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The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible (2nd Edition)
| | At first glance, The Complete Idiots Guide to the Bible seems irreverent at best, but as the saying goes, "Judge not ... a book by its cover." This little addition to the Complete Idiots series tackles one of the most intimidating and misrepresented subjects of the past 2,000 years and succeeds in producing a competent and thorough guide to the world's all-time bestseller. Jim Bell and Stan Campbells success is largely due to their humorous and conversational writing style. Their treatment of the Old Testament in particular is both an intriguing and hilarious ride through the drama of biblical history. With chapter headings like "Abraham: the not-so-accidental tourist" and "Tell-a-Vision Personalities (Isaiah through Malachi)," the authors provide a memorable picture of the goings-on in the first 39 books of the Bible. The Abraham chapter includes, among other noteworthy (and entertaining) facts, how Israel became the Hebrew "Promised Land," the origin of the phrase "fire and brimstone," and some of the less illustrious deeds of this "man of faith." | |
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Nag Hammadi Scriptures, The: The International Edition
| | <P><b> This is the most complete, uptodate, onevolume, Englishlanguage edition of the renowned library of fourthcentury Gnostic manuscripts discovered in Egypt in 1945, which rivaled the Dead Sea Scrolls find in significance. It includes the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and other Gnostic gospels and sacred texts. This volume also includes introductory essays, notes, tables, glossary, index, etc. to help the reader understand the context and contemporary significance of these texts which have shed new light on early Christianity and ancient thought.</P><P> This team of collaborators launched modern Gnostic studies and exposed a movement within Christianity whose teachings are in many ways as relevant today as they were centuries ago. The importance of their work has been underscored with the success of books by bestselling authors such as Elaine Pagels, Harold Bloom, and even Dan Brown.</P><P> Opening the secrets of a religion which the Gnostics themselves had hoped would be kept sealed until the Last Day, this edition takes into account recent developments including the significance of the Gospel of Thomas and other lost gospels as a source of the authentic sayings of Jesus. This fascinating collection will become a welcome addition to the understanding of the formative years of the early Christian Church.</P><P> </b></b><b></P> | |
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The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith
| | Answering the many "spiritual" questions left unaddressed by such popular historical bestsellers as a<I> A History of God </I>and<I> God: A Biography,</I> renowned author Marcus Borg reveals how to embrace an authentic contemporary faith that reconciles God with science, critical thinking and religious pluralism. <P>How to have faith--how to even think about God--without having to stifle modern rationality is one of the most vital challenges facing contemporary religion. In providing a much-needed solution to the problem of how to have a fully authentic yet fully contemporary understanding of God, Borg--author of the bestselling <I> Meeting Jesus Again for the first Time</I>--traces his personal journey. He leads readers from the all-powerful and authoritarian God of his (and their) childhood and traditional faith to an equally powerful but dynamic image of God that is relevant to contemporary seekers and more biblical and spiritually authentic. Borg shows how the modern crisis of faith is itself rooted in delusion--misinterpretation of biblical texts and of God's true nature--and challenges readers to a new way of thinking about God. He opens a practical discussion about how to base a relationship with the divine both immanent and transcendant, here and now, always and everywhere. <P>Arguing that the authentic Judeo-Christian tradition is that God's being includes the whole world, Borg persuasively shows how this understanding accounts for the whole variety of human religious experience. Ultimately, he introduces readers to a way of thinking about God who is "right here" all around them, rather than distant and remote. This understanding is more intellectually and spiritually satisfying and allows readers to reclaim a stronger sense of God's presence. | |
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Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
| | <p> When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In <i>Misquoting Jesus</i>, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible. </p> <p> Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible. </p> <p> Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible. </p> | |
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The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem
| | <p> Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster <i>The Passion of the Christ</i>, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion. </p> <p> Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of Roman governor Pontius Pilate leading Roman soldiers into the city, symbolized military strength. The second heralded a new kind of moral hero who was praised by the people as he rode in on a humble donkey. The Jesus introduced by Borg and Crossan is this new moral hero, a more dangerous Jesus than the one enshrined in the church's traditional teachings. </p> <p> <i>The Last Week</i> depicts Jesus giving up his life to protest power without justice and to condemn the rich who lack concern for the poor. In this vein, at the end of the week Jesus marches up Calvary, offering himself as a model for others to do the same when they are confronted by similar issues. Informed, challenged, and inspired, we not only meet the historical Jesus, but meet a new Jesus who engages us and invites us to follow him. </p> | |
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