The Gospel According To The Novelist

Why have so many prominent literary authors-from Philip Pullman and José Saramago to Michèle Roberts and Colm Tóibím-recently rewritten the canonical story of Jesus Christ? What does that say about our supposedly secular age? In this insightful study, Magdalena Maczynska defines and examines the genre of scriptural metafiction: novels that not only transform religious texts but also draw attention to these transformations. In addition to providing rich examples and close readings, Maczynska positions literary studies within interdisciplinary debates about religion and secularity. Her book demonstrates a surprising turn of events: even as contemporary novelists deconstruct the traditional categories of “secular” and “sacred” writing, they open up new spaces for scripture in contemporary culture.

Back cover: While the reasons for the initial separation between Barnabas' community and lived Judaism are irrecoverable, J. Christopher Edwards shows that Jesus was becoming foundational for maintaining the separation between "us" and "them", the rhetorical key to almost every argument in this early piece of Adversus Judaeos literature.

This book focuses on one of Africa's major novelists, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who depicts and analyzes many of the tensions associated with the colonization of East Africa by Europeans. Through his Christian education in Kenya, Ngugi became highly knowledgeable of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures and of inconsistencies between the political policies of foreign-controlled imperial administrations and their lip-service to Christian beliefs. Ngugi's grievances with the Western world in its dealings with East Africa focus on three major issues: cultural intrusion, political domination, and economic exploitation, and he vividly portrayed these issues in his novels.

"Beyond the prosperous New South surface of modern-day Atlanta lies a dangerous world of drug addiction and poverty, brilliantly realised in Suzanne Kingsbury's provocative new urban novel. Gracey Fill has been arrested during a narcotics raid aimed at busting one of the biggest drug runners Atlanta has ever known, her ex-husband, Sonny. In the questioning room, Gracey is intent on telling her entire story. Two officers, one young and naive, the other jaded, become her defacto audience. Meanwhile, the narrative moves back and forth between other expertly conjoured characters- Deneeka Jones, a cross-dresser who turns tricks and sells herion for Sonny; Frazier Sky and Audrey Sullivan, teenaged children of Atlant's ultra-rich who dabble in drugs to sooth the estrangement in their home lives; and finally Frazier and Audrey's parents, once extra-marital lovers who can't be saved by money, power, or privilege. As Gracey's harrowing story unfolds, the cops close in on Sonny and a batch of bad herion circulated through Atlanta, putting everyone in danger."

The world is flooded with novels about secret messages or hidden texts. They all pretend to reveal the ultimate truth of Jesus. In this book, Geert Van Oyen goes back to the oldest gospel and explores its story as a challenging and revolutionary message for any reader. By employing a narrative critical approach Van Oyen demonstrates how the narrator accompanies readers in their quest for the identity of the protagonist Jesus. Along the way readers will discover that faith in Jesus is not a matter of theoretical truth but of practical experience. Who can remain indifferent when they hear the paradox at the heart of the gospel: "Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all"?

The writer has often been asked, what is your favorite book of the Bible? The author at times has had a favorite book but has come to the point where every book in the Bible seems important and is now a favorite. Each book has its own peculiarity as its beauty brings out the truth that no other book perhaps would express. All sixty-six books are needed for study. This work is on the Gospel according to St. John. The apostle John is the writer, the human author, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is also the writer of the Epistles I. II, and III John as well as the great Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, a total of five great books. The Gospel of St. John has many themes in it that the Synoptic Gospels do not have.

The Twilight saga has become one of the most successful fiction series ever written, with more than one hundred million copies in print and several blockbuster films. Despite the tremendous commercial success Twilight has generated, few readers have analyzed its theological teachings or the messages Stephenie Meyer might be sending to women and teenage girls. This book offers both a feminist critique of Twilight and a theological review of the stories' ideas about salvation, heaven and hell, power, reconciliation, resurrection, and organized religion. Elaine Heath writes in an accessible voice, calling attention to both the "good news" of Twilight's theology and the "bad news" of its gender stereotypes and depictions of violence against women. The book includes questions for youth and adult groups or for classroom discussions.

A panoramic detective story, stuffed with scholarship, incident, place, and character, concerns the search for a lost first-century gospel that threatens to revolutionize Christianity, pursued by a shy theological student and a hard-drinking former Jesuit. Reprint.

Norman Mailer fused fact and fiction to create indelible portraits of such figures as Marilyn Monroe, Gary Gilmore, and Lee Harvey Oswald. In The Gospel According to the Son, Mailer reimagines, as no other modern author has, the key character of Western history. Here is Jesus Christ’s story in his own words: the discovery of his divinity and the painful, powerful journey to accepting and expressing it, “as if I were a man enclosing another man within.” In its brevity and piercing simplicity, it may be Mailer’s most accessible, direct, and heartfelt work. Praise for The Gospel According to the Son “Quietly penetrating . . . [Norman Mailer’s] gospel is written in a direct, rather relaxed English that yet has an eerie, neo-Biblical dignity.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “A book of considerable intellectual force . . . The writer’s powerful mind works in a specialized way, not by theological argumentation but by telling or retelling a story.”—The New York Review of Books “Challenges readers on the religious right and the atheist left with equally rich interpretive tasks.”—The Dallas Morning News “An informed and believable work of fiction . . . of what may have been going through the mind of Jesus during his epic ministry.”—San Francisco Chronicle Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

In this entertaining and enlightening book, religion reporter Pinsky shows how "The Simpsons" engages issues of religion and morality in a thoughtful, provocative, and genuinely respectful way. (Practical Life)