Books by Walter Brueggemann

Based on the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, this unique and comprehensive resource--the first in a series of three volumes--provides resources for an entire year of sermons and offers practical help to preachers and others involved using the Revised Common Lectionary. Beginning with Advent, it deals with the texts for Year B. Each...

Based on the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, this third in a series of three volumes provides resources for an entire year of sermons and offers practical help for preachers and others who use the Revised Common Lectionary. Beginning with Advent, this unique and comprehensive resource deals with lectionary texts for Year A. Each of...

Description:"To pursue the matter of "revelation in context," I will address an exceedingly difficult text in the Old Testament, Joshua 11. The reason for taking up this text is to deal with the often asked and troublesome question: What shall we do with all the violence and bloody war that is done in the Old Testament in the name of Yahweh? The question reflects a sense that these texts of violence are at least an embarrassment, are morally repulsive, and are theologically problematic in the Bible, not because they are violent, but because this is violence either in the name of or at the hand of Yahweh." -from chapter 2Endorsements:"Like Jacob wrestling with the man all night, Walter Brueggemann struggles with texts of divine violence and wrings from them a blessing. He draws together materialist and literary approaches to discover God''s violence subtly and indirectly employed on behalf of the dominated against dominators. The book is a brilliant primer in persuasive, open-ended theological interpretation. It will help pastors, students, and anyone who would like to join the hot debate about violence and the God of the Bible."--Kathleen M. O''Connor, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary"''What shall we do with all the violence . . . done in the Old Testament in the name of Yahweh?'' Walter Brueggemann addresses this pressing question with theological candor, exegetical rigor, and literary eloquence. For all those vexed by texts of violence in the Bible, this splendid little book is a ''must-read.''"--Louis Stulman, Chair, Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Professor of Religion, The University of FindlayAbout the Contributor(s):Walter Brueggemann is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is past President of the Society of Biblical Literature and the author of numerous books, including Praying the Psalms, A Pathway of Interpretation, and Ichabod toward Home.

World-renowned biblical interpreter Walter Brueggemann invites readers to take a closer look at the subversive messages found within the Old Testament.

In this updated edition of the popular textbook, Walter Brueggemann and Tod Linafelt introduce the reader to the broad theological scope of the Old Testament, treating some of the most important issues and methods in contemporary biblical interpretation. This clearly written textbook focuses on the literature of the Old Testament as it grew out...

In addition to being one of the world's leading interpreters of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann is a skilled and beloved preacher. This collection of sermons demonstrates Brueggemann's fidelity to biblical texts, which come alive with meaning in our contemporary world. Throughout, Brueggemann also reflects on his preaching.The book...

With critical scholarship and theological sensitivity, Walter Brueggemann traces the people of God through the books of Samuel as they shift from marginalized tribalism to oppressive monarchy. He carefully opens the literature of the books, sketching a narrative filled with historical realism but also bursting with an awareness that more than...

This volume invites readers to get up close and personal with one of the most respected and beloved writers of the last four decades. Carolyn J. Sharp has transcribed numerous table conversations between Walter Brueggemann and his colleagues and former students, in addition to several of his addresses and sermons from both academic and...

Challenging the traditional meaning of Scripture is not easy, even in the face of issues that call into question those traditional interpretations. In these reflections, Walter Brueggemann says that the Bible, as the live word of the living God, will not submit to the accounts we prefer to give it. The Bible's inherent, central evangelical...

The Fund for Theological Education (FTE) annually invites our nation's premier preachers to address a group of young adults who are considering a vocation in pastoral ministry. As part of the FTE's honoring their outgoing president, Dr. James Waits, for his remarkable service as President of the Fund for Theological Education, they have collected these superb sermons. These eight sermons on vocation offer an important resource for high school and college students making vocational decisions, for older adults considering vocational changes, and for all who teach and mentor in the area of vocational discernment and who help others sort out a commitment to professional ministry. The purpose of the Ministry Conference, and the sermons delivered at the event, intersects well with Abingdon's mission to help form pastors who will serve the church faithfully and effectively. The preachers are highly recognizable and respected individuals, who will serve as trusted and wise guides for discerning a ministry vocation. They include Fred Craddock, Walter Brueggemann, Tom Long, Barbara Brown Taylor, Brad Braxton, and Renita Weems. The volume includes an annotated bibliography of publications on ministry as a vocation, and a foreword by Dr. James T. Laney, former Ambassador to South Korea, President of Emory University, Dean of Candler School of Theology. He is currently a faculty member of Emory's Center for Ethics. He chairs the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, is a trustee of the Henry Luce Foundation, and chairs (with Andrew Young) The Faith and The City Program in Atlanta.

