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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]

In this address, I argue that the value of the Society of Biblical Literature as a learned society and a scholarly community must be measured not by the experiences of those who flourish but by those who struggle. To live up to our own values, and to be of value to society at large, we must commit to equity and justice; we must engage in our teaching and scholarship with a spirit of collegiality, collaboration, and openness to change. To do so we must be accountable to one another as scholars and as human beings. As one way forward, I suggest a "hermeneutics of chutzpah" that challenges the norms of biblical scholarship that were developed in Europe of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. One model for this hermeneutical mode can be found in African American biblical interpretation. The hermeneutics of chutzpah exercised by African American scholars benefits other marginalized people as well as those who have traditionally situated themselves at the core of our guild by helping us all to perceive the workings of whiteness, and to engage more honestly with the deep structures of our intellectual enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on introducing Adele Reinhartz including deployments of anti-Judaism and serving the committees of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies.

The author discusses his experience of general editor of the periodical. Topics discussed include information on maintaining and improving the diversity on the editorial board; monitoring of the articles submitted and published; and the social aspects of postmodernism. It also mentions the reviewing of article submitted by the women authors.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the guest editors discuss the confusion on using the word Judean writings and Judean and the use of term supersessionist.

An introduction to this issue of the "Journal of Biblical Literature" is presented.

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]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses biblical scholarship.

The article discusses the positive and negative elements of Jews and Judaism in the Gospel of John. It provides several contexts which demonstrate these elements and its impact to the reader. It also reflects on the major problem depicted in the Gospel which caused confusion among its readers, the usage of the Greek term hoi ioudaioi, which was commonly translated as the Jews but literally, the term means the Judeans.

Although the term 'rewritten Bible' has been used primarily of postbiblical Jewish retellings of the Hebrew Bible, the phenomenon which it describes extends to the present day, and pertains to the NT as well as the Hebrew Bible. This paper examines two examples of 'rewritten Gospel'-Dorothy Sayers's play cycle, The Man Born to Be King (1941-2) and Sholem Asch's novel, The Nazarene (1939)-in order to argue that such postcanonical Jesus narratives should be of interest to NT scholarship just as 'rewritten Bible' is of interest to scholars of the Hebrew Bible. [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]

Argues the underlying father-son language used to describe the relationship between God and Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Aristotelian theory of epigenesis; Vehicle for the logos and pneuma of the father; Revelatory function that Jesus plays in the world.

Presents the image of God as father in Jewish and Christian scriptures. Use of father for God; Metaphor of God as father in the Fourth Gospel; Complexity of the Johannine use of paternal God-language.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the reflection of six scholars on how racial violence and its eradication intersect in biblical studies, and the relationship between scholarship and the larger social context of humanity.

The article introduces a forum from the "Journal of Biblical Literature" which focuses on biblical interpretation.

The article introduces the Forum section in the December 2014 issue of the "Journal of Biblical Literature" which focuses on the question of emotion.

Several articles analyzing Serge Frolov's commentary on Philip J. Yoo's essay "The Four Moses Death Accounts" are presented. Topics discussed include Frolov's analysis of Yoo's article which detailed source-critical analysis of Deuteronomy 34, Yoo's response to Frolov's commentary on his essay in his discussion on source criticism, Shawna Dolansky's analysis of Yoo's argument on all four pentateuchal sources and Frolov's response.

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]