The book puts the current interest in historical Jesus research into a proper historical context, highlighting Gnosticism's lasting influence on early Christianity and making the provocative claim that nearly all Christian Churches are in some way descended from Roman Christianity. Breaking with the accepted wisdom of Christianity's origins, the revised history it puts forward challenges the assumptions of Church and secular historians, biblical critics and general readers alike, with profound repercussions for scholarship, belief and practice.

The book puts the current interest in historical Jesus research into a proper historical context, highlighting Gnosticism's lasting influence on early Christianity and making the provocative claim that nearly all Christian Churches are in some way descended from Roman Christianity. Breaking with the accepted wisdom of Christianity's origins, the revised history it puts forward challenges the assumptions of Church and secular historians, biblical critics and general readers alike, with profound repercussions for scholarship, belief and practice.

At the present time, when so-called Islamic radicalism, terrorism and Jihadism occupy major media space, with Islam often depicted as the main culprit, the book attempts a tour de force. It proposes that Islam is as much victim as culprit in the history that has led to the current hostility. This is because the common claims of both mainstream and radical Islam that Islam represents the high point of the Abrahamic tradition, and therefore a purification of Judaism and Christianity, have been largely ignored, misunderstood or blatantly rejected by these faiths and therefore by 'the West' in general. This rejection has effectively rendered Islam as the poor cousin, if not the illegitimate sibling, of the tradition. In turn, this has created long-term resentment and hostility within Islam as well as robbed the 'Judaeo-Christian West' of a rich, inter-faith understanding of the wider Abrahamic tradition. The book explores these claims through textual, historical and theological analyses, proposing that many of them stand up better to critical scrutiny than has been commonly acknowledged. It further proposes that seeing Islam in this way has potential to re-awaken its self-understanding as a leader of accord among the Abrahamic faiths, of the kind that characterized the era of Convivencia when, in medieval Spain, Islam constructed and contributed to advanced civilizations characterized by relatively harmonious co-existence between Muslims, Christians and Jews. The book focuses on the role that a more respected and self-confident Islam could play in forging enhanced inter-faith relations in a world that desperately needs them as it struggles to understand and deal with modern and particularly vicious forms of radical Islamism.

The author describes the drastic changes or revolutions that have occurred in the interpretation of the Bible during his own lifetime. The author uses his own experiences to describe these revolutions and to reflect on what consequences they have had for his own life-story. The first revolution was the introduction of the historical-critical approach. The Bible was interpreted as historical in a broad sense, not in all its details. In a Roman university the author later found that this broad historical verification of the Bible became more and more problematic. The second revolution is described as the Bible as Literature methodology. This approach puts aside his- tory and examines the Bible as a clever and subtle literary document which has controlled religious belief and practice but cannot be substantiated as historical fact. There was a third revolution. Within the secular university scene, the author became involved in the study of anthropology and sociology. Judaism and Christianity were seen as religions amongst other religions; their sacred writings were seen as sacred writings alongside others. The new approach forces him to rethink the history of Israel, the relevance of the Hebrew Scriptures and Judaism itself; he also has to rethink the history of Jesus, the relevance of the Christian Scriptures and Christianity. This life journey should be of interest to those working in the fields of biblical and religion studies.

A moving novel of a con icted everyman in 1950s America. The story describes the personal and professional con icts of quirky members of a large second and third generation Irish clan of primarily educators. Caring relatives are supportive in dif cult times while contributing to the small plot twists of daily life. Written by a talented writer with a rich ear for dialogue who magically relates the experiences and perspectives of a variety of family members, speaking in their voices. Based in part on the author's experiences growing up in Somerville, Massachusetts, this is a ctional work of great range and strength in which readers may nd echoes of their own lives and family relationships.

Robert Crotty (1937-2011) was a student of human nature as he saw it who wrote largely (though not exclusively) from a New England perspective. He received a M.F.A. in English from the Iowa Writers' Workshop during the Raymond Carver years. He also attended the graduate journalism program at the University of Missouri at Columbia. At one point he was a reporter and editor of a Maine newspaper. There were other positions: professor, dean of a college and director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine among them. As a Mainer at heart he wrote mostly from Kennebunkport where he and his family lived and later from Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he worked for a time and acted in stage plays.

This novel was written in Ireland where Bob brought his family to spend a year in Greystones on the southern coast. The Irish influence is evident. This work is fiction but tinged with the realities of life in the world of greater Boston where Bob grew up.

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