Showing titles in History

Beginning with the life of Jesus, Robert Louis Wilken narrates the dramatic spread and development of Christianity over the first thousand years of its history. Moving through the formation of early institutions, practices, and beliefs to the transformations of the Roman world after the conversion of Constantine, he sheds new light on the subsequent stories of Christianity in the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations.

In this definitive and long-awaited biography, Jonathan Edwards emerges as both a great American and a brilliant Christian. George Marsden evokes the world of colonial New England in which Edwards was reared - a frontier civilization at the center of a conflict between Native Americans, French Catholics, and English Protestants. Drawing on newly available sources, Marsden demonstrates how these cultural and religious battles shaped Edwards' life and thought.

This book presents the life, thought, and work of Marcion in its historical, theological, ethical, and liturgical contexts. It distinguishes itself from its competitors by employing a new method: rigorously critiquing heresy reports by means of the testimony of Marcion's own scriptures. It devotes attention to the reliable reconstruction of those scriptures, arguing for the chronological priority of Marcion's Gospel over what is now known as canonical Luke.

For over four decades, Fulton Sheen was the face of Catholicism in America and literally received hundreds of thousands of letters from people around the world in search of truth, faith, salvation, and spiritual guidance. In this new reissue of one of Sheen's classic works, the Emmy Award-winning priest takes an intimate look at our sacred journey to God and answers some of life's most profound questions.

This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.

Christianity is a picture of reality. It explains why the world is the way it is. When the pieces of this puzzle are properly assembled, we see the big picture clearly. Christianity is a true story of how the world began, why the world is the way it is, what role humans play in the drama, and how all the plotlines of the story are resolved in the end. In The Story of Reality, best-selling author and host of Stand to Reason Gregory Koukl explains the five words that form the narrative backbone of the Christian story.

Waiting to be rediscovered in the British Library is an ancient manuscript of the early Church, copied by an anonymous monk. The manuscript is at least 1,450 years old, possibly dating to the first century, Jesus' lifetime. And now, The Lost Gospel provides the first-ever translation from Syriac into English of this unique document that tells the inside story of Jesus' social, family, and political life. The Lost Gospel takes listeners on an unparalleled historical adventure through a paradigm-shifting manuscript.

As sidekicks to their parents' and churches' ambitions, missionary kids (MKs) face questions many white Christians eventually ask: about God's calling, sacrifice, faith, privilege, racism, abuse, and what belonging means. In The Missionary Kids, Holly Berkley Fletcher reveals how MKs have intimate access to the movement's logic, longings, and ideals.

In the late 20th century, fundamentalism has emerged as one of the most powerful forces at work in the world, contesting the dominance of modern secular values and threatening peace and harmony around the globe. Yet it remains incomprehensible to a large number of people. In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong brilliantly and sympathetically shows us how and why fundamentalist groups came into existence and what they yearn to accomplish.

Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.

At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.

This is the incredible true story of a Galilean stonemason who changed the course of the world forever. He lived and died over 2,000 years ago, fulfilling expectations that existed long before his birth. His birth had been mystically foretold by astrologers for hundreds of years, yet the rulers of his day dreaded his coming. This humble builder-teacher became a magnet for the poor and down trodden, a symbol of love and mercy, who transformed the lives and restored the health and purpose in all who encountered him.

Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness.

In this “eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for those who are damned.

Saint Augustine is one of history's most prolific geniuses. With great eloquence and passion, his Confessions - a masterpiece of Western literature - explores enduring questions that continue to stir millions. Perhaps the most moving record of a soul's journey to grace, Confessions appears midway in Saint Augustine's prodigious body of theological writings and remains his most influential work.

How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of modern jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas F. Madden offers a brilliant and compelling narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance.

Often called the "Father of Church History", Eusebius was the first to trace the rise of Christianity during its crucial first three centuries from Christ to Constantine. Our principal resource for earliest Chrisitianity, The Church History presents a panorama of apostles, church fathers, emperors, bishops, heroes, heretics, confessors, and martyrs. This audiobook edition includes Paul L. Maier's clear and precise translation, historical commentary on each book in The Church History, and numerous maps, illustrations, and photographs.

The past life memories of two women capture a true and compelling portrait of Jesus the man, from the healing miracles he performed to the gentle philosophy he preached. This is an insider view, direct from Jesus' time, deep in feeling tones and profound in implications, giving a sense of how things truly were.

Hilaire Belloc examines the five most destructive heretical movements to have affected Christian civilization: Arianism, Mohammedanism (Islam), Albigensianism (Cathar), the Reformation (Protestant), and the modern phase. Belloc describes how these movements began, how they spread, and how they continued to influence the world up until the time of his writing (1936).