Did a volcano part the Red Sea? Have scientists found Eve? Was the pharaoh of the Oppression a woman? Did the Jordan River really cease flowing the day Jericho fell?

A brilliant author, scientist, and adventurer who has been called "the real Indiana Jones," Dr. Charles Pellegrino takes us on a remarkable journey from the Nile to the Tigris-Euphrates rivers -- crossing time, legend, and ancient lands to explore the unsolved mysteries of the Old Testament. Return to Sodom and Gomorrah is an epic saga of discovery that interweaves science, history, and suspense --the first book ever to bring archaeologists, scientists and theologians together to examine the same evidence. In this enthralling revelatory adventure, Pellegrino introduces us to dedicated pioneers like Benjamin Mazar, Leonard Woolley, and T. E. Lawrence, who retraced the steps of Moses to demystify the Exodus and the Flood. In the process, he enables us to view ancient relics in an extraordinary new light -- as both fascinating windows on the past and vivid signposts to the future.

Although related to one of the ruling families of Ireland, Columba (c 521-97) became a central figure in the 'Age of Saints' by setting out from his native land and founding his famous monastery on the island of Iona.

It was from here that priests and monks played a key role in converting the Picts of Scotland, here that countless penitents came on pilgrimages and that the King of Dalriada (Argyll) came to be consecrated. Adomnán's Life, writes Richard Sharpe, is the fullest early account, offering a 'vivid depiction of the abbot among his own monks, written on the spot by the saint's successor one hundred years after Columba's death'.

Drawing on extensive written and oral traditions, Adomnán presents Columba as a man distinguished for his prophetic and miraculous powers, whose life was filled with angelic apparitions and whose dying days were spent preparing for his departure. A stimulating Introduction sketches in the background, the archaeological evidence from Iona and the legends that grew up around Columba in medieval and more recent times. The result is an ideal new edition, equally suitable for readers seeking spiritual insight or the hard core of historical fact.

Bede states in the first chapter of this work (De Templo) that the building of the tabernacle and the temple signifies one and the same Church of Christ. Yet this allegorical exposition of the building of the Temple, a paradigm of the genre, is relevant not only to biblical exegetes but to readers of diverse interests, including iconographers, and those concerned with mysticism or merely desiring spiritual nourishment. Even to those primarily interested in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, it affords an understanding of that work, for its ideas are there given flesh and blood - the two books, as it were, forming a diptych.

While the book of Jonah is, in some ways, unique, it stands firmly in the Old Testament tradition. There have been various suggestions as to genre, the most likely being the (short) didactic story; but the aim of the author is not easy to discern. The authenticity of Jonah's message to the Ninevites is stressed, as is their repentance, and Yahweh's mercy. The purpose of the book must lie in a combination of these themes. Lamentations is a neglected book, perhaps because it was associated with the book of Jeremiah and considered almost as an appendix. On the question of genre it has the closest affinities with the psalms of lament; but, whereas it is very difficult to link a psalm with a specific historical event or period, the five chapters of Lamentations appear to have the Fall of Jerusalem as background. While gloom abounds, the careful reader discovers the faith of the author shining through. He is a practical monotheist who interprets the castastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem in the light of his faith.

Caesarius was born in 469/70 and served as Bishop of Arles from 502 until his death in 542. Originally trained as a monk at Lerins, he devoted himself as Bishop to an ambitious programme of church reform and Christianization inspired by strict monastic standards of piety. Best known as a preacher, with a corpus of over 250 sermons, Caesarius also founded a monastery whose rule he composed and presided over several important church councils whose canons still survive. The documents included in this volume - most never before translated into English - vividly illustrate Caesarius's career and the social and religious history of Provence at a time of far-reaching political change, during which the region was ruled by a series of Visigothic, Burgundian, Ostrogothic and, ultimately, Frankish kings. The 'Life of Caesarius', written shortly after his death by five clerics of his acquaintance, provides a first-hand record of the Bishop's achievements as pastor, politician and wonderworker. The 'Testament' demonstrates Caesarius's efforts to endow and protect his monastery and in the process furnishes valuable information about diocesan landholdings. The collection of twenty-four 'Letters' sent and received by Caesarius chronicles his relations with fellow aristocrats and bishops and illuminates a wide variety of topics, from penalties for incest to political intrigue among rival bishops. Taken together, these texts shed light on a region and period in which the Christian church, with its leaders, rituals and doctrines, was coming to play an increasingly important role in the daily lives not only of aristocrats and clerics, but also of ordinary men and women.
The volume includes scholarly notes and an introduction."

