The second-century heretic Marcion believed it was impossible to reconcile the Old Testament message of Law and sacrifice with the New Testament message of grace and forgiveness. Even today, many believers struggle to find unifying themes in scripture that can make sense of its great diversity.

Dauphinais and Levering suggest that holiness is the common thread that runs through scripture. Holiness, they say, manifests itself in profuse biblical language about a promised land and a holy people, all of which reveals a holy God desiring to recreate us in his image. The authors point out that this idea is as old as the church itself and as new as the work of contemporary biblical scholars.

Holy People, Holy Land is a mind-expanding journey through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The authors reveal that the Old Testament themes of land and Law, temple and covenant, all begin and end with God’s gracious salvific work in Christ, who fulfills the Law, establishes perfect justice, and is the true Temple.

This book is intended for undergraduate students in theology and the Bible, both Catholic and Protestant, who seek to learn the story of how love–revealed most prominently in the sacrifice of Christ–creates a holy people equipped to serve God and one another.

This book throws welcome light on living ‘between the times’ of Christ’s resurrection victory and its consummation in the oncoming kingdom of God.–Richard John Neuhaus, author of American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile

Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering’s reading of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation provides a much-needed focus on scripture’s theological meaning as a basis for instruction in Christian doctrine. Inspired by St. Augustine, Dauphinais and Levering read the Bible theologically. Following Augustine’s catechetical approach to the Bible (as distinct from a ‘biblical theology’), the authors illuminate central points rather than get lost in the myriad biblical details. They seek the ‘meaning of God’s plan for human history as revealed in the Bible.’ Written from a Catholic catechetical and theological perspective but informed by sound ecumenical exegesis, this book will nourish one’s Christian faith in the biblical story and perspective on reality in response to today’s dominant secularistic, ideological, or relativistic worldviews. It will also whet readers’ appetites to go to the Bible for further nourishment by God’s Word.–William Kurz, SJ, Marquette University