The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible


A.J. Jacobs - 2007
    Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire "Encyclopedia Britannica" for "The Know-It-All." His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, "The Year of Living Biblically" is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

Secrets of the Vatican


Cyrus Shahrad - 2007
    It is also the world’s smallest sovereign state–covering a mere square kilometer of land within Rome. But within that small area is a region rich in secrets, conspiracies, and intrigue. SECRETS OF THE VATICAN flings open the Vatican’s doors to reveal the hub of one of the world’s most powerful organizations. The book profiles the Vatican’s political status as Europe’s last absolute dominion and its unique independence: Vatican City boasts its own citizenship, flap, postage stamp, mercenary security force, diplomatic corps, and cash machines that offer the Vatican Bank’s services–in Latin. The book also reveals how this tiny country runs its business from year to year–and why Vatican City has the highest crime rate per capita of any nation in the world. The Vatican is the spiritual focus for the world’s one billion Catholics; it is also the focus of many less-than-spiritual conspiracy theories, ranging from allegations of press censorship, racketeering, and money-laundering to outright murder. SECRETS OF THE VATICAN examines the evidence behind these allegations and draws its own conclusions as to the Papacy’s continuing influence in the world.

Delhi Anti-Hindu Riots 2020, The Macabre Dance of Violence Since December 2019: An OpIndia Report


Nupur J. Sharma - 2020
    However, as is perhaps not very politically correct to point out, Islam as a religion calls Muslims to be a part of Ummah, which is to say, that all Muslims belong to the same theological ‘country’ regardless of political borders.That coupled with the intrinsic need of the Left to forever consider the Muslims as the victims, even under imaginary circumstances led to massive riots and violence in India. The perceived wrong here was that CAA left Muslims out, however, the truth was the CAA had nothing to do with Indians at all, let alone Indian Muslims.Another excuse for the rampant violence was that the proposed NRC would snatch away the citizenship of Muslims. That too, was a shameless canard. The NRC, when implemented and drafted, would be aimed to identify and deport Illegal Immigrants, and not Indian Citizens. No country in the world wantonly accepts indiscriminate influx of illegals, but the Left and Islamist nexus burnt the country because that is exactly what it expected of India.While many people wish to look at the Delhi Riots 2020 in isolation, the events that started right from the 1st December 2019 proves otherwise. It proves that the violence was a concerted effort to push Anarchy and Chaos in India. It proves that the Delhi Riots was no anti-Muslim pogrom, it was indeed, a well-oiled plan to tame ‘kafirs’.

Sikhs: The Untold Agony Of 1984


Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - 2015
    She claimed the police had inserted a stick inside her… Swaranpreet realised that she had been cruelly violated; He spoke a single sentence but repeated it twice in chaste Punjabi: ‘Please give me a turban? I want nothing else…’ These are voices begging for deliverance in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October-November 1984 in which 2,733 Sikhs were killed, burnt and exterminated by lumpens in the country. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay walks us through one of the most shameful episodes of sectarian violence in post Independent India and highlights the apathy of subsequent governments towards Sikhs who paid a price for what was clearly a state-sponsored riot. Poignant, raw and most importantly, macabre, the personal histories in the book reveal how even after three decades, a community continues to battle for its identity in its own country.

Hope for Today Bible


Joel Osteen - 2009
     • HOPENOTES -- brief inspirational insights on scripture and how they apply to your everyday living. • Hope for Today devotionals -- encouraging insights from Joel and Victoria that focus on the principles and promises of God. • Topical Scriptures -- a special section with verses to pray over during critical moments of your life. • The Blessing -- Joel and Victoria's prayer for you that both proclaims and claims the promises of the Bible. • This Is My Bible Pledge -- our declaration that His Word is full of divine truths and abundant promises for your future.

American Legends: The Life of James Cagney


Charles River Editors - 2013
    *Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant: The Discovery of the Treasure of Solomon


Graham Phillips - 2004
    In order to use it the high priest had to wear a breastplate containing twelve sacred gemstones called the Stones of Fire. These objects were kept in the Great Temple of Jerusalem until they vanished following the Babylonian invasion in 597 B.C.E.At the ancient ruins of Petra in southern Jordan, Graham Phillips uncovered evidence that 13th-century Templars found the Ark and the Stones of Fire, and that they brought these treasures back to central England when they fled the persecution of French king Philip the Fair a century later. The author followed ciphered messages left by the Templars in church paintings, inscriptions, and stained glass windows to what may well be three of the Stones of Fire. When examined by Oxford University scientists these stones were found to possess odd physical properties that interfered with electronic equipment and produced a sphere of floating light similar to ball lightning.The Bible asserts that the Ark had the power to destroy armies and bring down the walls of cities. Now Graham Phillips provides scientific evidence that these claims may be true and offers compelling documentation that the Ark may be located in the English countryside, not far from the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Good Pope and His Great Council: A Biography of Saint John XXIII and Vactican II


Greg Tobin - 2012
    

What Does God Want?


