The Book of Deuteronomy, the Fifth Book of Moses, is foundational for both Judaism and Christianity. What makes Deuteronomy so significant? How does one apply its message today?Tune in as we speak with Adolph Harstad about his recent Concordia Commentary on Deuteronomy.You’re listening to New Books in Biblical Studies, a channel of the New Books Network, and I’m your host, Michael Morales.Rev. Dr. Adolph Harstad served as a pastor for many years and was a professor at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. He has participated in archaeological digs and led study tours in Israel.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In Living under the Evil Pope (Brill, 2019), Martina Mampieri presents the Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV, written in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Italian Jewish moneylender Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan (alias Guglielmo di Diodato) from Civitanova Marche. The text remained in manuscript for about four centuries until the Galician scholar Isaiah Sonne (1887-1960) published a Hebrew annotated edition of the chronicle in the 1930s. This remarkable source offers an account of the events of the Papal States during Paul IV's pontificate (1555-59). Making use of broad archival materials, Martina Mampieri reflects on the nature of this work, its historical background, and contents, providing a revised edition of the Hebrew text as well as the first unabridged English translation and commentary.Martina Mampieri has been granted a special mention of excellence in the Alberigo Award 2021 by the European Academy of Religion and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather than constructions of belief accepted only by simple-minded people, Michelle Karnes shows that these spectacular wonders were near impossibilities that demanded scrutiny and investigation.Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World (U Chicago Press, 2022) is the first book to analyze a diverse set of writings on such wonders, comparing texts from the Latin West—including those written in English, French, Italian, and Castilian Spanish —with those written in Arabic as it works toward a unifying theory of marvels across different disciplines and cultures. Karnes tells a story about the parallels between Arabic and Latin thought, reminding us that experiences of the strange and the unfamiliar travel across a range of genres, spanning geographical and conceptual space and offering an ideal vantage point from which to understand intercultural exchange. Karnes traverses this diverse archive, showing how imagination imbues marvels with their character and power, making them at once enigmatic, creative, and resonant. Skirting the distinction between the real and unreal, these marvels challenge readers to discover the highest capabilities of both nature and the human intellect. Karnes offers a rare comparative perspective and a new methodology to study a topic long recognized as central to medieval culture.Michelle Karnes is professor of English and the history of philosophy and science at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages and the coeditor of Studies in the Age of Chaucer.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was not afraid to express his opinions. Living amid what he perceived to be a culturally lukewarm Christianity, he was often critical of his contemporary church.But that does not mean Kierkegaard rejected traditional Christian theology. Indeed, at a time when many of his contemporaries were questioning the classical doctrine of God, Kierkegaard swam against the stream by maintaining orthodox Christian beliefs.In Kierkegaard and the Changelessness of God: A Modern Defense of Classical Immutability (InterVarsity Press, 2023), Craig A. Hefner explores Kierkegaard's reading of Scripture and his theology to argue not only that the great Dane was a modern defender of the doctrine of divine immutability (or God's changelessness) in response to the disintegration of the self, but that his theology can be a surprising resource today.Even as the church continues to be beset by "shifting shadows" (James 1:17), Kierkegaard can remind us of the good and perfect gifts that come from an unchanging God.Craig A. Hefner is the Head of School at Covenant School in Huntington, WV. His work has appeared in publications such as the International Journal of Systematic Theology and the Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America.Jackson Reinhardt is a graduate of University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University. He is currently an independent scholar, freelance writer, and research assistant. You can reach Jackson at jtreinhardt1997@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Between 167 and 160 BC, Judas Maccabeus and his brothers led a revolt against the Greek tyrant who desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Miraculously victorious, the Jews rededicated the Temple in a festival of lights that became the first Hannukah. A bloody tale of oppression, war, and ancient diplomacy, these books (Maccabees 1 and 2) are a bridge between the Old and New Testaments and are the first places that the Jewish Bible speaks of life after death, intercessory prayer, and purgatory.Matthew and Leeanne Thomas edited and annotated these texts for the Ignatius Study Bible. Matthew is a theologian and professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He and Leeanne are both scholars of Biblical Hebrew; they met in graduate school and got married. She had also once been a candidate for ordination in the Anglican Church in Canada before becoming a Catholic. Today, the couple live in Berkeley with their four beautiful children. The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, edited by Matthew and Leeanne Thomas, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. Matthew Thomas’s faculty webpage at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 02: Who Wrote the Bible? Sorting out the History of the Bible We Have. Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 03: The Gospels in the Early Church: Evidence for the Chronology and Transmission of the Christian Scriptures. Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 22: Better Call Paul How Did the Early Jewish Christians Understand “Works of the Law”? