In The Final Days of Jesus, Mark Smith brings his experience as a classical historian to bear on the life of the historical Jesus, piecing together the volatile political context of first-century Judaea, as well as the lives of Pontius Pilate, Annas, and Joseph Caiaphas. The claim that 'the Jews crucified Jesus' has spawned a long and tragic history of Christian anti-Semitism. Smith challenges this claim through detailed exploration of Roman, Jewish, and Christian written sources and a broad range of archaeological evidence, such as the ossuary of Caiaphas, the 'Hidden Gate', and the rich vein of research devoted to the archaeology of ritual purity. The result is an earthy and nuanced portrait of Jewish life under Roman rule. From his discussion of the multiplicity and brutality of Roman executions to the intricate personal relationships among elites that provided the means of collaboration and redress, Smith details the complex push-pull of forces between Rome and the Temple as they collided in one history-changing week.

Angelica has the babies fooled into thinking she has magical powers. But when the babies want her to do more, she has to come up with a plan--fast!

How has technology challenged the notion of unadulterated athletic performance? We like to think of sports as elemental: strong bodies trained to overcome height, weight, distance; the thrill of earned victory or the agony of defeat in a contest decided on a level playing field. But in Game Changer, Rayvon Fouché argues that sports have been radically shaped by an explosion of scientific and technological advances in materials, training, nutrition, and medicine dedicated to making athletes stronger and faster. Technoscience, as Fouché dubs it, increasingly gives the edge (however slight) to the athlete with the latest gear, the most advanced training equipment, or the performance-enhancing drugs that are hardest to detect. In this revealing book, Fouché examines a variety of sports paraphernalia and enhancements, from fast suits, athletic shoes, and racing bicycles to basketballs and prosthetic limbs. He also takes a hard look at gender verification testing, direct drug testing, and the athlete biological passport in an attempt to understand the evolving place of technoscience across sport. In this book, Fouché: • Examines the relationship among sport, science, and technology • Considers what is at stake in defining sporting culture by its scientific knowledge and technology • Provides readers and students with an informative and engagingly written study Focusing on well-known athletes, including Michael Phelps, Oscar Pistorius, Caster Semenya, Usain Bolt, and Lance Armstrong, Fouché argues that technoscience calls into question the integrity of games, records, and our bodies themselves. He also touches on attempts by sporting communities to regulate the use of technology, from elite soccer's initial reluctance to utilize goal-line technology to automobile racing's endless tweaking of regulatory formulas in an attempt to blur engineering potency and reclaim driver skill and ability. Game Changer will change the way you look at sports—and the outsized impact technoscience has on them.

Edited by Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir, and featuring contributions from experts on everything from breakfast cereal and movie gunfights to First Ladies and bald guys, The Final Four of Everything celebrates everything that's great, surprising, or silly in America, using the foolproof method of bracketology to determine what we love or hate-and why. As certain to make you laugh as it will start friendly arguments, The Final Four of Everything is the perfect book for know-it-alls, know-a-littles, and anyone with an opinion on celebrity mugshots, literary heroes, sports nicknames, or bacon. Bracketology is a unique way of organizing information that dates back to the rise of the knockout (or single elimination) tournament, perhaps in medieval times. Its origins are not precisely known, but there was genius in the first bracket design that hasn't changed much over the years. You, of course, may be familiar with the bracket format via the NCAA basketball tournament pairings each March. If you've ever watched ESPN or participated in a March Madness office pool, you know what a bracket looks like. The Final Four of Everything takes the idea one step further, and applies the knockout format to every category BUT basketball. In areas where taste, judgment, and hard-earned wisdom really matter, we've set out to determine, truly, the Final Four of Everything.

Letter after letter to President Trump, day after day, and with the weeks and months to follow over the course of an entire year, this effort represents a groundbreaking endeavor that is anchored in the belief of the American people. The author contends with often heartfelt conviction, that citizens from all walks of life and from every corner of the globe, have the capacity for forgiveness, grace, and a sense of their own history - a history juxtaposed with the politics of a nation whose interests have not always been rooted in the liberty it portends to promote. While at times a grim portrait of a year like no other, its basic premise remains the same throughout and that the founders of the United States, often flawed and imperfect, presented to its citizens a Constitution that continues to be the country's most enduring moral compass and bellwether - a bellwether into its future, a window into its past and a reminder that the present is ever fleeting.

This book is a first-person account about growing up poor in small-town America. It is a diary of sorts, a memoir, about life as perceived by a fictional boy from a fictional family living in a fictional town. The chapters are compilations of similar experiences and venues about school, girls, family, living without money, and social challenges. Making lemonade out of everything is a figure of speech, a metaphor for how people make do with nothing. For example, integrating Chevy parts into a Ford; making a wheel barrel out of oak, nails, and a lawn mower wheel; feeding a family for under ten dollars a week; and entertaining yourself on a rainy Saturday playing with Moms clothespins and pie pans. The context for the story is introduced through third-party narration in chapters 1 and 2 and then transitions to a first-party account by a boy named William Seabold. Everyone called him Bill.