The fourth volume in Peterson's best-selling "conversations" in spiritual theology Just as God used words both to create the world and to give us commandments, we too use words for many different purposes. In fact, we use the same language to talk to each other and to talk to God. Can our everyday speech, then, be just as important as the words and prayers we hear from the pulpit? Eugene Peterson unequivocally says "Yes!" Peterson's Tell It Slant explores how Jesus used language, particularly in his parables and prayers. His was not a direct language of information or instruction but an indirect, oblique language requiring a participating imagination -- "slant" language. Tell It Slant beautifully points to Jesus' engaging, relational way of speaking as a model for us today.

Did Jesus of Nazareth really rise from the dead? Of the many world religions, only one claims that its founder returned from the grave. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the very cornerstone of Christianity. But a dead man coming back to life? In our sophisticated age, when myth has given way to science, who can take such a claim seriously? Some argue that Jesus never died on the cross. Conflicting accounts make the empty tomb seem suspect. How credible is the evidence for--and against--the resurrection? Focusing his award-winning skills as a legal journalist on history's most compelling enigma, Lee Strobel retraces the startling findings that led him from atheism to belief. He examines: The Medical Evidence--Was Jesus' death a sham and his resurrection a hoax? The Evidence of the Missing Body--Was Jesus' body really absent from his tomb? The Evidence of Appearances--Was Jesus seen alive after his death on the cross? Written in a hard-hitting journalistic style, The Case for Easter probes the core issues of the resurrection. Jesus Christ, risen from the dead: superstitious myth or life-changing reality? The evidence is in. The verdict is up to you.

The question of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection has been repeatedly probed, investigated and debated. And the results have varied widely. Perhaps some now regard this issue as the burned-over district of New Testament scholarship. Could there be any new and promising approach to this problem? Yes, answers Michael Licona. And he convincingly points us to a significant deficiency in approaching this question: our historiographical orientation and practice. So he opens this study with an extensive consideration of historiography and the particular problem of investigating claims of miracles. This alone is a valuable contribution. But then Licona carefully applies his principles and methods to the question of Jesus' resurrection. In addition to determining and working from the most reliable sources and bedrock historical evidence, Licona critically weighs other prominent hypotheses. His own argument is a challenging and closely argued case for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Any future approaches to dealing with this 'prize puzzle' of New Testament study will need to be routed through The Resurrection of Jesus.

This book brings the events and themes of Easter into the rest of the year. In the Christian tradition, we make much of the Christ-child and Christ crucified but are much more reticent about Christ risen, in spite of the fact that it's the risen life we're supposed to be sharing most of the time. We go through Lent and Holy Week with great seriousness but Easter gets one great day and then we're not sure what to do with it. This book is full of ideas, reflections, and resources on how to extend the message of resurrection through the coming weeks and into the rest of our lives. It includes 'articles' of accessible reflection, ways to celebrate resurrection and to continue the 'risen life', worship ideas, stories and personal experience, poetry, music and art, a home group/cell group course, literature and film, cartoons and humour etc, all designed to give a variety of points of entry to the theme of resurrection.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views provides readers with an introductory survey to the key issues in the 'quest for the historical Jesus' After a scene-setting historical introduction, prominent figures in the Jesus quest set forth their views and respond to their fellow scholars. The issues are probed with formidable knowledge and honed insight. The contributors are: Professor Darrell L. Bock: Dallas Theological Seminary, Texas; Professor Emeritus John Dominic Crossan: DePaul University, Illinois; Professor Emeritus James D. G. Dunn: Durham University, England; Professor Luke Timothy Johnson: Emory University, Georgia; Professor Robert M. Price: Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, Florida.

Drawing on examples from literature, art, and popular culture, as well as theology, this engaging book reveals the importance of the question, "whose was he?" in fully understanding the life and legacy of Jesus.A concise, accessible and engaging exploration of Jesus's life and enduring influenceCharts the changing global status and influence of Jesus, a Galilean Jew born when the ancient Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean world, and how he has come to be honored as the Christ and recognized by billions of people around the worldTraces the reception history of Jesus and his story over the past two millennia, through art, literature, and culture, as well as theologyDraws on a fascinating range of materials - from ancient texts, creeds, and theological treatises, to the visual and dramatic arts, including books like "The DaVinci Code" and films such as "The Passion of the Christ"

