Joel S. Baden – författare

An essential biography of one of the Bible’s most powerful and inspiring booksExodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, but it may rank first in lasting cultural importance. It is here that the classic biblical themes of oppression and redemption, of human enslavement and divine salvation, are most dramatically expressed. Joel Baden tells the story of this influential and enduring book, tracing how its famous account of the Israelites’ journey to the promised land has been adopted and adapted for millennia, often in unexpected ways.Baden draws a distinction between the Exodus story and the book itself, which is one of the most multifaceted in the Bible, containing poems, law codes, rituals, and architectural plans. He shows how Exodus brings together an array of oral and written traditions from the ancient Middle East, and how it came to be ritualized in the Passover Seder and the Eucharist. Highlighting the remarkable resilience and flexibility of Exodus, Baden sheds light on how the bestowing of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai divided Jewish and Christian thinkers, on the importance of Exodus during the Reformation and the American Revolution, and on its uses in debates for and against slavery. He also traces how the defining narrative of ancient Israel helped to define Mormon social identity, the American civil rights movement, and liberation theology.Though three thousand years old, the Exodus—as history, as narrative, as metaphor, as model—continues to be vitally important for us today. Here is the essential biography of this incomparable spiritual masterpiece.

How the billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make America a “Bible nation”The Greens of Oklahoma City—the billionaire owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores—are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an ambitious effort to increase the Bible’s influence on American society. In Bible Nation, Candida Moss and Joel Baden provide the first in-depth investigative account of the Greens’ sweeping Bible projects. Moss and Baden tell the story of the Greens’ efforts to place a Bible curriculum in public schools; their rapid acquisition of an unparalleled collection of biblical antiquities; their creation of a closely controlled group of scholars to study and promote the collection; and their construction of a $500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Revealing how all these initiatives promote a very particular set of beliefs about the Bible, the book raises serious questions about the trade in biblical antiquities, the integrity of academic research, and the place of private belief in public life.

A more complete picture of how procreation and childlessness are depicted in the BibleIn the Book of Genesis, the first words God speaks to humanity are "Be fruitful and multiply." From ancient times to today, these words have been understood as a divine command to procreate. Fertility is viewed as a sign of blessedness and moral uprightness, while infertility is associated with sin and moral failing. Reconceiving Infertility explores traditional interpretations such as these, providing a more complete picture of how procreation and childlessness are depicted in the Bible.Closely examining texts and themes from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Candida Moss and Joel Baden offer vital new perspectives on infertility and the social experiences of the infertile in the biblical tradition. They begin with perhaps the most famous stories of infertility in the Bible—those of the matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel—and show how the divine injunction in Genesis is both a blessing and a curse. Moss and Baden go on to discuss the metaphorical treatments of Israel as a "barren mother," the conception of Jesus, Paul''s writings on family and reproduction, and more. They reveal how biblical views on procreation and infertility, and the ancient contexts from which they emerged, were more diverse than we think.Reconceiving Infertility demonstrates that the Bible speaks in many voices about infertility, and lays a biblical foundation for a more supportive religious environment for those suffering from infertility today.

The Bible is words--it is, at the end of the day, nothing more than that. How those words have been read and understood has formed the basis of everything from private faith to public policy for two thousand years. Yet for the most part, casual readers--and even many professional interpreters, clerical and scholarly--are unaware of how culture has impacted the commonly accepted meanings of so many words and terms. To read the Bible well is to understand that the text is not the same as its interpretation and translation. To care about the Bible is to recognize where the past two millennia of cultural change have shaped our understanding of the biblical text, and to sift through it, to see what the Bible once was so that we can better understand what the Bible now is--and how we, its readers, came to be who we are.