In this fascinating historical and cultural biography, writer and broadcaster Peter Stanford deconstructs that most vilified of Bible characters: Judas Iscariot, who famously betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Beginning with the gospel accounts, Peter explores two thousand years of cultural and theological history to investigate how the very name Judas came to be synonymous with betrayal and, ultimately, human evil. But as Peter points out, there has long been a counter-current of thought that suggests that Judas might in fact have been victim of a terrible injustice: central to Jesus' mission was his death and resurrection, and for there to have been a death, there had to be a betrayal. This thankless role fell to Judas; should we in fact be grateful to him for his role in the divine drama of salvation? 'You'll have to decide,' as Bob Dylan sang in the sixties, 'Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side'. An essential but doomed character in the Passion narrative, and thus the entire story of Christianity, Judas and the betrayal he symbolises continue to play out in much larger cultural histories, speaking as he does to our deepest fears about friendship, betrayal and the problem of evil. Judas: the ultimate traitor, or the ultimate scapegoat? This is a compelling portrait of Christianity's most troubling and mysterious character.

Like most other peoples, Spaniards have long wondered about God and the saints--what they want from mortals, how they affect human affairs, even what they look like. The most direct evidence has come from face to face meetings with the holy ones. These meetings are the subject of this book.

What happens when you immerse your life in the words of Jesus?

When Jesus walked this earth, He gave His followers more than one hundred life-changing promises. He also gave more than one hundred teachings for living in line with God’s priorities—commands that lift us up rather than weigh us down!

This 365-day devotional invites you to let Jesus speak directly into your life. Each reading begins with a red-lettered statement of Jesus, directly from Scripture, followed by a powerful reflection on how He wants us to apply His truths to our daily lives.

No problem you face today is beyond the help of Jesus. No question you ask is beyond the answers of Jesus. The more you get to know this loving Savior, the more you will love Him! So come, immerse yourself in His words. He is speaking to you.

Was Christ's human nature fallen, even sinful? From the 18th century to the present, this view has become increasingly prominent in Reformed theological circles and beyond, despite vigorous opposition. Both sides on the issue see it as vital for understanding the nature of salvation. Each side's advocates appeal to or critique the Church Fathers. This book reviews the history and present state of the debate, then surveys the connections, distinctions, and patristic interpretations of five of the modern fallenness view's proponents (Edward Irving, Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, Colin Gunton, and Thomas Weinandy) and five of its opponents (Marcus Dods the Elder, A. B. Bruce, H. R. Mackintosh, Philip Hughes, and Donald Macleod). The book verifies the views of the ten most-cited Fathers: five Greek (Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, and Cyril of Alexandria) and five Latin (Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Augustine, and Leo the Great). The study concludes by sketching the implications of its findings for the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, sin, sanctification, and Scripture.

Sosa Siliezar investigates the presence and significance of creation imagery in the Gospel of John. He argues that John has intentionally included only a limited (albeit significant) number of instances of creation imagery and that he has positioned them carefully to highlight their significance. Sosa Siliezar contends that the instances of creation imagery used in varying contexts function collectively in a threefold way that is consonant with John's overall argument. First, John uses them to portray Jesus in close relationship with his Father, existing apart from and prior to the created order. Second, John uses creation imagery to assert the primal and universal significance of Jesus and the message about him, and to privilege him over other important figures in the story of Israel. Third, John uses creation imagery to link past reality with present and future reality, portraying Jesus as the agent of creation whom the reader should regard as the primal agent of revelation and salvation. The book concludes by underscoring how these findings inform our understanding of John's Christology and Johannine dualism.

The four Gospels unanimously present Jesus as someone who quoted from, commented on, and engaged with the Scriptures of Israel. Whether this portrayal goes back to the historical Jesus has been a hotly debated issue among scholars. In this book, eleven expert researchers from four different continents tackle the question anew. This is done through detailed study of specific themes and passages from the Scriptures which Jesus, according to the Gospels, quoted or alluded to. Among the various topics investigated are Jesus' use of Genesis 2 to bolster his teaching on divorce, his reference to the Queen of Sheba story in 1 Kings, the significance of the Book of Zechariah for Jesus' self-understanding, and his enigmatic quotation of Psalm 22 on the cross. These and other contributions result in a common understanding of Jesus' use of the Scriptures. Not only did Jesus engage with the Scriptures, according to these scholars, but his mode of engagement has to be placed within the early Jewish interpretative framework within which he lived.

