World Religions

Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God and their way of living in the world. Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, explores his symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasizes how his actions were just as important as his words.

This Encyclopedia brings together the vast array of historical research into the reality of the man, the teachings, the acts and the events ascribed to him that have served as the foundational story of one of the world's central religions.

This sweeping and unconventional investigation looks at Jesus across 140 years of social, cultural, and intellectual history. Beyond the European periphery, this global study follows Jesus across - and sometimes between - religious boundaries, from Greenland to Kongo to China. Amidst this diversity, Jesus and the Making of the Modern Mind, 1380-1520 offers readers sympathetic and immersive insight into the religious realities of its subjects.

Includes 2 versions of the English Bible: 12 complete Bibles, 5 New Testament works, 2 Gospel works and Tyndale's translations, with texts from between years 990 and 1970. For scholars of English literature, particular attention has been given to the Renaissance period. For biblical and theological scholars, texts from the Protestant, Roman Catholic and non-conformist traditions are represented.

With 38 editors and nearly 4,000 authors working in over 55 countries, EBR is an international enterprise that covers the origins and development of the Bible and the history of biblical interpretation and reception, not only in Christianity and Judaism, but also in Islam and other non-Western religious traditions and movements.

A Dictionary of the Bible is the most acclaimed, accessible and up-to-date dictionary of its kind. Containing over 2,000 authoritative entries it provides clear and concise information about all of the important places, people, themes and doctrines of the Bible. This dictionary features a detailed bibliography, biographies of Bible scholars, a conversion table of measures, weights and values, a chronology of important dates in Biblical history and historical maps.

The third of IVP's critically acclaimed series of dictionaries of the New Testament provides focused study on the often-neglected portions of the New Testament: Acts, Hebrews, the General Epistles and Revelation. Furthermore, its scope goes beyond the life of the New Testament church to include the work of the apostolic fathers and early Christianity up through the middle of the 2nd century.

Faithfully pointing the reader back to the original Greek, this masterful new translation from the renowned scholar and acclaimed translator Sarah Ruden is the first to reconsider the Gospels as books to be read and understood on their own terms: grounded in contemporary languages, literatures and cultures, full of their own particular drama, humor and reasoning, and free from later superimposed ideologies.

In this short book, Alicia D. Myers takes readers on a journey through the Gospels and
Acts, introducing them to the world of Jesus of Nazareth and of the believers who composed and shared stories inspired by him. Myers provides overviews of context and major passages in each canonical work, and also introduces readers to the Apocryphal Gospels and Acts to demonstrate the larger
phenomenon of early Christian writing.

This volume collects the best articles on the Synoptic gospels from the first 50 issues of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. The range of the volume reflects the breadth of the journal itself. Here the reader will find ground-breaking studies that introduce new critical questions and move into fresh areas of enquiry.

In this concise, engaging book, noted New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson takes readers on a journey back to the time of the early Roman Empire, when the New Testament was written in ordinary Greek (koine) by the first Christians. The author explains how the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and Revelation evolved into the canon of sacred writings for the Christian religion, and how they reflect a reinterpretation of the symbolic world and societal forces of first-century Greco-Roman and Jewish life.

This new edition conveniently provides the text of all three versions of the Syriac Gospels in one place for the first time. Drawn from the best sources, they are carefully aligned so that their inter-relationship can immediately be seen and studied.

The Patrologia Latina Database is an electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina, published between 1844 and 1855, and the four volumes of indexes published between 1862 and 1865. It comprises works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216, and includes all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes.

Electronic version of Jacques-Paul Migne's massive Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, published in Paris between 1857 and 1866, contains more than 160 volumes of Greek material relevant to the study of the history of the Christian Church, from its beginnings through the Council of Florence in 1439.

This handbook gives an overall view of the reception, transmission and interpretation of the Bible in the life and thought of the Church during the first five centuries of Christianity, the so-called patristic era. Apart from a general introduction to the major topics in this field, it contains essays by leading patristic scholars on the most important Church Fathers, supplemented by bibliographies of editions and studies on patristic exegesis from 1945 until 1995.

The first edition of this reference work, called the Catholic Encyclopedia, was published around the turn of the 20th century, with the last revised edition appearing in 1967. This new edition includes the best of the previous entries --many completely revised and updated-- as well as new entries covering the latest topics of interest.

This 2009 Supplement to the award-winning New Catholic Encyclopedia is designed to complement previous releases and focuses on two themes: the Church and Science, and the Church in the United States. Written in partnership with the Catholic University of America, it is intended to share the Catholic perspective with a diverse audience.

Covering the life of Christ, the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and everything in between, A Concise History of the Catholic Church has been one of the bestselling religious histories of the past two decades and a mainstay for everyone looking for a definitive, accessible history of Catholicism. With a clarity that will appeal to any reader, Bokenkotter divides his study into five parts that correspond to the major historical and epochal developments.

Gerald O'Collins covers the history of the Catholic Church, and considers some of the key issues facing Catholicism today, such as the revelations about clerical child abuse, the impact of the growth of Islam, and the destruction of ancient Christian communities in the Middle East. He also shows how Catholics are being increasingly challenged by an opposition between their traditional Christian values, and rights which are endorsed by the secular world.

An outstanding reference work providing the first English language multi-volume account of the key historical, liturgical, doctrinal features of Eastern Orthodoxy, with a combination of essay-length and short entries written by a team of leading religious experts and edited by one of the leading scholars in the field.

To many in the West, Orthodoxy remains shrouded in mystery, an exotic and foreign religion that survived in the East following the Great Schism of 1054 that split the Christian world into two camps - Catholic and Orthodox. However, as the second largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity is anything but foreign to the nearly 300 million worshippers who practice it today. For them, Orthodoxy is a living, breathing reality.

Since its first publication fifty years ago, Timothy Ware's book has become established throughout the English-speaking world as the standard introduction to the Orthodox Church. In this revised and updated edition the author explains the Orthodox views on such widely ranging matters as Ecumenical Councils, Sacraments, Free Will, Purgatory, the Papacy and the relation between different Orthodox Churches.

Containing over 700 articles, this dictionary allows the reader to explore Eastern Christian civilization with its cultural and religious riches. The articles are written by a team of 50 international contributors, including leading historians, theologians, linguists, philosophers, patrologists, musicians and scholars of liturgy and iconography.

This is the definitive reference to the history and beliefs that continue to exert a profound influence on Western thought. Featuring entries by an international team of specialists and scholars, the Encyclopedia traces the course of Protestantism from its beginnings prior to 1517, to the vital and diverse international scene of the present day.

Mark A. Noll presents a fresh and accessible history of Protestantism from the era of Martin Luther to the present day. Beginning with the founding of Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Anabaptist churches in the 16th-century Reformation, he also considers the rise of other important Christian movements like Methodism and Pentecostalism. Focusing on worldwide developments, he considers the recent expansions in Africa, China, India and Latin America.

Originally published more than forty years ago, this important collection brings together the works and writings of the revolutionary minds behind the Protestant Reformation, and it remains a major resource for teachers, students and history buffs alike. Over the decades, however, modern scholarship has shed new light on this tumultuous period, raising probing questions and providing new connections that have radically changed our understanding and outlook.

Historical Dictionary of the Reformed Churches, Third Edition, contains a chronology, an introduction and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,000 cross-referenced entries on leaders, personalities, events, facts, movements and beliefs of the Reformed Churches. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this topic.