A genre-breaking work readily encouraging and lending itself to comparison and contrast with the Holy Bible, the Holy Qur'an, and the Holy Tanakh as well as with the principal philosophical Taoist texts, namely the Tao Te Ching and The Chuang-Tzu....Essentially a contemplative work, written as it is to be interpreted both exoterically and esoterically is an attempt to restore to the bright - the light, the memory, and the power of insight, dream, and intuition....A necessary caveat respectfully to the reader: neither the Jesus of the Gospels nor the Isa (Arabic for Jesus) of the Qur'an exists here within no more....Rather what exists here within is a Jesus of Richard's own inspiration, and, who to his own heart is eminently credible, enjoyable, and profound....The work traverses the lands we in modern times would refer to as the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria....See Preface for more.

How can one reconcile the political nature of Jesus with his disinclination to power? Moore's argument comes in three stages. Part one answers the question 'Was Jesus Political?' by examining Jesus' words and actions that have political import. Part two addresses the issue 'How was Jesus Political?' It concentrates on Mark 10:32-45 as a real articulation of Jesus' political praxis that is consistent throughout Jesus' ministry and teaching. Part three, 'Why did Jesus not openly announce his political role?' examines Jesus' treatment of the Jewish kings of the past, particularly why Jesus, 'meek and mild,' could claim to surpass them in honor. It is argued that Jesus' disinclination to associate himself with other rulers is not a rejection of a political role. Rather, he lived so consistently with his political praxis of self-abnegation that these other rulers were not appropriate models for Jesus to follow. Furthermore, the very claim to such titles was antithetical to his political praxis which relinquished all aggrandizement to God, who alone could exalt, abase, judge, and rule.

How did Jesus, a much-loved and highly respected Jewish teacher, get sentenced to death as a criminal? The questions of students and scholars about the actual circumstances, legal situation, and subsequent development of the Passion Narratives are here answered in Sloyan's second edition of this reliable resource, first published by Fortress Press in 1973. This second edition includes additional text, updated bibliography and notes, and a new preface.

Winner of the Award of Excellence of the Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship 2010. The teaching of Kenyon, Hagin and Copeland that Jesus died spiritually (JDS) is important because of the influence of these men, not least on Pentecostalism. JDS originated with Kenyon, and has been taught in the Word-faith movement by Hagin and Copeland, despite much criticism. It incorporates three elements: in this death, Jesus was separated from God; partook of a satanic nature; and was Satan s prey. This theological appraisal takes research far further than previous works, both in method and in scope. It concludes that adoption of JDS by Pentecostalism would be damaging in several respects, and thus draw the latter away from its moorings in traditional Christianity. Pentecostals and others are advised to reject the bulk of this teaching.

In this book Martien Brinkman explores the "Jesus incognito "as found in Western film, literature, and the visual arts since 1960. His interest here is focused primarily on indirect references to the Jesus figure. To his surprise, he found an abundance of allusions to Jesus in key figures in modern art. This confirmed his view that film, literature, and the visual arts make a substantial contribution, even in secular Western culture, to continuing reflection on Jesus' significance. Brinkman finds important characteristics of a hidden Christ in films by Gabriel Axel, Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Lars von Trier, novels by Peter De Vries, J.M. Coetzee, and Arnon Grunberg, poems by Les Murray and Czeslaw Milosz, and paintings by Andy Warhol, Harald Duwe, and Frans Franciscus. He defines a "hidden Christ "as a fictional human individual who can be seen as a new embodiment of the meaning that can be attributed in the present to the biblical figure of Jesus. The hidden Christ is therefore a contemporized Jesus figure. This book will be of interest for everyone who shares Brinkman's quest for this "Jesus incognito."

The Turin Shroud is the most important and studied relic in the world. Many papers on it have recently appeared in important scientific journals. Scientific studies on the relic until today fail to provide conclusive answers about the identity of the enveloped man and the dynamics regarding the image formation impressed therein. This book not only addresses these issues in a scientific and objective manner but also leads the reader through new search paths. It summarizes the results in a simple manner for the reader to comprehend easily. Many books on the theme have been already published, but none of them contains such a quantity of scientific news and reports. The most important of them is the following: the result of the 1988 radiocarbon dating is statistically wrong and other three new dating methods demonstrate that the Shroud has an age compatible with the epoch in which Jesus Christ lived in Palestine. A numismatic analysis performed on Byzantine gold coins confirms this result. This book is, therefore, very important with respect to the Turin Shroud. It is unique in its genre and a very useful tool for those who want to study the subject deeply.

