The Curse of Cain PDF Download

Author: Regina M. Schwartz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226741994
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
For Regina Schwartz, we ignore the dark side of the Bible to our peril. The perplexing story of Cain and Abel is emblematic of the tenacious influence of the Bible on secular notions of identity - notions that are all too often violently exclusionary, negatively defining "us" against "them" in ethnic, religious, racial, gender, and nationalistic terms. In this compelling work of cultural and biblical criticism, Schwartz contends that it is the very concept of monotheism and its jealous demand for exclusive allegiance - to one God, one Land, one Nation or one People - that informs the model of collective identity forged in violence, against the other.

Author: J. Mark Powell
Publisher: Forge Books
ISBN: 9780765349439
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
On April 14, 1865 John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater, or so the history books tell us ... but what if there was a second gunman who actually pulled the trigger? The Curse of Cain Like The Day of the Jackal, The Eagle has Landed, and The Key to Rebecca, The Curse of Cain is the cat and mouse story of a ruthless professional assassin hired to kill the Union President and the Confederate agent dispatched by Jefferson Davis to thwart his plan. Like Forsyth's Jackal, Follett's Needle, and Higgins's Devlin, the assassin-Basil Tarleton-is a charming agent of death. Jack Tanner-a Confederate era Jack Ryan, is willing to forego matters of the heart in order to carry out his mission and save the life of the President of an opposing nation. Set in the closing weeks of the Civil War and against the backdrop of the notorious Lincoln conspiracy (and subsequent cover-up) as well as the actual Confederate intelligence network that existed in Washington, D.C. at the time, Powell and Meagher tell a heart-stopping tale of suspense and intrigue. This dangerous mission follows assassin and pursuer, as they close in on their targets in enemy territory where exposure means certain death. The Curse of Cain races to the page-turning climax on that fateful night at Ford's Theater.

Author: David M. Goldenberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828546
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery. Goldenberg begins by examining a host of references to black Africans in biblical and postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color, and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He goes on to ask when the black African first became identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment of pertinent biblical passages. Authoritative, fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery, and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Author: Lindsey Barraclough
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 076368208X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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A spine-chilling companion to Long Lankin, here is the story of a wronged witch’s revenge, spanning generations and crossing the shadowy line between life and death. In 1567, baby Aphra is found among the reeds and rushes by two outcast witches. Even as an infant, her gifts in the dark craft are clear. But when her guardians succumb to an angry mob, Aphra is left to fend for herself. She is shunned and feared by all but one man, the leper known as Long Lankin. Hounded and ostracized, the two find solace only in each other, but even this respite is doomed, and Aphra’s bitterness poisons her entire being. Afflicted with leprosy, tortured and about to be burned as a witch, she manages one final enchantment—a curse on her tormentor’s heirs. Now, in 1962, Cora and Mimi, the last of a cursed line, are trapped in an ancient home on a crumbling estate in deepest winter, menaced by a spirit bent on revenge. Are their lives and souls forfeit forever?

Author:
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 9780802136107
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Hailed as "the most radical repackaging of the Bible since Gutenberg", these Pocket Canons give an up-close look at each book of the Bible.

Author: Eva Mroczek
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190279834
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible: from multiple versions of biblical texts to 'revealed' books not found in our canon. But despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, 'Bible,' and a bibliographic one, 'book.' 'The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity' suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged.

Author: Regina M. Schwartz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226742007
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
The Curse of Cain confronts the inherent ambiguities of biblical stories on many levels and, in the end, offers an alternative, inspiring reading of the Bible that is attentive to visions of plenitude rather than scarcity, and to an ethics based on generosity rather than violence. "[A] provocative and timely examination of the interrelationship of monotheism and violence. . . . This is a refreshing alternative to criticism-biblical and otherwise-that so often confuses interpretation with closure; it is an invitation to an ethic of possibility, plenitude, and generosity, a welcome antidote to violence, as important for its insights into memory, identity, and place as for its criticism of monotheism's violent legacy."—Booklist "Brilliant and provocative, this is a work demanding close attention from critics, theologians, and all those interested in the imaginative roots of common life."—Rowan Williams, Bishop of Monmouth "A stunningly important book."—Walter Brueggemann, Theology Today "Artfully rendered, endlessly provocative."—Lawrence Weschler, New Yorker

Author: Ruth Mellinkoff
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520906373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
For few verses in the Bible is the relationship between scripture and the artistic imagination more intriguing than for the conclusion of Genesis 4:15: "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him." What was the mark of Cain? The answers set before us in this sensitive study by art historian Ruth Mellinkoff are sometimes poignant, frequently surprising. An early summary of rabbinic answers, for examples runs as follows: R. Judah said: "He caused the orb of the sun to shine on his account." Said R. Nehemiah to him: "For that wretch He would cause the orb of the sun to shine! Rather, he caused leprosy to break out on him...." Rab said: "He gave him a dog." Abba Jose said: "He made a horn grow out of him." Rab said: "He made him an example to murderers." R. Hanin said: "He made him an example to penitents." R. Levi said in the name of R. Simeon b. Lakish: "He suspended judgment until the flood came and swept him away." After a review of such early Jewish and Christian exegesis, Mellinkoff divides physical interpretations on the mark into three groups: "A Mark on Cain's Body," "A Movement of Cain's Body," and "A Blemish Associated with Cain's Body." Her discussion of these groups is the heart of her study and offers its richest examples of interplay among medieval art and imaginative literature, on the one hand, and biblical exegesis, on the other. Thus in one remarkable tour de force, she shows us how a poetic misprision of Genesis 4:24 - "Sevenfold vengeance will be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold" - made Lamech the murderer of Cain; how there then grew up the legend that Lamech, a hunter, had killed Cain when he mistook him for an animal; how from that, the notion that the mark of Cain was a horn or horns on Cain's head arose (in the poignant formulation of the Tanhuma Midrash: "Oh father, you have killed something that resembles a man except it has a horn on its forehead!"); and how from that, in the maturity of the legend, there flowered Cornish drama, Irish saga, and stunning reliefs of a dying, antlered Cain in the cathedrals of Vezelay and Autun. Like Genesis 4:15 itself, 'The Mark of Cain' is suggestive rather than comprehensive. Concluding chapters on "Intentionally Distorted Interpretations of Cain's Mark" and "Cain's Mark and the Jews" bring the history down to our own day, but Mellinkoff does not claim to have said the last word on the subject. Her achievement is neither documentary nor exegetical but rather demonstrative: she shows us with brilliant economy how the artistic imagination functioned in a world whose intellectual definition was a closed canonical text.

Author: Various Authors,
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310294142
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 6637

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The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

Author: Theodore J. Nottingham
Publisher: Theosis Books
ISBN: 1580060218
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Written by Booth's Great-Grandson, thrice removed, "The Curse Of Cain" retells, in dramatic form, another version of the Booth saga. This work will tantalize readers with insights and details known only to the immediate family, giving a new perspective on this crucial moment in American history.