This book came to me like lightning as I woke up one day. I wrote this in a week although the inspiration came from many years of observation. This book is about uncovering the mystery of this entity called "woman" from a Christian perspective. I imagine that even Adam, when he beheld this new creation of God, he was speechless yet was moved by passion: calling her "bone of his bone", and "flesh of his flesh", calling her "woman", because she came out of man. God had a specific and glorious purpose for Eve and we have lost the true meaning behind it, because of the corruption of sin. So we dive deep into the mystery behind what makes a woman tic; even getting into some of the most powerful women in history and identify what exactly made them so powerful. My hope is that through this book, women around the world will find the source of their true self, and to promote a sense of encouragement through unconventional means. It is to also educate from a biblical perspective on the power of wisdom and it's correlation with women.

Gnosticism developed alongside Judeo-Christianity over two thousand years ago, but with an important difference: It emphasizes, not faith, but direct perception of God--Gnosticism being derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Given the controversial premise that one can know God directly, the history of Gnosticism is an unfolding drama of passion, political intrigue, martyrdom, and mystery. Dr. Hoeller traces this fascinating story throughout time and shows how Gnosticism has inspired such great thinkers as Voltaire, Blake, Yeats, Hesse, Melville, and Jung.

Endorsements: "A calm, well-balanced, carefully prepared book. . . . Excellent for adult Bible discussion groups, for occasional sermons, for suggesting ways of inclusive language. This book teaches and directs without antagonizing." --The Bible Today "A persuasive book, useful for personal reflection and group discussion, and ideal for gift-giving." --Daughters of Sarah "This is no dry erudite volume. It rubs salve in personal wounds inflicted by centuries of biblical misreading." --Sojourners "The book reflects careful research; it is written in a style that will appeal to those interested in the implications of biblical research but without the time or inclination to follow the involved discussions of biblical scholarship." --National Catholic Reporter

From the cross Jesus gave us his mother to be our mother, too: a singularly holy model, consoler, and intercessor for our spiritual journey. Yet most Protestants, and too many Catholics don't understand the role that God wants her to play in our lives. In Behold Your Mother, Tim Staples takes you through the Church's teachings about the Blessed Virgin Mary, showing their firm Scriptural and historical roots and dismantling the objections of those who mistakenly believe that Mary competes for the attention due Christ alone. Combining the best recent scholarship with a convert's in-depth knowledge of the arguments, Staples has assembled the most thorough and useful Marian apologetic you'll find anywhere. Relevant and essential -- Mary matters. Read Behold Your Mother and find out just how much.

In this retelling of one of the great Biblical stories, King Solomon commissions Ethan the Scribe to write the official history of King David. But Ethan finds another life behind the curtain that divides the past from the present--the story of a David who seduced, lied, bragged, and plundered his way to power. Ethan faces a dilemma. Which life should he write about?

This book examines the personification of Wisdom as a female figure - a central motif in Proverbs, Job, Sirach, Wisdom and Baruch. Alice M. Sinnott identifies how and why the complex character of Wisdom was introduced into the Israelite tradition, and created and developed by Israelite/Jewish wisdom teachers and writers. Arguing that by personifying Wisdom the authors of Proverbs responded to Israel's defeat by Babylon and the loss of Davidic monarchy, and by retrieving and transforming the Wisdom figure the authors of Sirach, Baruch and Wisdom responded to the spread of Hellenism and the potential loss of identity for Jews. Sinnott concludes that personified Wisdom functioned to reinterpret and transform the Israelite/Jewish tradition.

If you don't learn to govern yourself, you will be governed by others, and your own impulses will be the reins they use to lead you. That's how Mark Horne's new book, Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men, captures Solomon's warning to young men in the Book of Proverbs, advising them how to avoid sinful lifestyles and seek the wisdom of kings.

New York Times Bestseller. With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor. What is "biblical womanhood" . . . really? Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn't sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment--a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible's instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period. See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as "master" and "praises him at the city gate" with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.

The volume publishes papers read at the ninth International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Budapest, 2012. The title of the conference and the issuing volume covers an, on the one hand, extremely important and, on the other hand, regrettably neglected aspect particularly of the ancient Jewish and Christian traditions. Traditional manifestations of both Judaism and Christianity are predominantly masculine theological constructions. Despite their harsh masculine orientation, however, neither Judaism nor Christianity lacks elaboration on the female principle. When an ancient author chooses female imagery in order to make his message more emphatic, the female body as such forms an integral part of their metaphors. The contributions in this volume explore this phenomenon within the literature of early Judaism, and within its broad environments.

In this collection, an international group of specialists considers the nature of wisdom in relation to the thought world of the ancient Near East and its impact on the rest of the Old Testament. In addition to full coverage of the wisdom books and other literature most frequently thought to have been influenced by them, thematic studies also introduce the principal comparative sources among Israel's neighbors and discuss the place of wisdom in Israelite religion, theology and society.