The Bible Now

What the Bible has to say for people today wrestling with issues of homosexuality, abortion, women, the death penalty, and the Earth is the focus of this collaboration by senior scholar Friedman (Who Wrote the Bible?), who holds endowed chairs in Judaism at the universities of Georgia and California, and Dolansky (Now You See It, Now You Don't), assistant professor of religious studies at Northeastern University. They distinguish their focus on the "now" from other efforts to understand literary characteristics and historical context (the "then"). This would seem to suggest that they'll dispense with all that slippery scholarship and cut to the chase%E2%80%94the Bible's thumbs up/thumbs down conclusions for believers today. Not so, and the book is better for it. Without taking and arguing a particular side, this is a lucid discussion, informed by strong scholarship, of the biblical texts at issue for the issues. Some readers may wish for "the answers"; the rest of us will be relieved at their absence. (June)