Free Download Malissa Kelsch, "Life Tumbled: How Christian Young Women Can Feel Confident, Find Love, Make a Living, Grow Spiritually, and Survive Life's Grit"
English | 2021 | ISBN: 1737481715, 1737481707 | EPUB | pages: 144 | 9.1 mb
Ready or not, here comes the greatest adventure of your life.

Free Download Stephanie Paulsell, "Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice (The Practices of Faith Series)"
English | 2019 | ISBN: 1506454895 | EPUB | pages: 177 | 0.7 mb
Learn to celebrate your body by attending to daily spiritual practices

Free Download Bradley Marsh Jr., "Early Christian Scripture and the Samaritan Pentateuch: A Study in Hexaplaric Manuscript Activity "
English | ISBN: 311076069X | 2023 | 817 pages | PDF | 148 MB
Early Christian Scripture and the Samaritan Pentateuch is a study exploring Christian interaction with the Samaritan Pentateuch as evinced by hexaplaric sources. The manuscript evidence for the Samaritan Pentateuch in Greek attests two distinct, textually unrelated groups of readings: a σαμ-type (i.e., the Samareitikon) and a μονον-type. Only the latter, the subject of the present study, is hexaplarically derived and predates, considerably, any evidence for the former. The extant hexaplaric colophons and scholia found in the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy reveal that at some point the Caesarean library acquired a copy of the Samaritan Hebrew Pentateuch. This copy was then collated, quantitatively, against the hexaplaric Septuagint. Since the Samaritan text is often longer than the Septuagint due to a number of "expansions", taken from various pre-existing passages of the Pentateuch, the Caesarean critics "translated" these expansions into Greek with the aid of the Septuagint. No evidence was found that the so-called Samareitikon (i.e., Samaritans' own Greek translation) was either known to or used by the Caesarean critic. These "translations" bear no trace of Samaritan exegesis. It is hypothesized here, that the collation and "translation" was made possible through the use of the multi-columned Hexapla as a kind of analytical lexicon. Taking the results of this effort, the responsible party added these data to the margins of the Caesarean Septuagint edition. These passages were later translated into Syriac and were even adopted by some later Christian scribes as legitimate biblical readings. It is posited that Eusebius―not Origen, as has been commonly supposed―was the one responsible for this work. The study explores these data diachronically from inception to integration. The findings and analysis are relevant for the fields of biblical studies, Samaritan studies, and the study of Bible production and the praxis of textual research in early Christianity.

Free Download Bryan M. Litfin, "Early Christian Martyr Stories: An Evangelical Introduction with New Translations"
English | 2014 | ISBN: 080104958X | EPUB | pages: 188 | 5.7 mb
Personal narratives are powerful instruments for teaching, both for conveying information and for forming character. The martyrdom accounts preserved in the literature of early Christianity are especially intense and dramatic. However, these narratives are not readily available and are often written in intimidating prose, making them largely inaccessible for the average reader. This introductory text brings together key early Christian martyrdom stories in a single volume, offering new, easy-to-read translations and expert commentary. An introduction and explanatory notes accompany each translation. The book not only provides a vivid window into the world of early Christianity but also offers spiritual encouragement and inspiration for Christian life today.

Free Download W. Mark Lanier, "Christianity on Trial: A Lawyer Examines the Christian Faith"
English | 2014 | ISBN: 0830836675 | EPUB | pages: 230 | 4.5 mb
Does the Christian faith hold up under scrutiny? What does science tell us about the plausibility of a god? Can we trust the alleged eyewitness testimony of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? These questions are worth investigating in order to find an answer solidified in fact and evidence. Mark Lanier, one of America's top trial lawyers, uses his experienced legal eye to examine the plausibility of the Christian faith. Bringing science, current knowledge, and common sense together in a courtroom approach, this "trial" elucidates a rich understanding of God and a strong foundation for Christian faith. Following the format of a traditional legal trial, Lanier takes us from opening statement to closing summation by way of testimony from well-known witnesses―the scientist, the theologian, the linguist, the humanist, the philosopher, the psychologist and the ancient biblical eye-witness. These sources and many others investigate the sticky subjects of the Christian worldview that are commonly scrutinized by skeptics or overlooked by marginal believers:

Free Download Frederic C. Rich, "Christian Nation: A Novel"
English | 2013 | pages: 352 | ISBN: 0393240118 | EPUB | 0,9 mb
"They said what they would do, and we did not listen. Then they did what they said they would do."

