millennium, films continue to play an important role in the cultural development of society; even moving away from the self-confessed biblical films, new productions like The Pillow Book, The Fifth Element and The Matrix (all engaged here) mediate elements of biblical narrative, theology, allegory, ethics and identity. As the Bible continues its influence on society and the formation of subject positions, biblical texts are re-interpreted, recycled within many discourses. This is a study that skilfully interweaves a number of contemporary theoretical currents such as deconstruction, psychoanalytical criticism, gender and cultural studies and initiates a new approach to interpretation, namely postcommunist, influenced by the writer's own experience of growing up in Romania.
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Religion, Politics, Media in the Broadband Era

Published: July 2004
£15.00£40.00
Religion has gone public; and the much-discussed political pendulum has been swinging widely in its effort to keep up with the eruptions of faith swelling the broadband. Private faith finds very public outlets through the media's appetite for voices and choices. Faith-based networks have become media-savvy, urging their members to send barrages of emails, faxes, telephone calls, letters of praise or outrage to politicians. Those same politicians return the volley, using the broadcast media with great skill, wooing the faithful, convincing the cynical that God is on their side. Only a deity could be on so many sides simultaneously. Alice Bach's new book reflects her long-time focus on the Bible, religion and culture. Popular religion is expressed within our culture in rock videos, televangelism, political rhetoric, children's books, films and animations. Every sort of media from print to electronic to broadband is imbued with subtle and blatant religious imagery. The media are new; the message is not. The tightly woven pattern of religion, politics and media has been part of the American fabric since the country was founded. When one examines this cultural cloth, threads of varying colours are revealed, threads whose twists reflect both media coverage of religion and religious views of the media.
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Religion, Politics, Media in the Broadband Era

£15.00£40.00
Religion has gone public; and the much-discussed political pendulum has been swinging widely in its effort to keep up with the eruptions of faith swelling the broadband. Private faith finds very public outlets through the media's appetite for voices and choices. Faith-based networks have become media-savvy, urging their members to send barrages of emails, faxes, telephone calls, letters of praise or outrage to politicians. Those same politicians return the volley, using the broadcast media with great skill, wooing the faithful, convincing the cynical that God is on their side. Only a deity could be on so many sides simultaneously. Alice Bach's new book reflects her long-time focus on the Bible, religion and culture. Popular religion is expressed within our culture in rock videos, televangelism, political rhetoric, children's books, films and animations. Every sort of media from print to electronic to broadband is imbued with subtle and blatant religious imagery. The media are new; the message is not. The tightly woven pattern of religion, politics and media has been part of the American fabric since the country was founded. When one examines this cultural cloth, threads of varying colours are revealed, threads whose twists reflect both media coverage of religion and religious views of the media.
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