Early Religions

If you’re interested in learning about world religions, this book is the place to start. Packed with informative fact sheets and answers to common questions, this beginner’s guide fills you in on the most important aspects of each religion. You’ll learn about fascinating histories, rituals, and festivals as you grow to better understand the belief systems that offer meaning and purpose to billions of people around the globe.

Jesus’ preaching was first and foremost about simple living, pacifism, and vegetarianism; he never intended to create a new religion separate from Judaism. Moreover, Jesus’ radical Jewish ethics, rather than a new theology, distinguished him and his followers from other Jews. It was the earliest followers of Jesus, the Jewish Christians, who understood Jesus better than any of the gentile Christian groups, which are the spiritual ancestors of modern Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches.

Based on Pope Benedict XVI's weekly teaching on the relationship between Christ and the Church, this book tells the drama of Jesus' first disciples—his Apostles and their associates—and how they spread Jesus' message throughout the ancient world. Far from distorting the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, insists Pope Benedict, the early disciples remained faithful to it, even at the cost of their lives.

This book examines the origins of the evil creator idea chiefly in light of early Christian biblical interpretations. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, the focus is on the interpretations of Exodus and John. Firstly, ancient Egyptian assimilation of the Jewish god to the evil deity Seth-Typhon is studied to understand its reapplication by Phibionite and Sethian Christians to the Judeo-catholic creator. Secondly, the Christian reception of John 8:44 (understood to refer to the devil's father) is shown to implicate the Judeo-catholic creator in murdering Christ.

The talks in this volume are not verbatim transcriptions. In the early years of Gurdjieff's exposition of the fourth way teaching, he rarely allowed notes to be taken during his talks. The majority of his early talks were written down after the fact by pupils who were present, either individually or collectively, and should be taken as recollections of what people believed Gurdjieff to have said.

This volume brings together the oldest surviving sacred narratives in human history—restored, translated, and presented within a single critical edition. Drawn from the literary and theological traditions of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Egypt, and Ugarit, these texts preserve the foundational mythic structures from which later religious systems emerged. Long before covenantal scripture, prophetic law, or canonical theology, these writings articulated the earliest cosmologies, divine hierarchies, and narratives of creation, order, catastrophe, and renewal. Most of the texts included here were ...

In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods locates the origin of gods within the human brain, arguing that religious belief is a by-product of evolution. Based on an idea originally proposed by Charles Darwin, Torrey marshals evidence that the emergence of gods was an incidental consequence of several evolutionary factors.

From the early church fathers, three foundational texts of faith and practice endure: the Didache, the Didascalia Apostolorum, and the Apostolic Tradition. Written to guide believers in worship, morality, and community life, these manuals reveal how the early Church understood the sacraments, prayer, charity, episcopal authority, and more. In these pages, Dear Reader, you will encounter the living heartbeat of apostolic Christianity—simple, disciplined, and aflame with reverence.

Every generation has an uncanny tendency to view themselves as more enlightened than those that have gone before. The Church certainly has made mistakes all through history - and yet, no insights which we possess would be possible without the efforts, and even some of the mistakes, of our ancestors. The first volume of 2,000 Years of Christ's Power covers the period from the 1st Century AD to the start of the Middle Ages.

For half of the 20th century, Huston Smith covered the world seeking answers to the supreme questions in life: Why are we here? What do we really want? What does it all mean? From humble village temples to glinting mosques and towering cathedrals, Smith has uncovered the spiritual treasures...

In 1812, eight American missionaries, under the direction of the recently formed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sailed from the United States to South Asia. The plans that motivated their voyage were ano less grand than taking part in the Protestant conversion of the entire world. Over the next several decades, these men and women were joined by hundreds more American missionaries at stations all over the globe.

Written by a preeminent religious historian, this book provides an introduction to early Christian thought. Focusing on major figures such as St. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as s host of less well known thinkers, Robert Wilken chronicles the emergence of a specifically Christian intellectual tradition.

This classic text gives a broad overview of the early Christian church, how it was formed, and how it dealt with the Roman empire, which was at first hostile to Christianity, and then under Constantine the Great how it came to embrace the new faith. The author, George Hodges, also examines the many heresies that beset the church from within, and the various figures that would defend the correct definition of the faith.

FAIRACRES PUBLICATIONS 216 The scholarly investigations and translations of Prof. Sebastian Brock have been largely responsible for bringing Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac the Syrian, to public attention. Isaac was a seventh-century Syriac Christian bishop and monastic author from Beth Qatraye in the region of Qatar. He is best known for his writings on Christian asceticism. This selection of Isaac’s prayers, taken from the three collections of his Discourses, is elegantly translated by Dr Brock into accessible English, bringing the thought and prayer of one of the great ...

Ancient Faith has produced a fresh update and redesign of a book cherished by a generation of seekers. Written in an accessible manner for the average lay person, Orthodox Worship offers insights into the Orthodox liturgy. Early Christians preserved a continuity of worship from the Old Covenant to the New, employing elements from the Jewish Temple liturgy, the synagogue liturgy, and the rituals of the Jewish home.

What was the early Church like? Contrary to popular belief, Rod Bennett shows there is a reliable way to know. Four ancient Christian writers - four witnesses to early Christianity - left us an extensive body of documentation on this vital subject, and this book brings their fascinating testimony to life for modern believers. With all the power and drama of a gripping novel, this book is a journey of discovery of ancient and beautiful truths through the lives of four great saints of the early Church Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons.

The classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this audiobook attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them? This...

Mary is the flower of femininity to some, a woman of power to others. She has been seen as a paragon of obedience as well as an instrument of liberation. Some have piled her status so high that it rivals that of her Son. Other do their best to ignore her. Behind all of those images is a girl who grew up to be the mother of Christ.

There is a reason Japan’s oldest book still whispers through its culture today. The Kojiki is not merely a collection of myths—it is the birthplace of a nation’s identity. It tells how the islands were formed, how the gods shaped the world, and how divine authority descended to rule on earth. These stories have endured for over a thousand years, influencing everything from ritual and tradition to art and national consciousness. Yet for most modern readers, the Kojiki feels distant—dense, unfamiliar, and difficult to enter. This book changes that. You will step into a vivid world ...

India has “philosophy” in the Western sense of the term, and it began early. This book deals with the roots of that philosophical thought. Included here are plain English translations (with notes) of selections of the Rig Veda, Atharva Veda, and especially the classic Upanishads. Also included are five essays to help understand this philosophical reflections. These essays are on the sources of Indian philosophy, knowledge, metaphysics, and ethics, with a specialized essay on “unknowing” in the Isha Upanishad.