Neil Hanson — acclaimed author of The Great Fire of London — traces the origins of the conflict from the Old World to the New, delineating the Armada campaign in rousing prose. He illuminates the lives of kings and popes, spymasters and assassins, military commanders and common sailors, and the ordinary men and women caught up in this great event when the fate of nations hung in the balance. The Confident Hope of a Miracle is authentic and original history written with the pace and drama of a novel.

    Without understanding God's attributes, we have a skewed perception of him--often one cast in our own image. We need more than just a theoretical knowledge of God in order to worship him as he desires. This classic work of Arthur W. Pink invites readers to discover the truth about seventeen attributes of God, including his sovereignty, immutability, patience, love, faithfulness, and much more. Pink shows readers a God who is alive, all-powerful, and active in his creation. The perfect introductory text, The Attributes of God also has enough depth and meat to satisfy the more experienced reader.

    Praying God's Word is a topical prayer guide addressing fourteen strongholds and what Scripture reveals about each issue. The Scriptures are presented in prayer form to be incorporated into the daily prayer life as a way of letting God's Word, through prayer, help you overcome the strongholds of bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, and other areas as well.

    No book has been as widely read. But how did the bible become the book we know? Pelikan takes readers thru the book’s evolution from its earliest incarnation as oral tales to its modern existence in various iterations, translations & languages. From the earliest Hebrew texts & its appearance in Greek, then Latin, he explores the canonization of different bibles & why certain books were adopted by certain sects, as well as the development of the printing press, the translation into modern languages & varying schools of critical scholarship. Both a work of scholarship & a fascinating read, Whose Bible Is It? will be welcomed by the many fans of Elaine Pagels’s books & Adam Nicolson’s God’s Secretaries.PrefaceThe Bible, the whole Bible & nothing but the Bible?The God who speaks The truth in Hebrew-Moses speaking GreekBeyond written Torah: Talmud & continuing revelationThe law & the prophets fulfilled Formation of a second TestamentThe peoples of the Book Back to the sources The Bible only The Canon & the criticsA message for the whole human raceThe strange new world within the BibleAlternative canons of the Tanakh/Old Testament New TestamentNotes & Further Reading

    From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel–Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world’ and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a dazzling narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women – kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores – who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. As well as the many ordinary Jerusalemites who have left their mark on the city, its cast varies from Solomon, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent to Cleopatra, Caligula and Churchill; from Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad; from the ancient city of Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Nero to the modern times of the Kaiser, Disraeli, Mark Twain, Rasputin and Lawrence of Arabia.Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that is believed will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice – in heaven and on earth.

    From that later decade we have the letters of Paul...From them, above all else, we receive the temptation to gloss speedily over the 30s or 40s and move swiftly to those better-documented 50s...Before there was Paul the apostle in the early 50s, there was Paul the persecutor in the early 30s. What was there for him to persecute?"-from The Birth of ChristianityIn this long-awaited companion to his landmark The Historical Jesus, John Dominic Crossan, the world's foremost expert on the historical Jesus, explores the lost years of earliest Christianity, those immediately following the execution of Jesus. He establishes the contextual setting by an interdisciplinary combination of anthropological, historical, and archaeological approaches. He identifies the textual sources by a literary analysis of the earliest discernible layers within our present gospels, both inside and outside the New Testament. Context and text come together to challenge long-standing assumptions about the role of Paul and the meaning of resurrection, and to forge an eloquent and powerful new understanding of the birth of the Christian church.John Dominic Crossan, one of the most influential figures in biblical scholarship, combines innovative scholarship with compelling insight in illuminating the mysteries of the origins of Christianity. Crossan's meticulous research into the anthropological milieu within which Christianity arose, and his study of the emergence of early Christian communities, form the basis for his stunning and original theory. Separating history from theology and redaction, he presents a vivid account of early Christianity's interaction with the world around it, and of the new traditions and communities established as Jesus' companions continued their movement after his death.With ancient traditional Judaism under increasing pressure from both Roman commercial exploitation and Greek cultural domination, the Kingdom-of-God movement of Jesus and his followers establish radical but non-violent resistance in the Lower Galilee of the late 20s. As early Jewish and Greek-influenced schools of thought present competing visions of the nature of the spirit and the flesh, it is the message brought by Jesus during his life that creates the spiritual center of the early church.The Resurrection, while essential to the story of Christ as told through the centuries, is understood in a different light when presented in the setting of a Mediterranean culture in which events such as apparitions by the dead and ecstatic visions were far from unusual. While the eschatological teachings of Paul play a large role in the growth and development of the church, they are seen to follow, rather than define, the moment of its birth.Ground-breaking and brilliantly crafted, The Birth of Christianity is an indispensable addition to our understanding of the origins of the Christian faith.John Dominic Crossan is the author of The Historical Jesus, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Who Killed Jesus?, and Who Is Jesus? He chairs the Historical Jesus section of the Society of Biblical Literature and was codirector of the Jesus Seminar. John Dominic Crossan, the world's foremost expert and best-selling author on the historical Jesus, presents a fascinating and essential inquiry into the rise of Christianity in the years preceding and immediately following the Crucifixion. Crossan's interdisciplinary approach sheds new light on the cultural and theological context in which the Christian church arose, and raises essential questions about the role of St. Paul and the significance of the Resurrection.

