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Jordan Peele's horror movie, Us, takes moral ambiguity to its logical extreme by creating a world, or, rather, two worlds, in which good and evil mirror each other on multiple planes—the narrative, the visual, the spatial, the racial, the ethical—and by its use of a biblical verse—Jer 11:11. The Wilsons, who inhabit "our" world, view the "Tethered", who inhabit a nether world, as evil insofar as they have emerged from the shadows to terrorize and kill them. The Tethered, however, view the humans as evil, insofar as they take for granted the ability to enjoy and act in the world. Like the prophet Jeremiah, the film draws the audience's attention to its own iniquity—and the consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature marks my last as General Editor. On December 31, 2018, I will conclude a sixteen-year stint with the Journal: nine years as [...]

Contrary to the usual practice, this issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature begins with an editor s foreword. There is no particular occasion for this unusual step. This issue--134.3--does [...]

Despite the distance in time and space that separates twenty-first century readers from the people in biblical stories, our own everyday experience equips us to understand these events as traumas. In this essay, trauma theory will be applied to illuminate the much-contested process by which the Johannine community developed an identity different from, and in opposition to, the Jews among whom they apparently lived. Keywords John, Gospel of; Synagogues, Expulsion from; Incarnation; Trauma theory, The New Testament recounts numerous traumatic situations, shocking events that arouse strong emotions of fear and that abruptly change the lives and even identities of those who experience them. In [...]

The Gospel of John is a sublime theological work describing an exalted vision of the cosmic harmony between God and humankind as mediated by the Divine Word. At the same time, the gospel also vilifies nonbelievers and identifies them with a historical group, 'the Jews,' in a manner that contributed significantly to Christian anti-Semitism for many centuries. This essay describes both the positive and negative elements of John's portrayal of Jews and Judaism, and suggests some ways that twenty-first century readers might come to terms with this problematic issue., THE JEWISHNESS OF JESUS IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN In the Fourth Gospel, as in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus, his family, his disciples, his followers, [...]

In his 2014 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature, Fernando Segovia called for 'a fusion of the critical and the political, the biblical and the worldly' (JBL 134.1 [...]

'This is the ordinance for the passover: . . . . It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the animal outside the house, and [...]

ABSTRACT This paper argues that underlying the 'father-son' language that is used to describe the relationship between God and Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis. [...]

The image of God as father is deeply entrenched in Jewish and Christian scriptures. God frequently calls Israel God's son (Hos 1:10) or God's firstborn son (Exod 4:22). God is [...]

Not God's People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World by Lawrence M. Wills Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., 2008. 257 pp. $26.95. ISBN 978-0-7425-6250-9. THIS BOOK EXAMINES THE vision [...]

Lazarus, Mary and Martha: Social-Scientific Approaches to the Gospel of John by Philip F. Esler and Ronald Piper Fortress, Minneapolis, 2006. 201 pp. $22.00. ISBN 978-0-8006-3830-6. CONTRARY TO THE SUBTITLE, [...]

The Quiet Revolution brought an end to Catholic hegemony in Québec culture and society. Despite the Church's fall from power, Catholicism did not disappear from Québec society after the Quiet Revolution. The continued importance of Catholicism in conjunction with the dramatic shift to secular institutions and values creates a palpable tension in Québec public and private life. One film that explores this tension explicitly is the 1995 drama, Le Confessionnal. The film was written and directed by Robert Lepage, one of Québec's, and Canada's, most versatile artists. This article explores the primary existential theme -- the relationship between the Catholic past (1952) and the secular present (1989) -- by examining plot, character, and symbolism, particularly the use of color. Just as the main characters cannot escape their family history, so too, the film implies, must Québec come to terms with its past, within which the Catholic Church played such an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the role of gender in the apocryphal novels of Greek Esther, Susanna, and Judith, by means of comparison with the 1982 Steven Spielberg movie E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Just as E.T’s E.T-ness – his identity as an alien non-human creature exiled on planet earth – is central to the story of his exile, so too is the femaleness of Esther, Judith and Susanna germane to the stories of exile that their stories recount. The argument is structured around four points: the exilic setting; the role of the “alien”; the phone call, and the message, and will conclude with some reflections on the role of gender in stories about exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the New Testament commentary genre and Andrew Lincoln's comments on the Gospel According to Saint John in the New Testament. It covers that the interpretations on the New Testament book's were vehicles in exploring the role and meaning of the books in its literary, historical and theological contexts. It points out that Lincoln's interpretation attempts to convey the insights of secondary literature. It focuses on issues like the relationship between John and the Synoptics.

Movies in the Jesus film genre often claim to be not only faithful renditions of their texts—the New Testament Gospels—but also accurate representations of the person, words and deeds of the historical Jesus himself. More fundamentally, they also presume a tight connection between historicity and faith. A viewer who learns about the historical Jesus through these films, they suggest, will have his or her faith forever strengthened. The irony is that whereas the Gospels have inspired profound ideas and beliefs that have shaped Christian spiritually through the two millennia since Jesus' lifetime, their transformation on the silver screen almost always results in a superficial, shallow, simplistic representation of Jesus, his life and his significance for humankind. While almost every Jesus movie has its moments of grace and artistry, most of them plod through the story even as they claim to bring to life both the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. This paper explores two films—Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal (1989)—that break out of this pattern, and in doing so mount a fundamental and explicit challenge to the links between scripture, history and faith. Paradoxically, this challenge allows them a more profound and nuanced exploration of Christian faith than can be found in most other films of this genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Books reviewed: John H. Hayes (ed), Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (eds), Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Theology John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah Chapters 40–66 Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy. A New Translation with Notes and Commentary Brian E. Daley, On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies Mary Clayton, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe Sara Lipton, Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the ‘Bible moralisée’ Zachary Hayes, Bonaventure: Mystical Writings N. J. G. Pounds, A History of the English Parish: The Culture of Religion from Augustine to Victoria J. L. Heilbron, The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories Edelgard E. DuBruck and Barbara I. Gusick (eds), Death and Dying in the Middle Ages Christopher Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 Marguerite Porette, The Mirror for Simple Souls Peter Fergusson and Stuart Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory Jennifer Loach, Edward VI John A. Vickers (ed), A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland John Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science Ronald L. Numbers and John Stenhouse (eds), Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender Jeffrey M. Burns, Disturbing the Peace: A History of the Christian Family Movement, 1949–1974 Leonardo Boff, The Maternal Face of God: The Feminine and its Religious Expressions Curtis L. Hancock and Brendan Sweetman, Truth and Religious Belief: Conversations on Philosophy of Religion Louis Greenspan and Stefan Andersson (eds), Russell on Religion Richard Buxton (ed), From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought John A. Palmer, Plato's Reception of Parmenides S. R. Slings, Plato: ‘Clitophon’ Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld and Malcolm Schofield (eds), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy Michael Inwood, Heidegger (Past Masters) P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux (eds), The African Philosophy Reader D. Z. Phillips, Philosophy's Cool Place Oliver Leaman (ed), The Future of Philosophy: Towards the Twenty-First Century Audrey R. Chapman, Unprecedented Choices: Religious Ethics at the Frontiers of Genetic Science (Theology and the Sciences series) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]