Old Testament Books

The Jewish Study Bible: featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Jewish Study Bible presents the center of gravity of the Scriptures where Jews experience it--in Torah. It offers readers the fruits of various schools of Jewish traditions of biblical exegesis (rabbinic, medieval, mystical, etc.) and provides them with a wealth of ancillary materials that aid in bringing the ancient text to life. The nearly forty contributors to the work represent the cream of Jewish biblical scholarship from the world over. No knowledge of Hebrew is required for one to make use of this unique volume.
The JSB uses The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, whose name is an acronym formed from the Hebrew initials of the three sections into which the Hebrew Bible is traditionally divided (Torah, Instruction; Nevi'im, Prophets; and Kethubim, Writings). A committee of esteemed biblical scholars and rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism movements produced this modern translation, which dates from 1985.
Anyone interested in acquiring a fuller understanding of the riches of the Bible will profit from reading The Jewish Study Bible.

The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word (Meyer, Joyce)

Joyce Meyer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Use This Tool Daily 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book and I'm so glad I did! I'm using it every day, speaking God's Word for my life and the positive changes are really remarkable. This is the most useful book I've ever seen by Joyce Meyer and I just can't say enough about it. I'd rate it 10 stars if that were possible. Besides the content itself, this is a really well-made book, very sturdy and small enough to take along in my purse.

Many times when people are praying, they are just speaking to God about their problems. This is faithless prayer and God cannot change anything in your life when you don't ask with faith. God already knows about the situation and think about it this way...God says His Word will never go void, but that He watches over His Word to bring it to pass. When you speak God's Word over situations in your life, situations are guaranteed to improve. Speaking God's Word has caused my faith to grow enormously.

The book is broken down into different topics like courage, health, depression, finance and so many more. Get this book and start using it today!!! God will bless you like never before. Also get "God's Master Plan For Your Life" by Gloria Copeland. It's awesome! I pray that God begins to bless you in every area of your life as you put this foundational principle to work!

Editorial Review:

Bestselling author Meyer teaches readers how to create change in their lives and truly receive God's blessings. Includes powerful Scriptures covering over 50 topics, including patience, loneliness, wisdom, and more.

A Reader's Hebrew Bible

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A great resource 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've got both the first and second editions of the Reader's GNT companion volume. Either is a great value for the money, but neither comes close to the quality and usefulness of the Reader's GNT published by UBS -- the real deal. So I was a bit hesitant to purchase Zondervan's Reader's Hebrew Bible.

My hesitation was overcome by the fact that I use my UBS RGNT on a daily basis for devotional use, but don't read the Hebrew text in the same way as frequently because of the need for a lexicon nearby. A reader's lexicon helps, but it's still a clunky way to read, and because Hebrew vocabulary is so much larger than NT Greek, there are few of us who will ever be able to simply read with no lexicon around. So seeing what a reader's GNT did for me, I ordered this.

I'm very pleased. It hast the same cheap binding and paper as the companion RGNT, but the fact that it's duo-tone (basically PVC plastic) does mean that despite being flimsy, it should hold up for a long time. They seem to have overcome the typeface problems present in both editions of the RGNT. This font is very easy to read. I have not found the proper names being in gray instead of black to be a problem -- they're not that light and the purpose is to make proper names used less than 100 times stand out so that the newbie doesn't waste time trying to parse them. That's the whole point: to gloss the words so the reader doesn't have to. The more you read, the more you learn, and the more often you read and learn the more Hebrew sticks in your mind.

The fact that this text is that of the Westminster edition of Leningradensis is great. They essentially cut and pasted from Bibleworks 4. There are minor variants between this and BHS/BHQ, but nothing significant and all differences are listed in the appendix. I also like the way they've dealt with Kethib-Qere readings -- something that should serve good training for the student just learning his way around the Hebrew Old Testament.

If Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ever prints a readers edition of BHS or BHQ it will probably leave this in the dust just as the UBS RGNT leaves the Zondervan RGNT in the dust, but until then this is a great tool.

Editorial Review:

Following in the footsteps of the popular A Reader’s Greek New Testament, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible includes features that make this a time-saver for studying the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament. It comes in Italian Duo-Tone™ binding—attractive, durable, and affordable.

