The Good Book
Page 45
Timothy, First Epistle to
Titus, Epistle to
Tolbert, Malcolm O.
“Total Abstinence and Biblical Principles”
Truman, Harry
Tübingen, University of
Tuskegee Institute
Tyndale, William
Understanding the Sunday Scriptures
United States
Uriah the Hittite
Vietnam War
Virgil
Waco Tex.
Wagner, Richard
Walker, David
Walley, Corrine
Washington, George
Watt, Isaac
wealth
Weber, Max
Weiszäcker, Richard von
Wellington, Duke of
Wesley, Charles
Wesley, John
West, Mae
Westminster Confession and Catechism
Westmount Mountain
Whatever Happened to Sin? (Menninger)
When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Kushner)
Whitefield, George
“Why Is This Important?” (Jones)
Wieman, Henry Nelson
Wiesel, Elie
Wilberforce, William
Wilde, Oscar
Wilder, Amos Niven
Williamson, Clark M.
Willimon, William
Winthrop, John
Wisdom, Book of
women
“Women in the Bible: Friends or Foes?” (Bergant)
Women’s Bible Commentary, The
Woolman, John
Wordsworth, William
Wright, Richard
Wuthnow, Robert
Wycliffe Society
“Yield Not to Temptation”
Zacchaeus
Zechariah, Book of
About the Author
PETER J. GOMES was born in 1942 in Boston. He graduated from Bates College and the Harvard Divinity School and holds eighteen honorary degrees. After teaching and serving as director of freshman studies at Tuskegee Institute, he went to Harvard in 1970 as assistant minister in the Memorial Church. Since 1974, Dr. Gomes has been Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard College and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church at Harvard University.
Books by Peter J. Gomes
The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart
The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need
Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living
Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living: A New Collection of Sermons
About the Book
From Reverend Peter Gomes, a man whom Time magazine called one of the seven best preachers in America, here is a brilliant and inspiring look at the Bible today, and the ever-evolving role of the Good Book in American politics, culture, and in our own lives. With compassion, humor, and insight, Gomes shares timeless wisdom and comfort, helping readers reconcile the Bible with themselves and their world, and reclaim biblical interpretation from those who would misuse its passages to alienate and exclude.
Beginning with a bracing crash course in biblical literacy and interpretation, Gomes moves on to discuss what the Bible tells us about race, women, and homosexuality, and how some biblical passages are twisted in order to justify anti-Semitism. He explores what the Bible has to say about suffering, joy, evil, temptation, wealth, science, and mystery, and gives us the tools we need to make the Bible a dynamic, living, and transforming part of our daily lives. Finally, he shows us that the Good Book is not just doctrine and interpretation, but one of the most available and powerful means to bring us into proximity with the divine.
Praise for The Good Book
“Easily the best contemporary book on the Bible for thoughtful people.”
—The Right Reverend Lord Runcie, 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury
“Lively…offers a crash course in biblical literacy in a nuanced but easy-to-understand style.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Gomes can’t be pigeonholed—this is a reading not from the right or the left but from the living, loving heart of scripture.”
—Bill McKibben
“A riveting tour of this holy book with the guide both witty and wise. Gomes blends the passion and reason of the humanist to open the sacred even to the most secular and skeptical mind. The Good Book is a great work of scholarship and imagination.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“This fine work reflects Gomes’s great intelligence, open mind, humanity, wisdom, and struggle to understand the meaning of life and God’s word.”
—Marian Wright Edelman
Grateful acknowledgment is made for use of the following:
* These lines of Anna Russell comprise the third verse of “Jolly Old Sigmund Freud,” The Anna Russel Song Book, 1960, and are published by arrangement with The Carol Publishing Group.
** Excerpt from “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets, copyright 1943 by T. S. Eliot and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company and Faber and Faber Limited.
Every effort has been made to locate and credit the copyright owners of material and quotes in this book. If any sources have not been credited, please call this to our attention and we will make every effort to correct this in future printings.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1996 by William Morrow and Company Inc. A paperback edition of this book was published in 1998 by Bard Books, an imprint of Avon Books, Inc.
THE GOOD BOOK: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. Copyright © 1996 by Peter J. Gomes, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
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