A leading scholar sheds critical light on the seemingly revelatory events behind new religions and spiritual movements Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. Revelatory Events provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. Ann Taves looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr., reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, Taves argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. A major work of scholarship, this compelling and accessible book traces the very human processes behind such events.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

It leaves many good Bible readers and students dismayed. Many preachers won't touch it. Furthermore, scholars, for centuries, have gotten confused, mixing up its elaborate symbols and allegories for the actual and vice versa. How can a book called The Revelation be so concealed? Is it even meant to be understood? Jesse Urbano answers with a resounding YES.Urbano has gathered and compiled the teachings of many pastors, Bible scholars and historians about this wonderful book in the Bible, systematically breaking it down chapter-by-chapter, passage-by-passage, showing that the book's author, Jesus Christ, meant for it to be understood.If you've ever wanted to be able to “look into the book” and “hear what the spirit is saying unto the churches,” this is the guide that will help you to do it.

How the sciences of the mind can advance the study of religion The essence of religion was once widely thought to be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central concept while bridging the divide between religious studies and the sciences. Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual. Taves addresses a series of key questions: how can we set up studies without obscuring contestations over meaning and value? What is the relationship between experience and consciousness? How can research into consciousness help us access and interpret the experiences of others? Why do people individually or collectively explain their experiences in religious terms? How can we set up studies that allow us to compare experiences across times and cultures? Religious Experience Reconsidered demonstrates how methods from the sciences can be combined with those from the humanities to advance a naturalistic understanding of the experiences that people deem religious.

Internationally respected scholar Richard Bauckham offers a brief, engaging study of divine revelation in Scripture. He probes the deep meaning of well-known moments in the biblical story in order to address the key question the Bible is designed to answer: Who is God? Accessible for laypeople and important to scholars, this volume begins by exploring three key events in the Bible in which God is revealed: Jacob's dream at Bethel (the revelation of the divine presence), Moses at the burning bush (the revelation of the divine Name), and Moses on Mount Sinai (the revelation of the divine character). In each case, Bauckham traces these themes through the rest of Scripture. He then shows how the New Testament builds on the Old by exploring three revelatory events in Mark's Gospel, events that reveal the Trinity: Jesus's baptism, transfiguration, and crucifixion. This book is based on the Frumentius Lectures for 2015 at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa and on the Hayward Lectures for 2018 at Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia.

The Book of Revelation is a record (unveiling) of events which were shown to the Apostle John by Jesus Christ. The revelation given to John spanned a period of time from approximately 93 AD until a new heaven and new earth is put into place after the Tribulation Period. Perhaps the greatest problem in properly understanding and interpreting the Revelation Record is that the Book of Revelation is not written in a time-sequenced, chronological narrative. General descriptions of things to come are presented and then later followed by details. In addition, parenthetical passages are inserted to describe or clarify main events. While the Book of Revelation is not presented in a chronological sequence, it is clearly divided into three main divisions: (1) Things which thou (John) hast seen, (2) Things which are (7 letters to 7 churches in Asia Minor and visions of God's Throne) and (3) Things which must be hereafter (The tribulation period, the 1000 year millennial kingdom and New Heavens and New Earth). This book arranges all 22 chapters, 404 verses and 12,000 words in the order in which they occur. It is intended to supplement "The Book of Revelation: Mysteries Revealed" by Don T. Phillips.

"Canonical criticism" is not a recognized branch of biblical studies--granting new focus to questions of the authority and truth of the scriptural writings. Developed within a critical sense of the dominant historical-critical tone of biblical studies, canonical criticism as it has been pursued by the American scholars Brevard S. Childs and James A. Sanders stands as witness to the theological necessity of a more literary approach to the Bible.This book both criticizes the "canonical" enterprise, and takes it much further into readings of the canon from the perspective not only of literature, but also art, and in particular the biblical art of Rembrandt. In addition, it remains acutely conscious of the contemporary environment of our reading within the political concerns of feminist criticism, popular absorption in film and the narratives of the screen, and finally the crisis, or crises, which characterize the so-called "postmodern condition."What emerges is at once highly critical of traditional strategies of canonization, and at the same time constructive and concerned to recover the Bible for our own time in readings which move outside the limited academic concerns of the biblical critic or the institutions of the church and religious community.