Where Mortals Dwell

Craig Bartholomew, Baker Academic, US$29.99

This book is as grand and expansive as its title. The numerous effusive reviews on its back cover all ring true of the contents within. It is an affordable yet substantial piece of progressive Christian scholarship, reassembling a complete reading of the Bible, traditional Christian and Jewish texts, and current reflections on community and sacred spaces, into a conceptual rubric of “place” that resonates with contemporary philosophical and ecological perspectives.

It collates past scholarship and offers geo-political clarity to long-standing debates about Jesus’ kingdom teachings. It provides an additional geographical context to current evaluation of Paul’s ministry. The book locates Christian thought in a grid of spatial and temporal coordinates and concepts that provide premises for issues of global and local identity, as well as digital transformation of time and space, that feature in the landscape of contemporary culture. Essential in any theologically inclined bookshelf.

Geoffrey Sykes