Being Jewish Today gives an account of both the journey of a particular British Jew and the journey of millions of women and men through today’s perplexing and difficult world. With honesty and integrity Rabbi Tony Bayfield breaks new ground in exploring the meaning of Jewish identity and its relationship to Jewish tradition and belief. He does so from the perspective of a person fully integrated into the modern Western world. 

On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the renowned Marcus J. Borg shares his "convictions" about Christianity and America, contending that they are both at their best when they focus on hope and transformation, and shares his thoughts on how American Christians can return to what matters most. Meditating on what makes us feel at home, he calls all American Christians to reject divisiveness and exclusivity and create communities that celebrate joy, possibility, and renewal.

Pastors David Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy, along with an all-star cast of Bible scholars and top church teachers, provide a primer to a church movement that encourages every Christian to "live the questions" instead of "forcing the answers".

Jewish mysticism is a powerful study within the Jewish tradition. Rooted in antiquity and veiled in mystery until quite recently, Jewish mysticism has burst into the modern world in guises both illuminating and bewildering. Throughout Jewish history, flashes of the light held within sacred texts have sparked the sages' inquisitive minds throughout the diaspora. Rising out of the ashes of the temples once standing in Jerusalem, the texts and theologies associated with Jewish mysticism have comforted and ecstatically raise those who have used their knowledge.

Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God and their way of living in the world. Such followers of Jesus are now more numerous and make up a greater proportion of the world's population than ever before. Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and concluding that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching.

Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity's highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies.  

In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience. Students in academic settings and church adult education contexts will benefit from this one-semester survey of Christian history.

When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant, and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority, whether that of the Bible, or the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine. 

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.

Five manuscripts in one audiobook. The Jewish people have Kabbalah as their way to understand how man and God are connected and how God relates to the world. For many centuries, Kabbalists have continued to dive into the Kabbalah's teachings about who God truly is and what we owe God as humans. Learn how to follow the way of Kabbalah. 

John Shelby Spong, best-selling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly, and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a literary, interpretive retelling of the events in Jesus' life through the medium of fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the "Beloved Disciple." 

The first monotheistic religion was born in ancient Persia, more than 2000 years before any other under the leadership of Zoroaster. As a lone philosopher and wanderer, Zoroaster traveled Persia to spread his teachings facing persecution, assassination attempts, and more. Dive into both Zoroaster's life and the beliefs of the faith practice Zoroastrianism, which is still alive today. Just as in ancient times, many practitioners are forced to survive persecution and violence in order to keep their cultural heritage alive.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that their only choice is either to reconcile themselves to a fundamentalist reading of scripture (a "literal-factual" approach) or to simply reject the Bible as something that could bring meaning and value into their lives. In Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg shows how instead we can freshly appreciate all the essential elements of the Old and New Testaments - from Genesis to Revelation - in a way that can open up a new world of intelligent faith.

In the secular, sceptical, post-Christian world of the West, continuing faith in angels is both anomaly and comfort. But what exactly are angels, and why have so many in different times and contexts around the globe believed in them? What is their history and role in the great faiths and beyond their walls? Are angels something real, a manifestation of divine concern? Or part of the poetry of religion? And can they continue to illuminate a deeper truth about human existence and the cosmos? These are not new questions.

What could be more familiar than the Christmas story - and yet what could be more extraordinary? The cast of characters is strange and exotic: shepherds and magicians, an emperor and a despot, angels, and a baby who is Almighty God. The strangeness calls for an explanation, and this book provides it by examining the characters and the story in light of the biblical and historical context.