This book provides a fresh perspective on nineteenth-century life by examining the nature and context of 'Christian manliness' or 'muscular Christianity', an ideal of conduct that was widely popular with Victorian preachers and writers. It pays particular attention to Charles Kingsley (author of The Water-Babies) and Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays). Dr Vance traces the origins of Christian manliness in the traditions of English sporting prowess, in notions of chivalry and gentlemanliness, and in the preaching of vigourous virtue from St Paul to Victorian evangelists. He also considers the social and religious thought of Coleridge, Carlyle, F. D. Maurice and Thomas Arnold, showing how Kingsley and Hughes developed their own ideals of Christian manliness against this background, and in keen response to the troubles of their time: social unrest, religious rancour, war and disease. A final chapter traces the fragmentation and debasement of the ideal in the twentieth century.

In his trailblazing studies of the spirit in Jewish and Christian Antiquity, John R. (Jack) Levison shatters theological and exegetical taxonomies. Should the spirit be understood as breath or Spirit--or both? Is the spirit directed to creation or salvation--or both? Is the spirit a force or an angel--or both? Does the spirit inspire ecstasy or wisdom--or both? When Levison transfers the starting point of pneumatology from the New Testament to the Hebrew Bible, from Christianity to Judaism, questions swell, assumptions detonate, and expectations flourish. Consequently, Levison's studies are considered "impressive and provocative" (Review of Biblical Literature), "delightful, engaging" (Catholic Biblical Quarterly), "compelling, eloquent, sensitive" (Word and World), and "a remarkable read" (Themelios), with "profound ramifications for both Jewish and New Testament Studies" (Journal of Jewish Studies). Now, for the first time, selections of his breathtaking array of studies are available in three accessible volumes. This volume, in which you will discover some of the programmatic studies Levison published on the biblical literature of both testaments, reveals why Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion forecasts that "Levison will continue to be at the center of our most fruitful discussions of pneumatology."