Making Sense in (and Of) the First Christian Century PDF Download

Author: Francis Gerald Downing
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1841271241
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The first Christian century must be approached with careful attention to its cultural and linguistic heterogeneity. It should not simply be assumed that this past 'is a different place, they do things differently there'. Downing treats the ways in which early Christians tried to 'make things make sense' within their cultures, noting both the similarities and differences between their ways and contemporary ones and stressing the variety of contexts and influences on first-century communication. Downing brings his renowned expertise to bear in illuminating the cultural features of early Christian society with a range of fascinating and telling examples.

Author: Francis Gerald Downing
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567376214
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The first Christian century must be approached with careful attention to its cultural and linguistic heterogeneity. It should not simply be assumed that this past 'is a different place, they do things differently there'. Downing treats the ways in which early Christians tried to 'make things make sense' within their cultures, noting both the similarities and differences between their ways and contemporary ones and stressing the variety of contexts and influences on first-century communication. Downing brings his renowned expertise to bear in illuminating the cultural features of early Christian society with a range of fascinating and telling examples.

Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506420745
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd tackles the BibleÕs biggest dilemma. Ê The Old Testament God of wrath and violence versus the New Testament God of love and peaceÑitÕs a difference that has troubled Christians since the first century. Now, with the sensitivity of a pastor and the intellect of a theologian, Gregory A. Boyd proposes the Òcruciform hermeneutic,Ó a way to read the Old Testament portraits of God through the lens of JesusÕ crucifixion. Ê In Cross Vision, Boyd follows up on his epic and groundbreaking study, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus reframes the troubling violence of the Old Testament, how all of Scripture reveals GodÕs self-sacrificial love, and, most importantly, how we can follow JesusÕ example of peace.

Author: Diana Butler Bass
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062098284
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.

Author: F. Gerald Downing
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004255818
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Articulate first century Mediterranean society, Jewish and Christian included, expressly favoured harmonious order in society, in individuals, in communication, and in thought. Its common basis was the patriarchal family, the rule of law, rational self-control, and rational thought. Yet there was also resistance to oppressive and unjust order in all spheres; and while law could be held educative, yet there were substantial first century critiques of law, not just Paul’s, and awareness that judicial procedures could be chaotic and biassed. Strands of such dissidence appear in Jesus and in Paul, with significant relevance for any understanding of the early Christian movement(s) and contemporary Judaism(s) in Graeco-Roman context, but also with important implications for any practical reflections and application.

Author: Francis Gerald Downing
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567349802
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Although its religious heritage was that of a variegated Judaism, the tiny early Christian movement was nevertheless much more complexly and richly linked with the Graeco-Roman world in which it came to birth than is usually allowed for. In particular, 'ordinary' people were capable of a sophisticated use of words that can be detected also in the New Testament writings. But the use of words in Graeco-Roman times was often very different from what we suppose, and this collection of studies attempts to identify some of the anachronisms that still pervade even the best of modern scholarship.

Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525954155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Author: Garrett Green
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9781540961921
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The imagination is where the Creator chooses to meet his creatures, says renowned theologian Garrett Green. The Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit set the imagination free for genuine and creative knowledge of God, the world, others, and the self. Green explains that theology is best understood as human imagination faithfully conformed to the Bible as the paradigmatic key to the Christian gospel. He unpacks the implications of the imagination for a variety of theological issues, such as interpretation, aesthetics, eschatology, and the relationship between church and culture.

Author: Kristin Swenson
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061728292
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
“Kristin Swenson offers a confident, well-paced, well-informed, and accessible guide to Bible basics and biblical literacy.” — Walter Brueggemann, author of An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible Bible Babel, from author and religious studies professor Kristin Swenson, is a lively, humorous, and very readable introduction to the Bible—what’s in it, where it comes from, and how it is used in our culture today. If you’ve ever wondered about the origin of the Christian fish symbol; the history of the Good Book; how the Bible weighs in on contemporary political issues; or even the biblical source of pop-culture references in WALL-E or Battlestar Galatica, then this is the book for you. Readers of A. J. Jacobs’s Year of Living Biblically and David Plotz’s Good Book will enjoy Bible Babel, a perfect primer for anyone interested in the Bible—secular and believing alike.

Author: Sam Gould
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498246184
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Being Christian in the Twenty-first Century was written to help struggling and doubting Christians develop an understanding of Christianity that avoids literalism, creeds, and doctrines--all factors which seem to be driving people away from the church. The book is well suited for individual or group study, complete with a study guide and sample lesson plans. It responds to the call for theological reform advocated by many contemporary clergy and religious leaders. Being Christian does not restate orthodox positions or drift into fundamentalism or sentimentalism. Instead it draws from a broad base of historical, theological, archaeological, and sociological scholarship to place Scripture within its original context, yet present it within a perspective suitable for the twenty-first-century mind. Being Christian is scholarly, yet readable, interesting, and often provocative. One reviewer put it this way, "the book reminds me of a baseball pitcher with a long wind up and a hard fastball getting better in every inning." By building upon progressive thought available today and throughout history, it offers an important resource for Christians and would-be Christians seeking a more fulfilling and thoughtful faith journey.