I'm the director of a Christian environmental website, and I've read dozens of Christian books on ecology and the environment. This is one of my all-time favorites. I love this book! It may very well be the best book on the Biblical basis for environmental stewardship! Buy it for yourself, or buy it as a textbook for environmental study. Outstanding! What makes it particularly unique and special is that it is written by 4 biologists! My only complaint is that there is little or no mention of the great Christian conservationist, John Paul II. It's still very much worth a read.

This book has changed my life by showing me how we, as Christians, must take a closer and more careful look at how we have a responsibility in ecology and envirmentalism today. Scripture references make it "an enviromental Bible study" and forces the reader to dig deeper into his or her beliefs. Take time to think about what you REALLY believe and change others by sharing this powerful book!

This book describes the biblical basis for the caretaking of creation--a relevant issue for all members of the global community. The book is written by four professors who explain the importance of understanding the value of all creation, including human beings. "Redeeming Creation" describes the unique role we humans have in ruling and subduing the remainder of creation as well as some of the consequences that have resulted from our misunderstanding of this role of ruling and subduing. Much published material has focued on ways that Christianity as a religion has exploted creation and exasperated the environmental and social pains of our planet. "Redeeming Creation" illuminates the claim that a correct understanding of the Bible is necessary not only for Christians to live by, but also for all members of the global community to conform to as we seek to address environmental and social injustices.

The "New Jerome Biblical Handbook" remains one of the most important books to come out of religious publishing in some time. It is an absolute essential for the busy clergyman who does not have the time for the in-depth reading and studying required for the far more academic "New Jerome Biblical Commentary". It will also make a worthy addition to the personal shelf of any informed layperson who wishes to become more biblically literate. It should also be found in every parish library.

What the "Handbook" does, is condense and distill the dense and academic material in the "Commentary" and present it in an easily recoverable fashion. The reader will gain insights into every book of the Bible, as well as into the basics of modern critical methodology, without requiring the technical training of the academic or seminarian.

From a theological standpoint, the "Handbook" could best be described as "moderate", rejecting both the anti-intellectualism of the fundamentalist far right as well as the deconstructionist tendencies of the far left. The editors did their work well in presenting a balanced picture of the best of modern biblical scholarship in an easy to read and comprehend format.

Certainly worth 5 stars.

I heartily recommend this book to all those who wanted a quick reference about the Bible! Maybe viewed as a supplementary to the NJBC, I find this book a handy one to bring along during my theology classes, and a useful tool for easy reading. The best handbook made for the best bible commentary!It has charts and visuals not usually found in the NJBC, which I think helps summarize and condense the immense scholarly works found in the NJBC.A great Companion to NJBC!

Raymond Fraser"s book "Costa Blanca" illustrates the barren, frightening landscape of alcoholism and leads us into the depths of a soul bereft of self. It's amusing, it's entertaining, but it's a book with serious intent, and snyone living with alcoholism either as a victim, enabler, or innocent bystander, would do well to read it. Fraser portrays his unlovely characters with a deep sense of compassion. Many of them are so depleted their attempts at hope-filled solutions with impossible odds are tinged with a kind of noble courage. "Costa Blanca" is a journey into a world a disturbing proportion of our society inhabits daily. It is a world not without love, joy, and wit but one that ultimately destroys. It is also a journey through a mind and soul in torment and can be likened to Lowry and Orwell, but with a distinct Maritimes flavour. Now looking forward to Fraser's next!

I have used this text for the last three quarters and most of my students have kept the book for future reference. Over 60% of Winter 1997 students were ESL and they found it to be the best text they had used. It will be dated by the end of 1997 and I look forward to a new edition

Collaboratively written by W. Raymond Wood (Professor of Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia), Joseph C. Porter (Chief Curator, North Carolina Museum of History), and David C. Hunt (Director, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas), and enhanced with numerous black-and-white illustrations and studio art reproductions, Karl Bodmer's Studio Art is a truly captivating collection of images and an informative, scholarly study of the works of Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist whom Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied selected for an 1833-34 expedition up the Missouri River. Bodmer sketched and painted landscapes and Native American portraits which uniquely captured the imaginations of the western world then and now. Enthusiastically recommended for academic and community library Art History and American History reference collections, Karl Bodmer's Studio Art focuses more on the story of Bodmer's journey than the art itself, yet both the text and the illustrations have a timeless appeal.

