The two contradicting genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels have long puzzled biblical scholars. Rudolf Steiner's spiritual research led him to the controversial theological conclusion that historically there existed two Jesus boys, born of two holy families. These two boys, he said, were necessary as part of the spiritual preparation of forming a suitable human body for the incarnation of Christ into the earthly realm. Both apocryphal texts and the writings of the Essenes - as discovered at Qumran by the Dead Sea - now appear to support this conception, with references to Messianic figures from both royal and priestly lines. Various authors have developed Rudolf Steiner's observations - first presented in the early twentieth century - although much of this literature has lacked the rigour of accurate and broad scholarship. The Two Jesus Boys is not simply a derivative rehash of these previous publications. Rather, it offers a fresh investigation of primary sources, coupled with an objective determination to allow the facts to speak for themselves. Christoph Rau thus comes to the unavoidable conclusion that Steiner's presentation of the chronology of the two births needs revision; furthermore, the most recent discoveries and interpretations of Essene scrolls reveal that the Jewish sect expected not one but three Messiahs. Rau quotes from and analyses numerous documents from the landscape of early Christianity and Judaism. His findings provide a secure foundation for the historical existence of two Jesus boys in the prelude to Christ's incarnation on earth, as well as a revelation of the Essenes' long expectation of three Messiahs.

Jesus' words from the cross are not Jesus' last words on earth. Jesus appeared to his fearful and questioning disciples, encouraged them, and gave them his final instructions after his resurrection from the dead. In various settings and at different times, Jesus interacted with many of his followers to show them he was alive. His post resurrection dialogues with these women and men truly are Jesus' last words! You may have questions or doubts about faith. You may have discussed spiritual topics or talked with others about Jesus. You may sometimes feel religiously locked into past concepts or socially locked out from people-even embarrassed or fearful about how others perceive you and your spiritual beliefs or questions. You may wonder, Can Jesus really impact my life?

The conviction that Jesus is the restorative Christ demands a commitment to the justice he articulated. The justice of the restorative Christ is justice with reconciliation, justice with repentance, justice with repair, and justice without retaliation. The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts portray the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the radical concept of "enemy-love." In conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Jesus-for-others), John Howard Yoder (a nonviolent Jesus), Miroslav Volf (an embracing Jesus), and Chris Marshall (a compassionate Jesus), Broughton demonstrates what the restorative Christ means for us today. Following the restorative Christ faithfully involves imaginative disciplines (seeing, remembering, and desiring), conversational disciplines (naming, questioning, and forgiving), and embodied disciplines (absorbing, repairing, and embracing).

In order to demonstrate how the crucifixion narrative emerged and changed over time, this historical primer on the death of Jesus includes an overview of the evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified, explanations of how crucifixion worked and why it was employed by the Romans, and descriptions of Jesus' death in early Christian literature in a logical progression from the earliest to latest.

What really happened back in the first century, in Jerusalem and around the Sea of Galilee, that changed the shape of world history? Who is this figure that emerges from history to have a profound impact on culture, ethics, politics, and philosophy? Join historian John Dickson on this journey through the life of Jesus. This book, which features a self-contained discussion guide for use with Life of Jesus DVD, will help you and your friends dig deeper into what is known about Jesus' life and why it matters.'John Dickson has done a marvelous job of presenting the story of Jesus, and the full meaning of that story, in a way that is both deeply faithful to the biblical sources and refreshingly relevant to tomorrow's world and church. I strongly recommend this study to anyone who wants to re-examine the deep historical roots of Christian faith and to find them as life-giving as they ever were.'---Tom Wright

