The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.

What if God designed marriage to make you holy instead of happy? What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God? In Sacred Marriage, bestselling author Gary Thomas uncovers the ways that your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and with each other. Join over one million others who have already uncovered Thomas's tips for fostering a sacred marriage. Within the pages of Sacred Marriage, Thomas invites you to see how God can use your relationship with your spouse as a discipline and a motivation to love God more and reflect more of the character of his Son. In addition to life-changing insights from Scripture, church history, and time-tested wisdom from Christian classics, you'll find practical advice and techniques to make your marriage happier by becoming holier husbands and wives. In Sacred Marriage, Thomas will give you all of the tools you need to: Turn marital struggles into spiritual and personal appreciation Love your spouse with a stronger sense of purpose Confront your weaknesses and sin in order to grow your relationship with God and with your spouse Partner in the spiritual growth and character formation of your spouse Transform a tired marriage into a relationship filled with awe and respect Thomas reveals that sacred marriages teach us to love God and others well by fostering a healthy sex life, a strong prayer life, and a rich spiritual life. God uses our marriages to help us grow in character, in prayer, in worship, and in service--we just have to recognize that the purpose of marriage is holiness, not happiness. Each copy also includes thought-provoking discussion questions designed to spark conversation between couples and small groups, allowing you to dive deeper into the lessons that Thomas shares in Sacred Marriage. Join the one million others who have already started on their journey to transforming their relationship with their spouses and with their Creator.

Bestselling author Gary Thomas transforms the way you look at romantic relationships. His unique perspective on dating will prepare you for a satisfying, spiritually enriching marriage. In the revised edition of his hit book The Sacred Search, Gary Thomas helps single people of all ages make wise marital choices by rethinking what basis those choices should be made on. You will be encouraged to think beyond finding your “soul mate” and instead adopt a more biblical search for a “sole mate”—someone who will walk with you on your spiritual journey. Thomas asks, What if we focused on why we should get married more than on who to marry? What if being “in love” isn’t a good enough reason to get married? And most of all, what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? The Sacred Search casts a vision for building a relationship around shared spiritual mission—and making marriage with eternity at its heart.

Women in the Ancient Near East offers a lucid account of the daily life of women in Mesopotamia from the third millennium BCE until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The book systematically presents the lives of women emerging from the available cuneiform material and discusses modern scholarly opinion. Stol’s book is the first full-scale treatment of the history of women in the Ancient Near East.

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?By popular demand, the author of Sacred Marriage returns to the topic of how God uses marriage to expand our souls and make us holy. With all new material, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage explores how God can reveal himself to you through your marriage and help you grow closer to him as well as to your spouse.Fifty-two devotions encourage you to build your marriage around God’s priorities. From learning to live with a fellow sinner, to the process of two becoming one, to sharing our lives as brothers and sisters in Christ, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage challenges couples to embrace the profound and soul-stretching reality of Christian marriage.

God calls women to influence and move their husbands in positive ways. Applying the concepts from his bestseller, Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas offers a view through a man’s eyes. Here’s the inside scoop on what men find motivating—with inspiring real-life stories of women who are employing this knowledge to transform their marriages. Sacred Influence doesn’t flinch from difficult marital problems. But by using this faith-focused approach, you’ll see how to help your husband become the man God intends him to be. At the same time, God will shape you to be the woman he designed you to be. God has given godly women a wonderful power to influence and encourage their husbands. What’s the secret? This book will provide challenges, examples, and hope to women who want to love their husbands well and be loved well in return. --Dennis Rainey, President of Family Life

This book represents a new direction in the study of religion and marriage by using a postmodern theoretical framework focusing on gendered discourse and culture, to examine the meaning of sacred marriage within social contexts. Drawing upon data from in-depth interviews of couples in long-term, sacred marriages living in the American Midwest, together with an analysis of Christian marriage advice manuals, Sacred Marriages explores how couples use religious and nonreligious discourses and cultures to give their marriages meaning, and how those sacred meanings are used in their daily lives and the spaces that they embody. The study shows how religious and secular beliefs are combined to formulate cultural strategies for approaching the sacralization of marriage, and how religious and nonreligious discourses and cultures are ordered, depending on circumstances and social contexts. This often results in other relationships being subordinated in favour of the sacred bond believed to exist between husband and wife. The book argues that sacred marriage is a malleable concept, as people bend religious culture to form new and altered sacred marriages during emotional extremes. A thoughtful examination of long-term Christian marriages, this volume will appeal to scholars of religion and sociology with interests in marriage and the family.