Who is Jesus? Christians have been arguing about the answer to that question since there have been Christians, and it seems unlikely that they're going to agree on an answer anytime soon. Mark Osler, always a bit uncomfortable in church, was never able to find a Jesus that seemed real to himaEURO"until he put Jesus on trial. Drawing on his training as a federal prosecutor and professor of law, he and a group of friends staged the trial of Jesus for their church, as though it were happening in the modern American criminal justice system. The event was so powerful that before long Osler received invitations to take it on the road. Each time he served as Christ's prosecutor, the story of Jesus opened up to him a bit more. Prosecuting Jesus follows Osler in this extraordinary journey of discovering himself by discovering Jesus. Juxtaposing things we rarely put together, like the passion of Christ and our ideas about capital punishment, Osler explores an active engagement between Jesus and our contemporary law and culture.

In Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine, Richard A. Horsley offers one of the most comprehensive critical analyses of Jesus of Nazareth's mission and how he became a significant historical figure. In his study Horsley brings a fuller historical knowledge of the context and implications of recent research to bear on the investigation of the historical Jesus. Breaking with the standard focus on isolated individual sayings of Jesus, Horsley argues that the sources for Jesus in historical interaction are the Gospels and the speeches of Jesus that they include, read critically in their historical context.
This work addresses the standard assumptions that the historical Jesus has been presented primarily as a sage or apocalyptic visionary. In contrast, based on a critical reconsideration of the Gospels and contemporary sources for Roman imperial rule in Judea and Galilee, Horsley argues that Jesus was fully involved in the conflicted politics of ancient Palestine. Learning from anthropological studies of the more subtle forms of peasant politics, Horsley discerns from these sources how Jesus, as a Moses- and Elijah-like prophet, generated a movement of renewal in Israel that was focused on village communities.
Following the traditional prophetic pattern, Jesus pronounced God's judgment against the rulers in Jerusalem and their Roman patrons. This confrontation with the Jerusalem rulers and his martyrdom at the hands of the Roman governor, however, became the breakthrough that empowered the rapid expansion of his movement in the immediately ensuing decades. In the broader context of this comprehensive historical construction of Jesus's mission, Horsley also presents a fresh new analysis of Jesus's healings and exorcisms and his conflict with the Pharisees, topics that have been generally neglected in the last several decades.

For two centuries scholars have sought to discover the historical Jesus. Presently such scholarship is dominated not by the question 'Who was Jesus?' but rather 'How do we even go about answering the question, "Who was Jesus?"?' With this current situation in mind, Jonathan Bernier undertakes a two-fold task: one, to engage on the level of the philosophy of history with existing approaches to the study of the historical Jesus, most notably the criteria approach and the social memory approach; two, to work with the critical realism developed by Bernard Lonergan, introduced into New Testament studies by Ben F. Meyer, and advocated by N.T. Wright in order to develop a philosophy of history that can elucidate current debates within historical Jesus studies.

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.