What do Christians mean when they call Jesus "son of God"? In this study of the phrase "son of God" as applied to Jesus of Nazareth, Christopher Bryan examines the testimony of various New Testament witnesses who used this expression to speak of him, and asks where they got it, what they meant by it, and how it might have been understood. In Bryan's view, any attempt to address these questions stands self-condemned if it does not point to both the words and works of Jesus himself in the memory of early Christians, and the Torah of Israel as then understood, centering on Israel's Scriptures. Of course Paul and his fellow believers did not proclaim Jesus in a vacuum. They proclaimed Jesus in the Roman Empire during the decades following the death of Augustus. With regard to the meaning of the phrase "son of God," what becomes clear, Bryan argues, is that whereas "Lord" (another expression frequently used in the New Testament for Jesus of Nazareth) reflects believers' sense of Jesus' relationship to them, "son of God" reflects their sense of his relationship to God. It is a title that reflects their consciousness of Jesus' holiness-that is, his "set-apartness," his consecration, and even his divinity. Readers of Son of God will gain a well-rounded understanding of classic and recent research in Christology and the New Testament, as well as an in-depth, historically situated view of the evidence that paints a clearer picture of what New Testament witnesses meant when they called Jesus "son of God."

The gospel accounts of the birth and childhood of Jesus have puzzling discrepancies and contradictions. In particular, Matthew and Luke give different versions of the genealogy and birth of Jesus, and of the events that follow. A long forgotten tradition held that there were, in fact, two families and two Jesus children whose destinies would come together: one from the kingly line of Solomon, and the other from the priestly line of Nathan. There are various apocryphal texts, as well as works of art, in which both children clearly occur. Emil Bock shows how the pattern and structure of the four gospels support the stories of two boys called Jesus, living side by side in Nazareth until the age of twelve, right up to the dramatic day of their visit to the temple in Jerusalem. He also recreates the years between this time and Jesus' baptism. This book is essential reading for every Christology student, and for anyone who has ever wondered about the gospel accounts of Jesus' birth.

By the signs, wonders and miracles He performed, Jesus manifested His compassion for His creatures and the ultimate reason for his coming into the world - His healing and restoration of mankind. The miracles are presented in three parts. The first deals with the miracles recorded in St Matthew's and St Luke's Gospels, as they are read on the Sundays after Pentecost. The second section treats the signs of the Gospel of St John, and the third part surveys the miracles in St Mark's Gospel.

Christianity stands or falls by what is believed and thought about Jesus. Brunner's thorough and provocative analysis of the Biblical doctrine of the Person and the work of Christ, establishing Jesus Christ as the Mediator between God and man, not only made the central theme of Christianity live again, but established him as one of the great modern theologians. Why should there be an intermediary between God and mankind Brunner's answer is that what matters supremely is not whether man is 'aware' of, or has a 'feeling' for 'something divine', but whether there is only one 'place' at which God challenges man to decision. The God who is real and alive is the God who confronts man in such a way that man knows that he must act. And Jesus Christ, the Mediator, confronts man with the true and living God. The deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the God-Man, the Incarnation, and the Atonement are re-examined and rescued from misunderstanding. The result is a clear and provocative discussion concluding that only in Jesus Christ can we know ourselves as we really are; and only in Jesus Christ can God be known as he really is.

In reading Scripture, we encounter not only the living God, but an invitation to the mysteries of the text itself. As readers dig through the soil of the text, they eventually discover living water-a wellspring of life. The speeches of Acts offer an accessible entry point into this life, eloquently demonstrating what Calvin calls the sum total of Christian faith. In Hearing and Doing, Christopher Holmes invites us to feast upon the speeches of Paul and Peter. As a work of constructive theological exegesis, he engages Aquinas and Calvin and some of the most important theologians of our day, notably Rowan Williams and Katherine Sonderegger. At the heart, Holmes aims to draw us to the speeches themselves so that we might become encompassed in their divine beauty. By the same token, he treats the doctrine of God and that of the church, articulating something of what the speeches urge us to say regarding God and the shape of life in relation to God. In sum, Holmes argues that the speeches provide a window into the faith's essentials, inspiring reverence and obedience toward God. Hearing and Doing submits to divine tutoring via the speeches, passing on the fruits of that contemplation to the reader with nuance and clarity, unfolding in an exegetically charged fashion the Christian faith's horizon.

