J. Harold Ellens

A Deputy Warden's Reflections on Prison Work

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Here is a prison warden's official story about what it is like . . . deal[ing] constructively with every sort of prisoner in the state correctional system . . . Adria Libolt's story is an engaging inside look at what that means, how that goes, what can be done, and how this one lithesome lady did it for decades with grace and good humor. This narrative . . . is a rewarding surprise that restores one's faith in humankind.”

A Smaller God

Theology

“Merenlahti has written a very useful book that will please, instruct, reassure, and counsel every preacher and person in the pew. It is a dose of good medicine for those who, having declared their being spiritual but no longer religious, are in danger of sliding down the slippery slope into a pooling of mutual ignorance. . . . This book offers much enticing illumination to those who long for a meaningful walk with God in this journey of human life.”

Beowulf in Parallel Texts

Arts & Literature

“Professor Sung-Il Lee offers here a superb translation of Beowulf, in parallel presentation with the Anglo-Saxon original text. This imaginative, aesthetically pleasing, and extremely useful parallel text of our beloved Beowulf will be a great help to scholars, students, and general readers alike.”

Exploring the Old Testament in the New

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“This book is fascinating, clearly argued, plainly but engagingly written, and immensely informative of the voluminous scholarly literature . . . related to this important theme. . . . Here we have a practical guide for serious students who wish to explore the rich wellspring of insight evident in the New Testament use of the Old Testament. Rodgers has given us a powerful set of lenses for a fresh reading of the Bible.”

Finding Meaning in an Uncertain World, Second Edition

Christian Living

“Aden's new volume epitomizes a crucial facet of human experience throughout the life cycle: our quest for meaning. . . . Our ultimate sense of meaning is derived from our trust in God's compassion for us, most graphically epitomized in Christ. Aden's classic style as pastoral theologian and psychologist pervades his prose and reminds us of his previous work on the pain and benefits of good grief. This book is for the devoted layperson, who will find it inviting and instructive.”

Guilt and the Search for Fulfillment

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“LeRoy Aden, an articulate theologian deeply ensconced in the historic Lutheran equation of law and gospel, knows more about guilt personally and theologically than anyone else. As in all his published works, he demonstrates here his superb skill in sharing his perspective with us in a highly readable style for anyone from a bright high schooler to an inquiring graduate student. This book exudes the passion and heart of the pastor Dr. Aden is in all his relationships.”

Jesus and Menachem

Fiction

“This is an engaging, psycho-spiritual story of the life of Yeshua (Jesus). It is set in the realistic and sensitive narrative of everyday life in Palestine during late Second Temple Judaism. The dramatic quality of this work depicts the heightened spiritual awareness of a thoroughly Jewish Jesus, in keeping with the witness of the New Testament, while underplaying the hysteria of rampant apocalypticism in many of the forms of Judaism at that time, evident, for example, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The storyline unfolds believably and draws the reader into page-turning identification with the main characters. . . .Van Praag's characterization of the main figures in the story is vivid, and one quickly gets the impression of being exposed to truth and reality, rather than just a staged drama.”

Love, Loss, and Abjection

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Melanie Baffes has undertaken this project to repair a matter of significant neglect on the part of the scholarly treatment of the Gospel of John. Her concern is with the lack of appreciation or notice of Mary of Bethany, her person, role in the Jesus narrative, and the symbolic value that her presence has in the story. . . . Baffes surprises the reader with the amazing amount of material she is able to generate out of the limited references to Mary in John's Gospel. She sees profound implications in each turn of phrase and linguistic element in the narrative. This book will challenge the community of Johannine scholars with its remarkably nuanced view of the character in the Jesus story that Baffes lifts as one of the chief of the disciples, and apparently the first one to really 'get' the point of Jesus's life and ministry.”

Oedipus in Jerusalem

Arts & Literature

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Presence and Encounter

Christian Living

“This book is a profound articulation of how the Divine Spirit pervades all things in the universe: the life force in all living things, the spirit that takes the form of our own spirits within us, and the energy that keeps the electrons in orbit in the atoms of a rock. This all-pervasive Spirit is what Jesus promised in John 14 when he said in effect, ‘The age of Jesus Christ is over. Now comes the age when God is a Presence as Spirit.’ Presence and Encounter clearly illumines our possibilities to be such a Presence to ourselves and each other that we experience in our encounters not just the dynamics of personalities but the numinous Presence of God.”

Psychological Insight into the Bible

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Rollins and Kille have digested forty-four major works on the interface of psychology and religion and have organized their book in fourteen lucid chapters. . . The immense and universal value of this work is in the way it introduces the reader to the large world of spirituality and the psychological sciences. It provides easy access to the major works of the last one and a half centuries on psychological aspects of Bible study.”

The Once and Future Bible

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

Foreword

“I have read [this] book and find it superb. It is a volume that laypersons of all religious persuasions, and those who do not have a significant religious perspective, urgently needs. It fills an obvious current vacuum, is highly readable, entertaining, and immensely informative.”