Relationships between God and people in the Bible, part III: When the other is an outsider.

This study considers intergroup attitudes in the Bible and compares relationships between God or Jesus and (a) Torah non-Israelites; (b) New Testament people who were not followers of Jesus; and (c) New Testament people who were not Jewish. Torah non-Israelites belonged to an out-group with respect to the Hebrew Torah, New Testament people who were not followers of Jesus belonged to an out-group with respect to the Christian New Testament, and New Testament people who were not Jewish were an in-group with respect to Christians. Results were that God or Jesus' relationships were very negative with people in the Torah who were non-Israelites and with people in the New Testament who were not followers, while relationships were positive with people in the New Testament who were not Jewish.

A method of choosing CCRT scorers.

This study compared interjudge agreement in 2 sample cases in which both experienced as well as inexperienced scorers were used. Scorers were given only a single page of core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) instructions to help them learn the method. The results in both cases suggest that there was significantly greater interjudge agreement among experienced CCRT scorers compared with inexperienced scorers.

Relationships between God and people in the Bible, Part II: The New Testament, with comparisons with the Torah.

IN AN EARLIER study on the first five books of the Bible, the Torah or Pentateuch, relationships between God and people were assessed with the use of a clinical-quantitative method, the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method. Here, the study is extended to God or Jesus's relationships with people in the New Testament, to obtain the first description of those relationships based on an established measure of relationships. In the New Testament, many different kinds of relationship themes were observed, with benevolent and positive themes as the most frequent.

Relationships between God and people in the Bible: a core conflictual relationship theme study of the Pentateuch/Torah.

The most widely known images of God are from the Bible. An important characteristic of these images is their portrayal of God's interactions with people. Although there have been many religious and literary discussions of God's relationships with people in the Bible, no systematic psychological assessment has been reported.

Sudden gains in recovering from depression: are they also found in psychotherapies other than cognitive-behavioral therapy?

Following T. Z. Tang and R.