The primary purpose of this study is to increase understanding of Sumerian sacred marriage by approaching it from a comparative perspective. More generally, it is hoped that the study will illustrate the fruitfulness of the comparative approach for the study of Sumerian religion and royal ideology and that it will prove useful to the other fields of study whose sources were used as the comparative evidence. The comparative evidence includes sources from six different fields of study: Assyriology (first and second millennium love lyrics and rituals), Biblical studies (The Song of Songs), Classics (Graeco-Roman philosophies, Chaldean Oracles), Gnostic studies, Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and Indology (Hindu rites and myths). Ancient Egyptian and Ugaritic evidence is also used. Part One of the study presents and analyzes the primary evidence for the Sumerian sacred marriage, starting with the Sumerian love song corpus, also known as the Dumuzi-Inanna (DI) love songs. In addition to the love song corpus, the evidence discussed in Part One includes second millennium literary texts and royal inscriptions referring to a marital relationship between the ruling king and Inanna/Istar. Part Two analyzes and discusses the constituent elements of the Sumerian sacred marriage (the actors of the marriage, and the timing and scene of the related ritual). At this point, some comparison with the parallel material is inevitable. Part Three presents the comparative evidence and a detailed analysis of the thematic elements shared by the different traditions. This section also includes a discussion of the concept of the soul in Mesopotamia and in other parts of the ancient world. Concepts of the Netherworld and afterlife in Mesopotamia are also examined.

Hundreds of thousands of home school spouses have discovered something: maintaining an excellent marriage is tough! As if the normal pressures of life weren't enough, parents who choose the incredible benefits of home schooling soon discover that an entirely new level of intensity is added to their marriage. It's far too easy to focus only on the children while neglecting the very foundation of the home school -- a rock solid marriage based on the only Firm Foundation. Sadly, some have given in to these pressures and are now shipwrecked on the rocks of life. But it doesn't have to be this way. You can enjoy the awesome rewards of home schooling and have a first-rate, fulfilling marriage. But, like anything of lasting value, it won't happen by itself. Farris and Elam take you step-by-step through the issues you will face (or in which you now find yourself ensconced) as a home schooling spouse. For men and women, A Sacred Foundation gives you the "hands on" practical tools and guidelines that will lead you to a place of true love and fulfillment amidst the great challenge and reward of home schooling. - Publisher.

For years, Christians have been told that sex is God's creation, designed by him as a gift to husbands and wives. Yet few couples actually experience sex as a spiritual, God-ordained experience. Rather than admit their lack of fulfillment, many couples hide their disappointment and confusion, while others attempt to solve the problem through better sexual technique. Unfortunately, all the advice on improved technique fails to explain the one thing that makes sense of it all. Despite the proliferation of resources to enhance sexual satisfaction, couples continue to struggle in their sexual relationship. In fact, author and licensed counselor Tim Gardner estimates that as few as 2 percent of married couples ever experience a truly exciting, energizing, and soul-touching physical bond. But now, that can change. A couple's sexual relationship has a far higher purpose than pleasure or procreation. Scripture makes it clear that sex is the one thing on earth that joins two people into one. Now readers can learn how to approach marital sex in a way that brings the fulfillment of true oneness. Sacred Sex shows how they can experience a beautiful, God-ordained life of intimacy that blesses them far beyond the bedroom walls, serves as an act of worship to God, and touches their hearts and souls in ways they never could have imagined.