Beginning with the insights of the 'canonical criticism' of Brevard Childs and James Sanders, this book explores the canon of the Bible through readings in literature, art and cinema. It places the Bible within the concerns of contemporary feminist thought, postmodern anxiety and modern apocalyptic. It returns us to a sense of the centrality of the Biblical canon in the present of critical thought and popular culture, expanding the notion of 'reading' to picture and film.Illustrations - Acknowledgements - Preface - Introduction: Violence and the Canon - Trespassing in the Wilderness: New Ventures in Canonical Criticism - The Literary Classic and the Tragedy of Fiction - Seeing Pictures: Reading Texts - The Bible and the Politics of Feminism - Living in the Reel World: The Bible in Film - Violence and Postmodernism: Is There No Hope in the Evil Demon of Images? - Apocalypse: Then and Now - A Rebirth of Images - Conclusion: Art and the Biblical Canon - Bibliography - Notes - Index