by David Prior (1985)
"Living like a Corinthian." In ancient Greece this phrase was an insult cast at vagrants, drunkards and sexual deviates. The city of Corinth was infamous as a center for intellectual pride and moral laxity. Any church planted there was bound to have problems. The Corinthian church was no exception. Snobbishness, factionalism, insensitivity to other believers, doctrinal looseness and overexuberance all flourished in the Corinthian church. When the apostle Paul heard about the difficulties, he was grieved because he had founded the church and felt closely tied to it. He therefore wrote an intense and pointed letter. In this fresh and gripping exposition of 1 Corinthians, David Prior plainly shows the relevance of Paul's letter for our times. His hope is that all churches may better live out the lordship of Christ in today's cosmopolitan world. - Back cover.
Commentary by Anthony Phillips
Dr Phillips's volume, like the others in the series, contains the text in the NEB translation, with introductory material preceding it, and a commentary directly following each section of text. Dr Phillips explains the nature and function of the whole book, its place in Jewish religious history and thought, and among the Old Testament books, and its continuing relevance today.
Robert Kolb
"Martin Luther read and preached the biblical text as the record of God addressing real, flesh-and-blood people and their daily lives. He used stories of the faithful as depicted in biblical narratives to drive home his vision of the Christian life, a life that includes struggling against temptation, enduring suffering, praising God in worship and prayer, and serving one's neighbor in response to God's callings and commands.... Leading Lutheran scholar Robert Kolb explores how Scripture undergirded Luther's approach to spiritual formation"--From publisher description.
Laura Lebow
"In 1786 Vienna, Lorenzo Da Ponte is the court librettist for the Italian Theatre during the height of the enlightened reign of Emperor Joseph II. This exalted position doesn't mean he's particularly well paid, or even out of reach of the endless intrigues of the opera world. In fact, far from it. One morning, Da Ponte stops off at his barber, only to find the man being taken away to debtor's prison. Da Ponte impetuously agrees to carry a message to his barber's fiance;e and try to help her set him free, even though he's facing pressures of his own. He's got one week to finish the libretto for The Marriage of Figaro for Mozart before the opera is premiered for the Emperor himself. Da Ponte visits the house where the barber's fiancee works--the home of a nobleman, high in the Vienna's diplomatic circles--and then returns to his own apartments, only to be dragged from his rooms in the middle of the night. It seems the young prote;ge; of the diplomat was killed right about the time Da Ponte was visiting, and he happens to be their main suspect. Now he's given a choice--go undercover into the household and uncover the murderer, or be hanged for the crime himself. Brilliantly recreating the cultural world of late 18th century Vienna, the epicenter of the Enlightenment, Lebow brings to life some of the most famous figures of music, theatre, and politics"--
Ira Berlin
A leading historian offers a sweeping new account of the African American experience over four centuries Four great migrations defined the history of black people in America: the violent removal of Africans to the east coast of North America known as the Middle Passage; the relocation of one million slaves to the interior of the antebellum South; the movement of more than six million blacks to the industrial cities of the north and west a century later; and since the late 1960s, the arrival of black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and Europe. These epic migra¡tions have made and remade African American life.Ira Berlin's magisterial new account of these passages evokes both the terrible price and the moving triumphs of a people forcibly and then willingly migrating to America. In effect, Berlin rewrites the master narrative of African America, challenging the traditional presentation of a linear path of progress. He finds instead a dynamic of change in which eras of deep rootedness alternate with eras of massive move¡ment, tradition giving way to innovation. The culture of black America is constantly evolving, affected by (and affecting) places as far away from one another as Biloxi, Chicago, Kingston, and Lagos. Certain to gar¡ner widespread media attention, The Making of African America is a bold new account of a long and crucial chapter of American history.