In The Light of Tabor, award-winning theologian David Bentley Hart proposes an approach to the nature of Christ that is profoundly radical yet deeply classical.For centuries, Christian theology has rested on a paradox. Beginning with the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century, the major Christian traditions have held that Jesus Christ combines two distinct natures: he is fully God and, somehow, fully human. Yet this tenet has traditionally invited irres...

From one of our most celebrated writers on religion comes this fresh, bold, and unsettling new translation of the New TestamentDavid Bentley Hart undertook this new translation of the New Testament in the spirit of “etsi doctrina non daretur,” “as if doctrine is not given.” Reproducing the texts’ often fragmentary formulations without augmentation or correction, he has produced a pitilessly literal translation, one that captures the texts’ impenetrability and unfin...

As news reports of the horrific December 2004 tsunami in Asia reached the rest of the world, commentators were quick to seize upon the disaster as proof of either God's power or God's nonexistence, asking over and over, How could a good and loving God -- if such exists -- allow such suffering?In The Doors of the Sea David Bentley Hart speaks at once to those skeptical of Christian faith and to those who use their Christian faith to rationalize senseless human suffe...

A lively and wide-ranging collection from David Bentley Hart, A Gathering of Leaves invites readers to rediscover the sheer joy of reading.David Bentley Hart brings together reflections on everything from literature and music to baseball and tortoises in his newest book. The pieces roam freely in subject and tone—sometimes serious, sometimes playful—but are united by Hart’s distinctive voice: witty, attentive, and unafraid of digression.Rather than...

Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion-God-frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word God” functions in the world’s great theistic faiths. Ranging broadly across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hind...

A world-renowned philosopher’s genre-defying exploration of the mystery of consciousnessIn a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, “Do you see this flower, my love?”So begins David Bentley Hart’s unprecedented exploration of the mystery of consciousness...

Currently it is fashionable to be devoutly undevout. Religion’s most passionate antagonists—Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and others—have publishers competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion, monotheism, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. But contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends D...

A stunning reexamination of one of the essential tenets of Christian belief from one of the most provocative and admired writers on religion today“A scathing, vigorous, eloquent attack on those who hold that that there is such a thing as eternal damnation.”—Karen Kilby, CommonwealThe great fourth†‘century church father Basil of Caesarea once observed that, in his time, most Christians believed that hell was not everlasting, and tha...

In the two thousand years that have elapsed since the time of Christ, Christians have been as much divided by their faith as united, as much at odds as in communion. And the contents of Christian confession have developed with astonishing energy. How can believers claim a faith that has been passed down through the ages while recognizing the real historical contingencies that have shaped both their doctrines and their divisions?In this carefully argued essay, David Bentley Hart cri...

In The Story of Christianity, acclaimed theologian David Bentley Hart provides a sweeping and informative portrait of a faith that has shaped the western world and beyond for over 2,000 years.From the persecutions of the early church to the papal-imperial conflicts of the Middle Ages, from the religious wars of 16th- and 17th-century Europe to the challenges of science and secularism in the modern era, and from the ancient Christian communities of Africa and Asia to the 'house chur...

Although Erich Przywara (1889–1972) was one of the preeminent Catholic theologians of his time and a profound influence on such people as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, he has remained virtually unknown in North America. This volume includes Przywara's groundbreaking Analogia Entis, originally published in 1932, and his subsequent essays on the concept analogia entis -- the analogy between God and creation -- which has currency in philosophical and theological circle...

In this new translation, a world-renowned scholar brings out the metaphysical, moral, and poetic power of Laozi’s classical Chinese textDrawing on his extensive study of philosophy, religion, and literature across traditions, David Bentley Hart, with the help of Patrick Robert Hart, presents Laozi’s timeless work and its paradoxical wisdom with clarity and grace.Mesmerized by the Tao Te Ching’s condensed and elliptical nature, and moved by bo...