Opening the Covenant represents a significant advance in Jewish thinking about Christianity. Michael Kogan delves deep into the theologies of the two faiths to locate precise points of difference and convergence. He sees Christianity as the breaking open of the original Covenant to include Gentile peoples.

Latin Epics of the New Testament is about the growth of Christianity, and in particular the challenge of engaging with the Roman intellectual elite and its highly sophisticated Graeco-Roman tradition. In this culture epics like those of Vergil and Lucan were highly valued for their language, their 'heroic' themes, and their Rome-centred ideologies.

During the early eighteenth century, colonial New England witnessed the end of Puritanism and the emergence of a revivalist religious movement that culminated in the evangelical awakenings of the 1740s. This engrossing book explores the religious history of New England during the period and offers new reasons for this change in cultural identity.

Many people believe that the piety of the Pilgrims typified early American religion. However, by the 1730s Catholics, Jews, and Africans had joined Native Americans, Puritans, and numerous other Protestants in the colonies. Jon Butler launches his narrative with a description of the state of religious affairs in both the Old and New Worlds.

Scholars once predicted a bleak existence for religion in the modern world. Social progress, they argued, meant doing away with religion and its antiquated control over our lives. Religion, however, is actually thriving in pluralistic and complex societies, and its continued vibrancy-even resurgence--demands a reevaluation of ideas about secularization.

Packed into all major monotheistic religions is a powerful theological punch: apocalypse. This provocative volume explores how apocalyptic visions have expressed themselves in different ways in Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam.

The word Islam means "Peace," but for nearly 1,400 years its adherents have waged war--frequently on the grandest and most successful scales in history. This book introduces some of Islam's greatest military figures and analyzes significant events that are shaping the modern world.

The Bible has a way of shocking us. If Americans could still blush, we might blush at the words, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19). But, of course, sin always tries to trash God’s gifts. So we can’t just celebrate sex for what God made it to be; we have to fight what sin turned it into. The contributors to this unique volume encourage you to do both: celebrate and struggle. This book has something for all—men and women, married and single—from contributors like John Piper, C. J. and Carolyn Mahaney, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Carolyn McCulley, and others.

If sexuality is inherently social, the same thing can be said about celibacy. An understanding of celibacy, argues Carl Olson, can be a useful way to view the significance of the human body within a social context. The purpose of this book is to examine how the practice of celibacy differs cross-culturally as well as historically within a particular religious tradition. The essays (all previously unpublished) will demonstrate that celibacy is a complex religious phenomenon.

"The book you are about to read is a portrait of one of the most beautiful men who ever lived. He himself would probably not have considered himself beautiful or even special. He would have said that we are all beautiful, we are all special, because -- and he did say this -- we are all children of God. . . ."

Sums up all that is known about magic in Ancient Egypt: the role of magic in controlling the gods, powerful amulets that warded off evil spirits, scarabs of immortality, use of wax images, formulas and spells, the secret name, much more.