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.

This book uniquely provides first-hand insights into the spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet, the men and women who channel the gods. John Vincent Bellezza here for the first time presents the conclusions of his extensive research in the region itself, shedding light on the historical context, the tradition, characteristics, ceremonies, and paraphernalia of the phenomenon. With extensive interviews with spirit-mediums, including interpretive material drawn from Tibetan texts; annotated translations of rituals devoted to the major deities of the spirit-mediums; and annotated translation of Bon literature relevant to the origins of spirit-mediums, and concluding with a chapter on Bon literary references to the ritual implements and practices. A major source-book.

Oliver D. Crisp studies the topics of human freedom, redemption and communion with one another and God, which are central themes in Christian theology. The chapters of this volume are arranged according to how they would appear in a traditional dogmatics: dealing with issues concerning human free will and sin, studies on the person of Christ in recent theology, and human redemption. The book ends with pieces examining two important issues in Christian practice, namely, the Eucharist and prayer. Deeply engaged with the Christian tradition, and exemplifying a generous orthodoxy, this work makes a constructive theological case for the vitality and importance of Reformed theology today.

Black theology tends to be a theology about no-body. Though one might assume that black and womanist theology have already given significant attention to the nature and meaning of black bodies as a theological issue, this inquiry has primarily taken the form of a focus on issues relating to liberation, treating the body in abstract terms rather than focusing on the experiencing of a material, fleshy reality. By focusing on the body as a physical entity and not just a metaphorical one, Pinn offers a new approach to theological thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.

According to Pinn, the body is of profound theological importance. In this first text on black theology to take embodiment as its starting point and its goal, Pinn interrogates the traditional source materials for black theology, such as spirituals and slave narratives, seeking to link them to materials such as photography that highlight the theological importance of the body. Employing a multidisciplinary approach spanning from the sociology of the body and philosophy to anthropology and art history, Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought pushes black theology to the next level.

This book reports on the lives and works of the most influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. * A new book from one of the foremost Roman Catholic theologians currently writing in English* Reports on the lives and works of the most influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century* Covers theologians including: Chenu, the guru of the French worker priest movement; Congar who was imprisoned in Colditz; and Kung who was banned from teaching for decades because of his radical views* Highlights the involvement of each theologian with the Second Vatican Council, and the dissatisfaction of most with what was achieved* Includes a chapter on the controversial prelate, Pope John Paul II

The First Islamic Reviver presents a new biography of al-Ghazali's final decade and a half, presenting him not as a reclusive spiritual seeker, but as an engaged Islamic revivalist seeking to reshape his religious tradition.

For thousands of years philosophers and theologians have grappled with the problem of evil. Traditionally, evil has been seen as a weakness of sorts: the evil person is either ignorant (does not know the wrong being done), or weak-willed (is incapable of doing the right thing). But in the most horrifying acts of evil (the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, serial murder, etc.), the perpetrators are resolute, deliberate, and well aware of the pain they are causing. There has never been a better time to re-open this most difficult of questions, and to inquire whether any helpful resources exist within our intellectual legacy. David Roberts has done just this. In taking up the problem of evil as it is uniquely found in the work of the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, Roberts has uncovered a framework that at last allows the notion of radical evil to be properly articulated. His book traces the sources of Kierkegaard's conception from its background in the work of Kant and Schelling, and painstakingly details the matrix of issues that evolved into Kierkegaard's own solution. Kierkegaard's psychological understanding of evil is that it arises out of despair - a despair that can become so vehement and ferocious that it lashes out at existence itself. Starting from this recognition, and drawing on Kierkegaard's view of the self, Roberts shows how the despairing self can become strengthened and intensified through a conscious and free choice against the Good. This type of radical evil is neither ignorant nor weak.

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).

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.