David Atkinson

Among the many causes of anxiety in today's world are global concerns to do with social and economic inequality, the importance of sustainable development, and climate change. These raise human--that is moral and spiritual--questions about who we are, our destiny, how we can be helped to flourish, and what we hope for. Hope Rediscovered is about being re-oriented in the face of such challenges, Bishop David Atkinson, who has an abiding interest in Christian ethics, pastoral theology and science, has put some key questions to the Gospel of John--a text which says much about human flourishing, and which draws on the Wisdom themes of the Hebrew Bible, about misunderstanding our place in creation, and about practical living. Like his followers, Jesus was beset with conflicts within 'the world'. The first century Christian community, to which the Gospel was addressed, discovered how to live hopefully in the way of Wisdom, energized by God's Spirit. The focus of this timely book is deep practical wisdom for a troubled world. ""A treasure trove of wise insights and reflection"" --Dave Bookless, A Rocha International Bishop David Atkinson undertook research in organic chemistry before being ordained. He served as Fellow and Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was a Canon of Southwark Cathedral and Archdeacon of Lewisham before becoming Bishop of Thetford in 2001. He retired in 2009.

Seven footballers are murdered in seven different cities in seven days. A young Premiership footballer is shot dead on a seedy South London housing estate. Initially, Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Miskin and Detective Sergeant Mogan Collins are baffled as the murder doesn't conform to any of the normal patterns Miskin has become used to policing that violent and dangerous part of the city. The only clue is a single yellow rose sent anonymously to the victim before his death. Over the next two days two more footballers are killed and two more roses subsequently sent. The police, however, are no nearer to working out why or who is responsible. Miskin - recently widowed and still trying to come to terms with his wife's death and rebuild his relationship with his two young children - does his best to manage the high-profile case as the pressure piles on him and his team. The mysterious killer, christened 'The Sniper' by the media after the first murder, is meticulous, organized and working to a clear agenda. The speed with which he is moving keeps him one step ahead of the police and even when they begin to piece together his story, The Sniper has one last spectacular surprise in store for everyone.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are typically probabilistic in character, it develops and defends a new solution that challenges venerable philosophical intuitions and explains why they were mistakenly held. Key to the new solution is the phenomenon of fading foundations, according to which distant reasons are less important than those that are nearby. The phenomenon takes the sting out of Agrippa's Trilemma; moreover, since the theory that describes it is general and abstract,it is readily applicable outside epistemology, notably to debates on infinite regresses in metaphysics. The book is a potential game-changer and a must for any advanced student or researcher in the field.

A new approach to the mysterious ballads, and their relationship with the past. Katharine Briggs Award 2018: Runner Up The ballad genre, and its material, are frequently backward-looking in terms of subject and style: it is ideally suited to the reimagining of past events, both real and fictional. This volume addresses the past of the ballad and the past in the ballad. It challenges existing scholarship by embracing discontinuity rather than continuity, seeing the ballad as belonging to a culture of cheap print and imaginative literature rather than the rarefied construct of a mythical "folk". It finds a conscious antiquarianism and medievalism reinterpreting the genre at different stages of its literary history, at the same time as the ballad itself is continually adapting to the needs of readers, singers, and audience. Chapters cover the few remaining examples of the medieval ballad, and Thomas Percy's medievalism; David Mallet's "William and Margaret" and the beginnings of the gothic mode early in the eighteenth century; ballads of "Sir James the Rose" and the culture of cheap print in Scotland from the late eighteenth through to the early twentieth century; shipwreck ballads on the loss of the Ramillies and "Sir Patrick Spens", and the reimagining of the past in the present, with a diversion into Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode"; murder ballads, special providence, and the history of mentalities from early modern to Victorian times. DAVID ATKINSON is Honorary Research Fellow at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen.

'The Ablation of Time is a delight. An astonishing variety of birds flit among the pages, and the rural countryside is never far from view. David Atkinson has the rare ability to capture in words those significant moments that make us pause and think.' - Ron Wilkins'David Atkinson is a poet of fine distinctions in subject and in language. He writes of Australian rural life with a critical but reverent attitude stemming from an intimate knowledge of the joy and menace of growing up in the country. David's poems are a rich blend of the most profound and intense experience with a great optimism and faith in human nature. He writes in clear, precise English which is powerful and moving in its simplicity.' - John Egan'Whether capturing scenes from a rural childhood or reflecting on landscape and fauna, David Atkinson's poetry abounds with fresh connections and acute observations. The Ablation of Time bears witness not only to a deeply poetic sensibility but also to the intellectual curiosity of a born naturalist, blessed with a photographic eye for composition and detail.' - Gisela Sophia Nittel

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are typically probabilistic in character, it develops and defends a new solution that challenges venerable philosophical intuitions and explains why they were mistakenly held. Key to the new solution is the phenomenon of fading foundations, according to which distant reasons are less important than those that are nearby. The phenomenon takes the sting out of Agrippa's Trilemma; moreover, since the theory that describes it is general and abstract,it is readily applicable outside epistemology, notably to debates on infinite regresses in metaphysics. The book is a potential game-changer and a must for any advanced student or researcher in the field.