A fresh examination of the history of early Christian doctrine, by one of the world s leading authorities, which sets its development in the political and cultural context of the Roman Empire.>

Through deft use of available data and texts, Wagner brings the enigmatic second century to life. Selecting five fateful challenges--issues of Creation, human nature, Jesus' identities, roles of the church, and Christians in society--he shows what was at stake for emerging Christianity and how its five key players responded. Map; glossary; bibliography.

Commonly called the Gospel according to St. John. Are you ready for the esoteric message of the Gospel never before so clearly revealed? Contents: The Seen and the Unseen; The Four Evangels; The Drama of the Soul; Explanatory Note; The Magical Message according to Ioannes; The Prodigal Son; The Birth from Above; Index. St. John the mystic, calls to you. Listen to this inspiring message of faith, hope, love, and mystical achievement. Are you ready for it?

This volume contains the first English translation of Bede's allegorical commentary on the tabernacle of Moses, which he interpreted as a symbolic figure of the Christian Church. Written in the early 720s at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, On the Tabernacle (De tabernaculo) was the first Christian literary work devoted entirely to this topic and the first verse-by-verse commentary on the relevant portions of the Book of Exodus. On the Tabernacle was one of Bede's most popular works, appearing in a great many manuscripts from every period of the Middle Ages.

In this book, Carnegie Samuel Calian, who was baptized in the Eastern tradition and raised a Protestant, promotes greater dialogue and exchange among Christians of the East and West. He seeks to make Christians aware of the diversity of faith and offers suggestions and insight to this end.

Peter Brown, a known authority on Mediterranean civilisation in late antiquity, traces the growing power of early Christian bishops as they wrested influence from the philosophers who had traditionally advised the rulers of Graeco-Roman society. In the new ""Christian empire"", the ancient bonds of citizen to citizen and of each city to its benefactors were replaced by a common loyalty to a distant, Christian autocrat. This transformation of the Roman Empire from an ancient to a medieval society, Brown argues, is among the most far-reaching consequences of the rise of Christianity. In the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the power of the emperors depended on collaboration with the local elites. The shared ideals of Graeco-Roman culture (""paideia""), which were inculcated among the elite by their education, acted as unwritten constitution. The philosophers, as representives of this cultural tradition and as critics and advisors of the powerful, upheld the ideals of just rule and prevented the abuses of power. Between the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 and the reign of Theodosius (379-395), however, both Christian bishops and uneducated monks emerged as competitors to the traditional educated elites. Claiming as Christians to be the ""true philosophers"", they asserted their own role in swaying the emperors to mercy and just rule. Brown shows how charity to the urban poor gave bishops such as Saint Ambrose a novel power base - the restless lower classes of the empire. The lines of power that led from local society to the imperial court increasingly fell into the hands of the church, as clerics exercised their power to ensure the peace in cities, secure amnesties, and convey to the emperor the wishes of his subjects. Brown also points out how churchmen expressed their new local power through violence against rivals: Jewish synagogues and Roman Temples were destroyed, and Hypatia, one of the few women with a public role as a philosopher, was lynched in Alexandria. Brown demonstrates how Christian teaching provided a model for a more autocratic, hierarchial empire: the ancient ideals of democracy and citizenship gave way to the image of a glorious ruler showing mercy to his lowly and grateful subjects. Drawing upon a wealth of material - newly discovered letters and sermons of Saint Augustine, archaeological evidence, manuscripts in Coptic and Syriac - he provides a portrait of a turbulent and fascinating era.

