In and Around Maimonides presents eight highly focused studies on Moses Maimonides and those around him.

Adomnan, ninth abbot of Iona, wrote his book, On Holy Places (De Locis Sanctis), in the closing years of the seventh century. It is a detailed account of the sites mentioned in the Christian scriptures, the overall topography, and the shrines that are in Palestine and Egypt at that time. It is neatly broken into three parts: Jerusalem, the surrounding areas, and then a few other places. The whole has a contemporary and lively feel; and the reader is then not surprised when Adomnan says he got his information from a Gallic bishop name Arculf. Things then get interesting for the more one probes, the book the amount of information that could have been obtained from Arculf keeps diminishing, while the amount that can be shown to be a reworking of written sources increases. We then see that Adomnans book is an attempt to compile a biblical studies manual according to the demands of Augustine (354-430) - one of which was that there had to be an empirical witness. Thus, Adomnan wrote the work and employed Arculf as a literary device. However, he produced the desired manual which remained in use until the Reformation. As a manual we can use it to study the nature of scriptural studies in the Latin world of the time, and perceptions of space, relics, pilgrimage, and Islam. While a study of how the work was used by others, transmitted, reworked (for example by the Venerable Bede) brings unique light onto the theological world of the Carolingians.

A miracle happened that now reveals many secrets of the earth, the universe. Many great mysteries, never before known, will be told in this incredible story, a true phenomenal series of spectacular events. All of mankind is on a well-planned scientific journey. It is a known fact that the sun is traveling or darting through space at a constant speed of 700,000 miles per hour. The earth is being pulled along with the other planets in an exact positioned filing order. The sun is the engine, which controls these planet formations. Their destination will surprise you. This story is so powerful the weak may not be able to follow through to its conclusion. You will come to know and understand this force. There are many forces in the universe and they are sometimes referred to as laws. Such awesome and controlling powers as time, gravity, perpetual energy, and nature are some of the great controlling forces that surround man. Logic and reason should impress the senses that their existence is far more reaching and purposeful than the mere fact of their existence. The knowledge gained through the miracle will indeed show a spectacular reason, that all things have purpose.

About two thousand years ago, a great man who was renowned for forgiveness and magnanimity was betrayed and slain by his compatriots who feared he would become their King. To the chagrin of his murderers, he was soon hailed as a God and the momentous events that ensued paved the way for the birth of Christianity.The venue for this drama, however, was not Jerusalem as might be supposed, but rather the eternal city of Rome. It is a description of the founder of the Roman Empire. In a work stranger than fiction, Gary Courtney propounds that the Jesus of Nazareth that graces the pages of the New Testament is an entirely mythological personage, and presents a step by step explanation of how the beloved Saviour of the Christian religion entered the world from the wings of a stage.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81) stands as a key figure in German intellectual history, a bridge joining Luther, Leibniz, and German idealism. Despite his well-recognized importance in the history of thought, Lessing as theologian or philosopher of religion remains an enigmatic figure. Scholars refer to the "riddle" or "mystery" of Lessing, a mystery that has proved intractable because of his reticence on the subject of the final conclusions of his intellectual project. Toshimasa Yasukata seeks to unravel this mystery. Based on intensive study of the entire corpus of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings as well as the extensive secondary literature, Yasukata's work takes us into the systematic core of Lessing's thought. From his penetrating and sophisticated analysis of Lessing's developing position on Christianity and reason, there emerges a fresh image of Lessing as a creative modern mind, who is both shaped by and gives shape to the Christian heritage.

The first comprehensive study in English of Lessing's theological and philosophical thought, this book will appeal to all those interested in the history of modern theology, as well as specialists in the Enlightenment and the German romantic movement.

Themistius' (4th century CE) paraphrase of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12 is the earliest surviving complete account of this seminal work. Despite leaving no identifiable mark in Late Antiquity, Themistius' paraphrase played a dramatic role in shaping the metaphysical landscape of Medieval Arabic and Hebrew philosophy and theology. Lost in Greek, and only partially surviving in Arabic, its earliest full version is in the form of a 13th century Hebrew translation. In this volume, Yoav Meyrav offers a new critical edition of the Hebrew translation and the Arabic fragments of Themistius' paraphrase, accompanied by detailed philological and philosophical analyses. In doing so, he provides a solid foundation for the study of one of the most important texts in the history of Aristotelian metaphysics.

The Book of Baruch is a Bible pseudepigrapha; a deuterocanonical work attributed to Baruch ben Neriah, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah. The Assumption of Moses is a Jewish apocryphal work concerning hidden prophecies that Moses revealed to Joshua prior to the latter inheriting his leadership of the ancient Jews. Together these works constitute typical examples of popular Biblical texts which are extra-canonical; most Christian and Jewish groups do not regard their contents as true. Their origins are definitively proven to be several centuries after the time they purport to be from. However, theological scholars have expressed some interest, particularly given the time and context of the writing; being as these pseudepigrapha are old texts, they themselves carry value. This edition contains a lengthy, explanatory introduction by W. O. E. Oesterley, and the well-regarded translations of Bible scholars R. H. Charles (for Baruch) and William John Ferrar (for Moses).