Mater Misericordiae-Mother of Mercy-emerged as one of the most prolific subjects in central Italian art from the late thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. With iconographic origins in Marian cult relics brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the fifth century, the amalgam of attributes coalesced in Armenian Cilicia then morphed as it spread to Cyprus. An early concept of Mary of Mercy-the Virgin standing with outstretched arms and a wide mantle under which kneel or stand devotees-entered the Italian peninsula at the ports of Bari and Venice during the Crusades, eventually converging in central Italy. The mendicant orders adopted the image as an easily recognizable symbol for mercy and aided in its diffusion. In this study, the author's primary goals are to explore the iconographic origins of the Madonna della Misericordia as a devotional image by identifying and analyzing key attributes; to consider circumstances for its eventual overlapping function as a secular symbol used by lay confraternities; and to discuss its diaspora throughout the Italian peninsula, Western Europe, and eastward into Russia and Ukraine. With over 100 illustrations, the book presents an array of works of art as examples, including altarpieces, frescoes, oil paintings, manuscript illuminations, metallurgy, glazed terracotta, stained glass, architectural relief sculpture, and processional banners.

In this readable, succinct volume, Keith Fournier portrays the young virgin of Nazareth in a fresh light as an antidote to the spiritual ills of the age. The Prayer of Mary presents humility, simplicity, and selfless love as fitting responses to the loving invitation of God, who visits people in their daily lives and invites them into a relationship with Him.

• What if Thousands of years before Christianity Pagans had also worshipped a Son of God?
• What if this Pagan saviour was also born of a virgin on the 25th of December before three Shepherds, turned water into wine, died and resurrected at Easter, and offered his body and blood as a Holy Communion?
• What if these Pagan myths had been rewritten as the gospel of Jesus Christ?
• What if there were absolutely no evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus?
• What if the earliest Christians knew that the Jesus story was a myth?
• What if the truth has been kept from us by the greatest cover-up in history?

Drawing on the cutting edge of modern scholarship, this astonishing book will change everything you ever thought you ever thought you knew about Christianity.

'Book of the Year'
FIONA PITT-KEIGHLEY, 'Daily Telegraph'

The public are inundated with untruths about Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest figure in human history and the one by whom we date everything. Sometimes these truths emerge from the media and sometimes from specific assaults on Jesus by special interest groups and writers. Michael Green thoughtfully and robustly takes on the most important of these untruths. Was Jesus just a mythical figure who never lived? Were the Gospel accounts of him corrupt and written long after he lived? Can we trust the text of the New Testament? Was Mary Magdalene Jesus's lover? Were the Gnostic Gospels just as good evidence as the four Gospels which Christians read today? Did Jesus really die on the cross? And surely nobody these days believes in the resurrection? After all, hasn't the tomb of Jesus and his family been discovered? These are some of the issues addressed in this book. The author is an ancient historian as well as a New Testament scholar. He is not ashamed to call the misrepresentations about Jesus what they are - lies, lies, lies!

WOMEN'S STUDIES / CREATION SPIRITUALITY "Margaret Starbird's work is of particular interest to me because it fuses the diverse fields of symbolism, mythology, art, heraldry, psychology, and gospel history. Her research opens doors for each of us to further explore the rich iconography of our own spiritual history." DAN BROWN, author of The Da Vinci Code "Margaret Starbird is a seeker after truth. She seeks to recover the long-suppressed, and not infrequently emotionally opposed, feminine side of the Christian story. Hers is an exciting narrative probing regions of thought long neglected. Magdalen, the Great Mary, emerges with new power."JOHN SHELBY SPONG, Episcopal bishop and author of Born of a Woman "This fascinating and courageous narrative takes a fresh look at the true meaning of the Holy Grail and the defeminization of the early church and comes up with some shocking revelations that may change the way one perceives Christianity forever." Nexus Magazine Margaret Starbird's theological beliefs were profoundly shaken when she read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a book that dared to suggest that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalen and that their descendants carried on his holy bloodline in Western Europe. Shocked by such heresy, this Roman Catholic scholar set out to refute it, but instead found new and compelling evidence for the existence of the bride of Jesus--the same enigmatic woman who anointed him with precious unguent from her "alabaster jar." In this provocative book, Starbird draws her conclusions from an extensive study of history, heraldry, symbolism, medieval art, mythology, psychology, and the Bible itself. The Woman with the Alabaster Jar is a quest for the forgottenfeminine--in the hope that its return will help restore a healthy balance to planet Earth. MARGARET STARBIRD is the author of The Goddess in the Gospels, Magdalene's Lost Legacy, and Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile. She lives near Seattle, Washington.