    An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought. This riveting book explains why the Norman Conquest was the single most important event in English history.Assessing the original evidence at every turn, Marc Morris goes beyond the familiar outline to explain why England was at once so powerful and yet so vulnerable to William the Conqueror's attack. Why the Normans, in some respects less sophisticated, possessed the military cutting edge. How William's hopes of a united Anglo-Norman realm unravelled, dashed by English rebellions, Viking invasions and the insatiable demands of his fellow conquerors. This is a tale of powerful drama, repression and seismic social change: the Battle of Hastings itself and the violent 'Harrying of the North'; the sudden introduction of castles and the wholesale rebuilding of every major church; the total destruction of an ancient ruling class. Language, law, architecture, even attitudes towards life itself were altered forever by the coming of the Normans. Marc Morris, author of the bestselling biography of Edward I, A Great and Terrible King, approaches the Conquest with the same passion, verve and scrupulous concern for historical accuracy. This is the definitive account for our times of an extraordinary story, a pivotal moment in the shaping of the English nation.

    Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest. Of Galileo's three illegitimate children, the eldest best mirrored his own brilliance, industry, and sensibility, and by virtue of these qualities became his confidante. Born Virginia in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength throughout his most productive and tumultuous years. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from their original Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then. Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was being overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story.

    Emerging in England in the 1650s as a radical sect challenging the status quo, the Quakers are now best known for their anti-slavery activities, their principled stance against war, and their pioneering work in penal reform. Famous Quakers include Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Lucretia Mott, Herbert Hoover, James Dean, Judi Dench, and A.S. Byatt. And while the group still maintains a distinctive worship method to achieve a direct encounterwith God, which has been at the heart of the movement since its beginning, Quakers today are highly diverse: some practice a protestant evangelicalism, others are no longer Christian. In this generously illustrated book, Pink Dandelion, the leading expert on Quaker Studies, draws on the latestscholarship to chart the history of the sect and its present-day diversity around the world, exploring its unique approach to worship, belief, theology and language, and ecumenism. It concludes by placing the Quakers in the wider religious picture and predicting its future.About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet alwaysbalanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, theseries has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    Love has not always taken such precedence, however, and it was in fact not until the eleventh century that French poets first began to express the romantic species of passion which English poets were still writing about in the nineteenth century. This book is intended for students of medieval literature from A-level upwards. Anyone interested in the "Courtly Love" tradition. Fans of C.S. Lewis's writings.

    They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

    This compelling biography of the most powerful European monarch of his day begins with his conception (1526) and ends with his ascent to Paradise (1603), two occurrences surprisingly well documented by contemporaries. Eminent historian Geoffrey Parker draws on four decades of research on Philip as well as a recent, extraordinary archival discovery—a trove of 3,000 documents in the vaults of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, unread since crossing Philip’s own desk more than four centuries ago. Many of them change significantly what we know about the king. The book examines Philip’s long apprenticeship; his three principal interests (work, play, and religion); and the major political, military, and personal challenges he faced during his long reign. Parker offers fresh insights into the causes of Philip’s leadership failures: was his empire simply too big to manage, or would a monarch with different talents and temperament have fared better?

    An updated and expanded edition of a standard textbook on the New Testament for first- and second-year seminary students.

    It reveals the connection between the thought of the Medieval Schools of philosophy and that of the Greek philosophers. The new edition has been fully revised, updated and corrected.Preface to First EditionPreface to Second Edition Introduction to Second Edition I The Legacy of the Ancient World 1 Plato & Aristotle2 The Later Platonists & Plotinus 3 St Augustine4 Boethius & Dionysius5 Education in the Ancient World II Renaissance of the 11th & 12th Centuries 6 The Rebirth of the Schools7 The Awakening of Western Europe 8 Revival of Dialectic: Berengar, Lanfranc & Anselm9 The Question of Universals 10 Peter Abelard 11 School of Chartres & John of Salisbury 12 School of St Victor & St Bernard III New Universities/Rediscovery of Aristotle 13 Origins of the Universities 14 Studies, Degrees & Text-books 15 Rediscovery of Aristotle 16 Arabian & Jewish Philosophy 17 Problems of the Soul & Process of Cognition IV Achievement of the 13th Century 18 Philosophical Revolution of the 13th Century19 The Franciscan School at Paris 20 Albert the Great 21 St Thomas Aquinas 22 Siger of Brabant & Faculty of Arts23 England in the 13th Century V Breakdown of Medieval Synthesis 24 The Aftermath of Aristotle 25 Henry of Ghent & Duns Scotus 26 The Breakdown of the Synthesis 27 William of Ockham28 The Harvest of Nominalism EpilogueSuggestions for Further Reading Index

    Fest tells and interprets the extraordinary story of a man's and a nation's rise from impotence to absolute power, as Germany and Hitler, from shared premises, entered into their covenant. He shows Hitler exploiting the resentments of the shaken, post-World War I social order and seeing through all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Fest reveals the singularly penetrating politician, hypnotizing Germans and outsiders alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest also, perhaps most importantly, brilliantly uncovers the destructive personality who aimed at and achieved devastation on an unprecedented scale. As history and as biography, this is a towering achievement, a compelling story told in a way only a German could tell it, "dispassionately, but from the inside." (Time)