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A spellbinding history of the hidden world below the Holy City-a saga of biblical treasures, intrepid explorers, and political upheaval "A sweeping tale of archaeological exploits and their cultural and political consequences told with a historian's penchant for detail and a jour...nalist's flair for narration." -Washington Post In 1863, a French senator arrived in Jerusalem hoping to unearth relics dating to biblical times. Digging deep underground, he discovered an ancient grave that, he claimed, belonged to an Old Testament queen. News of his find ricocheted around the world, evoking awe and envy alike, and inspiring others to explore Jerusalem's storied past. In the century and a half since the Frenchman broke ground, Jerusalem has drawn a global cast of fortune seekers and missionaries, archaeologists and zealots, all of them eager to extract the biblical past from beneath the city's streets and shrines. Their efforts have had profound effects, not only on our understanding of Jerusalem's history, but on its hotly disputed present. The quest to retrieve ancient Jewish heritage has sparked bloody riots and thwarted international peace agreements. It has served as a cudgel, a way to stake a claim to the most contested city on the planet. Today, the earth below Jerusalem remains a battleground in the struggle to control the city above. Under Jerusalem takes readers into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the Holy City. It brings to life the indelible characters who have investigated this subterranean landscape. With clarity and verve, acclaimed journalist Andrew Lawler reveals how their pursuit has not only defined the conflict over modern Jerusalem, but could provide a map for two peoples and three faiths to peacefully coexist. Read more
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From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understandin...g of the religion and its early dissemination. Read more
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By Tilley, Tom
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- RRP: $37.99
- $30.39
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Tom Tilley made a career of telling other people's stories. Now he tells his own, of growing up in a Pentecostal church and what happened when he broke free ...
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The Oxford History of the Reformation is the story of one of the truly epochal events in world history, and how it helped create the world we live in today
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A bracing examination of a force that imperils American democracy. Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th 2021. But perhaps even more bewildering were the images that accompanied it: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; Jes...us saves and Don't Tread on Me; Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus' name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a jumble, Gorski and Perry saw a pattern. Authoritarian violence, libertarianism, white supremacy, and conservative Christianity have long gone together. They still do. What unites them is the ideology of white Christian nationalism. In this short primer, Gorski and Perry explain white Christian nationalism is both a deep story about America's past and a political vision for its future. Tracing its history back three centuries, they show how Biblical metaphors of blood within white Christian nationalism have animated the oppression, exclusion, and even extermination of minority groups while securing privilege for white Protestants. They also show how white Christian nationalism has come to work in tandem with its fraternal twin-white Christian individualism. Today this combination lets Americans on the right demand sacrifice from others in the name of religion and nation, while denying their own sacrifices in the names of liberty and property. Gorski and Perry show white Christian nationalism and white Christian individualism motivate the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and violent impulses on display in our current political moment. The future of American democracy, they argue, will depend on whether a broad spectrum of Americans--stretching from democratic socialists to classical liberals--can unite in a popular front to combat the threat to liberal democracy posed by white Christian nationalism. Read more
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In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rul...ers, and the religion, ingrained within culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to Europe-wide dominance. In exploring how the Christian religion became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a small sect of isolated congregations was transformed into a mass movement centrally directed from Rome, Heather shows how Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies' and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, which left the religion teetering on the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution in which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation, Heather traces Christendom's chameleon-like capacity for self-reinvention and willingness to mobilize well-directed force. Christendom's achievement was not, or not only, to define official Christianity, but - from its scholars and its lawyers, to its provincial officials and missionaries in far-flung corners of the continent - to transform it into an institution that wielded effective religious authority across nearly all of the disparate peoples of medieval Europe. This is its extraordinary story. Read more
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By Bowker, John
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- RRP: $48.00
- $37.44
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- In Stock At Supplier
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Learn everything you need to know about the central practices, important figures, and key teachings of many different religions. Each of the major faiths - including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Islam - is examined in detail through its sacred t...exts, epic imagery, key beliefs and religious artefacts. Entries also explore other faiths from Zoroastrianism - the oldest "living" religion - to the alternative beliefs of the modern era - all of which are set into the context of the political, social, and cultural climates from which they emerged. Compelling and accessible, World Religions is the perfect guide for students of religious study, or anyone interested in the ideas of ancient and present day faiths and religious philosophies. Read more
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The Devil has fascinated writers and theologians since the time of the New Testament, and inspired many dramatic and haunting works of art. Today he remains a potent image in popular culture. The Devil: A Very Short Introduction presents an introduction to the Christian Devil thr...ough the history of ideas and the lives of real people. Read more
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Eleven-year-old Grace only knows one world - the world of her mum and dad and twin brothers, and the strict religious community they belong to. But when her dad is thrown out of the church for asking questions, Grace is torn. How can she stay in the church and keep her family tog...ether? Read more
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Fear, drama, suspense... and hope.
Amid the ruins and chaos left by the Second World War, a family sets out from a small town in Russia to escape the uncertainty of living under the iron fist of Stalin. Their arduous journey takes them through Poland and then Germany, where th...ey hear first-hand accounts of the holocaust where millions of Jews and others were exterminated only a few years earlier... and then on to France and England.
A few years later, the son Simon, and his wife Rose visit Israel after discovering their Jewish roots and heritage. They arrive just in time to experience the dramatic Six Day War when the surrounding Arab nations attempt to destroy Israel.
You will be kept wondering how this family can possibly survive as they flee the only home they've ever known. This powerful story is based on the true accounts of friends and strangers that the author has woven into fascinating fiction. Read more
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