Despite her status as one of history's most important women, the story of Galla Placidia's life has been largely forgotten. Though the Roman empress witnessed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and lived a life of almost constant suffering, her actions helped postpone the fall of Rome and had massive, widespread impact on the empire that can still be felt today. She watched the barbarian king Alaric and his horde of Visigoth warriors sack Rome, slaughter many of th...

Kenneth Atkinson tells the exciting story of the nine decades of the Hasmonean rule of Judea (152 - 63 BCE) by going beyond the accounts of the Hasmoneans in Josephus in order to bring together new evidence to reconstruct how the Hasmonean family transformed their kingdom into a state that lasted until the arrival of the Romans.Atkinson reconstructs the relationships between the Hasmonean state and the rulers of the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic Empires, the Itureans, the Nabateans, t...

There are two overlapping themes which serve as the focus of Cultural Translation and Receptions of Paul in the First Four Centuries : (a) “reception” of the apostle Paul in subsequent Christian traditions, and (b) the hypothesis that while Paul himself continued to think as a Jew, he was subsequently re-interpreted by non-Jews in non-Jewish and anti-Jewish ways: the so-called “Paul within Judaism” school.The distinctive focus of this volume is on the dynam...

Misusing Scripture offers a thorough and critical evaluation of American evangelical scholarship on the Bible. This strand of scholarship exerts enormous influence on the religious beliefs and practices, and even cultural and political perspectives, of millions of evangelical Christians in the United States and worldwide. The book brings together a diverse array of authors with expertise on the Bible, religion, history, and archaeology to critique the nature and growth of "faith-b...

Receptions of Paul during the First Two Centuries: Exploration of the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity examines the historical context of Paul and the way Paul's Jewish heritage was received. Contributors take into consideration the aftermath of the Jewish War and its impact on the development of the Jesus movement and early Christian-Jewish relations in the following period. The chapters come to the conclusion that after the Jewish War, the reception of the authentic Paul was transform...

Israel and the Nations: Paul's Gospel in the Context of Jewish Expectation provides various perspectives of leading contemporary scholars concerning Paul’s message, particularly his expressed expectation of the end-time redemption of Israel and its relation to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations, in the context of Jewish eschatological expectation. The contributors engage the increasingly contentious enigmas relating to Paul’s Jewishness: had his perception of living in a new era in Chris...

In Two Sisters on the Corner Kenneth Atkinson will show you Gods love in any situation or environment. The idea of your surroundings are what shape and create your life isnt in Gods plan. And Two Sisters on the Corner will give us a great example of how Gods redemption plan prevails in any situation or lifestyle.

"Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early Christian literature," writes Bart Ehrman, "is the degree to which it was forged." The Homilies and Recognitions of Clement; Paul's letters to and from Seneca; Gospels by Peter, Thomas, and Philip; Jesus' correspondence with Abgar, letters by Peter and Paul in the New Testament--all forgeries. To cite just a few examples. Forgery and Counterforgery is the first comprehensive study of early Christian pseudepigrapha ever produced in English...

The authoritative new account of the Bible’s origins, illuminating the 1,600-year tradition that shaped the Christian and Jewish holy books as millions know them today.The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Ch...

One of the most widely praised studies of Jewish apocalyptic literature ever written, The Apocalyptic Imagination by John J. Collins has served for over thirty years as a helpful, relevant, comprehensive survey of the apocalyptic literary genre.After an initial overview of things apocalyptic, Collins proceeds to deal with individual apocalyptic texts — the early Enoch literature, the book of Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and others — concluding with an examination of apocal...

“Heather Gudenkauf is one of my favorite new authors.” —Lisa ScottolineIn this riveting prequel to New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf’s novel Little Mercies, even the smallest lies can have far-reaching consequences.When a woman’s body is discovered in a local park—with her bewildered four-year-old son sitting beside her—veteran social worker Ellen Moore is called in to assist in the police investigation. Positioned beneat...

A fresh scholarly reading of grace in Paul's theologyIn this book esteemed Pauline scholar John Barclay presents a strikingly fresh reading of grace in Paul's theology, studying it in view of ancient notions of "gift" and shining new light on Paul's relationship to Second Temple Judaism.Paul and the Gift centers on divine gift-giving, which for Paul, Barclay says, is focused and fulfilled in the gift of Christ. He offers a new appraisal of Paul's theology of...