This book offers an ideal introduction to the Gospels and explains why it is that scholars and lay people have such different understandings of the person of Jesus. The first half of the book looks at the main sources for the life of Jesus, principally the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but also the so-called apocryphal Gospels. The second half of the book begins with an examination of the criteria employed by scholars to determine the earliest and most reliable forms of the tradition. The third edition interacts with developments in modern scholarship, particularly the advance of memory studies. With study questions at the end of each chapter, updated reading lists, and a new chapter bringing scholarship up to date the third edition of this classic text will provide a perfect companion for students coming to grips with academic study of Jesus and the Gospels.

This volume will unpack the seven allegations proposed by Scot McKnight in his article 'Calling Jesus Mamzer' in the inaugural volume of The Journal for the Historical Jesus (Volume 1.1 2003: 73-103). Each essay will explore the historicity of each accusation and what they tell us about Jesus. McKnight and Modica propose that by examining these specific allegations, one can begin to comprehend a neglected dimension of historical Jesus studies, namely, that Jesus can be understood by what his opponents (critics) say of him. They contend that such an approach offers, as Malina and Neyrey have previously examined in Calling Jesus Names, a 'Christology from the side'. There will be an introductory and concluding essay from the editors.

Narrating the story from the perspective of key characters gives us insights into its many horrors and uncertainties as well as its joys

This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the subject, thus complementing previous work which has centred more on the cult of images of the Mother of God. The papers presented here, by an international team of scholars, consider the development and transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through the twelfth centuries. The volume opens with discussion of the origins of the cult, and its Near Eastern manifestations, including the archaeological site of the Kathisma church in Palestine, which represents the earliest Marian shrine in the Holy Land, and Syriac poetic treatment of the Virgin. The principal focus, however, is on the 8th and 9th centuries in Byzantium, as a critical period when Christian attitudes toward the Virgin and her veneration were transformed. The book re-examines the relationship between icons, relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these holy objects or figures was related in any way. Some contributions consider the location of relics and later, icons, in Constantinople and other centres of Marian devotion; others explore gender issues, such as the significance of the Virgin's feminine qualities, and whether women and men identified with her equally as a holy figure. The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore areas that have not yet been studied. The rationale is critical and historical, using literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics, and the Theotokos.

In Engaging the Passion, Oliver Larry Yarbrough has gathered an impressive array of scholars to survey the wealth of ways in which the death of Jesus has been portrayed and represented in Scripture, liturgy and music, literature, art and film, theology, and ethics. In addition to addressing topics many readers will find familiar-gospel narratives, Holy Week services, Bach Passions, and well-known paintings-the essays also treat rap music, street art, a contemporary Buddhist Passion, Chagall's crucifixions, the poetry of Walt Whitman and Countee Cullen, J. R. R. Tolkien's unlikely hero Frodo Baggins, images from the battlefield, and stories from the soup kitchen. The contributors approach their topics from a variety of perspectives-Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secular; their voices differ as well, from the challenging to the comforting and from the academic to the confessional. Addressing the faithful, the skeptical, and the curious, Engaging the Passion is unique in its breadth and rare in the diverse voices of its contributors. Amply illustrated and with accompanying discography and filmography, it will be a welcome resource for classes in Scripture, theology, liturgy, and the arts, as well as for personal and congregational study.

In these meditations, Mattison reminds us that the death of Christ is the clearest expression of God's redeeming love for us. The cross, once a sign of defeat and shame, has become a sign of victory over sin and death. Each meditation is accompanied by hymns and poetry that enlarge the possible meanings of Jesus' last words, and by questions for reflection or discussion.

