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It does not provide a simple worldview: what \"the Bible says\" on a given topic is multi-faceted, sometimes even contradictory. Yet, Swenson argues, we have a tendency to reduce the complexities of the Bible to aphorisms, bumper stickers, and slogans. Swenson helps readers look at the text with fresh eyes. A collection of ancient stories and poetry written by multiple authors, held together by the tenuous string of tradition, the Bible often undermines our modern assumptions. And is all the more marvelous and powerful for it.  Rather than dismiss the Bible as an outlandish or irrelevant relic of antiquity, Swenson leans into the messiness full-throttle. Making ample room for discomfort, wonder, and weirdness, A Most Peculiar Book guides readers through a Bible that will feel, to many, brand new.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49635346940177,"sku":"GOR011655926","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49710866432273,"sku":"CIN0190651733G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740146868497,"sku":"NGR9780190651732","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50465526612241,"sku":"CIN0190651733VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999656808721,"sku":"NIN9780190651732","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52703736824081,"sku":"GOR014587578","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53620859404561,"sku":"GOR012716721","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190651733.jpg?v=1776939497"},{"product_id":"bible-babel-book-kristin-swenson-9780061728266","title":"Bible Babel","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Bible informs much of our culture, but people often know little about the book itself and where it came from. Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book in the World is a lively, humorous, and very readable introduction to the Bible - what's in it, where it comes from, and how it is used in our culture today - that brings the most recent findings of biblical scholarship to all readers, regardless of their personal beliefs. Bible Babel gives people what they need to understand arguments about the Bible, appreciate artistic and literary references, and interpret the scriptures for themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e Kristin Swenson is a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of World Studies and has a Ph.D. in the history and literature of ancient Israel from Boston University. For over fifteen years she has been sharing her passion for learning about the Bible with seminary and university students. She is the author of Living through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.\"Kristin Swenson offers a confident, well-paced, well-informed, and accessible guide to Bible basics and biblical literacy. The reader may expect some surprises, some confirmation of hunches, and some challenges - exactly what ought to arise from serious, sustained treatment.\"- Walter Brueggemann, author of An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49647911567633,"sku":"GOR009107304","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50342973309201,"sku":"CIN0061728268G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50998905340177,"sku":"NIN9780061728266","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51757969867025,"sku":"CIN0061728268VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0061728268.jpg?v=1751424932"},{"product_id":"bible-babel-book-kristin-swenson-9780061728297","title":"Bible Babel","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy does the film Magnolia end in a downpour of frogs?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIs the serpent in the Garden of Eden the devil or just a snake?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow do people use the Bible to argue different sides of today's most controversial issues?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy did Metallica's bass player name their song Creeping Death after watching The Ten Commandments?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere does the fish symbol of the Christian faith come from?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWho is the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who opens the seven seals of a cosmic scroll?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithout either promoting or undermining specific beliefs, religious studies professor Kristin Swenson offers an intelligent, humorous, highly accessible, engaging, and illuminating guide to the Bible--incorporating biblical scholarship with contemporary pop culture references to help readers better understand the most talked about book of all time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50406852165905,"sku":"CIN0061728292VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52627055509777,"sku":"CIN0061728292G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0061728292.jpg?v=1751257557"},{"product_id":"god-of-earth-book-kristin-swenson-9780664261573","title":"God of Earth","description":"\"Wonderfully penned meditations on the basic questions Christianity - and humanity - now face\" - Professor Larry Rasmussen, author of Earth Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key.   \"Informed by rich appeal to religious mystery, voiced in poetic imagery and cadence… offers thick attentiveness to the world\" - Professor Walter Brueggemann, author of God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good     \"Seeker and visionary biblical scholar, Kristin Swenson blows past petrified Christian traditions to shine light on a profoundly radical new way to experience God\" - Stephanie Pearson, contributing editor, Outside magazine.   \"Calls us to heal and be healed... Fresh and poetic... opens a path for pilgrims seeking new ways of seeing and living with faith on the earth.\" Professor Cliff Edwards, author of Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest   \"...Motivates and empowers readers to stretch ideas of God as they care, in love and awe, for the earth.\" - Reverend Pat Watkins, United Methodist Missionary for the Care of God's Creation   What happens if we imagine the Jesus of Christian theology to be realized in the nonhuman natural world around us? Basic to Christian belief is the notion that God, the creator of all, inhabited the earth in order to call to us. God of Earth embraces this central premise of Christianity - Jesus as both fully divine and fully human - and then allows for the possibility that such a Jesus need not be limited to a human man. What if Jesus were \"God of earth\" - not only over earth but also in and through it? As Swenson tracks that question through the cycle of a church year, she invites readers to reconsider our relationship to the nonhuman natural world and so experience new dimensions of the sacred and new possibilities for hope and healing.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005498327313,"sku":"NIN9780664261573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51333962760465,"sku":"CIN0664261574VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52434425086225,"sku":"NLS9780664261573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0664261574.jpg?v=1751327025"},{"product_id":"lifestyle-drugs-and-the-neoliberal-family-book-toby-miller-9781433110443","title":"Lifestyle Drugs and the Neoliberal Family","description":"Through the lens of lifestyle drug advertisements, Lifestyle Drugs and the Neoliberal Family unpacks our contemporary obsession with obtaining easy solutions for difficult problems. 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