Richard S. Briggs

Biblical Theology

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“What theological building might be constructed out of reading the scriptural materials? With characteristic enthusiasm, John Goldingay spends little time speculating on the shape of the building or probing what rights its prospective tenants have: he simply marches in and starts rearranging the furniture. Attentive readings offer fresh layouts and color schemes. The result is a book that is often happy to say what we do not know, imaginative in speaking of what we may know, and insistent in the call to turn and turn again to Scripture to shape all our knowing.”

Confronting the Will-to-Power

Theology

“A helpful study of Niebuhr's thought, demonstrating its internal coherence while at the same time challenging it at a number of key points with thoroughness and fairness.”

Making a Welcome

Christian Living

“"This engaging book is a delight. With elegance and enthusiasm, and in a self-effacing loosely autobiographical style, Maria Poggi Johnson explores the core Christian practice of hospitality--the voyage of the self out into interaction with a range of significant others: visitors, strangers, one's marriage partner, and God. There is also a profound reflection on receiving texts and ideas hospitably. A book to help the reader re-imagine everyday life in more welcoming terms.”

Mere Christian Hermeneutics

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Kevin Vanhoozer once more draws deep connections between reading practices old and new, theological confessions catholic and reformed, and hermeneutical insights literary and “literal.” The result: literal + figural = transfiguring interpretation. This theological tour de force is generously marked throughout by a wonderful wisdom and lyrical largesse. Case studies on light in Scripture raise, as it were, “literally fascinating” questions. This book will not resolve all the church’s fractured interpretive debates, but may it illuminate her pilgrimage through the ongoing struggles of biblical interpretation in our time.”

Reading the Bible outside the Church

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“David Ford sits with readers outside the church to learn what the Bible looks like to them. First, Scripture appears through a maze of prejudgments and personal factors, but which ones matter most? Secondly, the text strikes back, refashioning readers rather than just confirming biases. Ford introduces us to bitter and detached readings, fair and doubting readings, and transformative counter-readings. A fascinating study opening up new worlds of potential scriptural engagement on our own doorsteps.”

Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Dave Parris succeeds in the rare achievement of combining careful, critical attention to hermeneutical theory with serious and detailed attention to the biblical text. He brings some much-needed clarity to the current interest in the history of biblical interpretation, showing how reception theory clarifies the issues at stake in negotiating a text's interpretive tradition. The detailed examples from the interpretation of the gospels are exemplary and should commend this book to all careful biblical scholars.”

Spiritual Reading

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“Angie Harvey offers an engaging analysis of spiritual reading as a Christian practice of reading scripture, helpfully located in the landscape of theological interpretation and lectio divina, and with the church serving as a "home" for spiritual readers. Her studies of several key writers deepen our appreciation of the depth and complexities of what is involved, while offering vision for renewed Christian reading. Harvey offers today's readers significant 'ressourcement' for a key task.”

The Godless Delusion

Apologetics

“Jim Harries has some wonderfully illuminating stories to tell about how the Western world looks from Africa. Regardless of how far one may agree with Jim's analyses of the issues at stake, we in the West need to hear these stories as we reflect on our own states of faith and disbelief.”

Tragedy of the Commons

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Daniel Stulac finds in 1 Samuel an engrossing mix of intrigue, anguish, paradox, brokenness, and hope. He finds all these in our own world too. The gift he gives us, with vivid prose and lively imagination, is a (rocky) path to joining the two worlds together, letting Scripture bleed color deep into the cracks of our modern times. The result is a life-giving and wonderfully thought-provoking book.”