In more that 300 engaging and insightful portraits, Edith Deen brings alive the saints and sorceresses, queens and servants, mothers and daughters, wives and widows whose profound influence is felt through-out the Bible."You can almost trace light and darkness in the Bible by the women themselves,"she writes. "Hannah, praying mother of Samuel, gave birth to a son who became the first great Hebrew prophet. And, of course, there was the mother of Jesus. On the other hand, Jezebel and Herodias were vile influences, the first tearing apart the northern kingdom of Israel, the second causing John the Baptist to be beheaded."Combining thorough detail with a lively and dramatic narrative, All of the Women of the Bible portrays the real women behind the Biblical stories and shows how, in their human struggles and triumphs, they are very much like the women of today. With each major biography identified by Bible chapter and verse and prefaced by a key passage of scripture, this is an ideal resources for teachers, Bible students, preachers, and writers, as well as anyone who wants to learn what it was really like to be a woman in Biblical times.

    The latest LDS scholarship is reflected in its brief, thoughtfully considered footnotes, although the focus is always on the text itself—its wording, structure, and interconnections—allowing the book’s sacred message to be heard anew. The Maxwell Institute Study Edition, produced by believing scholars, is ideally suited to both new readers of the Book of Mormon and also those who know the book well and have loved its teachings and testimony of Christ for many years.

    In the Wisdom literature of the Bible we first hear the cool voice of a teacher calling us to think--to think hard and humbly. How long will fools hate knowledge? cries Wisdom in the book of Proverbs. Then in Job comes the anguished voice of the questioner, earnest enough to seek answers, honest enough to doubt easy ones. In Ecclesiastes the chastened tone of the Preacher warns of the vanity of all life under the sun. Sensitive to both literary form and theological content, Derek Kidner introduces Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, explaining their basic character and internal structure. He also summarizes and evaluates the wealth of modern criticism focused on each book. Looking at all three books together, Kidner shows how their many voices compare, contrast and ultimately give a unified view of life. Kidner extends his analysis to include Ecclesiasticus and The Wisdom of Solomon from the Apocrapha, and he reprints excerpts from non-Israelite works that parallel the three major books treated.

    For readers of compelling history and true crime, from critically acclaimed, award-winning author Tanya Bretherton.After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.Yvonne Fletcher disposed of two husbands. Caroline Grills cheerfully poisoned her stepmother, a family friend, her brother and his wife. Unlike arsenic or cyanide, thallium is colourless, odourless and tasteless; victims were misdiagnosed as insane malingerers or ill due to other reasons. And once one death was attributed to natural causes, it was all too easy for an aggrieved woman to kill again.This is the story of a series of murders that struck at the very heart of domestic life. It's the tale of women who looked for deadly solutions to what they saw as impossible situations. The Husband Poisoner documents the reasons behind the choices these women made - and their terrible outcomes.

    The jar proved to hold treasure of an unexpected sort: a collection of some fifty-two ancient manuscripts, most of which reflect the teachings of a mystical religious movement we call Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, "knowledge"). The texts are also, with few exceptions, Christian documents, and thus they provide us with valuable new information about the character of the early church, and about the Gnostic Christians within the church.In this volume, Marvin W. Meyer has produced a new English translation for general readers of four of the most important and revealing of these early Christian texts -- the Secret Book of James, the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas, and the Secret Book of John.

    Once in a generation a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read--a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Ambitious, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible & covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith. Christianity will teach modern readers things that have been lost in time about how Jesus' message spread & how the New Testament was formed. It follows the Christian story to all corners of the globe, filling in often neglected accounts of conversions & confrontations in Africa & Asia. It discovers the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the rise of the evangelical movement from its origins in Germany & England. This book encompasses all of intellectual history--we meet monks & crusaders, heretics & saints, slave traders & abolitionists, & discover Christianity's essential role in driving the Enlightenment & the age of exploration, & shaping the course of WWI & WWII.We live in a time of tremendous religious awareness, when both believers & non-believers are engaged by questions of religion & tradition, seeking to understand the violence sometimes perpetrated in the name of God. The son of an Anglican clergyman, MacCulloch writes with feeling about faith. His last book, The Reformation, was chosen by dozens of publications as Best Book of the Year & won the Nat'l Book Critics Circle Award. This inspiring follow-up is a landmark new history of the faith that continues to shape the world.