"The Bible gives instances of two men being translated to heaven without dying at all; of some dead people, who were raised to life, only to die again; but we never read of a resurrected man ascending to heaven, save in the one exception of our Lord. He died, and was raised the third day, and having abundantly proved His resurrection to His doubting disciples, He ascended to glory, and set Himself down at the right hand of God. Such a claim is stupendous. Prove it, and you prove Christianity. Disprove it, and you disprove Christianity...The truth of Christianity hinges on the fact of the resurrection of our Lord. Apart from the resurrection of Christ, there can be no salvation, no forgiveness of sins, no justification, and no gift of eternal life - in short, no Christianity. Remove the central stone of an arch, and the whole structure falls to the ground. So it is with the Deity and Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ, His spotless life, His atoning death, His resurrection, and His ascension. These are all linked up together, making one complete whole. If one part fails, the whole of Christianity fails." So wrote Algernon Pollock, that indefatigable apologist from the pulpit and in print wherever he saw the Christian faith under attack. Beginning with an overview of the Bible's detailing of the facts and consequences of Christ's resurrection, the author briefly considers Old Testament prophecies of the resurrection, before reviewing Christ's own prophecies of His death. He continues with an examination of the person, life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and their connection with His resurrection. He then considers the circumstances of the Lord's resurrection, before an extensive discussion of all the recorded appearances of the risen Christ. An examination of objections to the inspiration of the Gospel accounts is followed by a look at some theories presented in denial of the resurrection. Significant reference is made to an interesting mid-18th century study entitled "Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul; In a Letter to Gilbert West, Esq." by Sir George Lyttleton, later Lord Lyttleton, Baron of Frankley. Lyttleton and West set out to disprove Christianity by proving two key points of Christianity false: Lyttelton that St.Paul did not convert to Christianity, and West that Jesus never rose from the dead. However, as their researches progressed, they both became convinced of the truth of the events they sought to disprove. The author, himself convinced of the fact of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, plainly sets out his reasons in this book.

Paul's apostolic proclamation of "one Lord Jesus Christ" in 1 Corinthians lies at the very heart of Christian belief. It forms the starting point of the Christological declaration in the Nicene Creed and is the basis of every subsequent statement of the church on the person and work of Jesus. In Ecce Homo Aaron Riches argues that this basic proclamation of Christ's divine unity is the only legitimate starting point for Christology. Interacting with theologians throughout the ages, Riches narrates the development of the church's doctrine of Christ as an increasingly profound realisation that the depth of the difference between humans and God is realised only in perfect union with God. He sets the apostolic proclamation in its historical, theological, and mystical context, showing that it ultimately surpasses every theological attempt to divide or reduce the "one Lord Jesus Christ."

The Holy One in Our Midst: An Essay on the Flesh of Christ aims to defend the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticum-the doctrine that maintains the Son of God was not restricted to the flesh of Christ during the incarnation-by arguing that it is logically coherent, biblically warranted, catholically orthodox, and theologically useful. It shows that none of the standard objections are devastating to the extra, that the doctrine is rooted in the claims of Christian Scripture and not merely a remnant of perfect being philosophical theology, and that the doctrine plays an important role in contemporary theological discussion. In this way, James R. Gordon revives an important Catholic doctrine that has fallen out of favour in contemporary theology. Secondarily, this project aims to integrate biblical, philosophical, and systematic theology by showing that the tools and methods of each distinct discipline can contribute to the goals and aims of the others.

Representing five decades of research on the gospels, Jesus, and Christian origins, this collection of historical-critical essays explores topics such as demythologizing, "son of man," and the synoptic problem, to name just a few. Includes a critical analysis of ways in which scholars have attempted to recover the historical Jesus.

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.

Nineteenth-century America was rife with Protestant-fueled anti-Catholicism. Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez reveals how Protestants nevertheless became surprisingly and deeply fascinated with the Virgin Mary, even as her role as a devotional figure who united Catholics grew. Documenting the vivid Marian imagery that suffused popular visual and literary culture, Alvarez argues that Mary became a potent, shared exemplar of Christian womanhood around which Christians of all stripes rallied during an era filled with anxiety about the emerging market economy and shifting gender roles. From a range of diverse sources, including the writings of Anna Jameson, Anna Dorsey, and Alexander Stewart Walsh and magazines such as The Ladies' Repository and Harper's, Alvarez demonstrates that Mary was represented as pure and powerful, compassionate and transcendent, maternal and yet remote. Blending romantic views of motherhood and female purity, the virgin mother's image enamored Protestants as a paragon of the era's cult of true womanhood, and even many Catholics could imagine the Queen of Heaven as the Queen of the Home. Sometimes, Marian imagery unexpectedly seemed to challenge domestic expectations of womanhood. On a broader level, The Valiant Woman contributes to understanding lived religion in America and the ways it borrows across supposedly sharp theological divides.