Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Christianity - History

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, renowned Christian minister, professor, and author of The Cost of Discipleship recounts his unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years in Germany. Giving practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups, Life Together is bread for all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship.

"He comes as yet unknown into a hamlet of Lower Galilee. He is watched by the cold, hard eyes of peasants living long enough at a subsistence level to know exactly where the line is drawn between poverty and destitution. He looks like a beggar yet his eyes lack the proper cringe, his voice the proper whine, his walk the proper shuffle. He speaks about the rule of God and they listen as much from curiosity as anything else. They know all about rule and power, about kingdom and empire, but they know it in terms of tax and debt, malnutrition and sickness, agrarian oppression and demonic...

A leading expert in New Testament ethics discovers in the biblical witness a unified ethical vision -- centered in the themes of community, cross and new creation -- that has profound relevance in today′s world. Richard Hays shows how the New Testament provides moral guidance on the most troubling ethical issues of our time, including violence, divorce, homosexuality and abortion.

The first book to give the full account of the lost gospel of Jesus' original followers, revealing him to be a Jewish Socrates who was mythologized into the New Testament Christ.

A mystery writer, a witty and perceptive theologian, culture critic, and playwright, Dorothy Sayers sheds new, unexpected light on a specific set of statements made in the...

This "fresh, blunt, and highly persuasive account of how the West was won--for Jesus" (Newsweek) is now available in paperback. Stark's provocative report challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life.

"Compelling reading" (Library Journal) that is sure to "generate spirited argument" (Publishers Weekly), this account of Christianity's remarkable growth within the Roman Empire is the subject of much fanfare. "Anyone who has puzzled over...

An Inside Look at the Secretive Catholic Organization Made Famous by The Da Vinci Code

Is Opus Dei a spiritual institute dedicated to preserving Catholic orthodoxy in the face of modernist assault? Or is it an independent society, a "church within the Church," promoting its own allegiances and preserving an antiquated set of spiritual and penitential practices?

This small organization wields enormous power within the Catholic Church. Due to its status as a "personal prelature" of the pope, it operates independently of local Church authority. The influence of Opus Dei...

Mary Magdalene, Jesus's Closest Disciple

Marvin Meyer, one of the foremost scholars of the Gnostic Gospels:

• translates and introduces the Gnostic and New Testament texts that together reveal the story and importance of Mary Magdalene

• includes new translations of the Gospels of Mary, Thomas, Philip, and related texts about Mary Magdalene

• discloses, with Esther A. De Boer, the long-suppressed story of Mary's vital role in the life of Jesus and in the formative period after his crucifixion

• presents as authentically as possible the...

Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion.

Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of...

Over the course of an extraordinary year, Zev Chafets--former New York Daily News columnist and onetime director of the Israeli government press office--traveled the world to explore the improbable confluence of Jews and evangelicals. He spent quality time with Jerry Falwell, visited Jewish cadets at West Point, attended the world's biggest Christian retail show, embarked on a road trip with the rabbi with the largest gentile following since Jesus, journeyed to the Holy Land with a band of repentant Christian pilgrims, and broke bread with George W. Bush and five hundred fellow...

Strange theories about Jesus seem to ooze from our culture with increasing regularity. Ben Witherington, one of the top Jesus scholars, will have none of it. There were no secret Gnostic teachings in the first century. With leading scholars and popular purveyors of bad history in his crosshairs, Witherington reveals what we can--and cannot--claim to know about the real Jesus. The Bible, not outside sources, is still the most trustworthy historical record we have today.

Utilizing a fresh "personality profile" approach, Witherington highlights core Christian claims by investigating the...

On April 24, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, the twenty-first-century successor of the Apostle Peter and the spiritual leader of more than one billion Roman Catholics. Who is this complex man whose office grants him sole charge of the world's largest religion? How will his tenure influence the future? The Essential Pope Benedict XVI answers these questions through carefully chosen selections from his homilies, interviews, theological essays, and articles on the crises facing the church today. This collection lays out Benedict's thinking and relates...

This pocket edition of Richard McBrien's Lives of the Saints is the perfect concise, handy reference for scholars, students, and general readers.

In the The Misunderstood Jew, scholar Amy-Jill Levine helps Christians and Jews understand the "Jewishness" of Jesus so that their appreciation of him deepens and a greater interfaith dialogue can take place. Levine's humor and informed truth-telling provokes honest conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the New Testament, and each other.