Michael S. Heiser - 2018
    For starters, you have to know who’s asking the question. People will ask it for a lot of different reasons. It’s pretty obvious that the question is a religious one. Questions about God naturally get filed in that folder. If you’ve spent a lot of your life in church, you might think you already know the answer. You might know parts of it, but I can guarantee you’ll see a lot that’s new here. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill “Christianity 101” book. Unfortunately, the thing that most often gets in the way of the wonder of the story is religion, and that isn’t what this book offers. And if you’ve never been in a church or heard much about the Bible, don’t worry. You’ve got nothing to unlearn or re-learn. It’s all fresh. That makes you an ideal reader. So what does God want? Best-selling author, Dr. Michael S. Heiser, shows readers that the answer is pretty simple. God wants YOU. That might surprise you. You may doubt it. That’s okay. But it’s the right answer. But it isn’t enough of an answer. You can’t get a sense of how amazing and profound the answer is by just that one sentence. There’s actually a long, remarkable story behind the answer—one that isn’t well known by most people interested in the question.

Covenant and Kingdom: The Dna of the Bible


Mike Breen - 2010
    It is not, however, out of reach. The ability to identify the main themes of any passage is a skill you can learn, even as you seek to apply its truth to your own life. Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible guides you on a Scriptural quest for knowledge and understanding. Stories and verse from the Old and New Testaments are woven together and cross-referenced, until the connections are clear and indisputable, like DNA from the Bible. Although the great Biblical themes of Covenant and Kingdom find their fullest expression in Jesus, Covenant goes all the way back to the beginning, when the only thing required was to maintain the "oneness" that God had created. After the Fall, the way was blocked; yet, God built a bridge, in Covenant, back to us. In Jesus, that Covenant was fulfilled, as on the cross, he offered himself as the ultimate blood sacrifice. The Bible is about God, our Father, inviting us to know him in a very real and personal way.Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible provides guidance to the path of understanding that it will take to develop, to the fullest, your own individual relationship with God.

Derek Prince: A Biography


Stephen Mansfield - 2005
    Not just another famous preacher's story, this biography promises to stir readers' faith as they discover Prince's unique brand of biblical wisdom and insight as well as his legacy as a father, prophet, teacher, and leader.

The Other Martyr: Insights From the Life of Hyrum Smith


Susan Easton Black
    

D.L. Moody - A Life: Innovator, Evangelist, World Changer


Kevin Belmonte - 2014
    L. Moody was also a renowned evangelist in the nineteenth century. Long before radio and television, he brought the transformative message of the gospel before 100 million people on both sides of the Atlantic. Thousands of underprivileged young people were educated in the schools he established, and before the Civil War, he went to a place no one else would: the slums of Chicago called, "Little Hell." The mission he started in an abandoned saloon drew children by the hundreds and prompted a visit from President-elect, Abraham Lincoln, in 1860.Drawing on the best, most recent scholarship, D. L. Moody—A Life chronicles the incredible journey of one of the great souls of history.

Dancing with Siva


Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami - 1991
    India's tolerant and diverse vision of the Divine is all here: meditative, devotional, philosophical, scriptural and yogic.

Secret Societies: Inside the Freemasons, the Yakuza, Skull and Bones, and the World's Most Notorious Secret Organizations: Inside the Freemasons, the Yakuza, Skull and Bones, and the World's Most Notorious Secret Organizations


John Lawrence Reynolds - 2011
    Secret societies thrive among us, yet they remain shrouded in mystery. Their secrecy suggests, to many, sacrilege or crime, and their loyalties are often accused of undermining governments and tipping the scales of justice. The Freemasons, for example, hold more seats of power in the U.S. government than any other organization. No fewer than sixteen presidents have declared their Masonic affiliation, and there may have been more. Secret societies have infiltrated pop culture as well. Celebrity members of Kabbalah include Madonna, Demi Moore, and Elizabeth Taylor, among others.From the Mafia and the Yakuza to the Priory of Sion, Skull and Bones and the Templars, Reynolds offers an illuminating and entertaining exploration of the storiesOCoconfirmed and fabricatedOCothat surround these societies, as well as provides detailed information on their origins, initiations, rituals, and secret signs. Dispelling myths and providing gripping revelationsOCosuch as a direct historical link between the Assassins of the Middle Ages and todayOCOs Al QaedaOCo"Secret Societies" gives us a smart, surprising look at the best known and often least understood covert organizations."