This landmark resource, the first fully-based on authoritative NABRE translation, contains the trustworthy study notes, expanded essays, and informational sidebars which have guided and informed students and general readers for 25 years. In this new edition, one-third of the Reading Guide materials are new, and all of the other Guides have been reviewed and revised by their original authors.

The extensive Reading Guide, the focal point of this volume, leads the reader through the Scriptures, book by book. References and background information are clearly laid out to guide the reader to a fuller understanding of the Bible. New to this edition is a more extensive treatment of the biblical background, including history and archeology.

Other outstanding features include: a 15-page glossary of special terms and complete Sunday and weekday lectionary readings for the liturgical years of the Church. Thirty-two beautiful pages of full-color Oxford Bible Maps come with a place-name index for easy reference.

Perfect for both higher education and clergy, Bible study and general readers, The Catholic Study Bible is an essential resource for both experienced students and first-time readers.

The New American Bible Revised Edition:

The New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) brings to culmination the work of nearly 100 scholars, including translators, editors, and a subcommittee of Catholic bishops who provided extensive review of the biblical text over a period of many years. The NABRE is the first major amendment to the New American Bible translation since 1991. It features:

*The first update of the Old Testament since 1970, taking into account recent archaeological and textual discoveries.
*Complete revision of the Psalter.

A highly regarded expert on Jewish apocalyptic texts, John J. Collins has written extensively on the subject. Nineteen of his essays written over the last fifteen years, including several previously unpublished contributions, are brought together for the first time in Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy.

After an introductory essay that revisits the problem of defining Apocalypse as a literary genre, Collins deals with a number of different topics, including the relationship between apocalypse and prophecy and the troubling ethical issues raised by apocalyptic texts. Collins also examines several specific examples to show the themes and variation present in the genre. Organized in five sections, these thematic essays complement and enrich Collinss well-known bookThe Apocalyptic Imagination.

An old, bloodthirsty tyrant hears from a group of Magi about the birth of the Messiah, king of the Jews. He vengefully sends his soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to kill all of the baby boys in the town in order to preserve his own throne. For most of the Western world, this is Herod the Great -- an icon of cruelty and evil, the epitome of a tyrant.

Adam Kolman Marshak portrays Herod the Great quite differently, however, carefully drawing on historical, archaeological, and literary sources. Marshak shows how Herod successfully ruled over his turbulent kingdom by skillfully interacting with his various audiences -- Roman, Hellenistic, and Judaean -- in myriad ways. Herod was indeed a master in political self-presentation.

Marshak's fascinating account chronicles how Herod moved from the bankrupt usurper he was at the beginning of his reign to a wealthy and powerful king who founded a dynasty and brought ancient Judaea to its greatest prominence and prosperity.

The year 167 B.C.E. marked the beginning of a period of intense persecution for the people of Judea, as Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted -- forcibly and brutally -- to eradicate traditional Jewish religious practices. In Apocalypse against Empire Anathea Portier-Young reconstructs the historical events and key players in this traumatic episode in Jewish history and provides a sophisticated treatment of resistance in early Judaism.

Building on a solid contextual foundation, Portier-Young argues that the first Jewish apocalypses emerged as a literature of resistance to Hellenistic imperial rule. In particular, Portier- Young contends, the book of Daniel, the Apocalypse of Weeks, and the Book of Dreams were written to supply an oppressed people with a potent antidote to the destructive propaganda of the empire -- renewing their faith in the God of the covenant and answering state terror with radical visions of hope.

A new and engaging collection of sermons that embraces the historic 44 sermons that John Wesley approved, plus the 8 more of the North American collection (52 sermons) and to this is added 8 sermons, carefully chosen, to fill things out for contemporary interests resulting in a grand total of sixty sermons. Each sermon (which employs the text from the Bicentennial edition of Wesley’s works) is preceded by a brief introduction and an outline. The sermons are arranged in accordance with the order of salvation displayed in the key sermon, “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” from creation to the fall through justification and every step along the way culminating in the new creation. The purpose of this collection is to foster vital Christian formation for all of its readers.