Is there credible evidence that Jesus--the carpenter from the ancient town of Nazareth--really is the Son of God? In this video Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), based on the New York Times bestselling book The Case for Christ, participants journey with Lee Strobel on a quest for the truth about Jesus. Skeptics dismiss the Jesus of the Gospels by claiming there is no evidence that he was God's Son. But does their claim hold weight? And, if not, what evidence is there, especially outside the Bible? Lee Strobel--a former legal journalist and one-time atheist--presents the findings of his own search for truth. This study guide is ideal for: Believers who want to learn more about the hard evidence behind their faith. Christians who find themselves becoming uncertain or doubtful. Anyone investigating, curious, or even skeptical about Christianity. Sift through historical evidence and passages from a range of theologians, thinkers, philosophers, and laypeople on the topic of Jesus as you weigh compelling expert testimony that rejects easy answers. With discussion prompts, Bible passages, and personal reflection cues facilitated by contributor Garry Poole, Strobel invites you and your group to investigate the truth about Jesus Christ as he leads up to the facts that guided him from atheism to faith in Christ. By the end of this six-session study, groups may very well see Jesus in a new way--and even, like Strobel, find their life transformed. Sessions include: The Investigation of a Lifetime Eyewitness Evidence Evidence Outside the Bible Analyzing Jesus Evidence for the Resurrection Reaching Your Verdict Designed for use with The Case for Christ Video Study 9780310698517 (sold separately).

The introduction to this new guide sets out the sources (Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian), noting the problems connected with them, paying particular attention to the nature of the gospels, and the Synoptic versus the Johannine tradition. A substantial section will discuss scholarship on Jesus from the nineteenth century to the explosion of works in the present day, introducing and explaining the three different quests for the historical Jesus. Subsequent chapters will analyse key themes in historical Jesus research: Jesus Galilean origins; the scope of his ministry and models of holy men, particularly that of prophet; Jesus teaching and healing; his trial and crucifixion; the highly contentious question of his resurrection; and finally an exploration of the links between the Jesus movement and the early church. Throughout, the (often opposing) positions of a variety of key scholars will be explained and discussed (eg. Sanders, Crossan, Dunn, Wright, Brown).

The historical study of the Jesus stories and the transmission of these stories through time has been of seminal importance to historians of religion. Critical historical examination allows scholars an escape from the confines of dogma, belief, and the theological interpretation. In recent years, historical Jesus studies have also opened up an important discussion concerning antiSemitism and early Christianity and the political and ideological filtering of the Jesus story of early Christianity through the Roman empire and beyond.
This comprehensive collection will bring together the vast array of historical research into the reality of the man, the teachings, and the acts and events ascribed to him that have served as the foundational story of one of the world's central religions.
The collection includes a substantial new introduction by the editor in the first volume and a full index in the last.

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.

Why was Jesus, who said 'I judge no one', put to death for a political crime? Of course, this is a historical question-but it is not only historical. Jesus's life became a philosophical theme in the first centuries of our era, when 'pagan' and Christian philosophers clashed over the meaning of his sayings and the significance of his death. Modern philosophers, too, such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, have tried to retrace the arc of Jesus's life and death. I Judge No One is a philosophical reading of the four memoirs, or 'gospels', that were fashioned by early Christ-believers and collected in the New Testament. It offers original ways of seeing a deeply enigmatic figure who calls himself the Son of Man. David Lloyd Dusenbury suggests that Jesus offered his contemporaries a scandalous double claim. First, that human judgements are pervasive and deceptive; and second, that even divine laws can only be fulfilled in the human experience of love. Though his life led inexorably to a grim political death, what Jesus's sayings revealed-and still reveal-is that our highest desires lie beyond the political.

Jesus was a man from Nazareth who died in Jerusalem. But he was nor ordinary man, or was he? That Jesus existed we are all quite sure, but what were the real, historical facts of his life and death? What, about all that has been said of him, is truly authentic? Who is the real Jesus? With Evans' research, a more accurate portrait of Jesus begins to emerge. Ironically, the most important and obvious fact to bear in mind when trying to understand Jesus is that he was, in fact, a Jew. Embracing the historical and cultural context in which Jesus lived goes against the tide of Jesus research, specifically, Evans takes on the research from the Jesus Seminar. In the first part of his book, Evans shows us through comparative studies, the diversity of beliefs and actions that existed in the Jewish culture of which Jesus was indeed a part. Evans' goal is to understand better the Sitz im Leben Jesu. In the second part of the book, Evans pits Jesus against his opponents, seeking to identify Jesus' teachings and actions that led to his death. Not only does Evans paint a realistic portrait of Jesus, but he helps lay a firmer foundation upon which one can begin to understand the emergence of Christian theology. This publication has also been published in hardback (no longer available).

