The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels

The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason

Charles Freeman · 470 pages

How the early Christian Church bent the intellectual climate of the Mediterranean world from one of active and questioning inquiry to an encouragement of the subordination of the mind to authority and acceptance of incomprehensibility as the will of God.

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Bart D. Ehrman · 416 pages

New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became dogma in the first few centuries of the early church. The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells th

The Great Transformation

Karen Armstrong · 496 pages

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Reza Aslan · 336 pages

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee gathering followers to establish the "Kingdom of God." He was tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens

The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics

Elaine Pagels · 214 pages

Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

Robert L. Wilken · 214 pages

From Pliny the Younger (d. 113) to Julian the Apostate (d. 363): a well-written, well-organized, and generally helpful survey of what pagan critics said about Christianity. Wilken (History, Notre Dame) has no new material to offer--most anti-Christian propaganda has been lost or deliberately destroyed by the Church, and much of what survives is found in fragments quoted by Christian apologists--bu

The Bible as History

Werner Keller · 413 pages

When God Was a Woman

Merlin Stone · 265 pages

Here, archaeologically documented is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Known by many names, she reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. How did the change in women's roles come about? By documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmans, Stone details an ancient conspiracy that laid the foundation for one of culture's greatest shams--the legend of Adam and fallen Eve.

The early Christians in Rome

H. D. M. Spence-Jones · 409 pages

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future

Riane Eisler · 261 pages

"In prehistorical times, Eisler argues, women and men lived together in egalitarian communities devoted to nurturance; with the imposition of male domination, female values gave way to creeds of hierarchy, aggression, power, obedience. Eisler, a futurist, posits a new society based on the recovery of more humane values."--Library journal (6/1/85).

The Early Church

Henry Chadwick · 304 pages

Occidental Mythology

Joseph Campbell · 576 pages

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap

The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, New Updated Edition

Flavius Josephus · 854 pages

Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical

Walter Burkert · 498 pages

The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion

Rodney Stark · 506 pages

Celebrated religious and social historian Rodney Starktraces the extraordinary rise of Christianity through its most pivotal andcontroversial moments to offer fresh perspective on the history of the world's largest religion. In The Triumph of Christianity, the author of God's Battalions and The Rise of Christianity gathers and refines decades of powerful research and discovery into one concentrate

In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World

Tom Holland · 526 pages

In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on, and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelled, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In The Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland explores how this came about. Spanning Cons

The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family and the Birth of Christianity

James D. Tabor · 363 pages

Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. Biblical scholar Tabor brings us closer than ever to the historical Jesus. He sheds new light on Jesus' relationship with John the Baptizer, the role played by his brother James, and how Paul'

Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments, 2 Vols

Isaac Asimov · 1,295 pages

A fantastic read for anyone interested in organised religion and history. He takes the reader on a journey of the bible through the eyes of the authors and readers. By providing historical backgrounds to the times and the peoples for whom the bible was writtten, he helps explain why this book should NEVER be taken literally. I'm sure parts are outdated by new research by now but it is still a legi

The Historical Figure of Jesus

E.P. Sanders · 337 pages

In this influential historical study, E.P Sanders examines Jesus of Nazareth within the social, political, and religious world of first-century Judaism. Drawing on biblical scholarship, historical sources, and the latest academic research, reconstructs what can be reliably known about Jesus' life, teachings, actions, and the movement that formed around him. Rather than focusing on doctrine or late

The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the coming of the Muslims

Arthur Llewellyn Basham · 572 pages

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant

John Dominic Crossan · 507 pages

Reveals the historical Jesus by combining peasant anthropology, ancient history, and textual analysis.

When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome

Richard E. Rubenstein · 267 pages

"Three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, the Roman Empire witnessed the first major turning point in the history of Christianity. The violent debate, now known as the Arian Controversy, lasted more than sixty years, dividing the Roman Empire and forever changing the face of the Christian Church. Was Jesus of Nazareth God Himself, walking the earth in human form? Or was he a uniquely holy man

The Evolution of God

Robert Wright · 567 pages

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains