The Christian Tradition 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100-600

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

Reza Aslan · 310 pages

Though it is the fastest growing religion in the world, Islam remains shrouded by ignorance and fear. What is the essence of this ancient faith? Is it a religion of peace or war? How does Allah differ from the God of Jews and Christians? Can an Islamic state be founded on democratic values such as pluralism and human rights? A writer and scholar of comparative religions, Reza Aslan has earned inte

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

(Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum) The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet (SAW)

Safiy al-Rahman al-Mubarakfuri · 588 pages

A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

Diarmaid MacCulloch · 1,161 pages

Christianity, one of the world's great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society.Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the fir

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

Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years

Philip Jenkins · 328 pages

Jesus Wars reveals how official, orthodox teaching about Jesus was the product of political maneuvers by a handful of key characters in the fifth century. Jenkins argues that were it not for these controversies, the papacy as we know it would never have come into existence and that today's church could be teaching some-thing very different about Jesus. It is only an accident of history that one gr

The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity

Peter R.L. Brown · 204 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

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Bart D. Ehrman · 256 pages

For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand — — and mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions. Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and ac

The Early Church

Henry Chadwick · 304 pages

The New Testament and the People of God

N.T. Wright

Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses

Bruce Feiler · 488 pages

The author recounts his ten-thousand-mile journey across the Middle East in search of the roots of the Bible to discover whether it was an abstraction or a living, breathing entity.

Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth

Burton L. Mack · 336 pages

Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus

Thomas Cahill · 368 pages

A fresh look at the impact of Jesus & early Christianity on the shaping of Western civilization.

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.

Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson

Jennifer Michael Hecht · 551 pages

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 Gospel of Judas

Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin W. Meyer, Gregor Wurst, Francois Gaudard · 192 pages

For 1,600 years its message lay hidden. When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Christianity, and which few experts had even thought existed--a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history's ultimate traitor. And far from being a villa

A History of Religious Ideas 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

Mircea Eliade · 489 pages

Early Christian Doctrines

J.N.D. Kelly · 506 pages

Jews, God and History

Max I. Dimont · 472 pages

The author tells us that twenty years of reading went into the creation of Jews, God and History. Conscientious scholarship is evident in this informative record of Jewish history from its inception 4000 years ago to the present. Mr. Dimont traces the nomadic Jewish tribes from their settlement in the ""Promised Land"" to their ultimate dispersion. He describes the Jewish ""age of reason"" under t

Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths

Karen Armstrong · 476 pages

"Jerusalem has been venerated for centuries as a Holy City by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. How this came to be and what it means both to the people of Jerusalem and to millions around the world is now richly told by the author of the best-selling and widely acclaimed A History of God.". "In every major religion, a "holy place" has helped men and women define their own place, indeed their own im

The early Christians in Rome

H. D. M. Spence-Jones · 409 pages

Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity

Elaine Pagels, Karen L. King · 224 pages

The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the controversial long-lost gospelThe recently unearthed Gospel of Judas is a source of fascination for biblical scholars and lay Christians alike. Now two leading experts on the Gnostic gospels tackle the important questions posed by its discovery, including: How could any Christian imagine Judas to be Jesus' favorite? And what kind of vision of