The Johannine literature has inspired the Church's christological creeds, prompted its Trinitarian formulations, and resourced its ecumenical and social movements. However, while confessional readers find in these texts a divine love for "the world," biblical scholars often detect a dangerous program of harsh polemics arrayed against "the other." In this frame, the Johannine writings are products of an anti-society with its own anti-language articulating a worldview that is anti-ecclesiastical, anti-hierarchical, and, more seriously, anti-Jewish and even anti-Semitic. In New Testament studies, the prefix "anti-" has become almost Johannine. In John and the Others, Andrew Byers challenges the "sectarian hermeneutic" that has shaped much of the interpretation of the Gospel and Letters of John. Rather than "anti-Jewish," we should understand John as opposed to the exclusionary positioning of ethnicity as a soteriological category. Neither is this stream of early Christianity antagonistic towards the wider Christian movement. The Fourth Evangelist openly situates his work in a crowded field of alternative narratives about Jesus without seeking to supplant prior works. Though John is often regarded as a "low-church" theologian, Byers shows that the episcopal ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch is compatible with Johannine theology. John does not locate revelation solely within the personal authority of each believer under the power of the Spirit, and so does not undercut hierarchical leadership. Byers demonstrates that the "Other Disciple" is actually a salutary resource for a contemporary world steeped in the negative discourse of othering. Though John's social vision entails othering, the negative "other" in John is ultimately cosmic evil, and his theological convictions are grounded in the most sweeping act of "de-othering" in history, when the divine Other "became flesh and dwelled among us." This early Christian tradition certainly erected boundaries, but all Johannine walls have a "Gate"-Jesus, the Lamb of God slain for the sin of the world that God loves.

In a book that took eight years to research and write, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things.

Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death--alive again--did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today.

As a historian--not a believer--Ehrman answers the questions: How did this transformation of Jesus occur? How did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? The dramatic shifts throughout history reveal not only why Jesus's followers began to claim he was God, but also how they came to understand this claim in so many different ways.

Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.

Once experienced intuitively by early gnostic thinkers, knowledge of the cosmic significance of Christ and his mission has faded over the centuries. As theologians and historians of the Church critically scrutinized the Gospel records, their focus shifted from Christ to the human figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Today, many are beginning a new search for an understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Christ and its meaning for their lives. In these enlightening lectures, Rudolf Steiner shows how 'the Mystery of Golgotha' can be seen as the pivotal event of human history. The Gospels themselves, he says, are 'initiation documents' that can guide us on a path of spiritual development. Steiner demonstrates how manifold spiritual entities are involved in the events of Palestine which took place 2,000 years ago, and explains problematic aspects of Christian theology such as the resurrection of the physical body. His emphasis throughout is on highlighting the esoteric path to Christ, and he encourages us to awaken to the new revelation manifesting in our time: Christ as the 'Lord of Karma'. This edition contains the public talk given prior to the beginning of the course.

Subject -- Religion/Christian Studies James, the younger brother of Jesus, has been the subject of controversy since the founding of Christianity. This book reveals his true role as Jesus' chosen successor and demonstrates that the core message in the teachings of Jesus is an expansion, not a repudiation, of the Jewish religion. James recently made international headlines due to the discovery of an ancient Jewish ossuary that bore the inscription: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Evidence that Jesus had siblings contradicts Roman Catholic dogma on the virgin birth, and James is also a symbol of suppressed Christian teachings. While Peter is traditionally thought of as the leader of the apostles and the "rock" on which Jesus built his church, Jeffrey Butz shows that it was James who led the disciples after the crucifixion. It was James, not Peter, who guided them through the Church's first major theological crisis--Paul's interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Using the canonical Gospels, writings of the Church Fathers, and apocryphal texts, Butz argues that James is the most overlooked figure in the history of the Church. He shows how the core teachings of Jesus are firmly rooted in Hebrew tradition and reveals the bitter battles between James and Paul for ideological supremacy in the early Church, explaining that Paul's interpretations, which became the foundation of the Church, are in many ways a betrayal of Jesus' teachings. Butz reveals a picture of Christianity and the true meaning of Christ's message that are sometimes quite at odds with established Christian doctrine and concludes that James can serve as a desperately needed link between Christianity, Judaism, andIslam that could heal the wounds of centuries of enmity. JEFFREY J. BuTZ is an ordained Lutheran minister and an adjunct professor of world religions at Penn State University's Berks-Lehigh Valley campus. He lives in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania.