One of the characteristic pursuits of the current phase of historical Jesus research, the so-called Third Quest, has been the serious attempt to locate Jesus within first-century CE Judaism, to seek a Jesus who could be found plausible within his Jewish context. Comparatively less emphasis has been laid on the question as to whether or how the contextually plausible picture of Jesus also suits and accounts for thehistory of the reception of Jesus in early Christianity. By integrating the Jewish context, the teaching of Jesus and Christian reception history into one explanation, the continuum perspective seeks to reveal a Jesus who would both be fitting within his Jewish context and would also help to explain and understand early Christian stances. Thus, according to this perspective, a historically plausible picture of Jesus is one that can be placed in the Judaism-Christianity continuum.

* Nearly twenty years on, this book is still a major point of reference for serious study of the historical Jesus * Companion volume to The New Testament and the People of God (1992), The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003) and Paul and the Faithfulness of God (2013).

Scholarly literature on Jesus has often attempted to relate his miracles to their Jewish context, but that context has not been surveyed in its own right. The present study supplies that lack by examining both the ideas on miracle in Second Temple literature (including Josephus, Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) and the evidence for contemporary Jewish miracle workers. The penultimate chapter explores insights from cultural anthropology to round out the picture obtained from the literary evidence, and the study concludes that Jesus is distinctive as a miracle-worker in his Jewish context while nevertheless fitting into it.

Poetry, Rosenthal argues, focuses the imagination of a culture as no other written form can. In each chapter of her book, she considers the world's poets as Shelley's 'unacknowledged legislators' - creators who dreamed or destroyed visions of Jesus which shaped the spiritual climate of their times and nations. The book, though wide-ranging in its coverage and impeccably researched, is written extremely accessibly, as though for the general reader, hence it should appeal to the literature and poetry market more broadly as well as scholars of both poetry and Christianity.

Early Christian legends of divine power, miraculous events, fear and admiration can inform your own spiritual journey.

The three principal infancy gospelsthe Infancy Gospel of James, the Gospel of the Infancy, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomasare accounts of the births and early lives of Mary the Virgin Mother, and Jesus. Originating in the second through fifth centuries, these apocryphal stories are fictions but nevertheless of great historical interest in terms of the beliefs and storytelling of early Christians, for they are the sources of well-known Christian legends as well as of some of Christianitys beloved heroes and heroines.

This fascinating and accessible exploration of formative influential narratives takes you deep into the early Christian religious thinking that provides the basis for Marys biography, ideas about her purity, as well as the prayers, feasts, and iconic representations that celebrate her life. These extraordinary folktales also provide some shocking imagery of the young Jesus, the incarnation of Godequally human and divineas he learns to control his supernatural powers and apply them for good.

Now you can experience the mystery and amusement of these charming folktales without any previous knowledge of early Christian history or thought. This SkyLight Illuminations edition offers insightful yet unobtrusive commentary that explains references and philosophical terms, shares inspiring interpretations, and gives you a deeper understanding of the sources of devotion Christians feel for Mary and the holy infant Jesus.

This is the first of a four-volume ground-breaking study of Christological origins. The fruit of twenty years' research, Jesus Monotheism lays out a new paradigm that goes beyond the now widely held view that Paul and others held to an unprecedented 'Christological monotheism'. There was already, in Second Temple Judaism and in the Bible, a kind of 'christological monotheism'. But it is first with Jesus and his followers that a human figure is included in the identity of the one God as a fully divine person. Volume I lays out the arguments of an emerging consensus, championed by Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, that from its Jewish beginnings the Christian community had a high Christology and worshipped Jesus as a divine figure. New data is put forward to support that case. But there are weaknesses in the emerging consensus. For example, it underplays the incarnation and does not convincingly explain what causes the earliest Christology. The recent study of Adam traditions, the findings of Enoch literature specialists, and of those who have explored a Jewish and Christian debt to Greco-Roman Ruler Cult traditions, all point towards a fresh approach to both the origins and shape of the earliest divine Christology.