Academic Publications


Relevant publications by members of the CSBV.

Jump to view publications by:

Helen Paynter Stephen FinamorePeter HattonMichael Spalione
Brandon Hurlbert Maria PowerValerie HobbsTrevor Laurence
Will MooreCharlotte ThomasTony Deik

Conference proceeding

The Bible on violence: a thick description. Edited by: Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione. Sheffield Phoenix, 2020.


Helen Paynter

Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence Zondervan, 2023.

Violent Biblical Texts: New Approaches (co-editor with Trevor Laurence). Sheffield Phoenix, 2022.

Map or Compass: The Bible on Violence (co-editor with Michael Spalione). Sheffield Phoenix, 2022.

The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So: Why you don’t have to submit to domestic abuse and coercive control. BRF, 2020.

Telling Terror in Judges 19: Rape and Reparation for the Levite’s wife . Routledge, 2020.

The Strange World of Elijah and Elisha. Grove, 2019.

God of violence yesterday, God of love today? Honestly wrestling with the Old Testament. BRF, 2019.

The Gadarene swine and the conquest of Jericho: an intertextual reading. Pacific Journal of Theological Research, 2019 vol. 14(2): 13-17.

Dead and Buried? Attending to the voice of the victim in the Old Testament and today: Towards an ethical reading of the Old Testament texts of violence. Oxford: Regents Park College, Whitley Publications, 2018.

‘Revenge for my Two Eyes’: Talion and Mimesis in the Samson narrative. Biblical Interpretation, 2018 vol. 26: 133-157.

‘Make yourself at home’: Tensions and Paradoxes of hospitality in dialogue with the Bible. Bible and Critical Theory, 2018 vol 14(1):42-61.

Hope, Despair and the Prophetic Imagination in J. Andrews (ed) The Church in Disorientating Times – Leading Prophetically Through Adversity: Proceedings of the Middle East Consultation 2017 Carlisle: Langham, 2018.

Immigration and the Church: Reflecting faithfully in our generation. Grove Books, 2017.

Ahab: Heedless Father, Sullen Son: Humour and Intertextuality in 1 Kings 21. JSOT 2017 vol. 41(4): 451-474.

Reduced Laughter: Seriocomic Features and their Functions in the Book of Kings. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

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Stephen Finamore

First Things First; The White Horse, Its Rider, and the Interpretation of the Book of Revelation’, in Helen Paynter and Trevor Laurence (editors), Violent Biblical Texts: New Approaches, Sheffield: Phoenix, 2022.

Wright, Wrong and Wrath; Apocalypse in Paul and Girard, in Michael Kirwan and Sheelah T. Hidden, Mimesis and Atonement; René Girard and the Doctrine of Salvation, London: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Hope: Prophetic Vision and the Lie of the Land, in Paul Cloke and Mike Pears (editors), Mission in Marginal Places; The Theory, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2016.

A Kinder, Gentler Apocalypse? René Girard, the Book of Revelation and the “Bottomless Abyss of the Unforgettable Victim, in Michael Hardin (editor), Compassionate Eschatology, Eugene OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011.

God, Order and Chaos; René Girard and the Apocalypse, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009

Violence and Covetousness in Clarke, A. (editor), Expecting Justice, but Seeing Bloodshed; Some Baptist Contributions to Following Jesus in a Violent World, Oxford: Whitley, 2004.

Violence, the Bible and the End of the World, Oxford: Whitley, 2000.

The Gospel and the Wrath of God in Romans 1 in Rowland, C. and Fletcher-Louis, C., (editors), Understanding, Studying and Reading; New Testament Essays in Honour of John Ashton, Sheffield, 1998.

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Peter Hatton

No Condemnation? The Old Testament’s Puzzling Treatment of Persian Violence in Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione (eds), The Bible on Violence, A Thick Description P157-167. Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2020.

Weighed and Found Wanting’: The Old Testament’s Sage Consideration of Empire (due for publication by Wipf and Stock September 2021)

Old Testament and Empire in Soma: An International Journal of Discourses and Counter-Discourses.

 A Cautionary Tale: The Acts Consequence Construct in Journal For The Study of the Old Testament, March 2011

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Michael Spalione

Map or Compass: The Bible on Violence. (co-editor with Helen Paynter). Sheffield Phoenix, 2022

People, Power, and Place: Ecclesiology and the Ethics of Land. Canadian-American Theological Review 8.2: 1-18. 2019.

The Bible on Violence: A Thick Description. (co-editor with Helen Paynter). Sheffield Phoenix, 2020.

‘I Will Hear Their Cry’: on Land and the Pilgrim Church. Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione (eds), The Bible on Violence, A Thick Description P217-237. Sheffield Phoenix, 2020.

Forthcoming:

Global Perspective on Bible and Violence. (co-editor with Helen Paynter). Sheffield Phoenix, 2023


Brandon Hurlbert

Cut & Splice: Reading Judges 19 Cinematically. Biblical Interpretation 1, no. aop (2020): 1-25.

Alternate Eyes: Perspective Shifting in the Samson Narrative and Black Mirror, in Amber Bowen and John Anthony Dunne (editors), Theology and Black Mirror, Theology and Popular Culture Series; Minneapolis: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. 2022.

Taking the Absurdity Seriously: Questioning the Complicity of YHWH in Judges 20-21, in Helen Paynter and Trevor Laurence (editors), Violent Biblical Texts: New Approaches, Sheffield: Phoenix, 2022.