An Occult Study and a Key to the Bible Containing the History of an Initiate. "The only object of the following pages is to aid in dispelling the mists which for many centuries have been gathering around the person of the supposed founder of Christianity, and which have prevented mankind from obtaining a clear view of the true Redeemer, who is not to be found in history nor in external forms, but who can only be found within the interior temple of the soul by him in whom his presence becomes manifest." Contents: True History of Christ (An Allegory); Jehovah; Nazareth; Egypt; The Mysterious Brotherhood; The Higher Degrees; The Wisdom Religion; The Temptation; The Sermon Upon the Mount; Doctrines of the Christ Spirit; Herodias; Jerusalem; The Great Renunciation; The Temple; The Hero; the Final Initiation; The Church.

Between the deep valley which contains the Jordan river and the Dead Sea, and the hill country of Judea, in which Jerusalem and Bethlehem are situated, lies a narrow stretch of desert which evokes memories of great Biblical ascetics - Elijah and John the Baptist. The empty landscape and scriptural associations drew Christian ascetics in the third century. The new edition of this work by Cyril of Scythopolis provides perhaps our best source of information on the Palestinian monastic movement from AD 400-600. He gives a history not only of holy monks, but also of the Palestinian Church at the height of its power and prestige.

In these essays, Walter Brueggemann addresses the necessity for thinking about the shape and structure of Old Testament theology-and for the impact such thinking can have on the larger issues of contemporary life. Brueggemann draws on the work of persons from all disciplines and incorporates them in a seminal way in his theology. The work of persons in theology, psychology, the social sciences, politics, and the like often provides heuristic possibilities and even basic models for talking about the Old Testament. The Old Testament is seen to be something that has intelligible and significant worldly connections.

The Psalms raise many difficult and controversial issues. Who are the enemies in the Individual Lament Psalms? How many Royal Psalms are there and what was the role of the king in the cult? What happened at the Autumn Festival? What makes a Psalm a Wisdom Psalm? Why are the Psalms arranged as they are and how far is it possible to date them? Can we make sense of the often obscure Psalm headings? What light is shed on the Psalms by other ancient Near Eastern texts? These and many other issues are judiciously evaluated by John Day in a wide-ranging volume.>

Using a thorough, integrated biblical theology to make sense of the 'master story' of Scripture, Allan J. McNicol explores the nature and importance of the Bible's abiding narrative of the persistence of God's promises to his people, and their hope of final triumph. Special attention is given to the often contentious claim that these early followers of Jesus presumed that they stood in full continuity with Israel, the historic people of God, and were claiming that many of God's promises were coming to fulfilment among them. McNicol presents a closer analysis of the texts as he shows how the theme of the people of God fits into the wider literary productions of these major New Testament writers.

Exodus requires the consideration not only of historical but also of institutional and theological questions. Since such disparate materials have all been brought together into one presentation, it is necessary also to look at the literary function and formulation of the book. In the light of these discussions it is possible to come to a clearer appreciation of the kind of work Exodus is.>

The African Q. Septimus Florens Tertullianus (ca. 150-222 CE), the great Christian writer, was born a soldier's son at Carthage, educated in Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and medicine, studied law and became a pleader, remaining a clever and often tortuous arguer. At Rome he became a learned and militant Christian. After a visit to churches in Greece (and Asia Minor?) he returned to Carthage and in his writings there founded a Christian Latin language and literature, toiling to fuse enthusiasm with reason; to unite the demands of the Bible with the practice of the Church; and to continue to vindicate the Church's possession of the true doctrine in the face of unbelievers, Jews, Gnostics, and others. In some of his many works he defended Christianity, in others he attacked heretical people and beliefs; in others he dealt with morals. In this volume we present "Apologeticus" and "De Spectaculis."

