Early Religions

Alexandria was the epicenter of Hellenic learning in the ancient Mediterranean world, yet little is known about how Christianity arrived and developed in the city during the late first and early second century CE. In this volume, M. David Litwa employs underused data from the Nag Hammadi codices and early Christian writings to open up new vistas on the creative theologians who invented Christianities in Alexandria prior to Origen and the catechetical school of the third century.

"Miracles in the Early Christian Church" edited by Timothy W. Grogan is a thought-provoking exploration into the historical claims of miraculous events that were believed to have shaped the early Christian faith. Drawing from Conyers Middleton's seminal 1749 work, this annotated edition critically examines the authenticity of miracles attributed to the Christian Church from its earliest days. Grogan provides detailed commentary on the controversies surrounding these events, questioning their origins and the motivations behind them.

From her own experiences - her struggles and victories on the way to peace - Eugenia Price offers in this book a step-by-step guide for all who seek a new, happy, and complete life. This thrilling and inspiring chronicle of spiritual adventure lifts the heart and head of the listener, as the widely respected Christian author and speaker lets Christ speak through her to those who long to follow him as Lord of their lives.

Did you know that Christianity has gone through many changes since its origin? Over two thousand years ago, a Jewish man was born into a society in turmoil. It is impossible to tell the story of Christianity without understanding the man behind it. What were the lives of Jesus and his followers like? How were their words so impactful that they changed history and affected the lives of billions of people over the course of two thousand years?

The early Church faced its share of villains - persecutors like Nero and Julian, heretics like Marcion and Arius. And what good were they? Plenty, say the Church fathers. The threat of persecution made Christians strong and bold. As noted author Mike Aquilina demonstrates in Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians, the menace of heresy made Christians smarter - and deepened their knowledge of the divine mysteries. The villains of the ancient world proved the mettle of heroes like Peter and Paul, Irenaeus and Athanasius.

This particular volume (Volume One) begins with the period in the early 1600s when two very different English societies were established in the New World, one in Virginia and one in New England. The Virginia society simply re-created the rigidly class-based feudal society of the times. The New England society was a most unusual democracy of social equals, covenanted to live under God's—not man's—personal rule. These two American social types would find themselves in rather constant struggle....

In the first book of the series, listeners will embark on a captivating journey through Jesus' formative years, from his humble birth in Bethlehem to his upbringing in Nazareth. Through vivid storytelling and historical context, this book immerses listeners in the cultural backdrop of Jesus' early life, shedding light on his family and the events that helped to shape his extraordinary character. Uncover the mysteries. Embrace the revelations. Discover Jesus in a way you've never imagined.

You've probably heard of St. Raphael Hawaweeny, St. Alexander Hotovitsky, liturgical translator Isabel Hapgood, and other righteous men and women who made their mark on the early development of Orthodoxy in America. But what about the notorious itinerant Bulgarian Monk? Or Fr. Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America? Or Vera Johnston, who served the Orthodox Church without renouncing her Theosophist roots?

This book is about Paul, the apostle who had an amazing revelation of the love of God the Father expressed through Jesus Christ, his beloved Son. The revelation of the God who was in Christ. How did Paul receive such an incredible revelation? How was this legalistic Jewish pharisee who persecuted the early church transform into the man who has this profound revelation? Who was the man behind the words? What was the back story? Paul’s story unfolds in the pages of the New Testament.

Early Scenes in Church History, is the eighth in a series of 17 books called The Faith-Promoting Series. Published between 1879 and 1915, this series of books was published by the Juvenile Instructors Office for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints. It was George Q. Cannon's inspiration that produced the series, however. In 1866, Cannon, then a member of the Quorum of the 12, began publication of a magazine for youth and young adults called The Juvenile Instructor, which he owned and published until his death in 1901, when his family sold the magazine to the LDS Church's Sunday School organization. Thus, in 1882 when the present work, Early Scenes in Church History, was published, it was a work undertaken under the direction of Cannon, with the blessing of the Church's governing leadership.

Today, we live in a world that is asking, “Can God?” Do we believe miracles and promises from God are for another age? Hebrews tells us plainly that God is the same today as he was yesterday. The story of Mike Martin and Vivian is the story of miracles, of prayers answers, of mountains moved. It is the story that could have only been realized By Faith and nothing else. It is the testament that God is at work today and that the miraculous can happen each and every day if we are willing to see it.

Who was Priscilla? Readers of the Bible may know her as the wife of Aquila, Paul's coworker, or someone who explained baptism to Apollos. Biblical references to Priscilla spark questions: Why is she mentioned before her husband? Does the mention of her instruction of Apollos mean that women taught in the church? What is her story?

For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God. But these monks discovered something surprising in their harsh desert surroundings: far from empty and silent, the desert is richly reverberant. Sonorous Desert shares the stories and sayings of these ancient spiritual seekers, tracing how the ambient sounds of wind, thunder, water, and animals shaped the emergence and development of early Christian monasticism.

When people think about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), they tend to think of flying discs piloted by gray beings with large heads and enormous eyes. They also might believe that these sightings only started relatively recently and that belief in UFOs is some sort of modern phenomenon brought on, perhaps, by the very justifiable fears of a nuclear age. But a study of UFOs quickly reveals that people have been reporting the existence of unidentified flying objects since the beginning of recorded history, and perhaps a lot longer than that.

That Jesus of Nazareth was crucified is the closest to a historical fact anyone can say about him. Biblical scholars have spent centuries debating the details of what Jesus did and said, but this crude fact—that Jesus suffered capital punishment at the hands of the Roman authority by crucifixion—is accepted by the overwhelming majority of scholars. That there once was a cross where Jesus suffered and died is, therefore, the sequential logical affirmation.

When Jesus sent 70 disciples on ahead of him, part of their mission was to heal the sick. In fact, they were supposed to heal the sick before they preached the Gospel. Best-selling author Mike Aquilina calls this command the healing imperative. And it's an imperative that ushered in the world of modern medicine. In The Healing Imperative: The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine as We Know It, Aquilina reconstructs the fascinating history of a uniquely Christian institution: the hospital.

This audiobook focuses on the history of the early African Church from the upper room at Pentecost to the rise of Islam. Its content is a subset of the research in the book Surveying Christianity's African Roots. Herein are cross-references to chapters in the research book, as well as additional details about the contributions, sacrifices and faith of indigenous African Christian men, women and teenagers.

In Faithful Witness, Phil Baker explains the theology of martyrdom that developed over the first 300 years of Christianity, and why that theology proved so powerful in the early years of the faith. Why did they choose faithfulness over fear? Why did they choose dying over killing? Why did they choose self-sacrifice over revenge? Why did they have such peace and joy in the midst of unimaginable torture? By AD 313, why had roughly 10 percent of the Roman Empire’s population embraced Christianity, when it was both illegal and incredibly dangerous to do so?

Many years ago, in a lecture on the creation of the Mishnah, the Orthodox Jewish historian, Rabbi Berel Wein discussed the rise of early Christianity as a historical and theological backdrop. He mentioned that this era is of particular importance to Jews because of the complicated and tragic relationship between Jews and Christians over the centuries. He referred to Joseph Klausner, the famed Jewish professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who in the earlier part of the 20th century, had authored several works on early Christianity from a Jewish standpoint.

Many pastors feel isolated and helpless, especially those beginning pastoral ministry. Phil Newton and Rich Shadden know what this road is like, and they want to share what they have gained from pastoral mentoring—Rich, a young pastor receiving support and guidance from Phil, an older, more experienced shepherd.