Deborah, Judge, Prophetess and Seer


Book Description

Judges 4:4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. This is the extent of what we know about Deborah before the battle with Sisera. Judges 5 is a poetic rewrite of Judges 4 with the added story of Siseras mother who waits in the window of her palace for her son to come home. The woman waiting in the window is a motif used in many writings to indicate a woman of great power. Here are two powerful women whose stories are so brief as written, but beg for a larger look at their lives. Biblical fiction is a wonderful way to flesh out their stories leading up to Judges 4 and 5. How did Deborah grow up? How did Barak grow up? Deborah was in Ephraim and Barak in Kadesh-Napthali, some sixty miles apart. How did they know each other? How did Deborah learn of scriptures and battle plans in a society where neither of these areas were open to women?




War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible


Book Description

The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war. Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible? In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as 'holy war') or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. The reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies. Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed a new and influential notion of peoplehood in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges


Book Description

In the Book of Judges, why, if we view Samson as a heroic Übermensch, do we read his story one way, yet if we read him as a buffoonish and violent oaf, we read the story another way? How does our assessment of the characters of a story, our empathy with them or suspicion of them, shape the way we read it? This book addresses these questions by analyzing the complex characterization in the Book of Judges, paying attention to an often neglected but important area of study in the Hebrew Bible. Its international group of contributors explore the implications of characterization on storytelling, situating their contributions within the context of literary studies of the Hebrew Bible, and offering multiple perspectives on the many and various characters one encounters in the Book of Judges. Chapters examine a range of topics, including the relationship between humor, characterization and theology in Judges; the intersection of characterization and ethics through the story of the story of Jephthah's daughter; why the 'trickster hero' Ehud disturbs interpreters; and the ways in which Abimelech's characterization affects the key narrative themes of succession and kingship in his story.




Jesus the Seer


Book Description

Increasingly, scholars recognize that prophetic traditions, expressions, and experiences stand at the heart of most religions in the ancient Mediterranean world. This is no less true for the world of Judaism and Jesus. Ben Witherington III offers an extensive, cross-cultural survey of the broader expressions of prophecy in its ancient Mediterranean context, beginning with Mari, moving to biblical figures not often regarded as prophets‒‒Balaam, Deborah, Moses, and Aaron‒‒and to the apocalyptic seer in postexilic prophecy, showing that no single pattern describes all prophetic figures. The consequence is that different aspects of Jesus’s activity touch upon prophetic predecessors: his miracles, on Elijah and Elisha; his self-understanding as the Son of Man, on Daniel and 1 Enoch; his warnings of woe and judgment, on the “writing prophets” in Judean tradition; and his messianic entry into Jerusalem, on Zechariah 9. Witherington also surveys the phenomenon of apocalyptic prophecy in early Christianity, including Paul, Revelation, the Didache, Hermas, and the Montanist movement. Jesus the Seer is a worthy complement to Witherington’s other volume on Jesus, Jesus the Sage (Fortress Press, 2000).




God Encounters


Book Description

GOD ENCOUNTERS ARE FOR EVERYONE! Every sincere seeker of the Lord can have God encounters! Journey with James and Michal Ann Goll as they share how they discovered a lifestyle of God encounters. You will enjoy a new depth of fellowship with God as you find yourself enjoying a new and refreshing intimacy with your Lord; an intimacy that brings the most powerful deliverance and healing in your life. You will see how God's tangible presence will: Free you from guilt Free you from bitterness and fear Heal you from pain of the past Open your heart to hear and respond to God like never before. Jim and Michal Ann Goll are seasoned prophets, recognized internationally for their work. Their exhaustive research on this topic, endlessly backed up by Scripture, is evident throughout this book. God Encounters is an excellent primer on how to move into deeper realms of the prophetic and supernatural as well how to reap the benefits of God encounters.




The Prophetess


Book Description

Outspoken and fearless, Deborah has faith in God but struggles to see the potential her own life holds. As an Israelite woman, she'll marry, have a family, and seek to teach her children about Adonai--and those tasks seem to be more than enough to occupy her time. But God has another plan for her. Israel has been under the near constant terror of Canaan's armies for twenty years, and now God has called Deborah to deliver her people from this oppression. Will her family understand? Will her people even believe God's calling on her life? And can the menace of Canaan be stopped? With her trademark impeccable research and her imaginative storytelling, Jill Eileen Smith brings to life the story of Israel's most powerful woman in a novel that is both intriguing and inspiring.




The Great Highway of Life


Book Description

Did you awaken one day to your spiritual nature and wonder how you got there? The flower grows from a seed in the physical ground, pushes up toward the sunlight, growing a stem and leaves that reach for the light, and suddenly it blooms! It is a beautiful bloom that is nothing like the stem, leaves, seed and ground it came from. A friend asked if the flower is as surprised when it blooms as we are when we suddenly step into the light of our spirituality. Would you like to explore your own development, mirrored to you by the deeper meaning of the Bible events and stories? The Bible gives us a clear pathway, a highway, not a confusing tangle of byways that lead nowhere. This is what Isaiah was telling us in Chapter 40:3. In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Navigating the Bible through metaphysics leads you book by book, chapter by chapter, and sometimes verse by verse on that highway of psychological development, from infancy to the gates of spirituality that open into the Gospels. There Jesus leads us forward with the example of his life and teachings showing us the kingdom of heaven. The Apostle Paul sees the Christ nature in each of us and endeavors to live it every day. Then we reach the book of Revelation. We trod the final steps to the New Jerusalem, the Christ consciousness, where we shed all earthly limitation and are totally prepared for God to return us to our true home.




Finding Home in the Fourth Dimension


Book Description

This book is about finding home in a world that obscures the spiritual nature of it, the fourth dimension. Beckys journey is my journey. The character herself is fictional, but her life experiences, thoughts, and feelings are mine. The other characters are from my life, but are given other parts to play in the story. The setting begins in 1986. Becky and her friends make their way through careers, growing beyond challenges of their past that limit them, into spirituality, freedom, and beyond. These characters brought up hidden emotions I didnt know were still there. As I created the characters, they taught me to look again at my responses to life with courage, love, and gentle humor. I thank Becky and her friends for giving me gifts I could not have found within myself without them. I gave them life, though only on paper, and they returned the favor by imprinting themselves on my heart. In Philippians 3:13, it says, Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God . . . Spirituality is our nature; the fourth dimension is our home.




The Story of the Seer of Patmos


Book Description

The book of Revelation pronounces a blessing upon everyone who "reads" or even "hears" it read. Yet, many treat it as a mysterious book that should not be read and cannot be understood. S. N. Haskell has opened the book of Revelation up in an easily read style that explains it and its relation to our day. This facsimile, originally printed in 1905, makes an excellent study book for young and old.