To obtain discounts on selected books, enter promotional code YY009 into the space provided on the shopping cart. Discounts will be computed on the shopping cart once the code is entered.

Discounts are valid only in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible.

B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

The question of Christianity’s relation to the other religions of the world is more pertinent and difficult today than ever before. While Christianity’s historical failure to appreciate or actively engage Judaism is notorious, Christianity’s even more shoddy record with respect to “pagan” religions is less understood. Christians have inherited a virtually unanimous theological tradition that thinks of paganism in terms of demonic possession, and of Christian missions as a rescue operation that saves pagans from inherently evil practices. 

In undertaking this fresh inquiry into early Christianity and Greco-Roman paganism, Luke Timothy Johnson begins with a broad definition of religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences concerning ultimate power. In the tradition of William James’s Variety of Religious Experience, he identifies four distinct ways of being religious: religion as participation in benefits, as moral transformation, as transcending the world, and as stabilizing the world. Using these criteria as the basis for his exploration of Christianity and paganism, Johnson finds multiple points of similarity in religious sensibility. 

Christianity’s failure to adequately come to grips with its first pagan neighbors, Johnson asserts, inhibits any effort to engage positively with adherents of various world religions.  This thoughtful and passionate study should help break down the walls between Christianity and other religious traditions.

Luke Timothy Johnson is the R. W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.

In this provocative, intelligent, and highly original addition to the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library, Susan R. Garrett argues that angel talk has never been merely about angels. Rather, from ancient times until the present, talk about angels has served as a vehicle for reflection on other fundamental life questions, including the nature of God’s presence and intervention in the world, the existence and meaning of evil, and the fate of humans after death. In No Ordinary Angel, Garrett examines how biblical and other ancient authors addressed such questions through their portrayals of angels. She compares the ancient angel talk to popular depictions of angels today and considers how the ancient and modern portraits of angels relate to Christian claims about Jesus.

No Ordinary Angel offers important insights into the development of angelology, the origins of Christology, and popular Western spirituality ranging from fundamentalist to New Age. In doing so, it provokes stimulating theological reflection on key existential questions.

Susan R. Garrett is professor of New Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She is coordinator of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

While the canonical scriptures were produced over many centuries and represent a diverse library of texts, they are unified by stories of divine covenants and their implications for God’s people. In this deeply researched and thoughtful book, Scott Hahn shows how covenant, as an overarching theme, makes possible a coherent reading of the diverse traditions found within the canonical scriptures.

Biblical covenants, though varied in form and content, all serve the purpose of extending sacred bonds of kinship, Hahn explains. Specifically, divine covenants form and shape a father-son bond between God and the chosen people. Biblical narratives turn on that fact, and biblical theology depends upon it. With meticulous attention to detail, the author demonstrates how divine sonship represents a covenant relationship with God that has been consistent throughout salvation history. A canonical reading of this divine plan reveals an illuminating pattern of promise and fulfillment in both the Old and New Testaments. God’s saving mercies are based upon his sworn commitments, which he keeps even when his people break the covenant.

Scott Hahn is Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology, St. Vincent Seminary, and professor of scripture and theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. Among his many best-selling books is The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth. He lives in Steubenville, OH.

John Meier’s previous volumes in the acclaimed series A Marginal Jew are founded upon the notion that while solid historical information about Jesus is quite limited, people of different faiths can nevertheless arrive at a consensus on fundamental historical facts of his life. In this eagerly anticipated fourth volume in the series, Meier approaches a fresh topic—the teachings of the historical Jesus concerning Mosaic Law and morality—with the same rigor, thoroughness, accuracy, and insightfulness on display in his earlier works.

After correcting misconceptions about Mosaic Law in Jesus’ time, this volume addresses the teachings of Jesus on major legal topics like divorce, oaths, the Sabbath, purity rules, and the various love commandments in the Gospels. What emerges from Meier’s research is a profile of a complicated first-century Palestinian Jew who, far from seeking to abolish the Law, was deeply engaged in debates about its observance. Only by embracing this portrait of the historical Jesus grappling with questions of the Torah do we avoid the common mistake of constructing Christian moral theology under the guise of studying “Jesus and the Law,” the author concludes.

John P. Meier is William K. Warren Chair Professor of Theology (New Testament), Theology Department, University of Notre Dame. He lives in South Bend, IN.

