With timeless insight, this award-winning author retells the stories of the gospels and reminds readers that to see Jesus afresh is to be changed and challenged and to be put back on their feet.

That the Apocalypse of John is a “Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1) is a fact too often overlooked by interpreters of this last book of the Bible. As Msgr. A. Robert Nusca’s The Christ of the Apocalypse: Contemplating the Faces of Jesus in the Book of Revelation proposes, beyond predictions of earthquakes and falling stars, St. John articulates from start to finish a multifaceted and compelling portrait of Jesus Christ. Nusca offers an exegetical reading of selected verses of the Book of Revelation, incorporating rich spiritual and pastoral reflections. The Christ of the Apocalypse above all affirms that St. John’s God- and Christ-centered, symbolic universe offers our contemporary world a spiritual place to stand amid the shifting sands of postmodernity. As Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, writes in his Foreword, “Now, as in the first century, Christians face martyrdom, and those who are not called to die for Christ are called to live for Christ in a world which in many ways rejects the Gospel. More than ever, we need the apocalyptic vision, to have our own vision of reality clarified, and to be strengthened in our evangelical witness.”

During his life Jesus did not view himself as divine, nor did his disciples. In THE CHANGING FACES OF JESUS the great scholar Vermes works back through successively earlier accounts of the life of Christ to finally reveal the true, historical figureof Jesus hidden beneath the Gospels: a Palestinian charismatic convinced he had an essential role to play in bringing about the kingdom of God.

Anyone wishing to pursue a deeper understanding of the world of Jesus and the workings of inspiration will prize the insights found in this book. - Preface; The Gospel of Matthew; The Gospel of Mark; The Gospel of Luke; The Problem of Synoptic Relationships; The Gospel of John; Key Gospel Themes

For many who identify themselves as Christians, Jesus has never become experientially personal or real. Countless others who have faithfully followed Christ confess to a spiritual dryness and lack of joy. These individuals are weary and unmoved by the plethora of information about Jesus. What they long for is an experience with Jesus. Picturing the Face of Jesus is an invitation to experience Christ more deeply. Through a rich palette of experiential media—art contemplation, gospel story-telling, and imaginative prayer—the reader is invited to picture the face of Jesus, his expressive, one-of-a-kind, human face. As a result, Jesus will become a real person with whom they candidly relate, instead of a hero they merely admire. Through this encounter, their own hearts will be transformed as they begin to reflect the face of Christ to others.

Thanks to current portrayals of Jesus of Nazareth, we are apt to think of him as having long hair and a short beard. But, the holy scriptures do not describe Christ’s physiognomy, and his representations are inconsistent in early Christian and medieval arts. How did this long-haired archetype come to be accepted in the late ninth century as the standard iconography of the Son of God? To answer this question, The Many Faces of Christ examines the complex historical and cultural dynamics underlying the making and final establishment of Christ’s image between late antiquity and the early Renaissance. Taking into account a broad spectrum of iconographic and textual sources, Michele Bacci describes the process of creating Christ’s image against the backdrop of ancient and biblical conceptions of beauty and physicality as indicators of moral, ascetic, or messianic qualities. He investigates the increasingly dominant role played by visual experience in Christian religious practice, which promoted belief in the existence of ancient documents depicting Christ’s appearance, and he shows how this resulted in the shaping of portrait-like images that were said to be true to life. With glances at analogous progressions in the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Taoist traditions, this beautifully illustrated book will be of interest to specialists of Late Antique, Byzantine, and medieval studies, as well as anyone interested in the shifting, controversial conceptions of the historical figure of Jesus Christ.