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

Neil Asher Silberman, Israel Finkelstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Bible Unearthed is a balanced, thoughtful, bold reconsideration of the historical period that produced the Hebrew Bible. The headline news in this book is easy to pick out: there is no evidence for the existence of Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs; ditto for Moses and the Exodus; and the same goes for the whole period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon. In fact, the authors argue that it is impossible to say much of anything about ancient Israel until the seventh century B.C., around the time of the reign of King Josiah. In that period, "the narrative of the Bible was uniquely suited to further the religious reform and territorial ambitions of Judah." Yet the authors deny that their arguments should be construed as compromising the Bible's power. Only in the 18th century--"when the Hebrew Bible began to be dissected and studied in isolation from its powerful function in community life"--did readers begin to view the Bible as a source of empirically verifiable history. For most of its life, the Bible has been what Finkelstein and Silberman reveal it once more to be: an eloquent expression of "the deeply rooted sense of shared origins, experiences, and destiny that every human community needs in order to survive," written in such a way as to encompass "the men, women, and children, the rich, the poor, and the destitute of an entire community." --Michael Joseph Gross

David: A Man of Passion & Destiny (Great Lives from God's Word Series: Volume 1)

Charles R. Swindoll

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

best of the Swindoll series? 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

All the books are good ... this one was great. It hit home for me.

Great As A Teaching Manual! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is a well written, thought provoking book. I am currently using it as a manual for a Bible study class. It's not one of those "deep theological" biographies, but it speaks to the layman, in a very easy-to-understand style. Recommended for study groups, or anyone, who wants to know more about the "man after God's own heart".

Well worth the reading 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Yet another great book in the series. Well worth the reading and study. I have ordered additional copies to give as gifts.

Editorial Review:

David, unlike any Bible character before him, had the charisma to inspire a great nation. Yet in other ways he was a most ordinary man--often gripped by destructive passion, rocked by personal tragedy, and motivated by political gain. Yet, he is the one character the Bible describes as a "man after God's own heart." In this first volume of the "Great Lives" series Charles Swindoll shows how David proved his love for God many times over in an extraordinary life that left an enduring legacy of faith.

Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Praying with Christ 5 out of 5 stars.
106 of 107 people found this review helpful.

In this beautiful little book, Bonhoeffer guides the Christian to the Scriptures for lessons in how to pray. He affirms that the Lord's Prayer is the primary prayer of the Christian, which he asserts contains every prayer that a Christian ought to pray. Bonhoeffer also makes a startling but wise claim that jolts us out of the narrowness of our focus in prayer: "The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart." Thus we find the book of Psalms to be a rich treasury of prayers that are part of God's inspired word, and therefore a true place to learn how God would have us pray.

The book proceeds to give some general background on the history and use of the Psalms as the prayer book of the Bible. In the main part of the book he presents one possible system of categorizing the Psalms according to their petitions, and also points out that they can be organized according to the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. But the most valuable part of the book, in my opinion, is how he shows us how the Psalms are to be prayed in Christ, of whom the Psalms also testify (Luke 24:44). As Bonhoeffer says, "It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne every human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God, and who stands in our place and prays for us."

This is a fine book for the devotional/prayer life of the Christian.

Editorial Review:

An illuminating study of prayer using the Psalms as a guidebook.

The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules

Carolyn Custis James

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent, Insightful Look Into Well-Known Story 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is a serious, scholarly dig into the Bible's book of Ruth, but reads so easily it was almost novel-like. I've read Ruth, studied Ruth, and even read other books on the topic, but this book brought my understanding of it to a new level altogether. Carolyn Custis James does an amazing job of setting the cultural backdrop, which really puts the story into a different light than I've ever heard before. She challenges "traditional" views regarding submission, the role of women in God's story, and even what the book of Ruth has to offer.

This book tells the tale of Ruth - her pain, her courage, and her dedication to her mother-in-law Naomi - while still demonstrating that God is at the center of the story. Instead of focusing on the love story between Ruth and Boaz, James shows the relationships between them, as well as Naomi, in a completely different light. She reveals how their actions were risky, courageous, and deeply self-sacrificing, done out of love for and trust in God.

James, through examining the well-known story, seeks to answer the question, "Is God good for women?" Even poor, barren, widowed women in a patriarchical society? Can God still have a purpose, and see it through, for women in painful circumstances? Instead of trivializing pain and giving trite answers, the author delves into the sorrows of infertility and losing a husband, and even shares about her own pain. In a very seamless and authentic way, she then leads the reader to examine Ruth's story, where God's purposes prevail against all odds.

Editorial Review:

Traditionally, the Book of Ruth is viewed as a beautiful love story between Ruth and Boaz. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find startling revelations—that God makes much of broken lives, he calls men and women to serve him together, and he’s counting on his daughters to build his kingdom.

