Arthur Grenke

From the Holy Land to the New Jerusalem Arthur Grenke

This book explores the relationship in the biblical record between reward, punishment and salvation. How do we get from the promise of the next best thing to Paradise in the Holy Land, at the beginning of the Bible, to the promise of Heaven and the New Jerusalem, at its end? Why, with the founding of ancient Israel, are original inhabitants of Palestine slaughtered so that the Israelite's might enjoy God's rewards? Why, in the last Book of the Bible, are non-believers condemned to Hell while true believers are rewarded with eternal bliss? Might this have something to do with the role of reward and punishment in God's relationship with humanity, or, more specifically, God's relationship with the people of Israel? Might it have something to do with God failing His people rather than the opposite? The study shows that the answer is embedded in the biblical record-as it evolves from the Book of Joshua, at the beginning of Scripture, to the Book of Revelation, at its end. "Dr. Grenke's book is an original way of looking at an important dimension of Jewish and Christian reading of a crucial theme in the Bible. The two "visions of salvation" discussed by him have had, and in many respects still have, an enormous influence on the Judeo-Christian world." -Prof. Reinhard Pummer, University of Ottawa.