Graven Images


Book Description

Paul Fleischman, in his Newbery Honor winning book, spins three engrossing stories about the unexpected ways an artist's creations reveal truths - tales whose intriguing plots and many moods will entertain readers and inspire future writers. Can wood, copper, or marble communicate? They can if they are the graven images in Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman’s trio of eerie, beguiling short stories. If you whisper a secret into a wooden statue’s ear, will anyone find out? Can a wobbly weathervane bearing the image of Saint Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers, steer a love-struck apprentice toward the girl of his dreams? And if a ghost hires a sculptor to carve a likeness of him holding a drink to a baby’s lips, what ghastly crime might lie behind his request? And, in a brand-new afterword, the acclaimed storyteller reveals how he found his own author’s voice.




Graven Images


Book Description

Comic books have increasingly become a vehicle for serious social commentary and, specifically, for innovative religious thought. Practitioners of both traditional religions and new religious movements have begun to employ comics as a missionary tool, while humanists and religious progressives use comics' unique fusion of text and image to criticize traditional theologies and to offer alternatives. Addressing the increasing fervor with which the public has come to view comics as an art form and Americans' fraught but passionate relationship with religion, Graven Images explores with real insight the roles of religion in comic books and graphic novels. In essays by scholars and comics creators, Graven Images observes the frequency with which religious material—in devout, educational, satirical, or critical contexts—occurs in both independent and mainstream comics. Contributors identify the unique advantages of the comics medium for religious messages; analyze how comics communicate such messages; place the religious messages contained in comic books in appropriate cultural, social, and historical frameworks; and articulate the significance of the innovative theologies being developed in comics.




Graven Images


Book Description

In Puritan New England, with its abiding concern for things not of this world and its distrust of forms and ceremonies, one art flourished: the symbolic art of mortuary monument stonecarvers. This carefully researched, beautifully illustrated work was the first to consider this art in depth as a meaningful aesthetic-spiritual expression. It is reissued for today's readers, with a new preface outlining changes in the field since the book appeared in 1966.




Graven Images


Book Description

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth". So decrees the second commandment. Could anything be clearer? And yet, through the centuries, Jews have decorated their tombstones with graven images. This rich tradition of liberally interpreting the biblical admonition has provided centuries' worth of graphic symbols and motifs that illuminate Jewish history and lore. In Graven Images, a surprisingly spirited view of a usually somber subject, author and photographer Arnold Schwartzman has assembled a lavish array of color photographs of Jewish tombstones. Focusing on the treasures he has discovered in thirty-eight European cemeteries, this book reproduces more than two hundred graven images from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Romania. Schwartzman's beautiful close-up photographs and fascinating captions reveal the significance of some of the most common images found on the gravestones. Some reveal the occupation of the deceased (an inkwell and quill for a scribe) or something about character (a candelabrum for a pious woman). Others allude specifically to a person's name (a fish for a member of the Fischel family) or refer to biblical tradition (Noah's ark, Adam and Eve in the Garden). The book begins with a riveting essay by Chaim Potok, the renowned novelist and Jewish thinker, who asks: "How in the light of all these images are we to understand the second commandment?" A unique assemblage of what Schwartzman has called "hallowed milestones that plot the course of the Jewish diaspora", GravenImages will appeal to everyone interested in Jewish history, symbols, and tradition.




Joe Death and the Graven Image


Book Description

Somewhere between Mike Mignola, A Fistful of Dollars, and Johnny Cash's Ghost Riders in the Sky, this tale is an adventurous take on the existential hitman, set against a dreamy western backdrop populated by witches, spirits, ghouls, and other monsters. Joe Death explores what it means for Death to undo what he does best. More importantly, what is the true cost of salvation? After surviving a brutal massacre, the last surviving heir of the town of Hard Hollow is kidnapped by the bloodthirsty bandit, Scary Harry. The spirit of Hard Hollow enlists Joe Death-a six-shooter-totin' grim reaper-to rescue the child. Joe ventures out into the Valley, a desert world with mountains on all sides whose heights reach into the heavens and fissures dive into the underworld itself. He meets all manner of strange characters, creatures, and monsters; each of them all too familiar with Joe's typical line of work. Emerging writer Benjamin Schipper dives deep into this tale of the reaper with a name, employing a beautiful and quirky style that gives this macabre odyssey all the heart, humor, and tension essential to a modern masterpiece.




Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch


Book Description

When Jean Louis Ska's Introduzione alla lettura del Pentateuco was first published in Italy, it was quickly hailed as the most attractive and usable introduction to the Pentateuch to appear in modern times. Because of its strengths, it was soon translated into French. The English translation published by Eisenbrauns has been completely reviewed and updated (including the bibliography) by Ska. Among the book's many strengths are its close attention to the ways in which modern cultural history has affected Pentateuchal interpretation, attention to providing the kinds of examples that are helpful to students, presentation of a good balance between the history of interpretation and the data of the text, and the clarity of Ska's writing. For both students and scholars, many consider this book the best contemporary introduction to the Pentateuch.




Walking with God through Pain and Suffering


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author of The Prodigal Prophet Timothy Keller—whose books have sold millions of copies to both religious and secular readers—explores one of the most difficult questions we must answer in our lives: Why is there pain and suffering? Walking with God through Pain and Suffering is the definitive Christian book on why bad things happen and how we should respond to them. The question of why there is pain and suffering in the world has confounded every generation; yet there has not been a major book from a Christian perspective exploring why they exist for many years. The two classics in this area are When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, which was published more than thirty years ago, and C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, published more than seventy years ago. The great secular book on the subject, Elisabeth Ku¨bler-Ross’s On Death and Dying, was first published in 1969. It’s time for a new understanding and perspective, and who better to tackle this complex subject than Timothy Keller? As the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, Timothy Keller is known for the unique insights he shares, and his series of books has guided countless readers in their spiritual journeys. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering will bring a much-needed, fresh viewpoint on this important issue.




Identity and Idolatry


Book Description

In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Richard Lints argues that "idol" language in the Bible is a conceptual inversion of the "image" language of Genesis 1. He shows how the narrative of human identity runs from creation to fall to redemption in Christ, and examines the recent renaissance of interest in idolatry with its conceptual power to explain the "culture of desire."




Images and Idols


Book Description

Christians ought to be leading the way in creativity, but we rarely do. God is the Creator of all things, and He created us in His image. Creativity is woven into the very fabric of our humanity. Therefore, Christians should value and champion creativity as a vital part of our image-bearing role. Instead Christians often don’t know what to do with creatives and creatives don’t know what to do with Christianity. On one side you have Christians who neglect or discount art, imagination, and beauty altogether. On the other, you have artists who make idols out of each of these good things. Ryan Lister, a theology professor, and Thomas Terry, a spoken word artist and founder of Humble Beast, team up to help restore the connection between creativity and theology. Images & Idols is a theological and artistic exploration of creativity in the Christian life. It will help creatives build a strong theological foundation for their art, while challenging the church to embrace a theology of beauty and creativity.




No Graven Image


Book Description

First published in 1966, No Graven Image is the only novel of the best-selling author Elisabeth Elliot. Margaret, an intrepid twenty-five-year-old missionary, travels to the Andes Mountains of Ecuador to start her ministry. She sees little progress at first, but eventually gains a following and an enhanced reputation for her part in the safe and seemingly miraculous delivery of a breech baby. Things seem to be going well. She works on her translation of the Bible into the Indian language and befriends a native and his family. Then tragedy strikes, shaking Margaret's entire way of thinking. Full of excitement, human emotion, and exotic South American culture and color, No Graven Image is sure to captivate new readers everywhere.




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