""Walter Brueggemann is the master of finding fresh and compelling dimensions of meaning in texts so familiar they barely scratch the surface of our consciousness. In this exciting collection, Brueggemann finds that when we admit we are dust, we can be liberated. Why? Because we are free from acting like God. We are free to choose obedience to the one living, true Sovereign. The idols lose their grip on us and we live faithfully and in authentic joy.""--Ronald J. Allen, Christian Theological Seminary""According to Walter Brueggemann, the autonomy, secularity, and individualism that characterize modernity have 'exiled' the contemporary believer. Always concerned with the manner in which one is to live in the world, he argues for a subversive imagination similar to that found in the biblical wisdom writings, the Psalms, and the Prophets. One comes away from this book both energized by the vision presented and challenged to make it a reality.""--Dianne Bergant, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago""There is a reason why Walter Brueggemann remains, for preachers and pastors, the most loved and trusted of all biblical scholars--and that is simply because he writes for us. In every season and heartbreak of life and ministry, he writes for us. And over the years, we have come to see that when Brueggemann goes to the text before God, with his signature passion, candor, and ferocious energy, he goes not for our enlightenment or edification, but for our life and for his. Read this book and take off your shoes, because you will enter onto holy ground."" --Anna Carter Florence, Columbia Theological Seminary

In Mandate to Difference, renowned theologian Walter Brueggemann sets forth a new vision of the Christian church in today's world. Based on speaking engagements surrounding his critical passion and conviction that the church in this moment must set itself in tension with the rest of the world, these essays call the church to courageously defy...

Throughout Walter Brueggemann's career, he has repeatedly found his way back to the David and royal traditions. From some of his earliest articles and essays to monographs, commentaries, and sermons, he has explored this rich field in literary, social, and theological depth. As he has said, ""My preoccupation with David rests on the awareness that David occupies a central position in the imagination of ancient Israel and in the rendering of 'faith and history' by that community. As the genealogies locate David, he stands mid-point between the rigors of Mosaic faith and the destruction of Jerusalem; as a consequence he becomes, in the artistry of Israel, the carrier of all the ambivalence Israel knew about guarantees and risks in the world YHWH governs."" This volume brings together some of Brueggemann's key essays on the David traditions, as well as their interrelationships with traditions in the book of Genesis.--from the Foreword

""Those who serve as truth-tellers in the church, like those who listen to the truth-telling in the church, are a mix of yearning and fearfulness, of receptiveness and collusion. In the end, the work of truth-telling is not to offer a new package of certitudes that displaces old certitudes. This truth to be uttered and acted, rather, is the enactment and conveyance of this Person who is truth, so that truth comes as bodily fidelity that stays reliably present to the pain of the world.""--from the Preface

In his clear and readable, style Walter Brueggemann presents Genesis as a single book set within the context of the whole of biblical revelation. He sees his task as bringing the text close to the faith and ministry of the church. He interprets Genesis as a proclamation of God's decisive dealing with creation rather than as history of myth...

Many of today's churchgoers wander in a world that was once structured and reliable, but now feels meaningless and incoherent. In this book, Walter Brueggemann argues for a dynamic transformation of preaching to help people find their spiritual home and to proclaim to the world that there is a home for all...

This book attempts to do biblical theology, to discern and articulate the main theological claims of a body of textual material, to listen to the text and to speak echoes of it. At the same time it seeks to make a hermeneutical move to our theological situation by drawing a 'dynamic equivalent' between Israel's exilic situation and our own.

With his typical interpretive coherence, Walter Brueggemann explores more than one hundred Old Testament themes--from "ancestors" to "YHWH." Providing much more than dictionary-style entries, Brueggemann acknowledges the deep interconnectedness of these themes as he explores their depth, complexities, and interrelationships. By reading across...

The Psalms express the most elemental human emotions, representing situations in which people are most vulnerable, ecstatic, or driven to the extremities of life and faith. Many people may be familiar with a few Psalms, or sing them as part of worship. Here highly respected author Walter Brueggemann offers readers an additional use for the...

A number of moving prayers can be found in the Old Testament and throughout Scripture. In this accessible volume, world-renowned scholar Walter Brueggemann offers his insight and wisdom on twelve prayers in the Old Testament, listening to the biblical text and explaining how these examples of ancient prayer can make prayer come alive for us...