A leading resource for nearly two decades and a daily reference for thousands of eyecare professionals, the Fifth Edition of Quick Reference Dictionary of Eyecare Terminology continues this tradition and provides the latest terms, concepts, conditions, and important resources in an instant.Janice K. Ledford and Joseph Hoffman have updated and expanded this essential resource to reflect today’s dialect while retaining the core feat...

The works of many early critics of the Christian church were burned by ruling emperors or otherwise destroyed in the second and third centuries, but the writings of the Greek pagan philosopher, Celsus, have survived indirectly through his eloquent opponent Origen of Alexandria. In his apologetical treatise, Contra Celsum, Origen argues against the ideas set forth by Celsus and quotes from Celsus' The True Doctrine at length. Through this treatise, Celsus has come to repre...

Throughout its first three centuries, the growing Christian religion was subjected not only to official persecution but to the attacks of pagan intellectuals, who looked upon the new sect as a band of fanatics bent on worldwide domination even as they professed to despise the things of this world. Prominent among these pagan critics was Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 232-ca. 305 C.E.), scholar, philosopher, and student of religions. His book Against the Christians (Kata Christianon), was condemned ...

iOS 7 Development Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach is your code reference and guide to developing solutions on the iPad, iPhone, and other iOS 7 SDK devices and platforms. This book provides in-depth code samples and discussions for scenarios that developers face every day. You'll find numerous examples of real-world cases that will enable you to build fully functional applications quickly and efficiently.The recipes included in this book are wide in s...

A profound exploration of the Bible's most controversial book—from the bestselling author of Beyond Belief and The Gnostic GospelsThe strangest book of the New Testament, filled with visions of the Rapture, the whore of Babylon, and apocalyptic writing of the end of times, the Book of Revelation has fascinated readers for more than two thousand years, but where did it come from? And what are the meanings of its surreal images of dragons, monsters,...

The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs. Some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God but two or twelve or thirty. Some believed that the world had not been created by God but by a lesser, ignorant deity. Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human but not divine, while others said he was divine but not human. In Lost Christianities, Bart D. Ehrman offers a fascinating look at these early forms of Christianity and shows how they came to be suppressed,...

Geza Vermes, translator and editor of The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls and worldwide expert on the life and times of Jesus, tells the enthralling story of early Christianity and the origins of a religion.The creation of the Christian Church is one of the most important stories in the development of the world's history, but also one of the most enigmatic and little understood, shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. With a forensic, brilliant re-examination of all the key su...

This anthology presents a broad range of primary sources and expert commentary that contextualize the historical Jesus in his world.This landmark volume places the gospel narratives in their full literary, social, and archaeological context. More than twenty-five internationally recognized experts offer new translations and descriptions of texts that shed new light on the Jesus of history, including pagan prayers and private inscriptions, miracle tales and martyrdom...

L. Michael White, one of the world's foremost scholars on the origins of Christianity, provides the complete, astonishing story of how Christianity grew from the personal vision of a humble Jewish peasant living in a remote province of the Roman Empire into the largest organized religion in the world.Rather than reading the New Testament straight through in its traditional, or "canonical" order, From Jesus to Christianity takes a historical approach. Looking at the individ...

Written by a preeminent religious historian, this book provides an introduction to early Christian thought. Focusing on major figures such as St. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as a host of less well known thinkers, Robert Wilken chronicles the emergence of a specifically Christian intellectual tradition.In chapters on topics including early Christian worship, Christian poetry and the spiritual life, the Trinity, Christ, the Bible, and icons, Wilken shows that the energ...

This book aims at combating the Hostility Theory which claims that the Christians in the pagan Roman Empire had no images and rejected them as idolatrous. Did the early Christians, during the first three centuries, 33–313, have images in their churches or places of worship and homes? If they did not, was that because they thought that all images were idols or close to being idols? Did they think that making and having images of Old Testament people and events as well as of Jesus, the apost...

This volume addresses the most important issues related to the study of New Testament writings. Two respected senior scholars have brought together a team of distinguished specialists to introduce the Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman backgrounds necessary for understanding the New Testament and the early church. Contributors include renowned scholars such as Lynn H. Cohick, David A. deSilva, James D. G. Dunn, and Ben Witherington III. The book includes seventy-five photographs, fifteen maps,...