In a perplexing passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus is likened to the most reviled creature in Christian symbology: the snake. Attempting to understand how the Fourth Evangelist could have made such a surprising analogy, James H. Charlesworth has spent nearly a decade combing through the vast array of references to serpents in the ancient world—from the Bible and other religious texts to ancient statuary and jewelry. Charlesworth has arrived at a surprising conclusion: not only was the serpent a widespread symbol throughout the world, but its meanings were both subtle and varied. In fact, the serpent of ancient times was more often associated with positive attributes like healing and eternal life than it was with negative meanings.

This groundbreaking book explores in plentiful detail the symbol of the serpent from 40,000 BCE to the present, and from diverse regions in the world. In doing so it emphasizes the creativity of the biblical authors’ use of symbols and argues that we must today reexamine our own archetypal conceptions with comparable creativity.

James H. Charlesworth is George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, and director and editor of the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project, Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author or editor of more than sixty books and six hundred articles. He lives in Princeton, NJ.

Some of the Bible's most memorable characters are the women in the book of Judges. From Deborah and Jael to Delilah and Samson's mother, these women led the Israelites in battle, used their wits to defeat the enemy, their wiles to seduce mighty men, and their wisdom to prevail on God. In Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen author Susan Ackerman offers a keen analysis of the main types of wom...

A world-famous biblical scholar presents the only one-volume, comprehensive, and up-to-date analysis of the origin and meaning of the Pentateuch, and the extraordinary scholarship it has inspired.

The truth behind the Gospel accounts of the  Nativity, updated to include the latest research--a  classic by a renowned scholar, hailed as  "masterly" and "definitive" in the  original edition.

Universally acknowledged as the dean of New Testament scholarship, Father Brown is a master of his discipline at the pinnacle of his career. Who else could cover the entire scope of the New Testament with such ease and clarity? This gifted communicator conveys the heartfelt concern of a beloved teacher for his students, as he walks the reader through the basic content and issues of the New Testame...

A leading expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls explains why they are among the most important archaeological finds in history, and explores how they have revolutionized our understanding of Jesus.

In this groundbreaking new book, distinguished biblical scholar James L. Crenshaw investigates both the pragmatic hows and the philosophical whys of education in ancient Israel and its surroundings. Asking questions as basic as "Who were the teachers and students and from what segment of Israelite society did they come?" and "How did instructors interest young people in the things they had to say?...

This definitive introduction to the gnostic scriptures provides a crucial look at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.

The Empty Men describes the process by which adventure stories—replete with foolish love, warfare, assassinations, ritual slaughter, and grim masculine codes—were transformed into sermons and history lessons. Mobley also offers reflections on the Iron Age theology of these narratives, with their emphasis on poetic justice, and on the mythic dimensions of landscape in these stori...

An iconoclastic study of the entire Hebrew Bible (Christianity's Old Testament) that argues provocatively that the Bible developed as a written tradition rather than an oral one, as commonly believed.

Jonathan A. Goldstein turns to the religious literature of these ancient peoples to discover how they reconciled their beliefs with the realities of history. In a magnificent blend of several academic disciples (literary criticism, political theory, biblical and classical history), he compares and contrasts the responses of different eras and nations – from the Israelites, Babylonians, and E...

In Ephraim Stern's sequel to Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Volume I , by Amihai Mazar, this world-renowned archaeologist who has directed excavations in the Holy Land for many years offers a dramatic look at how archaeological research contributes to our understanding of the connections between history and the stories recounted in the Bible. Stern writes about various artifacts unea...

Dead Sea Scrolls expert Lawrence H. Schiffman shifts attention away from the sensationalism surrounding who has control of the scrolls by focusing on how these texts shed light on the history of Judaism and early Christianity.

In this definitive book on the real, historical Jesus, one of our foremost biblical scholars meticulously sifts the evidence of 2,000 years to portray neither a rural magician nor a figure of obvious power, but a marginal Jew.

This book is the second volume in John Meier's masterful trilogy on the life of Jesus. In it he continues his quest for the answer to the greatest  puzzle of modern religious scholarship: Who was  Jesus?  Meier brings to life the story of a man, Jesus,  who by his life and teaching gradually made himself  ma...

No man is an island, not even Jesus, as John Meier writes in Companions and Competitors, the third installment of his four-part series, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Here, Meier explains his conviction that "No human being is adequately understood if he or she is considered in isolation from other human beings." His findings, particul...

This volume represents a significant breakthrough in the study of Hebrew prosody with important implications for understanding the formation of the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Duane Christensen, a renowned biblical scholar, offers a detailed analysis of the Hebrew text of Nahum and demonstrates the intricate literary structure and high poetic quality of the work.

