biblical interpretation
Concretizing the word
Judicial originalism is biblical literalism’s younger cousin.
Freeing Philemon from the “fugitive slave” theory
Stephen Young lets Paul’s letter speak for itself.
Seeing Black people in scripture
Esau McCaulley’s book reclaims what the Black church has always known.
The Old Testament, the Tanakh, and the Hebrew Bible
Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler show how multiple traditions arise when different people read the same text.
What the Bible actually says about abortion, slavery, and other controversial topics
Should scripture inform our ethics? How, and which parts?
by Jane McBride
Why I’m reading Nyasha Junior
If we want our biblical interpretation to align with the fullness of who Christ is, we need new lenses.
How Rachel Held Evans bears the beauty and the burden of reading the Bible
The creative retellings in Inspired model an account of inspiration that is as much a spiritual practice as a religious doctrine.
Bruised and blessed by scripture
My hermeneutic of suspicion wasn’t enough. I needed a hermeneutic of the hip.
by Emmy Kegler
An anti-Enlightenment ax to grind
Craig Carter's book makes good points—and undermines them with his use of polemic.
by Brad East
Dwelling together in scripture’s room
How can preachers and listeners develop a practice of lingering with the text?
N. T. Wright’s creative reconstruction of Paul and his world
Wright tells a great story. Would the apostle recognize it?
4 Bible storybooks that leave space for children’s imagination
In God's kingdom, sometimes less is more.
Biblical hospitality
Joshua Jipp's book does something few biblical scholars attempt: it offers explicit proposals for the church.
by Greg Carey
Taking the Bible seriously means reading it figurally
What scripture means is not reducible to what it once meant.
Reading the Bible as a feminist
From creation to Mary Magdalene, Barbara E. Reid offers convincing alternatives to sexist interpretations of scripture.
by Julie Morris
Did the exodus really happen?
A new book challenges the scholarly consensus about one of the Hebrew Bible's central stories.
The many lives of Adam and Eve
Stephen Greenblatt weaves an impressive—but incomplete—tapestry of interpretations of the story of the Fall.
The Bible's place in the American imagination
Scripture shapes culture—but always through what we bring to it.
by Zen Hess
Flesh and bones in an Acts commentary
Willie James Jennings writes about tangible things—bodies, incarceration, healing—with graceful language that’s hard to pin down.
The poor we will always have with us?
Jesus isn’t pitting himself against poor people. He’s one of them.