An Unlikely Union tells the dramatic story of how two of America's largest ethnic groups learned to love and laugh with each other after decades of animosity. They came from the poorest parts of Ireland and Italy and met as rivals on the sidewalks of New York. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the Irish and Italians clashed in the Catholic Church, on the waterfront, at construction sites, and in the streets. Then they made peace through romance, marrying each other on a large scale in the years after World War II. The vibrant cast of characters features saints such as Mother Frances X. Cabrini, who stood up to the Irish American archbishop of New York when he tried to send her back to Italy, and sinners like Al Capone, who left his Irish wife home the night he shot it out with Brooklyn's Irish mob. The book also highlights the torrid love affair between radical labor organizers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca; the alliance between Italian American gangster Paul Kelly and Tammany's "Big Tim" Sullivan; heroic detective Joseph Petrosino's struggle to be accepted in the Irish-run NYPD; and the competition between Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby to become the country's top male vocalist. In this engaging history of the Irish and Italians, veteran New York City journalist and professor Paul Moses offers a classic American story of competition, cooperation, and resilience. At a time of renewed fear of immigrants, An Unlikely Union reminds us that Americans are able to absorb tremendous social change and conflict-and come out the better for it.

Light is one of the most ancient and significant metaphors adopted by Christianity by which to understand the significance of Jesus Christ. The Easter liturgy, for instance, is marked by beautiful and powerful rituals proclaiming Christ as the light of the world in his death and resurrection. That understanding developed over subsequent centuries into a larger doctrine of illumination-how Christians come to understand and know God through Christ the Light. In this work, David Whidden takes up that theme in contesting a standard paradigm of interpretation that asserts that Aquinas eliminated the doctrine of illumination in his theology. In Christ the Light, Whidden argues that illumination is a critical systematic motif in Aquinas' theology, one that involves the nature of truth, knowledge, and God; at the root, Aquinas' theology of light, or illumination, is Christological, grounding human knowledge of God and eschatological beatitude. This volume establishes the theological network formed by the crucial motif of light/illumination in Aquinas, from how theology operates to the systematic, sacramental, and moral coordinates in Aquinas' theology. Christ the Light thus provides a much needed and illuminating retrieval of the one of the most important and creative theologians in the western Christian tradition.

Nicolas Notovitch was born into an aristocratic Jewish family, but converted to Christianity in his youth. A prolific journalist, author of twelve books (and some say spy), he travelled widely in the east, visiting India, Afghanistan and Ladakh. After a riding accident that broke his leg, Notovitch recuperated at a Tibetan monastery in Hemis. Here, he heard of a manuscript that revealed astonishing information on the sixteen 'Lost Years of Jesus' - the period between Christ's visit to the Jerusalem Temple at the age of twelve and His baptism in the Jordan, about which the bible is strangely silent. The Tibetan manuscript relates that Jesus spent this time traveling to India and Tibet to study the spiritual disciplines of the East. He then returned to Israel, via Persia, where He taught until eventual crucifixion. This account was published by Notovitch in 1887 as 'The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ'. It caused an immediate sensation, stirring passions on both sides, shaking the foundations of orthodox Christianity, and raising a storm of controversy that, after more than 125 years, has not yet abated. An exciting, thought-provoking book, and essential reading for anyone interested in the life of the historical Jesus.

The pathway to understanding the New Testament leads through the vibrant landscape of the first-century Greco-Roman world. The New Testament is rooted in the concrete historical events of that world. In Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity Paul Barnett not only places the New Testament within that world of caesars and Herods, proconsuls and Pharisees, Sadducees and revolutionaries, but argues that the mainspring and driving force of early Christian history is the historical Jesus. We cannot understand the rise of Christianity apart from this Jesus, the messiah of Israel and the spiritual and intellectual impact he had on his immediate followers and those who succeeded them. From his intimate acquaintance with the sources, the evidence and the problems of New Testament history, Barnett offers fresh insights. His telling of the story skillfully avoids the encumbrance of extraneous details and side journeys. From the brith of Jesus to the founding of the messianic community, from the rise of Paul's mission to the Gentiles to the writing of the Gospels, Barnett offers a comprehensive account of the movement that would change the face of world history. Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity is a comprehensive survey of New Testament history that will meet the needs of students and teachers of the New Testament. In its engagment with contemporary scholarship and its emphasis on the propelling role of the historical and risen Jesus in the rise of Christianity, it provides a timely rejoinder to current revisionist exploration of Christian origins.