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Michael Kochenash published his revised dissertation from Claremont School of Theology as Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic) in 2020. A student of Dennis R. MacDonald, Kochenash has continued to pursue a similar brand of mimetic criticism as his Doktorvater—that is, a branch of source criticism that sees the composition of early Christian and Jewish narratives as deliberate reconfigurations, imitations, and subversions of existing Greco-Roman cultural stories, models, and ideologies of the elite, governing class—with excellent results. Although the positionality of author to empire is more complex than can be characterized in a convenient soundbite, Kochenash argues that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written in part from their author’s narrative opposition to certain facets of Roman imperial logic, particularly those expressed in the recorded deeds of Augustus, propaganda spread through numismatic evidence, and in Virgil’s Aeneid, among other places, chiefly to spread an inclusive, pro-Gentile, and universalizing salvific message about the Lukan Kingdom of God. Kochenash joined the New Books Network to discuss all these topics and more from his unique comparison of Luke-Acts to cultural and political themes known to the author that scholars have continued to remember as “Luke.”Rob Heaton, this episode’s host, has also written a critical review of Kochenash’s book, forthcoming with Rhea Classical Reviews.Michael Kochenash (Ph.D., Claremont, 2017) is a Radboud Excellence Initiative Fellow at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands) specializing in the New Testament and early Christian literature. He previously held teaching and research appointments in the United States and China. His research interprets early Christian and Jewish narratives as products of ancient Mediterranean literary production, with a special focus on their use of literary models from Jewish Scriptures and classical Greek literature. Among his previous publications are numerous journal articles and book chapters relating to Luke-Acts and other early Christian narratives, and he also co-edited Christian Origins and the New Testament in the Greco-Roman Context (Claremont Press, 2016), a Festschrift for Dennis MacDonald.Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

What does the LORD's deliverance of Israel out of Egypt to worship and serve him have to do with justice? Quite a lot, it turns out. Join us as we speak with Nathan Bills about his recent book, A Theology of Justice in Exodus (Eisenbrauns, 2020)Nathan Bills is Lecturer at Heritage Christian University College in Accra, Ghana, and is a scholar with the Theological Education Initiative.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Sister Mary Josefa of the Eucharist is a Benedictine nun in Missouri; she and the sisters of her community recently wrote a charming children’s book, Brides of Christ (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), which invites the reader into the rhythms of their contemplative life through the course of the day and cycle of the year. She talks about this life with me and also the discernment that drew her into it.We also discuss the late Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster who founded their community who drew the attention of the world earlier this year when her exhumed body was miraculously not corrupted four years after death, nor her garments (though the fabric of her coffin was completely rotted away).Finally, we discuss the special charism and Marian consecration of this Benedictine community who emulate the quiet, loving role of the Mother of God in the years between the Ascension of Jesus and her own Assumption, supporting the Early Church. The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles website The new book, Brides of Christ, from Sophia Institute Press Articles about Sr Wilhelmina Lancaster’s uncorrupted remains: in the New York Times, in the Catholic News Agency, and in the Catholic Review. Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and methods stretching from the late eleventh century to well into the sixteenth. Unlike earlier studies, Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science (U Chicago Press, 2022) engages the history of both learned and popular magic. Tarrant explains how the church developed a program that sought to codify what was proper belief through confession, inquisition, and punishment and prosecuted what they considered superstition or heresy that stretched beyond the boundaries of religion. These efforts were continued by the Roman Inquisition, established in 1542. Although it was designed primarily to combat Protestantism, from the outset the new institution investigated both practitioners of “illicit” magic and inquiries into natural philosophy, delegitimizing certain practices and thus shaping the development of early modern science. Describing the dynamics of censorship that continued well into the post-Reformation era, Defining Nature's Limits is revisionist history that will interest scholars of the history of science, the history of magic, and the history of the church alike.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity’s primal home now lost through the sins of Adam of Eve, the Earthly Paradise figured prominently in Old French tales of lands beyond the mundane world. This study proposes a fresh look at the complex roles played by the Earthly Paradise in three medieval French poems: Marie de France’s The Purgatory of St. Patrick, Benedeit’s Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, and Guillaume de Lorris’s The Romance of the Rose. By examining the literary, cultural, and artistic components that informed each poem, Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise (Medieval Institute Publications, 2023) advances the thesis that the exterior walls of the Earthly Paradise served evolving purposes as contemplative objects that implicitly engaged complex notions of economic solidarity and idealized community. These visions of the Earthly Paradise stand to provide a striking contribution to a historically informed response to the contemporary legacies of colonialism and the international refugee crisis.Jacob Abell is Assistant Professor of French at Baylor University. His work focuses on ecocriticism, religious studies, and the digital humanities.Becky Straple-Sovers is a medievalist and freelance editor who earned her Ph.D. in English at Western Michigan University in 2021. Her research interests include bodies, movement, gender, and sexuality in literature, as well as poetry of the First World War and the public humanities. She can be found on Twitter @restraple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies