Description: Funny Stuff in the Bible is a field trip through the Bible library hunting for funny stuff. The many stories and other literature in this library were written over a period of a thousand years. This is well known. Thinking of the Bible as a library provides perspective. Though there are more copies of this library, its writings bound into a single volume, than of any other book in the world, the literature in it is underrated and underenjoyed. It is underenjoyed because of the smog created by the notion that every word is religiously serious and not for enjoyment, let alone...

Arnold of Brescia (ca 1100-1155), exiled twice and finally martyred, takes us into the student world of Paris during the blossoming of the twelfth-century Renaissance, through an infamous heresy trial, to teaching in Paris, then Zurich, and into Rome where he was the spiritual leader of the city for almost a decade. Arnold believed the church should be separate from civil government. He supported the revived Roman Senate and the Roman people who were foremost among the many who loved and admired him. An Augustinian canon regular, Arnold made the authorities, ecclesiastical and imperial,...