Outline: A reassessment of the quests of the historical Jesus that promises to become the definitive history. Jesus of Nazareth ranks among the most important figures in history, yet contemporary scholarship finds little common agreement about his identity. It is accepted generally that there were three quests for the historical Jesus. The first was characterized by Albert Schweitzer and came t…
Outline: A reassessment of the quests of the historical Jesus that promises to become the definitive history. Jesus of Nazareth ranks among the most important figures in history, yet contemporary scholarship finds little common agreement about his identity. It is accepted generally that there were three quests for the historical Jesus. The first was characterized by Albert Schweitzer and came t…
Outline : While understanding history has always been an essential task for God's people, rapid changes within the past two generations of Christianity have challenged many of our assumptions and methods for studying the past. How should thoughtful Christians—and especially historians and missiologists—make sense of global Christianity as an unfolding historical movement? The master teacher…
Outline: Understanding how to think and write about history in light of God's providence. In every major and minor incident a part of God's overarching redemptive plan? Scripture is filled with commands to remember history and teach it to the next generation. Though many people are inclined to leave the past behind, exploring the meaning of these events helps us glorify God's lordship in all th…
Outline : This popular introduction to church history isolates fourteen key moments that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The fourth edition more thoroughly highlights the importance of women in Christian history and the impact of world Christianity. It also includes a new preface, updates throughout the book, revised "further readings" for each chapter, new si…
Outline: This fascinating story of the early Christians by the Church's first historian. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. A.D. 260 - 339) wrote ten books that preserve the early history of the brave martyrs, the dauntless defenders of the faith, and even those who renounced their faith in the face of persecution. For decades, however, his crucial work has been shackled to stilted and outdated translati…
Outline : Carl Trueman analyses the theology of the great Puritan theologian, John Owen, paying particular attention to his vigorous trinitarianism. To understand Owen, we need to see him as a seventeenth-century representative of the Western trinitarian and anti-Pelagian tradition. Trueman demonstrates how Owen used the theological insights of patristic, medieval, and Reformation theologians t…
Outline : Too often scholars impose on the past modern terms and theories. This is particularly evident concerning discussions of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, where libertarian and compatibilist notions of freedom obscure older understandings of concurrence. Providence, Freedom, and the Will is one historian’s attempt to help us interpret early modern documents in context with…
Outline : Church History is a fascinating guide that shows young readers (and even not-so-young readers) how God has preserved His church from AD 30 to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Travel through time and all over the world as you meet the people, learn about the ideas, and understand the challenges that have shaped the history of the church. Maps, time lines, and colorful picture…
Outline: Modeled after the bestselling Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, Historical Theology gives students of theology of the opportunity to study the rich development of Christian doctrine according to a topical-chronological arrangement, setting out the history of theology one element at a time. This approach allows readers to concentrate on a specific tenet of faith and its formulation b…
Outline : How might premodern exegesis of Genesis inform Christian debates about creation today? Imagine a table with three people in dialogue: a young-earth creationist, an old-earth creationist, and an evolutionary creationist. Into the room walks Augustine of Hippo, one of the most significant theologians in the history of the church. In what ways will his reading of Scripture and his doctri…
Outline: A Concise history of the Bible : its creation, use, and interpretation.
Outline : How is it that a first-generation Jewish messianic movement undertook a mission to the pagan world and rapidly achieved a momentum that would have a lasting impact on world history? In this monumental study, Eckhard Schnabel provides a unified and detailed picture of the rise and growth of early Christian mission. He begins with a search for a missionary impulse in the Old Testament a…
Outline : How is it that a first-generation Jewish messianic movement undertook a mission to the pagan world and rapidly achieved a momentum that would have a lasting and significant impact on world history? This momentous question has surprisingly eluded the concentrated focus of historians and New Testament scholars. Perhaps it is because the story of early Christian mission encompasses so mu…
Outline : “The Puritans can help us today toward the maturity that they knew, and that we need.” —J. I. Packer Committed to hard work, humility, and serious study of Scripture, the Puritans lived out their faith in a way that many now dismiss as antiquated. But in an increasingly fast-paced, materialistic culture, Christ followers today can learn a lot from these spiritual giants of the …
Outline: This book is the most comprehensive survey of early American Christian theology ever written and a major contribution to American intellectual history. It encompasses scores of American theological traditions, schools of thought, and thinkers active from 1636 to 1865 and considers the social and institutional settings for religious thought during this period.
