The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
“The Lord is my shepherd.”
Thus begins the most beloved of all Psalms—and thus begins a thousand-year journey through the Bible. Prophets, apostles and Jesus himself took up this image from David, reshaping it, developing it and applying it to their own situations and needs. Kenneth Bailey uses his celebrated insights into Middle Eastern culture and especially his familiarity with Middle Eastern shepherding customs to bring new light and life to our understanding of this central image of the Christian faith.
With each of nine major Old and New Testament passages, Bailey reveals the literary artistry of the Biblical writers and summarizes their key theological features. His work is also enriched by his unique access to very early Middle Eastern commentaries on these passages, bringing fresh understanding from within the mindset of these ancient worlds. The Good Shepherd invites us to experience a rich, biblical feast of ethical, theological and artistic delights.
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- Shows insights into Middle Eastern culture.
- Reveals the literary artistry of the Biblical writers.
- Invites us to experience a rich, biblical feast.
Deftly wielding the tools of biblical scholarship, story-telling and cultural exegesis, Ken Bailey has restored to its full color and brilliance one of the most magnificent images of Scripture—the character and work of the Good Shepherd. This book is a treasure trove of useable insights for preachers and teachers and a devotional classic for daily disciples alike.
-Daniel Meyer, Christ Church, Oakbrook, Illinois
‘You prepare a table before me... my cup overflows.’ What a feast Ken Bailey has prepared for us in this book, and what an overflowing cupful of insights and illumination. If you ever thought there was nothing more you could ever learn or preach about the biblical image of the good shepherd, this book has an abundance of surprises. Again and again I thought, ‘Why have I never seen that before?’—as Ken draws on his rich lifetime’s experience of Middle Eastern culture to explore biblical texts, and particularly when he shows eye-opening connections between Old and New Testament texts around the shepherd theme. This is a book that simultaneously brings the Bible to life, and exalts the Lord Jesus Christ by deeply enriching our understanding of his mission and claims as the Good Shepherd.
-Christopher J. H. Wright, International Ministries Director, Langham Partnership
Ken Bailey is the consummate expert on the cultural context of first-century life. And here he applies these skills to one motif—the shepherd—illustrating how it is employed in a variety of biblical stories and parables. His interpretations use a variety of tools unknown to many of us: ancient versions, original languages, cultural anthropology, ancient Middle Eastern writers who shared this ancient culture, and his own personal career embedded in a crosscultural life in the Middle East. Always insightful, always fresh, consistently surprising, Bailey has produced yet another book that will get many of us rethinking beloved passages of Scripture in completely new ways.
-Gary Burge, Wheaton College
- Title: The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament
- Author: Kenneth E. Bailey
- Publisher: IVP Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2014
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Pages: 288
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Subjects: Bible › General; Metaphor in the Bible; Shepherds in the Bible; Typology (Theology)
- ISBNs: 9780830896981, 9780281073504, 9780830840632, 0830896988, 0281073503, 083084063X
- Resource ID: LLS:9780830896981
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-06T20:42:11Z
Kenneth E. Bailey (1930–2016) was an acclaimed author and lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament studies. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he served as canon theologian of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. The author of more than 150 articles in English and in Arabic, his writings include Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, The Good Shepherd, Open Hearts in Bethlehem (A Christmas Musical), and The Cross and the Prodigal.
Bailey spent forty years living and teaching in seminaries and institutes in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Cyprus. For twenty of those years he was professor of New Testament and head of the biblical department of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut where he also founded and directed the Institute for Middle Eastern New Testament Studies. Bailey was also on the faculty of The Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research in Jerusalem. Traveling around the globe to lecture and teach, Bailey spoke in theological colleges and seminaries in England (Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol) Ireland, Canada, Egypt, Finland, Latvia, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, and Jerusalem. He was active as a Bible teacher for conferences and continuing education events in the Middle East, Europe, and North America, and he taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Fuller Seminary.