In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into ’street literature’ - that is, the cheap printed broadsides and chapbooks that poured from the presses of jobbing printers from the late sixteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers and reached the populace in printed form. Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America engages with the long-running debate over the origin of traditional songs by examining street literature’s interaction with, and influence on, oral traditions.

If your wife organized a threesome for you on your honeymoon, what would you do? Scott is shocked by his wife Hannah's suggestion, but hesitantly agrees to go along with it. Back home, both feel a little guilty about their encounter with a Thai prostitute called Marilyn, but soon put it behind them when they discover Hannah is pregnant. They must both fight to keep their family together when Marilyn turns up on their doorstep, six months pregnant, and Scott comes to realize that in life there is often a price to pay for indiscretion. Squeezed is a story about family, and how sometimes we don't appreciate what we've got until it's gone.

In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into ’street literature’ - that is, the cheap printed broadsides and chapbooks that poured from the presses of jobbing printers from the late sixteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers and reached the populace in printed form. Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America engages with the long-running debate over the origin of traditional songs by examining street literature’s interaction with, and influence on, oral traditions.

*Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year 2015* If your dead wife emailed offering to find you a new girlfriend, what would you do? Andy Hunter is a single father trying to balance the demands of a 2-year-old daughter, an interfering but well-meaning mother-in-law and a job he is always in danger of losing. So, when he receives a series of delayed emails from his late wife Lindsay telling him to date, it seems like a good idea. With Lindsay's emails spurring him on, Andy weaves a path of disharmony and chaos amongst his close friends and family, but soon discovers he is not cut out for modern dating. Filled with laugh-out-loud situations and moments of soul-searching, this heart-warming, moving romantic comedy set in Edinburgh, is a bitter-sweet tale of second chances and self-discovery.

This collection of real-life racing stories is told through the eyes of mug punter David Atkinson as he embarks on a roller-coaster journey of discovery to the heart, soul and nether regions of horse racing. Along the way there is time to revel in the maelstrom of meetings at Cheltenham, Ascot and.....Towcester; and by turns be intoxicated by thrilling winners, spellbound by staying chasers and lubricated by real ale. The true spirit of racing is captured here in healthy dollops: sublime talent, Corinthian competition and touching naivety, as well as good humour, bad punting and worse hangovers all wrapped up in a parcel of rich history and friendship.

Healing is one of the fundamental aspects of Christian ministry, reaching into every area of personal and public life. Leading ethicist David Atkinson asks whether suffering can ever be creative and explores how today's conversations between theology, psychology and medical science are shaping our understanding of healing. He offers a practical and pastoral theology that embraces healing's different dimensions, from the biblical notion of health and wholeness, to healing in relation to sickness and disease, environmental health, emotional health, and pastoral care and counselling.

This important and timely study provides a much needed theological framework for considering and responding to the challenges of climate change. In a highly readable and clear style, it explores the spiritual questions being opened up by this issue: questions about human life and destiny, about our relationship to the planet and to each other, about altruism and selfishness, about the place of technology, about justice, our values and hopes. A practical exploration of these questions is set in the context of the biblical notions of covenant - God's commitment to creation which David Atkinson sees as the 'inner meaning' of creation, and sabbath - regular times of rest and replenishment for humans and for the earth itself. Seeing climate changes in the light of these biblical concepts reveals a strong moral imperative to act in ways that are help to bring about the New Testament hope that the whole of creation will one day be renewed in Christ.

Ballads are a fascinating subject of study not least because of their endless variety. It is quite remarkable that ballads taken down or recorded from singers separated by centuries in time and by hundreds of kilometres in distance, should be both different and yet recognizably the same. In The English Traditional Ballad, David Atkinson examines the ways in which the body of ballads known in England make reference both to ballads from elsewhere and to other English folk songs. The book outlines current theoretical directions in ballad scholarship: structuralism, traditional referentiality, genre and context, print and oral transmission, and the theory of tradition and revival. These are combined to offer readers a method of approaching the central issue in ballad studies - the creation of meaning(s) out of ballad texts. Atkinson focuses on some of the most interesting problems in ballad studies: the 'wit-combat' in versions of The Unquiet Grave; variable perspectives in comic ballads about marriage; incest as a ballad theme; problems of feminine motivation in ballads like The Outlandish Knight and The Broomfield Hill; murder ballads and murder in other instances of early popular literature. Through discussion of these issues and themes in ballad texts, the book outlines a way of tracing tradition(s) in English balladry, while recognizing that ballad tradition is far from being simply chronological and linear.

David Atkinson explores The Message of Proverbs, part of The Bible Speaks Today Old Testament series of commentaries.

The fact of suffering in the world challenges us with its questions. The book of Job is all about human suffering. We meet a man who is afflicted physically and emotionally. We encounter friends who do their best, but make things worse. We are brought face to face with intellectual puzzles. Above all this, and because of it, we find Job struggling with his faith in God. David Atkinson's compelling exposition shows the power of the book of Job to reach into our human situation, and to engage with our human needs. It offers, he believes, the strong sort of comfort which comes from knowing that someone else has been there before. His book is a pastoral exploration, providing help in the ministry of counselling.