Dangerous Worlds

by McEntire, Mark Harold

• ISBN13: 9781573124331
• ISBN10: 1573124338
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Smyth & Helwys Pub

Summary

The narrative books of the Bible are dominated by the themes of violence and death. In his newly released work, author and biblical scholar Mark McEntire examines the messy stories of life and death found in the Bible. From gentle death at a good, old age to starvation to brutal murder, death appears in its many forms in these biblical worlds. Through the stories, we are invited to move back and forth between our own stories and those of the Bible, as McEntire writes, ?so that we might live and die faithfully in the dangerous world they form together.? As we live and die in our own dangerous world, the stories of life and death we encounter in the Bible offer us resources for understanding the most difficult aspect of our existence.

Table of Contents

Reading in Dangerous Places
Introduction	1	(2)
Understanding Biblical Narrative Worlds	3	(3)
Violence and Death in the Bible	6	(3)
Organization of the Book	9	(6)
Genesis: Striving with God
The Narrative Shape of Genesis	15	(3)
To Dust You Shall Return	18	(5)
I Shall Not Look on the Death of the Child	23	(6)
Reflections	29	(8)
Judges: Who Shall Go Up?
The Narrative Shape of Judges	37	(2)
Perish All Your Enemies O LORD	39	(13)
For They Have Done a Wicked and Disgraceful Thing in Israel	52	(2)
Reflections	54	(9)
Samuel: Like the Other Nations
The Narrative Shape of Samuel	63	(3)
1 Samuel: The Bows of the Mighty Are Broken	66	(10)
2 Samuel: From the Blood of the Slain	76	(7)
Reflections	83	(8)
Ezra-Nehemiah: All Who Trembled
The Narrative Shape of Ezra-Nehemiah	91	(2)
Ezra: Because They Were in Dread	93	(7)
Nehemiah: In Great Evil and Shame	100	(4)
Reflections	104	(5)
Matthew: Not Peace but a Sword
The Narrative Shape of Matthew	109	(3)
Rachel Weeping for Her Children	112	(5)
His Blood Be on Us	117	(6)
Reflections	123	(6)
The Acts of the Apostles: Those Who Were Scattered
The Narrative Shape of Acts	129	(2)
After His Suffering	131	(4)
For the Sake of the Hope of Israel	135	(4)
Reflections	139	(4)
Living and Dying	143	(4)
Bibliography	147