Contemporary Issues Collection (6 vols.)

A Biblical View of Law and Justice explores the biblical approach to law and justice from Genesis to Revelation.

The Bible was not written as a handbook for lawyers, politicians, and civil servants setting out a theology of human law. Its concern is with the dealings of God with human beings and of human beings with God. The Biblical View Of Law and Justice seeks to wrestle with the biblical message of justice, giving lawyers, civil servants, and politicians a renewed vision and understanding of the potential of their work in the post-Christendom world.

Historically, anti-Semitism has been engrained in much Christian theology and practice. Is this the result of New Testament teaching, or an alien intrusion into Christianity? What is a Christian attitude towards the Jewish people and towards the state of Israel? What is currently going on in the Middle East and Israel, and does Israel still play a role in God’s purposes for the redemption of the world?

This book seeks to set out a biblical and theological case for the ongoing importance of the Jewish people in God’s plans for creation and to explain something of the complex and controversial situation in the modern day Israeli state.

This world or the next? In the world but not of it? Prophetic vision or grubby engagement with the world as it is?

These are the tensions Nigel Oakley grapples with as he shows how Christians can, indeed must, engage with the politics and the political debate. He shows how these tensions exist in every strand of Christian political thinking, and then he applies those tensions to case studies varying from today’s highly charged debates on sexuality to the war on terrorism. This book is both an intelligent introduction to the difficult world of Christian political theology and to some of the key debates that are shaping our times.

Many theologians and Christian philosophers have given considerable attention to the theory of knowledge in recent years. However, the rich resources of the biblical literature on questions of knowledge, especially the knowledge of God, have hardly begun to be mined because biblical scholars have rarely posed such questions to the texts.

In this volume, Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars reflect on what different parts of the Bible may have to contribute to our understanding of knowledge in general, and the knowledge of God in particular. Chapters on Deuteronomy, the Psalms, the Prophets, Wisdom literature, Luke-Acts, Johannine literature, and Paul’s letters reveal something of the Bible’s diverse and nuanced approach to the issues. The book ends with some reflections on the material from a theologian and from a Christian philosopher.

Writing from a position of biblical conservatism, the author examines rigorously some of the many questions which are raised by the doctrine of hell. He presents a convincing and scholarly case for the view that the unrighteous will forfeit resurrection life in the Kingdom of God.

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza is the most influential feminist New Testament scholar alive. Her work reconstructing the purported egalitarian origins of Christianity has exercised a widespread influence in the academy.

Esther Ng’s book is the most detailed analysis of Fiorenza’s historical reconstruction available. Ng offers a fair-minded but critical analysis of Fiorenza’s work, examining her presuppositions and historical methodology, as well as the evidence adduced to support her thesis. Ng’s rigorous analysis highlights serious problems with Fiorenza’s reconstruction of Christian origins and is indispensible reading for anyone interested in the place of women in earliest Christianity.