Once Upon a Time in Persia: The Ethics of Violence in the Book of Esther and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in in Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione (editors), Map or Compass: The Bible on Violence, Sheffield: Phoenix, 2022.

Beyond Texts of Terror: Emerging Feminist Scholarship on Judges 19, in Didaktikos: Journal of Theological Education. 2022

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Maria Power

Catholic Social Teaching and Theologies of Peace in Northern Ireland: Cardinal Cahal Daly and the Pursuit of the Peaceable Kingdom. Routledge, 2020.

From Ecumenism to Community Relations: Inter-Church Relations in Northern Ireland 1980-2005. Irish Academic Press, 2007.

Building Peace in Northern Ireland, Liverpool University Press, 2011. Editor.

The Politics of Dissent: Catholic Public Theology in Northern Ireland, Modern Believing, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 127-140. 2020.

Are Popes Leaving Behind Just War and Embracing Just Peace?, Peace Review, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 238-246 with Christopher Hrynkow. 2019.

Alternative Possible Futures: Unearthing a Catholic Public Theology for Northern Ireland in Christopher Baker and Elaine Graham (eds.), Theology for Changing Times: John Atherton and the Future of Public Theology, pp. 158-174, London: SCM Press, 2018.

A Serious Moral Question to be Properly Understood: The Catholic Church and Human Rights in Timothy White (ed.), Northern Ireland and International Relations, pp. 131-143, Manchester University Press, 2017.

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Valerie Hobbs

An Introduction to Religious Language: Exploring Theolinguistics in Contemporary Contexts. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

Disability, the ‘good family’ and discrimination in the dismissal of a Presbyterian seminary professorJournal of Language and Discrimination2(2), 133-161. 2018.

The discourse of divorce in conservative Christian sermonsCritical Discourse Studies17(2), 193-210. 2020.

Rape culture in sermons on divorce. In Rape culture, gender violence, and religion (pp. 87-110). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. 2018.

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Trevor Laurence

Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer. Baylor University Press. 2022.

Violent Biblical Texts: New Approaches (co-editor with Helen Paynter). Sheffield Phoenix, 2022.

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Will Moore


Boys will be Boys, and Other Myths: Unravelling Biblical Masculinities. London: SCM Press. 2022.

‘Gorifying the Gospels: the treatment of crucifixion violence in film’, in Map or Compass? The Bible on Violence, ed. by Michael Spalione and Helen Paynter (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2022), pp. 193–205.

A Godly Man and a Manly God: Resolving the Tension of Divine Masculinities in the Bible’, Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, 2.2 (2021), 71-94.

‘Militance, Motherhood, and Masculinisation: how is gender constructed in Judges 4 and 5?’, in The Bible on Violence: a thick description, ed. by Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2020), pp. 90-105.

Book reviews written for various journals including, Feminist Theology, Journal for the Study of Bible and Violence, and Religion and Gender. 

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Charlotte Thomas

‘The Lamb on Your Plate: Finding the Crucified God in the Violence of the Slaughterhouse’ in Map or Compass? The Bible on Violence (UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2022), pp 227-242.

‘Hearing the Voices of the Silenced – Creative Empathy and Texts of Terror’ in Sunday Sermon, Monday Mourning (UK: Centre for the Study of the Bible and Violence Blog, August 2022). or in French translation

‘A Christian Adoption of Jewish Feminist Hermeneutical Response to Violence in Women’s Narratives’, in Helen Paynter and Michael Spalione (eds.). The Bible on Violence: A Thick Description (UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2020), pp 65-89. (as Charlotte Trombin)

Forthcoming:

Review: ‘The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men’ by Chris Greenough, (Journal for the Bible and Violence, forthcoming 2022).

‘Blessed Are the Brain Eaters: A Comparative Analysis of ‘World Inheritance’ in the novel The Girl With All The Gifts and The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-20 and Luke 6:20-26’ in ‘What the Hell is Going On?’: Essays on Faith and Theology in the Zombie Apocalypse (USA: McFarland Publishing Company, forthcoming 2023).

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Tony Deik

‘Social Justice: Philosophical Origins, and Radical Conceptualization in Earliest Christian Communities [Arabic]’. Pages 125-64 in Between Religion and Politics: A Christian Perspective on Political Questions from the Middle East. Edited by Elias Ghazal. Beirut: Dar Manhal al Hayat, 2022.

‘True Spirituality and Social Justice: A Theological Reading of Psalm 82 [Arabic]’. Pages 263-84 in Towards a Renewed Mind: Evangelical Contributions in the Palestinian Context – Papers Dedicated to Dr Salim Munayer. Edited by Munther Isaac and Butros Mansour. Bethlehem/Nazareth: Bethlehem Bible College/Nazareth Evangelical College, 2021.

‘Justice in Ecclesiastes (3:16–4:3 and 8:10–17): A Missional Reading from and for Palestine’. Pages 69–84 in Reading Ecclesiastes from Asia and Pasifika. Edited by Jione Havea and Peter H. W. Lau. IVBS 10. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020.

‘Christian Zionism and Mission: How Does Our Understanding of Christianity Impact Our Witness in the World?’ Pages 74–81 in The Religious Other: A Biblical Understanding of Islam, the Qur’an and Muhammad. Edited by Martin Accad and Jonathan Andrews. Carlisle: Langham, 2020.

‘Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16–34): A Babbler or an Evangelistic Scholar of Religion?’ Pages 52–61 in The Religious Other: A Biblical Understanding of Islam, the Qur’an and Muhammad. Edited by Martin Accad and Jonathan Andrews. Carlisle: Langham, 2020.

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