Of Minucius, an early Christian writer of unknown date, we have only "Octavius," a vigorous and readable debate between an unbeliever and a Christian friend of Minucius, Octavius Ianuarius, a lawyer sitting on the seashore at Ostia. Minucius himself acts as presiding judge. Octavius wins the argument. The whole work presents a picture of social and religious conditions in Rome, apparently about the end of the second century.

Bede's commentary on the Book of Acts is one of his earliest exegetical works (usually dated between 709 and 710) and one of his most popular and influential. None of the Latin Fathers of the Church had written a commentary on this book, and those which existed in Greek were unlikely to have been known in the West. Bede became the authority on Acts for countless subsequent students of Scripture. The breadth of Bede's mind, the diversity of his interests, and the thoroughness of his research are all mirrored in this work. Allegory is freely interspersed with practical commentary, textual analysis with mystical interpretation. Far from being a quaint relic of outdated exegesis, the commentary can be of practical use to modern Christians who read it in the spirit in which it was written: meditation on the workings of God.

DJD XXXII presents the first full critical edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa]a) and the Hebrew University Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa]b), which constitute almost 30% of all the preserved biblical material, in the styles of the DJD series. That is, whereas the photographs and transcriptions have been available since the 1950s, this volume provides a fresh transcription of all the known fragments, notes clarifying problematic readings, and the first comprehensive catalogue of the textual variants. It is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive analysis of all these highly influential manuscripts, on which innumerable studies have been published over the past half century. Part 1 contains the photographic plates (1QIsa]a in colour) with the transcriptions on facing pages for easy comparison. Part 2 contains the introductions, notes, and catalogue of variants. The main introduction narrates the discovery and early history of these two manuscripts.

In his own day the dominant personality of the Western Church, Augustine of Hippo today stands as perhaps the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity, and his Confessions is one of the great works of Western literature. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the domination of his sexual nature, his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother Monica had taught him during his childhood.
Now, Henry Chadwick, an eminent scholar of early Christianity, has given us the first new English translation in thirty years of this classic spiritual journey. Chadwick renders the details of Augustine's conversion in clear, modern English. We witness the future saint's fascination with astrology and with the Manichees, and then follow him through scepticism and disillusion with pagan myths until he finally reaches Christian faith. There are brilliant philosophical musings about Platonism and the nature of God, and touching portraits of Augustine's beloved mother, of St. Ambrose of Milan, and of other early Christians like Victorinus, who gave up a distinguished career as a rhetorician to adopt the orthodox faith. Augustine's concerns are often strikingly contemporary, yet his work contains many references and allusions that are easily understood only with background information about the ancient social and intellectual setting. To make The Confessions accessible to contemporary readers, Chadwick provides the most complete and informative notes of any recent translation, and includes an introduction to establish the context.
The religious and philosophical value of The Confessions is unquestionable--now modern readers will have easier access to St. Augustine's deeply personal meditations. Chadwick's lucid translation and helpful introduction clear the way for a new experience of this classic.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The first translation into English of one of Gregory's eight books of miracle stories, which contains a series of anecdotes about the lives of confessors.

This collection provides a rich, multilayered analysis of a long-neglected branch of early Christian apocryphal literature that examines the relationship between tradition and redaction, uses of language, and the fluid border between literary criticism and motif analysis. The introduction takes the reader on the journey of editing, translating, and interpreting apocryphal and hagiographic narratives on the apostles and the first Christians. The volume concludes with the critical edition of two previously unpublished Greek texts: a version of the Martyrdom of Ananias and a memoir on John the Evangelist.

This unique work - no other work yet available in English treats this subject - illustrates the contribution of these Councils in the development and formulation of Christian beliefs. It then shows how their legacies lingered throughout the centuries to inspire - or haunt - every generation.