My Catholic Advent And Christmas Book

Jennifer Galvin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Beautifully illustrated, funny, adorable and sneaky, too... 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

My five-year-old and my ten-year old both adored this book. Jennifer Galvin understands children. She knows what they like and she knows how they think and learn. Her charming illustrations pleased my children no end--she instinctively knows what little kids want to see. (John the Baptist not only has his camel-hair-coat and bare feet--he also has toes and toenails--details my son gleefully pointed out to me).

The "what's wrong with this picture" puzzles had my son in stitches, especially the donkey in the party hat and the presents behind the bushes (subtle hints of the true meaning of Christmas). The word search and word scrambles were not only clever enough to challenge my daughter, they were brilliantly organized, leaving her with a much more thorough understanding of Advent. This book was so much fun that my children didn't even catch on to the sneaky way the author educated them along the way. As my son followed the maze to take the shepherds to Bethlehem, he told me, "They all want to see the baby Jesus, because Christmas is his birthday." My son knows the true meaning of the holiday season now, and it's all Jennifer Galvin's fault. :)

Editorial Review:

Jennifer Galvin's activity books for children have been enormously popular because, unlike other activity books, these are designed specifically to teach children about their Catholic faith. And her latest one does just that. She has put together entertaining word finds, crossword puzzles, color-by-number puzzles, and crack-the-code puzzles that will teach children about Advent and Christmas, all the while emphasizing the real meaning of the holiday. An added advantage is that the activities are tied to the lectionary for all three cycles. The activities are clever and challenging and are illustrated with charming, inviting art work. The sheets themselves are reproducible and are aimed at children from kindergarten through third grade.

Highlights:

--an attractive, reasonably priced book
--reproducible pages
--perfect for home, school, or church use
--tied to all three cycles of the lectionary

Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction

Lawrence Boadt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A deep understanding of the Old Testament 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

My reading of the Bible has had three levels of accompaniment. The first consists of the annotations of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which tend to be brief explications of bits of the text that might otherwise be difficult to comprehend within the context of the writer. The second is Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which goes into somewhat greater detail and, in particular, is quite good at providing the necessary historical and geographic background.

The third is this book, which goes into considerable depth with not only the basic factual background, but also the cultural and literary background. Though written by a devout believer (a Catholic), he is not someone who believes in the literal truth of the Bible, but follows modern scholarship in teasing out the various strands of text: the J, E, and P source texts, in particular.

The book is divided into two sections and numerous chapters. The first section provides a general overview in four chapters. The first discusses the text itself, why we should read it, and its meaning for us today, and lesser issues such as the merits of various translations. Chapter 2 provides a general geographic and historical overview, discussing the peoples of that time and where and when they lived and prospered. The third chapter discusses Biblical archeology, how it works, and what sort of background it can provide. And Chapter 4 goes into the literary aspects of the writings, from the difficulties translators encounter to how the texts were considered at the time they were written down.

The bulk of the book, however, focuses on key portions of the text in turn, explaining their context and significance, and clarifying aspects that we moderns might find perplexing.

The author considers the book a textbook, and it would certainly be useful as the basis for a one- or two-semester course in the Old Testament. However, I found it very useful to read it on my own, providing a much deeper perspective than I could get just from reading the text, which, if nothing else, makes many assumptions about what I should already know.

Editorial Review:

Reading the Old Testament is a clear and carefully organized introduction for contemporary readers. It is designed to guide the student of the Bible through the text and its problems, enrich their understanding of the individual biblical books, and explore the way the Bible came to be written.

Reading the Old Testament combines the latest scholarship with sensitivity to religious issues and Israel's ever deepening understanding of God's ways. The author gives special attention to recent archeological discoveries in the Middle East and how these affect our understanding of the Old Testament. The book contains numerous maps, charts, and drawings.

Reading the Old Testament is particularly illuminating about the way Israel's religious experience was translated into written records. No other introduction offers the same thorough treatment of the Exile and the post-exilic periods as crucial times in the formation of the Old Testament.

The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd Edition

Walter Brueggemann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Author Books Unusual Use of Words 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This book is about putting "prophetic imagination" inspirations into social actions. Actual example was putting an organisation together in a community to help the needy and underprivileaged. Not very spiritual, but very commendable.

Editorial Review:

In this challenging and enlightening treatment, Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing. In this new edition, Brueggemann has completely revised the text, updated the notes, and added a new preface.

Contents
--Preface
--The Alternative Community of Moses
--The Royal Consciousness: Countering the Counter-Culture
--Prophetic Criticizing and the Embrace of Pain
--Prophetic Energizing and the Emergence of Amazement
--Criticism and Pathos in Jesus of Nazareth
--Energizing and Amazement in Jesus of Nazareth
--A Note on the Practice of Ministry