Offering a brief introduction to Gnosticism, this title addresses the nettling questions of origins and definition. It situates the advent of Gnosticism within the Greco-Roman religious world and critically appraises the sources. It features illustrations, maps, timeline, and bibliography. It is useful for students and scholars alike.
Provides us with views of esoteric history and shows the remarkable ways in which the spiritual world guided and nurtured the spiritual evolution in preparation for the Christ's appearance on Earth.
Presents a historical survey of religious persecution encompassing three millennia and a great diversity of cultures world-wide. Defining religious persecution as "repressive actions initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds", this work begins with ancient Egypt, followed by the biblical history of Israel.
In ten brilliant essays, Jan Assmann explores the connections between religion, culture, and memory. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's idea that memory, like language, is a social phenomenon as well as an individual one, he argues that memory has a cultural dimension too. He develops a persuasive view of the life of the past in such surface ......
"Reveals rivalry and confrontation, but also fascination for the exotic as she points out clichTs and distortions that have shaped western views of Islam and its founder."--Book News, Inc.Generations of Western writers --from the Crusades to the present.
Outside the New Testament, our earliest complete witness to Christian apologetic against the Jews remains the ""Dialogue with Trypho"", written by Justin Martyr (circa 165), a convert to Christianity from traditional Greek religion. The ""Dialogue"" purports to be a two-day dialogue that took place in Asia Minor between Justin and Trypho, a ......
During the years between the Council of Nicaea (325) and the Council of Constantinople (381), imperial opposition to Nicene theology sent several of its supporters into exile. One of these supporters was Hilary, the Bishop of Poitiers. Begun during its author's exile (356-360), Hilary's De Trinitate provides a comprehensive discussion of the ......
An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness
Chronicles the grim spectrum of religious persecution from ancient times, including such historic massacres as the Crusades, the Islamic jihads, the Catholic wars against heretics, the Inquisition, witch hunts, the Reformation, and such atrocities as the Holocaust, and the barbaric cruelty of the theocracy in Iran.
This volume provides an overview of the shape and history of major black religious bodies: Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal. The authors introduce the denominations and their demographics before relating their historical development--from the 18th century to the end of the Civil Rights Movement--into the groups readers know today.