Showing results for "Christianity" in Biblical History & Culture

By exploring the stories of the Bible in their actual locations, and the stories of the complex human beings who lived them, you’ll gain fascinating and illuminating new dimensions of the texts. In this visually stunning course, you’ll also experience the Bible’s connection to both the real world and ancient history while you’ll engage with the past in a way that is both immediate and tangible.

Mary Magdalene is one of the most influential symbols in the history of Christianity - yet, if you look in the Bible, you'll find only a handful of verses that speak of her. How did she become such a compelling saint in the face of such paltry evidence? In her effort to answer that question, Cynthia Bourgeault examines the Bible, church tradition, art, legend, and newly discovered texts to see what's there.

Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads you on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women, and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead you into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context.

In an age of growing skepticism, many demand hard evidence before believing anything is true—especially when it comes to Jesus and the Bible. A kind of "artifacts or it didn't happen" attitude. Perhaps nowhere is this attitude more prevalent than when considering the claims of Christianity...

"In his joyful new book, Aldo Cazzullo invites us, through sparkling prose, to dive into some of the greatest stories ever told.” —James Martin, SJ, New York Times bestselling author of Work in Progress and Learning to Pray A #1 bestselling sensation in Italy As a way of connecting with his...

We live in a Genesis Three World. Even a quick look around reveals that things in this world are not as they should be. Violence, including war and mass shootings and self-inflicted harm such as suicide, occurs more than regularly. In the words of Paul, We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Rom. 8:22). That groaning began in the days of Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter two assures the listener that all that God created "was very good". Due to the events recorded in Genesis chapter three, "was" is a key word.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From a renowned National Book Award–winning scholar, an extraordinary new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how a poor young man inspired a religion that reshaped the world. “This is a brilliant and necessary book. Sober, wise, respectful...

Challenging the dominant narrative about the history of the Qur'an and the emergence of Islam in a predominantly pagan context, Gabriel Said Reynolds presents the Qur'an as a text born within a largely Christian culture.

La Bible est au cœur de la foi chrétienne. Ceci soulève inévitablement la question suivante : pourquoi devrions-nous croire la Bible ? Ce petit livre, qui s'adresse autant aux non-chrétiens qu'aux chrétiens, nous aide à comprendre pourquoi la Parole de Dieu est fiable en explorant les différents arguments historiques et théologiques qui ont conduit des millions de chrétiens à croire ce que la Bible dit, de la Genèse à l'Apocalypse.

When it comes to religion—and more specifically, Christianity—”God” is a divisive issue. Either you’re a believer who loves him, or an atheist (or other spiritual believer) who denounces his existence and hates him. Who is right? Which side got it correct? Is there even a right answer, or does that become a philosophical question of what “faith” truly is? In Dr. DuWayne A. Carlson’s new book Atheistic Christianity, the topic of “God” transcends conventional belief systems as the author encourages listeners to cultivate a different view.

Is Christianity the White Man's Religion? affirms that ethnic diversity has played a powerful role in the formation of the Old and New Testaments and that the Bible is a book of justice, promoting equality for all people. Contrary to popular Eurocentric conceptions, biblical Christianity is not just for White Westerners. It's good news for all of us. 

For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture has credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But the truth is that these individuals, who have been rewarded with sainthood for their work, did not write alone. In some meaningful ways they did not write at all. Hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators, almost all of whom go unnamed and uncredited. They were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament.

Lynn Cohick provides an accurate and fulsome picture of the earliest Christian women by examining a wide variety of first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman documents that illuminate their lives. She organizes the book around three major spheres of life: family, religious community, and society in general.

In this third volume of The Masks of God - Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology - the preeminent mythologist looks at the pagan religions of Greece, Rome, and the Celts, as well as the Abrahamic religions - Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Exploring the West’s shift from female-centered to male-centered mythology, Campbell examines the distinguishing characteristics and the shared root concepts of these mythologies. The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks.

Church History, Volume Two chronicles the events, the triumphs, and the struggles of the Christian movement from the years leading up to the Reformation through the next five centuries to the present-day. Looking closely at the integral link between the history of the world and that of the...

The differences and discrepancies in the Gospels constitute the foremost objections to their reliability and the credibility of their message. Some have tried to resolve Gospels contradictions with strained harmonization efforts. Many others conclude that the Gospels are hopelessly contradictory...

Read by the author. This volume in Biblical Theology for Life series dives deeply into the topic of human violence. Before exploring what the Bible says about violence, Old Testament scholar Helen Paynter sets out the contours for the study ahead by addressing the various definitions of violence...

In the middle of the third century CE, one North African bishop wrote a treatise for the women of his church, exhorting them to resist such culturally normalized yet immodest behaviors in their cosmopolitan Roman city as mixed public bathing in the nude, and wearing excessive amounts of jewelry...

Christians often wonder whether it is worth their time to read and study the seemingly odd narratives about God’s instructions for the tabernacle in the second half of the book of Exodus. The answer, according to Daniel R. Hyde, is an emphatic yes. In God in Our Midst: The Tabernacle and Our Relationship with God, Rev. Hyde shows that the tabernacle narratives have much to teach us about God Himself, about sin, about redemption in Christ, and about how we are to live for God today.

In Behind the Bible’s Greatest Stories, Dr. Paul Wright takes you behind the scenes, uncovering the ancient cultures and historical geography that frame the most memorable stories in the Bible. Posing rarely asked questions about these popular Old Testament stories, you’ll move beyond the typical Sunday school answers and into the fascinating world of the Bible.