Abstract
This work by J. Harold Ellens, currently Rese arch Scholar at the University of Michigan, Department of Near Eastern Studies, and former Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology, and founding editor of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, belongs to a series concerned with the interface between psychology, religion, and spirituality, written for the general reader. Ellens, also the series editor, describes his own contribution as “an urgent and timely work, the motivation for which is surely endorsed enthusiastically by the entire world today, as we increasingly witness the progressive unfolding of the horror of sexual abuse and other forms of sexual aberration in all societies on this planet, particularly in religious communities” (x). An enthusiastic foreword by Donald Capps underlines Ellens’s competence not only as a biblical scholar but also as a clinical psychologist with years of experience. A preface by Wayne Rollins assures us that this book will “scotch” the “widespread impression, both within and outside Judeo-Christian tradition, that the Bible is down on sex” (xix)...