Sacred Borders
Sacred Borders

Author: David Holland

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-02-02

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0199842523

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"Why," an exasperated Jonathan Edwards asked, "can't we be contented with. . . the canon of Scripture?" Edwards posed this query to the religious enthusiasts of his own generation, but he could have just as appropriately put it to people across the full expanse of early American history. In the minds of her critics, Anne Hutchinson's heresies threatened to produce "a new Bible." Ethan Allen insisted that a revelation which spoke to every circumstance of life would require "a Bible of monstrous size." When the African-American prophetess Rebecca Jackson embarked on a spiritual journey toward Shakerism, she dreamt of a home in which she could find multiple books of scripture. Orestes Brownson explained to his skeptical contemporaries that the idea drawing him to Catholicism was the prospect of an "ever enlarging volume" of inspiration. Early Americans of every color and creed repeatedly confronted the boundaries of scripture. Some fought to open the canon. Some worked to keep it closed. Sacred Borders vividly depicts the boundaries of the biblical canon as a battleground on which a diverse group of early Americans contended over their differing versions of divine truth. Puritans, deists, evangelicals, liberals, Shakers, Mormons, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, and Transcendentalists defended widely varying positions on how to define the borders of scripture. Carefully exploring the history of these scriptural boundary wars, Holland offers an important new take on the religious cultures of early America. He presents a colorful cast of characters-including the likes of Franklin and Emerson along with more obscure figures--who confronted the intellectual tensions surrounding the canon question, such as that between cultural authority and democratic freedom, and between timeless truth and historical change. To reconstruct these sacred borders is to gain a new understanding of the mental world in which early Americans went about their lives and created their nation.

From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē
From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē

Author: Laura Nasrallah

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 0674053222

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This volume brings together international scholars of religion, archaeologists, and scholars of art and architectural history to investigate social, political, and religious life in Roman and early Christian Thessalonikē, an important metropolis in the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian periods and beyond. This volume is the first broadly interdisciplinary investigation of Roman and early Christian Thessalonikē in English and offers new data and new interpretations by scholars of ancient religion and archaeology. The book covers materials usually treated by a broad range of disciplines: New Testament and early Christian literature, art historical materials, urban planning in antiquity, material culture and daily life, and archaeological artifacts from the Roman to the late antique period.

The SBL Handbook of Style
The SBL Handbook of Style

Author: Society of Biblical Literature

Publisher: SBL Press

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 158983965X

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The definitive source for how to write and publish in the field of biblical studies The long-awaited second edition of the essential style manual for writing and publishing in biblical studies and related fields includes key style changes, updated and expanded abbreviation and spelling-sample lists, a list of archaeological site names, material on qur’anic sources, detailed information on citing electronic sources, and expanded guidelines for the transliteration and transcription of seventeen ancient languages. Features: Expanded lists of abbreviations for use in ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and early Christian studies Information for transliterating seventeen ancient languages Exhaustive examples for citing print and electronic sources

Capitalism as Religion? A Study of Paul Tillich's Interpretation of Modernity
Capitalism as Religion? A Study of Paul Tillich's Interpretation of Modernity

Author: Francis Ching-Wah Yip

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0674021479

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The relationship between religion and modern culture remains a controversial issue within Christian theology. Using the concept of “cultural modernity,” Francis Ching-Wah Yip reconstructs Paul Tillich’s interpretation of modernity and shows that Tillich’s notion of theonomy served to underscore the problems of modernity and to develop a response.

The Magdalene in the Reformation
The Magdalene in the Reformation

Author: Margaret Arnold

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2018-10-08

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0674989449

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Prostitute, apostle, evangelist—the conversion of Mary Magdalene from sinner to saint is one of the Christian tradition’s most compelling stories, and one of the most controversial. The identity of the woman—or, more likely, women—represented by this iconic figure has been the subject of dispute since the Church’s earliest days. Much less appreciated is the critical role the Magdalene played in remaking modern Christianity. In a vivid recreation of the Catholic and Protestant cultures that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, The Magdalene in the Reformation reveals that the Magdalene inspired a devoted following among those eager to find new ways to relate to God and the Church. In popular piety, liturgy, and preaching, as well as in education and the arts, the Magdalene tradition provided both Catholics and Protestants with the flexibility to address the growing need for reform. Margaret Arnold shows that as the medieval separation between clergy and laity weakened, the Magdalene represented a new kind of discipleship for men and women and offered alternative paths for practicing a Christian life. Where many have seen two separate religious groups with conflicting preoccupations, Arnold sees Christians who were often engaged in a common dialogue about vocation, framed by the life of Mary Magdalene. Arnold disproves the idea that Protestants removed saints from their theology and teaching under reform. Rather, devotion to Mary Magdalene laid the foundation within Protestantism for the public ministry of women.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Author: François Bovon

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13:

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"The scope of this collection, as it examines the transformation of the ancient world into Byzantine Christianity, demonstrates that the early Christian apocryphal literature is a vital source for historians of Christianity, for scholars of patristics and of the New Testament, and for those inquiring into such timeless issues as the structure of political authority, the role of women, religious experience, and the organization of social responsibility."--BOOK JACKET.

In Face of Mystery
In Face of Mystery

Author: Gordon D. Kaufman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9780674445765

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The craze in positive thinking that swept American culture thanks to celebrity endorsements from such popular figures as Oprah Winfrey comes from the page to the screen with The Secret. Derived from a tradition said to date back hundreds of years, the philosophy of The Secret is believed to help people reach their goals and lead happier lives, with a technique for thinking and doing that's been employed by some of history's most accomplished people. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

African American Religious Studies
African American Religious Studies

Author: Gayraud S. Wilmore

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9780822309260

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Gayraud S. Wilmore is Professor of Church History and Afro-American Religious Studies at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He has published numerous articles and booksl including Black Witness to the Apostolic Faith, David Shannon, co-ed.; Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope; and Last Things First. Professor Wilmore is the recpicient of the Bruce Klunder Award of the Presbyterian Interracial Councils (1969), the Sward of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Harlem (1971), and various honorary degrees.

The Market as God
The Market as God

Author: Harvey Cox

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2016-09-12

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0674973151

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“Essential and thoroughly engaging...Harvey Cox’s ingenious sense of how market theology has developed a scripture, a liturgy, and sophisticated apologetics allow us to see old challenges in a remarkably fresh light.” —E. J. Dionne, Jr. We have fallen in thrall to the theology of supply and demand. According to its acolytes, the Market is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It can raise nations and ruin households, and comes complete with its own doctrines, prophets, and evangelical zeal. Harvey Cox brings this theology out of the shadows, demonstrating that the way the world economy operates is shaped by a global system of values that can be best understood as a religion. Drawing on biblical sources and the work of social scientists, Cox points to many parallels between the development of Christianity and the Market economy. It is only by understanding how the Market reached its “divine” status that can we hope to restore it to its proper place as servant of humanity. “Cox argues that...we are now imprisoned by the dictates of a false god that we ourselves have created. We need to break free and reclaim our humanity.” —Forbes “Cox clears the space for a new generation of Christians to begin to develop a more public and egalitarian politics.” —The Nation

Testing Prayer
Testing Prayer

Author: Candy Gunther Brown

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-05-14

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0674064860

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In Candy Gunther Brown's view, science cannot prove prayer's healing power, but what scientists can and should do is study prayer's measurable effects on health. If prayer benefits, even indirectly, then more careful attention to prayer practices could impact global health, particuarly in places without access to conventional medicine.