Plowshares & Pruning Hooks

Author: Brent Sandy
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830896805
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
What are we to make of Isaiah's image of Mount Zion as the highest of the mountains, or Zechariah's picture of the Mount of Olives split in two, or Daniel's "beast rising out of the sea" or Revelation's "great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns"? How can Peter claim that on the day of Pentecost the prophecy of Joel was being fulfilled, with signs in heaven and wonders on earth, the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood? The language and imagery of biblical prophecy has been the source of puzzlement for many Christians and a point of dispute for some. How ironic that is! For the prophets and seers were the wordsmiths of their time. They took pains to speak God's word clearly and effectively to their contemporaries. How should we, as citizens of the twenty-first century, understand the imagery of this ancient biblical literature? Are there any clues in the texts themselves, any principles we can apply as we read these important but puzzling biblical texts? D. Brent Sandy carefully considers the language and imagery of prophecy and apocalyptic, how it is used, how it is fulfilled within Scripture, and how we should read it against the horizon of our future. Clearly and engagingly written, Plowshares and Pruning Hooks is the kind of book that gives its readers a new vantage point from which to view the landscape of prophetic and apocalyptic language and imagery.

Plowshares and Pruning Hooks

Author: Brent Sandy
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830826537
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
D. Brent Sandy carefully considers the language and imagery of prophecy and apocalyptic, how it is used, how it is fulfilled within Scripture, and how we should read it against the horizon of our future.

Plowshares and Pruning Hooks

Author: Brent Sandy
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 083082653X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Plowshares

Author: Kristen Tobey
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271078286
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Book Description
In September 1980, eight Catholic activists made their way into a Pennsylvania General Electric plant housing parts for nuclear missiles. Evading security guards, these activists pounded on missile nose cones with hammers and then covered the cones in their own blood. This act of nonviolent resistance was their answer to calls for prophetic witness in the Old Testament: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.” Plowshares explores the closely interwoven religious and social significance of the group’s use of performance to achieve its goals. It looks at the group’s acts of civil disobedience, such as that undertaken at the GE plant in 1980, and the Plowshares’ behavior at the legal trials that result from these protests. Interpreting the Bible as a mandate to enact God’s kingdom through political resistance, the Plowshares work toward “symbolic disarmament,” with the aim of eradicating nuclear weapons. Plowshares activists continue to carry out such “divine obediences” against facilities where equipment used in the production or deployment of nuclear weapons is manufactured or stored. Whether one agrees or disagrees with their actions, this volume helps us better understand their motivations, logic, identity, and ultimate goal.

The Lost World of Scripture

Author: John H. Walton
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 083084032X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Walton and Sandy summarize what we know of orality and oral tradition as well as the composition and transmission of texts in the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world, and how this shapes our understanding of the Old and New Testaments. The authors then translate these insights into a helpful model for understanding the reliability of Scripture.

When the Son of Man Didn't Come

Author: Christopher M. Hays
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451469632
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
The delay of the Parousia—the second coming of Christ—has vexed Christians since the final decades of the first century. This volume offers a critical, constructive, and interdisciplinary solution to that dilemma. The argument is grounded in Christian tradition while remaining fully engaged with the critical insights and methodological approaches of twenty-first-century scholars. The authors argue that the deferral of Christ’s prophesied return follows logically from the conditional nature of ancient predictive prophecy: Jesus has not come again because God’s people have not yet responded sufficiently to Christ’s call for holy and godly action. God, in patient mercy, remains committed to cooperating with humans to bring about the consummation of history with Jesus’ return. Collaboratively written by an interdisciplinary and ecumenical team of scholars, the argument draws on expertise in biblical studies, systematics, and historical theology to fuse critical biblical exegesis with a powerful theological paradigm that generates an apophatic and constructive Christian eschatology. The authors, however, have done more than tackle a daunting theological problem: as the group traverses issues from higher criticism through doctrine and into liturgy and ethics, they present an innovative approach for how to do Christian theology in the twenty-first-century academy.

Prophecy and Apocalyptic

Author: D. Brent Sandy
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 0801026016
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
A current and accessible guide to the literature on Old Testament prophecy.

Sealed with an Oath

Author: Paul R. Williamson
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830889701
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Paul R. Williamson looks at the role of the covenant concept in Scripture and the meaning of this terminology. He sets the idea of covenant in the context of God's universal purpose, tracing the idea through the Old Testament and showing how the new covenant is anticipated and fulfilled.

A Farewell to Mars

Author: Brian Zahnd
Publisher: David C Cook
ISBN: 143470792X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 149

Book Description
We know Jesus the Savior, but have we met Jesus, Prince of Peace? When did we accept vengeance as an acceptable part of the Christian life? How did violence and power seep into our understanding of faith and grace? For those troubled by this trend toward the sword, perhaps there is a better way. What if the message of Jesus differs radically differs from the drumbeats of war we hear all around us? Using his own journey from war crier to peacemaker and his in-depth study of peace in the scriptures, author and pastor Brian Zahnd reintroduces us to the gospel of Peace.

Isaiah Old and New

Author: Dr. Ben Witherington III
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506420567
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 524

Book Description
Reading the Book of Isaiah in its original context is the crucial prerequisite for reading its citation and use in later interpretation, including the New Testament writings, argues Ben Witherington III. Here he offers pastors, teachers, and students an accessible commentary to Isaiah, as well as a reasoned consideration of how Isaiah was heard and read in early Christianity. By reading "forward and backward" Witherington advances the scholarly discussion of intertextuality and opens a new avenue for biblical theology.