A companion volume to Telling the Bible. Bob uses the Gospel of Luke as a basis for 70 stories about Jesus, his birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection. Bob uses a wide variety of narrative forms to produce stories that will delight new Christians and Bible veterans alike. Each story is accompanied by an introduction explaining its particular place and function, with telling tips and questions. Some require audience participation: all are designed to entertain and inform. The book is produced in large clear print and strongly bound for prolonged use. The price includes a license to photocopy.

In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution to ending the descent into moral nihilism. Hatred does not empower--it decays. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail.

The only historic figure outside the early Christian tradition to whom the Gospels ascribe a dialogue with Jesus is the first-century Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Presiding over the trial and execution of Jesus, Pilate is a figure who has straddled history and legend for over two thousand years. Now, Aldo Schiavone presents a comprehensive, revisionist biography of Pilate that meticulously reconstructs the social, religious and political context in which his fateful encounter with Jesus took place. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Schiavone weaves together the sources, from epigraphs to the Gospels, from Josephus to Tacitus and Philon, to create a portrait that approaches its subject as if for the first time, without any other intent than to try to explain what happened.

In Acts 1-14: A Handbook on the Greek Text, Martin Culy, Mikeal Parsons, and Josiah Hall provide a foundational examination of the Greek text of Acts. The analysis is distinguished by the detailed yet comprehensive attention paid to the text. The authors' exposition is a convenient pedagogical and reference tool that explains the form and syntax of the biblical text, offers guidance for deciding between competing semantic analyses, engages important text-critical debates, and addresses questions relating to the Greek text that are frequently overlooked or ignored by standard commentaries. Beyond serving as a succinct and accessible analytic key, Acts also reflects the most up-to-date advances in scholarship on Greek grammar and linguistics. This handbook proves itself an indispensable tool for anyone committed to a deep reading of the biblical text. This revised and expanded handbook on the Greek text of Acts, unlike its predecessor, includes comments on the grammar and syntax of every word in the text and incorporates insights from the Editio Critica Maior, now the standard critical Greek text for the Acts of the Apostles.

Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God, and their way of living in the world. Such followers of Jesus are now more numerous and make up a greater proportion of the world's population than ever before. Despite its decline in the West, Christianity is rapidly increasing in areas such as Africa and China. Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and concluding that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. In order to place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era, Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman rule. He explores Jesus' symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasises how his actions, such as healing and his association with notorious sinners, were just as important as his words. Bauckham shows that Jesus was devoted to the God of Israel, with a special focus on God's fatherly love and compassion, and like every Jewish teacher he expounded the Torah, but did so in his own distinctive way. With a discussion about the way Jesus understood himself and what finally led to his death as a criminal on a Roman cross, he concludes by considering the significance Jesus has come to have for Christian faith worldwide. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

How can a scientifically-minded person approach the healings and miracles of the Gospels, including such events as the raising of Lazarus and the Resurrection itself? Emil Bock rediscovers the works of Christ without minimizing the difficulties. He brings together historical records and the geographical background of the Gospels, all the while keeping sight of their spiritual wisdom. Bock considers the Gospel of John to give the most precise record of the events of Christ's three year ministry, as well as being the Gospel with the deepest esoteric significance. This profound study reveals a new understanding of Jesus' incarnation on earth.

Since the early 4th century, Christian pilgrims and visitors to Judea and Galilee have worshipped at and been inspired by monumental churches erected at sites traditionally connected with the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. This book examines the history and archaeology of early Christian holy sites and traditions connected with specific places in order to understand them as interpretations of Jesus and to explore them as instantiations of memories of him. Ryan's overarching aim is to construe these places as instantiations of what historian Pierre Nora has called "lieux de memoires," sites where memory crystallizes and, where possible, to track the course and development of the traditions underlying them from their genesis in the Gospel narratives to their eventual solidification in the form of pilgrimage sites. So doing will bring rarely considered evidence to the study of early Christian memory, which in turn helps to illuminate the person of Jesus himself in both history and reception.