This ecumenical effort to study the basics about Mary in the NT was undertaken in the mid-70's and is still the standard almost thirty years later. A truly exhaustive, balanced, and informative work that keeps its focus on Scriptural interpretation and probabilities...seeing a number of sides of the sectarian coin on Mary but always opting for the most plausible interpretation, based upon the flat-out *science* of understanding Scripture. Excellent. The best part is the extra chapter on Mary in the 2nd century Christian experience, following-up on what the post-Apostolic churches garnered from the original records and traditions. An absolute MUST for any student or Christian scholar's library.

This may be the perfect book about open source software because it places open source within the context of business value and does not promote it as the great panacea that characterize the message of far too many books on the subject.

What I like is that, after providing an overview of open source, its history and proponents, the authors discuss how to analyze open source software within two major frameworks: the Zachman framework that was developed in 1987 and is popular today as an enterprise-wide information systems paradigm, and a newer framework called CATWOE. I'm new to the latter, but it is solid and is independent of open source. CATWOE stands for Clients, Actors, Transformations, World View, Owners and Environment.

The remainder of the book discusses aspects of open source as they relate to the CATWOE framework, which ensures that fair and complete treatments of the business and technical issues are given. I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of the legal issues and business risks that are associated with the GPL; however, that information is in a state of flux and is probably best gotten from daily news sources.

If you want to understand open source software development, especially as it relates to business value, this book is the one I recommend. The authors also have an associated web site (the URL is provided in the book).

Raymond Sokolov has written an extraordinary biography of A.J. Liebling, who was one of the most brilliant and elusive of the "New Yorker" legends. Writing about a writer is hard enough, but writing about this one required not only a thorough knowledge of his work (hard to find, some of his work) but a true ability to enter the man's head, as they say, and tell some of the story from that perch. A. J. Liebling was brilliant and a true connoisseur of all the things he thought were important: food, wine, friendship, writing.

Liebling joined the "New Yorker" in 1935, and wrote for it until his death in 1963. He was hired by Harold Ross and his editor was William Shawn. Both in his personal and his professional realms, Liebling was disordered and off kilter, often battered and turbulent, and generally quite exciting. He did not actually finish high school, but was accepted at Dartmouth, from where he was twice expelled for failure to meet the minimum attendance at chapel, so that he did not finish his studies there, either. But he wrote a great deal at Dartmouth, and at the insistence of his father he enrolled in courses at the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia, where he managed to stay for a couple of years; while at Columbia he was assigned to cover police stories, and this lead him to serve as an assistant to well established newspaper reporters and to learn the mechanics of the trade.

He married three times, lived in France (wrote many "Letters from Paris") and reported World War II in detail (starting in 1939). He participated in the Normandy landings on D day, whence he produced a particularly memorable piece concerning his experiences on a landing craft. He was there when the Allies entered Paris, and this caused him to write afterwards: "For the first time in my life and probably the last, I have lived for a week in a great city where everybody was happy."

Liebling was probably the first to take advantabe of the penumbral area in which fiction and reality are barely discernible from one another, and to exploit it in his writing. Capote followed.

He wrote about writing, too, in his classical "Wayward Press" columns of the "New Yorker." He was, in fact, the first serious critic of the press, a job he clearly relished. In people he gravitated towards the odd, the slightly weird, and the eccentrics who had found niches in life from which they they sometimes prospered, often not: in other words, the low life. In New York and London and Paris he consorted and maintained society with strange people, in relationships that spanned decades. These people thought highly of Liebling and what he stood for; what he stood for contained much decency and a total lack of pretension. He spoke to people by remaining silent and letting them speak, something which appears easy but is not. He wrote about the many things he got to understand from these poeple, using clear, simple prose. He was meticulously accurate in his work, aided in this by a formidable memory which allowed him to quote verbatim hours of conversation, long after it had taken place.

