Religious Study Bible

The Bible is the central book in Western culture, yet extraordinarily there is no proper history of it. This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world.

If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault is a masterful guide to Jesus' vision and to the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.

The MacArthur Daily Bible takes a portion of the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs for each day of the year, with daily comments that guide and inform you as you move through the Bible in a year. John MacArthur's insight maximizes the benefit of each day's reading. If a commitment to daily Bible study never worked for you before, this is the answer. With John at your side, there'll be no such thing as a tough portion of Scripture.

The Bible is the world's best-known text. Yet, it is a book that never was - its original form does not exist and likely never did. What we have is the inheritance of generation after generation of Christians who have sought to hear God speak. Available in over 3,000 languages and taking innumerable forms, each version is a revelation, evolving as a reflection of its own culture and moment.

In this highly accessible discussion, Bart Ehrman examines the most recent textual and archaeological sources for the life of Jesus, along with the history of first-century Palestine, drawing a fascinating portrait of the man and his teachings. Ehrman shows us what historians have long known about the Gospels and the man who stands behind them. Through a careful evaluation of the New Testament (and other surviving sources, including the more recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Peter), Ehrman proposes that Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet.

In The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor, acclaimed author and translator Dr. Joel M. Hoffman gives us the stories and other texts that didn’t make it into the Bible even though they offer penetrating insight into the Bible and its teachings. The Book of Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, but not their saga after they get kicked out or the lessons they have for us about good and evil.

Lost for nearly 1,700 years, newly restored and authenticated, the Gospel of Judas presents a very different view of the relationship between Jesus and Judas. Rather than paint Judas as a traitor, it portrays him as acting at Jesus' request.

The foundation of Hebrew and Jewish religion, thought, law, and society is the Torah - the parchment scroll containing the text of the Five Books of Moses that is located in every synagogue. This accessible guide explains the Torah in clear language, even to those who were not raised in the Jewish religious tradition. Christians who want to know more about the Jewish roots of Christianity need to understand the Torah, as do followers of Islamic tradition and those interested in the roots of Abrahamic faiths.

This provocative audiobook invites you to create your own spiritual path based on often-suppressed ancient principles and contemporary practices. Using the elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether) rather than traditional patriarchal hierarchies, this "holy book" is designed to connect each individual to their universal - but often denied - powers. Wild woman Danielle Dulsky takes you deep as she explores and embraces sacred feminine archetypes such as the mother goddess, the crone, and the maiden.

Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had 70 children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions.

Simon Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Jude, Simon, Judas, and Matthias - what happened to the men who answered Jesus' call to follow him? What impact did they have on the world? Where did they go and what did they do after Jesus' resurrection and ascension? In these fascinating profiles, Dr. McBirnie offers listeners a snapshot of the lives of each apostle.

For centuries, the story of Adam and Eve has resonated richly through the corridors of art, literature, and theology. But for most moderns, taking it at face value is incongruous. Author John Walton explores the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis 2-3, creating space for a faithful reading of Scripture along with full engagement with science for a new way forward in the human origins debate.

In The Genesis Enigma, respected evolutionary biologist Andrew Parker explains each parallel between Genesis and science in detail--and the closer he looks, the more amazing the parallels become. But the Genesis account has no right to be correct. The author or authors could not have known these things happened in this order, and with the highlights science has come to recognize.

The study of Bible prophecy can seem complicated or controversial, yet Christians still long to understand what God’s Word reveals about the future. Whenever authors Amir Tsarfati and Barry Stagner teach on the end times, the most popular part of their ministry is the question-and-answer session, revealing the church’s great hunger to know more about the last days. In Bible Prophecy: The Essentials, Amir and Barry pool their knowledge to answer some of their most commonly asked questions.

There is no shortage of writings about the last days - often full of speculation and sensationalism. Where can we go for information we can trust? Join Bible scholar Ron Rhodes for an in-depth look at what we know to be certain about the last days - based on key teachings directly from Jesus. You’ll learn what the Lord himself said about the Rapture, the Tribulation Period, the Second Coming, the Future Judgment, the Millennial Kingdom, and more.

Offering wonderful insights into how to use our relationship with God in practical ways that make a difference in our daily lives, this program also recounts Walsch's personal experiences as they relate to the original Conversations with God trilogy.

In his new book, When a Jew Rules the World, Richardson paints a picture of what that 1,000-year reign will be like, along the way blow-torching the notion that gentile Christians have "replaced" the Jews and Israel as the people of promise. Richardson lays out the tragic history of anti-Semitism within the church from the very beginning in what may be the most thorough repudiation of what has become known as "Replacement Theology", or, as Richardson calls it, "Supersessionism".

Most people don’t know that the Bible contains a wealth of incredible scientific, medical and prophetic facts. The implications are mind boggling.

Here is Thomas Jefferson's classic abridgment of the Bible, in which Jefferson sculpted the words and ideas of Christ into a resounding moral philosophy. On and off for 17 years (including his term in the White House), Jefferson cut and pasted the philosophy of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Scripture, into one compact statement. He omitted any references to the virgin birth, miraculous healings, demonic possession, or supernatural events of any kind. His aim was to distinguish the moral philosophy of Christ from the religion that was later created around Christ.

The Bible is the most influential book in Western history. As the foundational text of Judaism and Christianity, the Bible has been interpreted and reinterpreted over millennia, utilized to promote a seemingly endless run of theological and political positions. Adherents and detractors alike point to different passages throughout to justify wildly disparate behaviors and beliefs. Translated and retranslated, these texts lead both to unity and intense conflict.