In this engaging book, Martin Buss, one of the most profound scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament today, offers his reflections on what makes a good life in light of these biblical writings. Free of technicalities, his perceptions are original, independent, stimulating, and gently persuasive.

David J. A. Clines, University of Sheffield, UK

We do need new approaches to biblical exegesis and theology. Here is a superb example of what can and should be done. Buss ventures to ask vital contemporary questions of human existence, not to individual biblical texts but to crowds of ancient witnesses. What makes a life ‘good’? How can we achieve justice, peace, and love? His mind is wide open to religious experiences outside our Jewish-Christian tradition. The intricate relationship of receiving impulses, goods, and insights and reaching out to give back and possibly appropriate positions of dominance—also an eminent philosophical and psychological problem—are at the center of Buss’s deliberations. Under his scrutiny, the Bible and other testimonies of good faith become vivid partners in a dialogue concerning a disturbing question: What is humankind that Deity should consider it? This book is for a wide range of serious searchers.

Erhard Gerstenberger