Sokolov's biography of A.J. Liebling is as complete and exacting as no doubt his subject would demand. It contains a bibliography, an index and chapter notes. This is an enhancing book: one feels better after reading it.

This small simple book, shows a humble and casual saviour that undertstands human weakness, it also shows that the church has failed in showing grace to sinners, I cried several times throughout reading this book as I realised how much Jesus not only wants to be my friend, but this in spite of my many failings. I am not a catholic, and before reading this I would have thought that Protestant churches were not religious and catholic churches are, both these statements are wrong. Jesus is purely interested in the individual, he accepts us as we are, Girzones simple style makes this easy to read, this book is both simple and profound at the same time, just as Jesus himself is the greatest glory, God himself and and also a humble man all in one. This books shows how Christ treated people and by reading it, the reader can see how the church has fallen way short of what Christ actually taught. "Compassion not sacrifice" Jesus said to the Pharisees to go and learn what that scripture means, that scripture is as relevant today to all denominations, A Portrait of Jesus is a great start.......

I was thrilled with the book A Portrait of Jesus. There have been so many authors that have tried to paint an acurate and readable description of what Jesus might have been like but few have given Him the justice that Girzone does in this book. This book delves into every facet of written scripture to bring out the subtle, as well as the obvious, acts of perpetual love that exuded Jesus's every being. More than a reminiscing of the well known tails of Jesus, this book reaches behind the words and actions to what each encounter must have ment to the lives that were touched by Jesus. Beautifuly written,deep, accurate, and refreshingly simple this book overwhelmed my heart and taught me to look at Jesus's life, and what he was trying to accomplish as a whole, in a new and peaceful light. I highly reccomend it to anyone, Christian or not.

Girzone is truly a master at reminding us of the heart of Jesus teaching. He casts the gospel accounts of Jesus' life in a way that is both inspiring and challenging. This is Girzone's best book since Joshua, and in some ways I think its even better, since he talks directly about Jesus instead of through the fictional stories of the Joshua novels.

. . .which is equally useful for the Protestant or Catholic academic.

If you desire an academic commentary which covers the entire corpus of Scripture in a single volume, this is the book for you. Named after the premier Scripture scholar of the Patristic period, it is an update of the Jerome Biblical Commentary of more than a quarter century ago.

Not only is every book of the Bible discussed in detail, there are numerous scholarly articles dealing with history, critical methods, contemporary issues and the like. It's perspective is honestly centrist; catering to neither the fundamentalist, nor to the deconstructionist. Controversial issues are handled in an appropriate manner, giving numerous bibliographic citations representing a wide range of learned opinions.

Although Catholic in orientation, the book is equally valuable to believers from other faith traditions, and indeed, to non-believers as well. Its editors, especially the late Raymond Brown and Joseph Fitzmyer represent the very best of Catholic critical scholarship.

This book is probably not the best choice for the average layman; it presupposes a certain familiarity with theological academics. However, it is indispensible for the seminarian, the graduate student, the clergy, and the academic.

(For an "informed layman's" version, please see my review of the excellent "New Jerome Biblical HANDBOOK").

I heartily endorse this book.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary is a great reference book for scholars and pastors who need a single volume of biblical commentary near at hand. The articles are written by some of the greats of biblical scholarship, and offer remarkably in-depth analysis, considering that one volume covers the entire Christian Scriptures. Of special help to students and scholars are the bibliographies at the end of each article. While not up-to-the-minute (the most recent edition of the NJBC is 1991, I think), the bibliographies often point out the most important books and articles written on the Bible in the past 30 years. I heartily recommend this book!

This is the revised and updated version of the famous volume named for St. Jerome, the great Christian biblical scholar who insisted that "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." I am certain that he would be honored that his name graces the title of this commentary, which has been helping pastors and students for decades.

Inside this work you will find the books of the Bible listed individually, with detailed commentary on verses and even partial verses. Prior to the detailed commentary, a helpful historical sketch is given to assist the reader in situating the particular biblical book in its context. It includes maps and charts.

Though this volume comes highly recommended, it is not always on the "cutting edge" of biblical scholarship. If you choose to utilize this volume, you have made a wise choice, but you should not limit your library to this commentary alone.