In 1946 the first of the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries was made near the site of Qumran, at the northern end of the Dead Sea. Despite the much publicized delays in the publication and editing of the Scrolls, practically all of them had been made public by the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the first discovery. That occasion was marked by a spate of major publications that attempted to sum up the state of scholarship at the end of the twentieth century, including The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (OUP 2000). These publications produced an authoritative synthesis to which the majority of scholars in the field subscribed, granted disagreements in detail.
A decade or so later, The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls has a different objective and character. It seeks to probe the main disputed issues in the study of the Scrolls. Lively debate continues over the archaeology and history of the site, the nature and identity of the sect, and its relation to the broader world of Second Temple Judaism and to later Jewish and Christian tradition. It is the Handbook's intention here to reflect on diverse opinions and viewpoints, highlight the points of disagreement, and point to promising directions for future research.

Culled from The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, a monumental, groundbreaking reference work published in late 2010, Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview contains fifteen first-rate essays from a diverse group of internationally renowned scholars. This volume provides the most comprehensive and authoritative overview available of Judaism in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.

Contributors:
John M. G. Barclay
Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev
Katell Berthelot
John J. Collins
Erich S. Gruen
Daniel C. Harlow
James L. Kugel
Adam Kolman Marshak
Steve Mason
James S. McLaren
Maren R. Niehoff
David T. Runia
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Chris Seeman
Gregory E. Sterling
Loren T. Stuckenbruck
Eibert Tigchelaar
Eugene Ulrich
Annewies van den Hoek
James C. VanderKam
J?rgen K. Zangenberg

Since they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination--and more controversy--than perhaps any other archaeological find. They appear to have been hidden in the Judean desert by the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed around the time of Jesus, and they continue to inspire veneration and conspiracy theories to this day. John Collins tells the story of the bitter conflicts that have swirled around the scrolls since their startling discovery, and sheds light on their true significance for Jewish and Christian history.

Collins vividly recounts how a Bedouin shepherd went searching for a lost goat and found the scrolls instead. He offers insight into debates over whether the Essenes were an authentic Jewish sect and explains why such questions are critical to our understanding of ancient Judaism and to Jewish identity. Collins explores whether the scrolls were indeed the property of an isolated, quasi-monastic community living at Qumran, or whether they more broadly reflect the Judaism of their time. And he unravels the impassioned disputes surrounding the scrolls and Christianity. Do they anticipate the early church? Do they undermine the credibility of the Christian faith? Collins also looks at attempts to "reclaim" the scrolls for Judaism after the full corpus became available in the 1990s, and at how the decades-long delay in publishing the scrolls gave rise to sensational claims and conspiracy theories.

The hardcover edition of this landmark resource, now available in the NABRE translation, contains all the authoritative study notes, expanded essays, and informational sidebars for which it is known and trusted. The heart of this volume remains its extensive Reading Guide that leads the reader through the Scriptures, book by book. References and background information are clearly laid out in the margins of the text, guiding the reader to a fuller understanding of the Bible.

Other outstanding features include: a 15-page glossary of special terms, complete Sunday and weekday lectionary readings for the liturgical years of the Church. 32 beautiful pages of full-color Oxford Bible Maps come with a place-name index for easy reference.

Printed on smooth, durable paper and bound with the highest quality materials, the Catholic Study Bible is an incredible value. It is available in three attractive and affordable bindings: black bonded leather, hardcover, and paperback.

The New American Bible Revised Edition:

The New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) brings to culmination the work of nearly 100 scholars, including translators, editors, and a subcommittee of Catholic bishops who provided extensive review of the biblical text over a period of many years. The NABRE is the first major amendment to the New American Bible translation since 1991. It features:

*The first update of the Old Testament since 1970, taking into account recent archaeological and textual discoveries.
*Complete revision of the Psalter.