""Reading the Gospels without knowing the personality of Jesus is like watching television with the sound turned off. The result is a dry, two dimensional person doing strange, undecipherable things. But when we discover his true character-this man who made the wind, music and flying squirrels-suddenly all of the remarkable qualities of Jesus burst forth with color and brilliance like fireworks.
Breaking Jesus out of the typical stereotypes, BEAUTIFUL OUTLAW welcomes readers into the rich emotional life of Christ showing how they can experience the actual personality of Jesus in their daily lives in ways that will deepen their faith.

At the turn of the twentieth century, American popular culture was booming with opportunities to see Jesus Christ. From the modernized eyewitness gospel of Ben-Hur to the widely circulated passion play films of Edison, Lumiere, and Pathe; from D. W. Griffith's conjuration of a spectral white savior in Birth of a Nation to W. E. B. Du Bois's "Black Christ" story cycle, Jesus was constantly and inventively visualized across media, and especially in the new medium of film. Why, in an era traditionally defined by the triumph of secular ideologies and institutions, were so many artists rushing to film Christ's miracles and use his story and image to contextualize their experiences of modernity? In The Disappearing Christ, Phillip Maciak examines filmic depictions of Jesus to argue that cinema developed as a model technology of secularism, training viewers for belief in a secular age. Negotiating between the magic trick and the documentary image, the conflicting impulses of faith and skepticism, the emerging aesthetic of film in this period visualized the fraught process of secularization. Cinematic depictions of an appearing and disappearing Christ became a powerful vehicle for Americans to navigate a rapidly modernizing society. Studying these films alongside a multimedia, interdisciplinary archive of novels, photographs, illustrations, and works of theology, travel writing, and historiography, The Disappearing Christ offers a new narrative of American cultural history at the intersection of cinema studies and religious studies.

""A twentieth-century classic, uncannily smart, incredibly learned.""--from the foreword by Bart Ehrman

This book challenges traditional Christian teaching about Jesus. While his followers may have seen him as a man from heaven, preaching the good news and working miracles, Smith asserts that the truth about Jesus is more interesting and rather unsettling.

The real Jesus, only barely glimpsed because of a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and censorship by religious authorities, was not Jesus the Son of God. In actuality he was Jesus the Magician. Smith marshals all the available evidence including, but not limited to, the Gospels. He succeeds in describing just what was said of Jesus by "outsiders," those who did not believe him.

He deals in fascinating detail with the inevitable questions. What was the nature of magic? What did people at that time mean by the term "magician"? Who were the other magicians, and how did their magic compare with Jesus' works? What facts led to the general assumption that Jesus practiced magic? And, most important, was that assumption correct?

The ramifications of "Jesus the Magician" give new meaning to the word controversial. This book recovers a vision of Jesus that two thousand years of suppression and polemic could not erase. And--what may be the central point of the debate--"Jesus the Magician" strips away the myths and legends that have obscured Jesus, the man who lived.

In this definitive book on the real, historical Jesus, one of our foremost biblical scholars meticulously sifts the evidence of 2,000 years to portray neither a rural magician nor a figure of obvious power, but a marginal Jew.

Next to the Bible itself, "The Imitation of Christ" is the most-published - and most deeply cherished - book in any language. For nearly 600 years, these thoughtful meditations on Jesus' life and teachings offer practical guidance on the central task of the Christian life: learning day by day to live like Jesus. This modern translation is direct and concise, yet retains a deep devotional flavor.