Prologue: Orientation to multiple bibles and multiple translations - Studying the Bible in its ancient context(s) - The emergence of ancient Israel and its first oral traditions - Echoes of empire in monarchal Israel - Narrative and prophecy amidst the rise and fall of the Northern Kingdom - Torah and other texts written in the wake of the Assyrian Empire - Bible for exiles : promise and story in the neo-Babylonian Empire - Persian Empire and the emergence of a temple-centered Jewish community - Hellenistic empires and the formation of the Hebrew Bible - Studying the New Testament in its ancient context - Paul and his Letters in the Roman colonial context - Mark's story of Jesus in the midst of Roman retribution - The Gospel of Matthew : defining community in the wake of destruction - Negotiating the empire in Luke-Acts - The Gospel of John and the Johannine Epistles : turning inward as a strategy for life in the empire -- Variations on responses to empire in other New Testament writings - Epilogue: The final formation of the Jewish and Christian bibles