Endlessly cunning, elusive, and playful--the Bible consistently unsettles even as it assures. Walter Brueggemann reveals exactly how Scripture exposes the inadequacy of the assumptions and habits that shape our lives. He finds inside Israel's ancient poetry, prophecy, narrative, and legal covenants new words that create new peoples. In so doing this book provokes a theology of transformation--one that compels new social, economic, and political practices. Brueggemann's reading reveals that we are not fated to live a life of greed, anxiety, and violence, but instead can embrace a shared life...

In this 40th anniversary edition of the classic text from one of the most influential biblical scholars of our time, Walter Brueggemann, offers a theological and ethical reading of the Hebrew Bible.This edition builds off the revised and updated 2001 edition and includes a new afterword by Brueggemann and a new foreword by Davis Hankins.