Outline: In this prize-winning book Nathan O. Hatch offers a provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic, arguing that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful actors on the religious scene. Hatch examines live distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century - th…
Outline: John Anthony McGuckin, one of the world's leading scholars of ancient Christianity, has synthesized a lifetime of work to produce the most comprehensive and accessible history of the Christian movement during its first thousand years. The Path of Christianity takes readers on a journey from the period immediately after the composition of the Gospels, through the building of the earlies…
Outline: Just what is Islam and what does it mean to be a Muslim in the world today? Since the events of 9/11 and 7/7, Islam has become one of the most controversial and misunderstood religions in the world. Introducing Islam encourages students to put aside their preconceptions and explore this fascinating religion. William Shepard traces the history of Islam from its origins in the life and c…
Outline: Gunter Stemberger's revision of H.L. Strack's classic introduction to rabbinic literature, which appeared in its first English edition in 1991, was widely acclaimed. Gunter Stemberger and Markus Bockmuehl have now produced this updated edition. Following Strack's original outline, Stemberger discusses first the historical framework, the basic principles of rabbinic literature and herme…
Outline : This book initiates a dialogue where one does not exist, and continues a dialogue where one has been tentatively initiated, regarding the concept of God in the neoclassical philosophy of Charles Hartshorne and that found in analytic philosophers who adhere to classical theism. Two distinctive features of the book are a careful examination of Hartshorne's use of position martices in th…
Among the many types of sources for the history of Byzantine monasticism, none are more important than the typika, or foundation documents, collected and translated in these volumes, which will make possible for the first time a comprehensive study of religious life and institutions in the Greek East and a comparison between Greek and Latin monasticism.1 Together, the typika throw light on almo…
Outline : Paul Helm breaks fertile ground in this survey of theological anthropology in the Reformed tradition. Acknowledging the rich patristic and medieval heritage available to Reformed theologians, Helm works through a representative range of authors and materials during the period 1550 to 1750 in order to identify certain ways of thinking as well as elements of development and change. Addr…
Outline: This history of Christian theology tells a story that begins a biblical times and continues until today. Written in a straightforward narrative style, it provides an insightful explanation of major issues in religious history and the positions of some of the greatest theologians concerning them. William C. Placher presents the history of theology as an aspect of intellectual history, a…
Outline: This book draws together a collection of thirteen published and unpublished articles which together constitute a new reading of the character and development of Latin Trinitarian theology in the fourth and fifth centuries. The focus of the essays is on Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE), but Augustine is treated here as an inheritor of earlier Latin tradition. Many of the figures of that …
Outline: Did God the Father kill His Son? What happened to the Trinity on the cross? "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" At this moment did God utterly forsake Jesus? Did the Father turn his back on the Son in rage? Was the Trinity ruptured or broken on that day? Theologian Thomas McCall tackles this profound, difficult and sometimes troubling passage in the life of Christ - the moment …
Outline: We've lost ourselves. Disconnected from the past and uncertain about the future, we are anxious about what our lives will be and troubled by a nagging sense of meaninglessness. Adrift in the world, many Christians have their identity completely wrapped up in work, and their definition of the "good life" is financial success. Fewer are staying committed to the Christian faith, finding i…
Outline: In this accessible historical overview of Sunday, noted scholar Justo Gonzales tells the story of how and why Christians have worshipped on Sunday from the earliest days of the church to the present. Readers of this book will rediscover the joy and excitement of Sunday as early Christians celebrated it and will find fresh, inspiring perspectives on Sunday amid our current culture of in…
Outline: Modern Protestant debates about spousal relations and the meaning of marriage began in a forgotten international dispute some 300 years ago. The Lutheran Pietist ideal of marriage as friendship and mutual pursuit of holiness battled with the idea that submission defined spousal roles. Exploiting material culture artifacts, broadsides, hymns, sermons, private correspondence, and legal c…
Outline: A History of Biblical Interpretation provides detailed and extensive studies of the interpretation of the Scriptures by Jewish and Christian writers throughout the ages. Written by internationally renowned scholars, this multivolume work comprehensively treats the many different methods of interpretation, the many important interpreters from various eras, and the many key issues that h…
Outline: This insightful book examines nine case studies in the history of exegesis in order to demonstrate the valuable insights into Scripture that we can gain not only from what individual commentators say but from fifteen centuries' cumulative witness to the meaning of Scripture in the life of the church.
Outline: This accessible text by James P. Ware provides both a concise guide to Paul's theology and a general introduction to the key issues and debates in the contemporary study of Paul. Examining Paul's message in the context of the ancient world, Ware identifies what would have struck Paul's original audience as startling or unique. By comparing Paul's teaching to the other religions and phi…
Outline : Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was America's most famous pastor and scholar at the beginning of the eighteenth century. People today generally associate him with the infamous Salem witch trials, but in this new biography Rick Kennedy tells a bigger story: Mather, he says, was the very first American evangelical.
Outline : This sixth volume of Hughes Oliphant Old's monumental, acclaimed study of preaching throughout history, The Modern Age, tells the story of preaching and worship from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1789-1989). During this period preaching continued to support the historic Christian faith while the church under- took to resist secularization, come to grips with bi…
Outline: This original work of scholarship clarifies how, in light of Matthew's Gospel, the first Christians understood and claimed Israel's messianic mission to people of every ethnic group immediately after Jesus' death and resurrection. In Part 1 James LaGrand examines the Hebrew Bible and other ancient documents to uncover the meaning in Matthew's time of the terms 'Israel' and 'the nations…
Outline: Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends - yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self. In this timely book, Carl Trueman analyz…
Outline: An exploration of the parallels between Old Testament texts and contemporary writings from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East. The fifth edition expands on the first four with additional texts.
Outline : THE STORY OF ISRAEL IN THE FIVE CENTURIES LEADING UP TO THE BIRTH OF JESUS Bridging the Testaments surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel's postexilic history: the Persian Era (539-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (331-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were…
Outline: Where is God? There are never quick fixes or easy answers when we can't immediately see God's hand - when the struggle is hard and painful - he is working. Weaving together Scripture, personal stories, and the words of classic "How Firm a Foundation," David Powlison brings an experienced counselor's touch to exploring how God enters into our sufferings, helping us see God working in ou…