Meaning of the Bible

This will serve as the finest introduction to the Hebrew scriptures, or Old Testament, available on the market.
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has given the world some of the greatest literature known, full of unlikely heros and courageous heroines, royal intrigues and slave rebellions, doubtful prophets and lovesick poets, bloody battles and miraculous triumphs. All told and explained by cutting-edge biblical scholars, this fresh introduction will bring ancient Israel to brilliant technicolor life, delighting observant Jews, faithful Christians, world historians and readers of great literature.

Putting the world and faith of the Hebrew Bible in the setting of contemporary discussion of perennial subjects such as violence, sex, the status of women, etc., Knight and Levine will open the readers eyes to the riches of one of the greatest collections of literature known to humankind.
FROM THE AUTHORS:

Informed by the diverse cultural contexts in which the biblical texts took shape and sensitive to the multiple ways these texts have been understood, this Introduction adopts a fresh, thematic approach to Israel's Scriptures. Rather than force the Bible's many voices into a single note, this Introduction places Biblical texts in conversation with each other as well as with later interpreters. Rather than adopt the typical linear-historical approach that privileges the voices of the Bible's final editors, this Introduction emphasizes the diversity of methods that have influenced biblical interpretation and informed its multiple meanings. Rather than ignore present-day questions, this Introduction both recognizes how the Bible shapes society and how our own cultural circumstances influence Scriptural interpretation. The distinctive features of this Introduction also include its attention to the influence of the Biblical materials on the formation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Our subjects are themes with which the Bible, and its readers today, continue to wrestle: human evil and divine response; war and peace; law and society; politics and economics; belief and practice; gender and sexuality; Israel and the Nations; practical wisdom and apocalyptic vision.