Nahum is a book about God’s justice and portrays God as strong, unyielding, and capable of great anger. This view of God’s nature stands in contrast to that found in Jonah, another book in the section of the Hebrew Bible known as the Book of the Twelve Prophets, which presents God as “compassionate, gracious . . . [and] abounding in steadfast love.” Christensen shows how Nahum and Jonah present complementary aspects of God’s nature, each essential for an understanding of the divine being. The commentary includes the most extensive bibliography published to date of works cited.

Duane Christensen is professor of Old Testament languages and literature (retired), Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. He is President of BIBAL Corporation and lives in Rodeo, CA.

This volume completes Bible scholar Michael V. Fox’s comprehensive commentary on the book of Proverbs. As in his previous volume on the early chapters of Proverbs, the author here translates and explains in accessible language the meaning and literary qualities of the sayings and poems that comprise the final chapters. He gives special attention to comparable sayings in other wisdom books, particularly from Egypt, and makes extensive use of medieval Hebrew commentaries, which have received scant attention in previous Proverb commentaries. In separate sections set in smaller type, the author addresses technical issues of text and language for interested scholars.

The author’s essays at the end of the commentary view the book of Proverbs in its entirety and investigate its ideas of wisdom, ethics, revelation, and knowledge. Out of Proverbs’ great variety of sayings from different times, Fox shows, there emerges a unified vision of life, its obligations, and its potentials.

Michael V. Fox is Halls-Bascom Professor of Hebrew, University of Wisconsin, Madison. His previous books include Proverbs 1–9, available from Yale University Press. He lives in Madison.

This new translation of First Corinthians includes an introduction and extensive commentary that has been composed to explain the religious meaning of this Pauline epistle. Joseph Fitzmyer discusses all the usual introductory problems associated with the epistle, including issues of its authorship, time of composition, and purpose, and he also presents a complete outline.

The author analyzes the epistle, pericope by pericope, discussing the meaning of each one in a comment and explaining details in the notes. The book supplies a bibliography on the various passages and problems for readers who wish to investigate further, and useful indexes complete the volume. First Corinthians will be of interest to general readers who wish to learn more about the Pauline letters, and also to pastors, college and university teachers, graduate students studying the Bible, and professors of Biblical studies.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer is a Jesuit priest and professor emeritus, Biblical Studies, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. He has edited and published numerous books on the New Testament, ancient Aramaic, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and he has served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Society for New Testament Study. He lives in Washington, DC.

In the final nine chapters of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus increasingly struggles with his disciples’ incomprehension of his unique concept of suffering messiahship and with the opposition of the religious leaders of his day. The Gospel recounts the events that led to Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion by the Roman authorities, concluding with an enigmatic ending in which Jesus’ resurrection is announced but not displayed.

In this volume New Testament scholar Joel Marcus offers a new translation of Mark 8–16 as well as extensive commentary and notes. He situates the narrative within the context of first-century Palestine and the larger Greco-Roman world; within the political context of the Jewish revolt against the Romans (66–73 C.E.); and within the religious context of the early church’s sometimes rancorous engagement with Judaism, pagan religion, and its own internal problems. For religious scholars, pastors, and interested lay people alike, the book provides an accessible and enlightening window on the second of the canonical Gospels.   

Joel Marcus is professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Duke Divinity School, and the author of Mark 1–8, available from Yale University Press. He lives in Durham, NC.

In Philippians John Reumann offers both classical approaches and new methods of understanding this New Testament book. With fresh commentary on the social world and rhetorical criticism, and special focus on the contributions of the Philippian house churches to Paul’s work and early Christian mission, Reumann clarifies Paul’s attitudes toward and interactions with the Philippians.

Departing from traditional readings of Philippians in light of Acts, Reumann allows Paul to speak in his own right. His three letters from Ephesus shed new light on relationships, and we come to see how he approves some aspects of the dominant “culture of friendship” in Greco-Roman Philippi while disapproving others. He seeks to help the Philippians discern how to be citizens of the heavenly kingdom and also Caesar’s state, though there is an undercurrent of “Christ vs. Caesar.” Scholars, students, and general readers alike will find much of interest in John Reumann’s deeply researched and insightful new volume.

John Reumann is Ministerium of Pennsylvania Professor of New Testament and Greek, emeritus, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, where he taught for some fifty years. He has studied and written on Philippians for over thirty years.