However, this renewed apologetic interest in textual criticism has created fresh problems for evangelicals. An unfortunate proliferation of myths, mistakes, and misinformation has arisen about this technical area of biblical studies.In this volume Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry, along with a team of New Testament textual critics, offer up-to-date, accurate information on the history and current state of the New Testament text that will serve apologists and Christian students even as it offers a self-corrective to evangelical excesses.

    

    It was an identity so strong in the eastern empire that even the conquering Ottomans would eventually adopt it. But Western scholarship has a long tradition of denying the Romanness of Byzantium. In Romanland, Anthony Kaldellis investigates why and argues that it is time for the Romanness of these so-called Byzantines to be taken seriously.In the Middle Ages, he explains, people of the eastern empire were labeled "Greeks," and by the nineteenth century they were shorn of their distorted Greekness and became "Byzantine." Only when we understand that the Greek-speaking population of Byzantium was actually Roman will we fully appreciate the nature of Roman ethnic identity. We will also better understand the processes of assimilation that led to the absorption of foreign and minority groups into the dominant ethnic group, the Romans who presided over the vast multiethnic empire of the east.

    

    See the city through their eyes as it teeters on the edge of the fateful war that would end its golden age. Athens, 416 BC. A tenuous peace holds. The city-state's political and military might are feared throughout the ancient world; it pushes the boundaries of social, literary and philosophical experimentation in an era when it has a greater concentration of geniuses per capita than at any other time in human history. Yet even geniuses go to the bathroom, argue with their spouse and enjoy a drink with friends.Few of the city's other inhabitants enjoy the benefits of such a civilized society, though - as multicultural and progressive as Athens can be, many are barred from citizenship. No, for the average person, life is about making ends meet, whether that be selling fish, guarding the temple or smuggling lucrative Greek figs.During the course of a day we meet 24 Athenians from all strata of society - from the slave-girl to the councilman, the vase painter to the naval commander, the housewife to the hoplite - and get to know what the real Athens was like by spending an hour in their company. We encounter a different one of these characters every chapter, with each chapter forming an hour in the life of the ancient city. We also get to spy on the daily doings of notable Athenians through the eyes of regular people as the city hovers on the brink of the fateful war that will destroy its golden age.

    She enjoys the indulged childhood of the elite, her concerns only about the day’s amusements. She rides gentle ponies, attends parties, reads Ovid, and learns the herbal arts from her servant. But the day after meeting her betrothed, Locusta discovers the consequences of possessing such dangerous knowledge. Ordered to leave her pastoral life, Locusta is thrust into a world of intrigue, scandal, and murder—where treason lurks behind every corner and defying an emperor means death. Locusta’s life changes forever when a young Emperor Nero requires her herbal expertise. And commands her to be his personal poisoner. Caught in an imperial web, Locusta must embrace her profession or die. Or is there another way out? History paints her as the first female serial killer. Or is she yet another maligned woman in history?

    

     Rich with the wisdom of Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and St. John Paul II, these pages unpack perennial truths about beauty and rivet them into your soul, opening the eyes of your understanding to the beauty all around us. Offering an abundance of accessible examples, author John Mark Miravalle demonstrates that beauty is neither in the eye of the beholder, nor for the cultivated, the dreamer, or the “hopeless romantic” alone. On the contrary, the ability to understand, recognize, and delight in beauty readies all souls for heaven—and makes it easier for us to get there. From these pages, you’ll learn: • Why beauty is not just a matter of opinion • The virtues we need to perceive beauty and to enjoy it • How to determine whether an artwork is truly beautiful • The respective roles of reason and emotion in appreciating beauty • How the beauty of nature testifies to God’s existence . . . while rejection of God obscures nature’s beauty With the help of these pages, you’ll receive fresh eyes to marvel again (or for the first time) at the beauty of nature, music, art, architecture, and, most importantly, the beauty of God, the fountainhead and exemplar of all things on earth that are beautiful.

    

    The supernatural abounded, turning flowers into fruit and caterpillars into butterflies. In a time before scientists studied weather patterns and figured out what caused the Earth’s most mysterious phenomena, it was magic that packed a cloud full of energy until it exploded with thunderbolts. It was everyday magic, but it was still magical.In Ancient Magic, author Philip Matyszak ushers readers into that world, showing how ancient Greeks and Romans concocted love potions and cast curses, how they talked to the dead and protected themselves from evil spirits. He takes readers to a world where gods interacted with humans and where people could not only talk to spirits and deities, but could themselves become divine.Ancient Magic presents us with a new understanding of the role of magic, combining a classical historiography with a practical how-to guide. Using a wide array of sources and lavish illustrations, this book offers an engaging and accessible way into the supernatural for all.

    . . Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India--all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly chivalry, he was a star of Renaissance paintings, and by the early twentieth century he'd even come to resemble an English gentleman. But who was he in his own time?In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander's life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer's great epic the Iliad as a bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side. An inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up to that point in history, Alexander glorified war and was known to commit acts of remarkable cruelty.As debate continues about the meaning of his life, Alexander's death remains a mystery. Did he die of natural causes--felled by a fever--or did his marshals, angered by his tyrannical behavior, kill him? An explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his life, and Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle, offering an ending to Alexander's story that has eluded so many for so long.