Free Download Christian Missionaries, Ethnicity, and State Control in Globalized Yunnan
by Gideon Elazar
English | 2023 | ISBN: 0271095555 | 257 Pages | PDF | 4.47 MB

Free Download Stanley Stowers, "Christian Beginnings: A Study in Ancient Mediterranean Religion "
English | ISBN: 1399510061 | 2024 | 320 pages | PDF | 3 MB
Instead of treating Christianity as continuing a utterly unique Judaism alien to Mediterranean religion, the book argues for a pervasive religious dynamic based on three modes; the religion of everyday social exchange, civic religion and the religion of freelance literate experts. These modes that cut across ethnically defined cultures such as Judean, Greek and Roman open a window onto a new way of reading the earliest Christian literature and of explaining its religiosity. The chapters lay out the theory and then illustrate it in various ways with essays on the letters of Paul, the Gospel of Matthew and issues surrounding the study of Christian beginnings. This approach provides a different way to understand Judaism and Christianity within Mediterranean religion and its intellectual cultures by drawing on powerful new tools for theorizing religion more broadly.

Free Download Christian America and the Kingdom of God By Richard T. Hughes
2009 | 233 Pages | ISBN: 0252078896 | PDF | 2 MB
A provocative indictment of the fundamentalist myth of Christian AmericaThe idea of the United States as a Christian nation is a powerful, seductive, and potentially destructive theme in American life, culture, and politics. Many fundamentalist and evangelical leaders routinely promote this notion, and millions of Americans simply assume the Christian character of the United States. And yet, as Richard T. Hughes reveals in this powerful book, the biblical vision of the "kingdom of God" stands at odds with the values and actions of an American empire that sanctions war instead of peace, promotes dominance and oppression instead of reconciliation, and exalts wealth and power instead of justice for the poor and needy.With conviction and careful consideration, Hughes reviews the myth of Christian America from its earliest history in the founding of the republic to the present day. Extensively analyzing the Old and New Testaments, Hughes provides a solid, scripturally-based explanation of the kingdom of God--a kingdom defined by love, peace, patience, and generosity. Throughout American history, however, this concept has been appropriated by religious and political leaders and distorted into a messianic nationalism that champions the United States as God's "chosen nation" and bears little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus.Pointing to a systemic biblical and theological illiteracy running rampant in the United States, Hughes investigates the reasons why so many Americans think of the United States as a Christian nation despite the Constitution's outright prohibition against establishing any national religion by law or coercion. He traces the development of fundamentalist Christianity throughout American history, noting especially the increased power and widespread influence of fundamentalism at the dawn of the twenty-first century, embodied and enacted by the administration of President George W. Bush and America's reaction to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.Timely and provocative, Christian America and the Kingdom of God illuminates the devastating irony of a "Christian America" that so often behaves in unchristian ways.

Free Download Richard A. Norris, David W. Lotz, "A History of the Christian Church"
English | 1985 | pages: 768 | ISBN: 0684184176, 0024238708 | EPUB | 10,0 mb
Since publication of the first edition in 1918, A History of the Christian Church by Williston Walker has enjoyed outstanding success and recognition as a classic in the field. Written by an eminent theologian, it combines in its narrative a rare blend of clarity, unity, and balance. In light of significant advances in scholarship in recent years, extensive revisions have been made to this fourth edition. Three scholars from Union Theological Seminary in New York have incorporated new historical discoveries and provided fresh interpretations of various periods in church history from the first century to the twentieth. The result is a thoroughly updated history which preserves the tenor and structure of Walker's original, unparalleled text.