The thirteen chapters in this collection open up new horizons for the study of biblical drama by putting special emphasis on multitemporality, the intersections of biblical narrative and performance, and the strategies employed by playwrights to rework and adapt the biblical source material in Catholic, Protestant and Jewish culture. Aspects under scrutiny include dramatic traditions, confessional and religious rites, dogmas and debates, conceptualisations of performance, and audience response. The contributors stress the co-presence of biblical and contemporary concerns in the periods under discussion, conceiving of biblical drama as a central participant in the dynamic struggle to both interpret and translate the Bible.

English Biblical drama of the sixteenth century resounds with a variety of Jewish and Christian voices. Whether embodied as characters or manifested as exegetical and performative strategies, these voices participate in the central Reformation project of biblical translation. Such translations and dramatic texts are certainly enriched by studying them within the wider context of medieval and early modern biblical scholarship, which is implemented in biblical translations, commentaries and sermons. This approach is one significant contribution of the present project, as it studies the reciprocal illumination of Bible and Drama. Chanita Goodblatt explores the way in which the interpretive cruxes in the biblical text generate the dramatic text and performance, as well as how the drama’s enactment underlines the ethical and theological issues as the heart of the biblical text. By looking at English Reformation biblical drama through a double-edged prism of exegetical and performative perspectives, Goodblatt adds a new dimension to the existing discussion of the historical resonance of these plays. Jewish and Christian Voices in English Reformation Biblical Drama integrates Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions with the study of Reformation biblical drama. In doing so, this book recovers the interpretive and performative powers of both biblical and dramatic texts.

A New York Times Notable Book In medieval England, a runaway scholar-priest named Nicholas Barber has joined a traveling theater troupe as they make their way toward their liege lord’s castle. In need of money, they decide to perform at a village en route. When their traditional morality plays fail to garner them an audience, they begin to stage the “the play of Thomas Wells”—their own depiction of the real-life drama unfolding within the village around the murder of a young boy. The villagers believe they have already identified the killer, and the troupe believes their play will be a straightforward depiction of justice served. But soon the players soon learn that the details of the crime are elusive, and the lines between performance and reality become blurred as they discover, scene by scene, line by line, what really happened. Thought-provoking and unforgettable, Morality Play is at once a masterful work of historical fiction, a gripping murder mystery, and a literary work of the first order.

This book explores the fall of Jerusalem and restores to its rightful place one of the key explanatory tropes of early modern English culture. Showing the importance of Jerusalem's destruction in sermons, ballads, puppet shows and provincial drama of the period, Beatrice Groves brings a new perspective to works by canonical authors such as Marlowe, Nashe, Shakespeare, Dekker and Milton. The volume also offers a historically compelling and wide-ranging account of major shifts in cultural attitudes towards Judaism by situating texts in their wider cultural and theological context. Groves examines the continuities and differences between medieval and early modern theatre, London as an imagined community and the way that narratives about Jerusalem and Judaism informed notions of English identity in the wake of the Reformation. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this volume will interest researchers and upper-level students of early modern literature, religious studies and theatre.

Against a background which included revolutionary changes in religious belief, enlargement of dramatic styles and the technological innovation of printing, this collection of essays about biblical drama offers innovative approaches to text and performance, while reviewing some well-established critical issues.

Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China examines the multiple representations of Christianity through the major genres of Chinese Christian literature (novels, drama and poetry) of the late Qing and Republican periods.

Phipps argues that the mainstream movement against sexual violence embodies a political whiteness which both reflects its demographics and limits its revolutionary potential.