Kathleen M. O’Connor

A Chorus of Prophetic Voices

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Congratulations to Mark McEntire! A Chorus of Prophetic Voices provides new insights into the entire prophetic corpus using several contemporary approaches. McEntire graciously bows to historical-critical work of the past but moves the discussion in other illuminating directions. He uses trauma and post colonial theories, canonical and literary studies. He imagines individual prophetic voices and a symphony of intertextual conversation. With its charts and discussion boxes, the book will make an excellent choice for classrooms, churches, and anyone in search of updating regarding the prophets.”

Alternative to the Bread of Affliction

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“In Alternative to the Bread of Affliction, readers will find nourishment for the work of preaching in eye-opening interpretations of biblical texts. They will engage with commentary on ancient passages that illuminate contemporary sufferings. They will experience biblical stories and poems that call us from death into radiant life. All this from Walter Brueggemann, poet, preacher, and biblical interpreter of unmatchable power.”

An Introduction to the Old Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The mere appearance of Alice Laffey's feminist critical introduction to the Old Testament is reason to celebrate. She presents in one volume a systematic exploration of themes and texts from the Old Testament directly or indirectly relating to women, and so brings feminist concerns to the center of biblical scholarship. . . a major contribution to Old Testament studies.”

Divine Presence amid Violence

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Like Jacob wrestling with the man all night, Walter Brueggemann struggles with texts of divine violence and wrings from them a blessing. He draws together materialist and literary approaches to discover God's violence subtly and indirectly employed on behalf of the dominated against dominators. The book is a brilliant primer in persuasive, open-ended theological interpretation. It will help pastors, students, and anyone who would like to join the hot debate about violence and the God of the Bible.”

Feasting on the Gospels–John, Volume 1

Preaching & Worship

“Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.”

Feasting on the Gospels–John, Volume 2

Preaching & Worship

“Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.”

Feasting on the Gospels–Luke, Volume 1

Preaching & Worship

“Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.”

Feasting on the Gospels–Mark

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“”Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.””

Feasting on the Gospels–Matthew, Volume 1

Preaching & Worship

“Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.”

Feasting on the Gospels–Matthew, Volume 2

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Most people may know that Feasting on the Gospels is a profound resource for preachers, pastors, and teachers, but it is also a treasure book for laity, meditators, and spiritual seekers. Its four clearly written essays on each Gospel passage aid reflection, appeal to experience, stir up questions, and leave one wanting more.”

From Deborah to Esther

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“A provocative and bracing read. Sensitive to literacy and emotional nuances of texts, Klein assumes male authorship of the Hebrew Bible and wonders what women are doing in it at all. She finds female figures function in contrast with males and as exemplary figures. But her most intriguing discoveries concern what the women characters say about the men who wrote them into the stories. This book is a study of male power and male fear. It belongs in college and seminary classes about the Bible, about gender, and about power relations. And because it is eminently readable, it also belongs in the hands of lay readers concerned with any of these topics.”

Genesis

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“David Petersen’s Genesis is the work of deep integrative intelligence. Petersen’s commentary builds upon historical-critical questions in service of the larger matter of Genesis as literature, a book about family on the way to nationhood. The family is besieged by problems of infertility, domestic violence, and generational power struggles. Resonant with contemporary issues and eminently readable, this commentary is a must for scholars and of interest to a broad audience of readers.”

Great Is Thy Faithfulness?

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“"The essays in Great is Thy Faithfulness? focus upon one question: How is Lamentations a word of God? Responses are deep, rich, and many. They draw from interpretations, contemporary and ancient, Jewish and Christian, and from the arts, pastoral care, and liturgical usage. They reveal how Lamentations has been and can be embraced by believers. For pastors and classrooms, this book promises to stir up conversation, questions, and faith.”

Mourner, Mother, Midwife

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Juliana Claassens writes a compelling and moving book that challenges the centrality of the violent, punitive God in interpretation and theology. To broaden our biblical perceptions of God, she zeroes in on biblical images of God the Deliverer, Mother, Mourner, and Midwife. The result is a theological refreshment that expands interpretation, addresses pain in the face of empire, and draws upon the women’s experience to tell of a life-giving God. Claassens’ book will make an excellent teaching text and provide resources for interpreters hoping to discover new ways to speak of the Holy One, ever ancient and ever new.”

Piles of Slain, Heaps of Corpses

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“In his book, Piles of Slain, Heaps of Corpses, Jacob Onyumbe Wenyi provides a splendid example of contextual interpretation of biblical texts. . . . The brutal imagery of the prophetic book of Nahum provides Onyumbe with echoes and evocations of traumatic realities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also with ingredients needed for reconciliation. Written with clarity, passion, and methodological precision, Onyumbe’s book belongs in the hands of scholars, graduate students, and clergy.”

Set Them Free

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“A remarkable book of contextual biblical studies . . . Dykstra's subject is the story of Exodus, not as told by the slaves, but from the perspective of the Egyptian empire. There she finds a haunting mirror of North American culture, of its oppression, self-aggrandizement, and brutal racism. The result is a splendid work of public theology.”

The Peculiar Dialect of Faith

“Among biblical interpreters, Walter Brueggemann is a singular wordsmith. His luminous essays in The Peculiar Dialect of Faith explore biblical words in their literary settings and historical conditioning to expose the language worlds they create. Brueggemann refuses to leave these poetic worlds in the past or to wield them as weapons against the present. Instead, his powerful words about texts embrace readers of faith, draw us to full attention, expand our understanding, and call us to renewed hope amid throbbing sufferings of our present moment.”

The Role of Old Testament Theology in Old Testament Interpretation

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“This book collects several eloquent, eminently readable essays by Walter Brueggemann that 'lay display' his interpretive approaches to Old Testament theology. The book can serve both as introduction to his theological legacy and to his work as a public theologian during many battles of our times. Using language that never fails to engage, he illuminates texts, the world, and relationships between the two.”

Truth-Telling as Subversive Obedience

Theology

“Although Truth-Telling as Subversive Obedience addresses preachers, it also calls urgently to anyone who desires to hear and do God's word. With characteristic eloquence, Brueggemann dares us to believe in new life amidst the sexual, financial, and political lies that surround us. He finds hope in the truth coursing through Scriptures and invites us to become courageous, obedient speakers of truth 'because our lives depend on it.'”

Violence in Scripture

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“In his book Violence in Scripture , Jerome Creach investigates multiple aspects of violence as a problem in biblical texts. He draws primarily upon Old Testament passages that appear to condone violence in God and humans. He shows how historical circumstances affect and complicate understandings of violence. He uncovers self-correcting elements of the scriptures that challenge violence of God and of human. He locates violent passages within larger canonical contexts that correct or modify the place of violence. He concludes that God’s hopes for humans and the world are essentially non-violent. God created the world without violence, and Jesus brings Old Testament themes of non-violence to fulfillment in the New. Creach’s study is clear and insightful, and it promises to provoke thoughtful reflection among pastors, teachers, lay people, and scholars.”