    Friedman is a fascinating, intellectual, yet highly readable analysis and investigation into the authorship of the Old Testament. The author of Commentary on the Torah, Friedman delves deeply into the history of the Bible in a scholarly work that is as exciting and surprising as a good detective novel. Who Wrote the Bible? is enlightening, riveting, an important contribution to religious literature, and as the Los Angeles Times aptly observed in its rave review, “There is no other book like this one.”

    First published in 1993 but out of print for years, Our Troth is back in print, featuring updates and additions from its original compiler, Kveldulf Gundarsson, and from many other Heathen writers, all edited by well-known author Diana L. Paxson. Volume 2 covers the Heathen holy year, lore and rites for the major holidays, and ways to work Heathenry into every facet of life. It includes an extensive glossary and reading list for further study.

    India's tolerant and diverse vision of the Divine is all here: meditative, devotional, philosophical, scriptural and yogic.

    

    These are combined with the first edition’s focus on literature and narrative, and an increased amount of improved maps are also included. In all, the book charts every major element that unifies the Old Testament, making it an excellent companion for Bible reading.Any student desiring a thorough and time-tested overview of the Bible’s first half will find it in this updated edition of Old Testament Survey.

    At Saint Barbara’s Church in Cairo, they found a painting in which the risen Jesus grasps the hands of other figures around him. Unlike the Western image of a solitary Jesus rising from an empty tomb that he viewed across Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the Crossans saw images of the resurrection depicting a Jesus grasping the hands of figures around him, or lifting Adam and Eve to heaven from Hades or hell, or carrying the old and sick to the afterlife. They discovered that the standard image for the Resurrection in Eastern Christianity is communal and collective, something unique from the solitary depiction of the resurrection in Western Christianity.Fifteen years in the making, Resurrecting Easter reflects on this divide in how the Western and Eastern churches depict the resurrection and its implications. The Crossans argue that the West has gutted the heart of Christianity’s understanding of the resurrection by rejecting that once-common communal iconography in favor of an individualistic vision. As they examine the ubiquitous Eastern imagery of Jesus freeing Eve from Hades while ascending to heaven, the Crossans suggest that this iconography raises profound questions about Christian morality and forgiveness.A fundamentally different way of understand the story of Jesus’ rebirth illustrated with 130 images, Resurrecting Easter introduces an inclusive, traditional community-based ideal that offers renewed hope and possibilities for our fractured modern society.

    Its notes feature the reflections of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish scholars.* Twenty-three insightful articles on aspects of the history, literary background, and culture of the biblical era. * A special index of people, places, and themes of the Bible. * 36 pages of full-color New Oxford Bible Maps, with index.

    As the Roman Empire fights for its life and emerging Christianity fights for our souls, Hypatia is the last great voice of reason. A woman of sublime intelligence, Hypatia ranks above not only all women, but all men. Hypatia dazzled the world with her brilliance, was courted by men of every persuasion and was considered the leading philosopher and mathematician of her age ... yet her mathematics, her inventions, the very story of her life in all its epic and dramatic intensity, has gone untold. A heart-breaking love story, an heroic struggle against intolerance, a tragedy and a triumph, Hypatia walks through these pages fully realized while all around her Egypt's Alexandria, the New York City of its day, strives to remain a beacon of light in a darkening world.

    When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Xianity, & which few experts had even thought existed–a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history’s ultimate traitor. Far from being a villain, the Judas that emerges in its pages is a hero. In this radical reinterpretation, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas is presented as a role model for all those who wish to be disciples of Jesus. He's the one apostle who truly understands Jesus. This volume is the 1st publication of the remarkable gospel since it was condemned as heresy by early Church leaders, most notably by Irenaeus, in 180. Hidden away in a cavern in Middle Egypt, the codex containing the gospel was discovered by farmers in the 1970s. In the intervening years the papyrus codex was bought & sold by antiquities traders, hidden away & carried across three continents, all the while suffering damage that reduced much of it to fragments. In 2001, it finally found its way into the hands of a team of experts who would painstakingly reassemble & restore it. The Gospel of Judas has been translated from its original Coptic into clear prose. It's accompanied by commentary that explains its history in the context of the early Church, offering a new way of understanding the message of Jesus.