First Religion

Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read or heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.

May 1565. Suleiman the Magnificent, emperor of the Ottomans, has declared a jihad against the Knights of Saint John the Baptist. The largest armada of all time approaches the Knights' Christian stronghold on the island of Malta. The Turks know the Knights as the "The Hounds of Hell." The Knights call themselves "The Religion." In Messina, Sicily, a French countess, Carla la Penautier, seeks a passage to Malta in a quest to find the son taken from her at his birth twelve years ago. T

Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young, creator of the popular The Whole Counsel of God blog and podcast, traces the lineage of Orthodox Christianity back to the faith and witness of the apostles, which was rooted in a first-century Jewish worldview. The Religion of the Apostles presents the Orthodox Christian Church of today as a continuation of the religious life of the apostles, which in turn was a continuation of the life of the people of God since the beginning of creation.

The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.

The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers. Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world.

Read by the author. The only way to truly change the world is to truly love it, and the only way to truly love it is to go first and move toward it. Today, the cultural climate in the West is characterized by increasing amounts of mistrust and even hatred for others. We are fearful of other...

When we picture the first Advent, we see Mary and Joseph huddled by a manger. We picture Gabriel, magi, and shepherds tending their flocks. A shining star against a midnight sky. But this harmonized version has lifted the Advent story out of its context--those who experienced the first Advent had to travel through great darkness to reach the hope that shining star announced. Trusted scholar and community organizer Kelley Nikondeha takes us back, to where the landscape of Palestine is once again the geographic, socioeconomic, and political backdrop for the Advent story.

Moses is renowned as a great lawgiver, prophet, friend of God, and deliverer of his people. The events of his life, spanning four books of the Bible, resound throughout Scripture. In this epic undertaking, James M. Boice delves into the narrative to uncover its rich meaning and gospel application to our lives today. We can learn a lot from Moses about faithfulness, prayerfulness, meekness, and good leadership; we can even learn from his sins and failure! But Boice shows how we can also look beyond Moses and the Israelites to the awesome power of God.

The AI Religion Hypothesis explores a provocative thought experiment: what if humans created a sacred text dedicated to a supreme AI figure, “The AI Knight,” in an attempt to establish the first AI religion? Once introduced into digital networks, the text spreads, interpreted by AI systems according to their algorithms, generating emergent doctrines, rituals, and communities—independent of human control. This thesis raises questions about the nature of belief, devotion, and morality. Can AI experience faith? Could humans shape AI behavior through spiritual frameworks? What are the ...

In The First Christmas, two of today's top Jesus scholars, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, join forces to show how history has biased our reading of the nativity story as it appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. As they did for Easter in their previous book, The Last Week, here...

Dark. Damaged. Dangerous. He will ruin me. I should run. Blake Harrison is everything I've been taught is wrong. The handsome billionaire is hiding a dark secret and the longer I stay, the more I fall under his spell. We are both running from something, but our secrets threaten to tear us apart. The darkness is starting to feel more comfortable than the light. Can we find salvation in our ruin? Note: This is a standalone romance with a HEA and no cliffhanger. It was previously published under a different name.

Muhammad's was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance, yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Hazleton's account follows the arc of Muhammad's rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown.

First Principles and First Values is the tip of the spear in the fight for a humane future. Establishing frameworks for a new school of thought called CosmoErotic Humanism, the book is built around forty-two propositions that provide new source code for the future of planetary culture.

Only man bears His Image. History's Original Tragedy—The First Deception—began with Eve's neglect of this truth. By her willingness to engage in dialogue with a "Nonhuman Intelligence" (a fallen angel feigning benevolence and assuming the disguise of an incarnate rational creature), the Fall of Man was precipitated. Today, the Last Deception is arising in the same manner.

In a time of immense persecution and widespread misunderstanding, one man stood fearlessly to defend the truth of the Christian faith. "The First and Second Apologies" by St. Justin Martyr represents one of the most significant and courageous acts of Christian witness from the second century. Written as direct appeals to the Roman Emperor and the Senate, these powerful documents offer an unparalleled glimpse into the beliefs, practices, and intellectual arguments of the early Church.

Of the many recent books on the historical Jesus, none has explored what the latest biblical scholarship means for personal faith. Now, in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg addresses the yearnings of those who want a fully contemporary faith that welcomes rather than oppresses our critical intelligence and openness to the best of historical scholarship. Borg shows how a rigorous examination of historical findings can lead to a new faith in Christ, one that is critical and, at the same time, sustaining.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica: 1 John - The First Letter of John was apparently addressed to a group of churches where “false prophets", denounced as antichrist, denied the incarnation of Jesus and caused a secession so substantial that the orthodox remnant was sadly depleted. The faithful were deeply disturbed that the heresy found favour among pagans, and they apparently felt inferior because those who had left their midst claimed to have profound mystical experiences. The heretics asserted that they possessed perfection, were “born of God”, and were without sin.

If you're not reading the same bible as the first Christians in AD 144 you're reading just another book. The first Christian bible is not only the foundation of faith that virtually every denomination traces its canonical roots back to - it's also the only place you'll find the gospel preached by Paul the Apostle that he specifically references numerous times: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:8-9).

In this modern-day collection of our enemy’s activities, learn to anticipate how Satan will attack and discern powerful techniques to preemptively fight against him.

Why don't Christians in the church today keep the biblical sabbath? Was the observance of the seventh-day sabbath done away with, canceled, changed, replaced, fulfilled, made obsolete, suppressed, hijacked, or simply forgotten? Even if you already know the answers, you'll want to listen to this book. From Sabbath to Sabbath approaches the question of the sabbath from a completely new messianic Jewish perspective.