What did Jesus intend when he spoke the words, “This is my body”? The Lost Supper argues that Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper presupposed an already existing Passover ritual in which the messiah was represented by a piece of bread: Jesus was not instituting new symbolism but using an existing symbol to speak about himself. Drawing on both second temple and early Rabbinic sources, Matthew Colvin places Jesus’ words in the Upper Room within the context of historically attested Jewish thought about Passover. The result is a new perspective on the Eucharist: a credible first-century Jewish way of thinking about the Last Supper and Lord’s Supper— and a sacramentology that is also at work in the letters of the apostle Paul. Such a perspective gives us the historical standpoint to correct Christian assumptions, past and present, about how the Eucharist works and how we ought to celebrate it.

In Relational Engagements of the Indigenous Americas, Melissa R. Baltus and Sarah E. Baires critically examine the current understanding of relationality in the Americas, covering a diverse range of topics from Indigenous cosmologies to the life-world of the Inuit dog. The contributors to this wide-ranging edited collection interrogate and discuss the multiple natures of relational ontologies, touching on the ever-changing, fluid, and varied ways that people, both alive and dead, relate and related to their surrounding world. While the case studies presented in this collection all stem from the New World, the Indigenous histories and archaeological interpretations vary widely and the boundaries of relational theory challenge current preconceptions about earlier ways of life in the Indigenous Americas.

What did Jesus intend when he spoke the words, "This is my body"? The Lost Supper argues that Jesus' words and actions at the Last Supper presupposed an already-existing Passover ritual in which the messiah was represented by a piece of bread: Jesus was not instituting new symbolism, but using an existing symbol to speak about himself. Drawing on both second temple and early Rabbinic sources, Matthew Colvin places Jesus' words in the Upper Room within the context of historically attested Jewish thought about Passover. The result is a new perspective on the Eucharist: a credible first-century Jewish way of thinking about the Last Supper and Lord's Supper - and a sacramentology that is also at work in the letters of the apostle Paul. Such a perspective gives us the historical standpoint to correct Christian assumptions, past and present, about how the Eucharist works and how we ought to celebrate it.

This is the first ever English translation of the historic Magdeburg Confession. The translation work was done from a 1550 Latin original of the Confession. The Magdeburg Confession is the first known document in the history of man to formally set forth the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine teaches that when a superior authority makes unjust laws or decrees, the lesser authority has a God-given right and duty to resist those unjust laws or decrees. In 1548, Charles V imposed his infamous Augsburg Interim which was an attempt to smash the Protestant Reformation. While all of Protestant Germany conformed to his decree, one city decided to take a stand and resist his authority - the city of Magdeburg. The pastors of Magdeburg issued their Confession and Defense of the Pastors and Other Ministers of the Church of Magdeburg on April 13, 1550 AD. Five months after issuing their Confession, Charles V's forces marched on Magdeburg. The people of Magdeburg burned everything outside the city walls and closed the city gates. The siege of Magdeburg had begun. What constitutes a tyrannical government? How and when are Christians to respond and act when a government does become tyrannical? Are Christians to give unlimited obedience to the State? These questions and others were addressed and answered by the pastors in the Confession. In defiance of Charles V's tyranny, they declared, "Divine laws necessarily trump human ones." What the pastors of Magdeburg wrote in the Confession significantly impacted men like John Knox, Theodore Beza and Phillip Mornay. The repercussions of the Confession were felt throughout Western Civilization all the way to the founding of America as a nation. For over 460 years, the Confession has existed only in Latin and German. Now English-speaking people can read it for themselves. This is the first English translation of The Magdeburg Confession ever written. Dr. Matthew Colvin holds a Ph.D. in Latin and Greek Literature from Cornell University.