“[A] fascinating recasting of the story of Jesus.” —Elliot Wolfson, New York University In July 2008, a front-page story in the New York Times reported on the discovery of an ancient Hebrew tablet, dating from before the birth of Jesus, which predicted a Messiah who would rise from the dead after three days. Commenting on this startling discovery at the time, noted Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin argued that “some Christians will find it shocking—a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology.” Guiding us through a rich tapestry of new discoveries and ancient scriptures, The Jewish Gospels makes the powerful case that our conventional understandings of Jesus and of the origins of Christianity are wrong. In Boyarin’s scrupulously illustrated account, the coming of the Messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers, Boyarin shows, were simply Jewish. What came to be known as Christianity came much later, as religious and political leaders sought to impose a new religious orthodoxy that was not present at the time of Jesus’s life. In the vein of Elaine Pagels’s The Gnostic Gospels, here is a brilliant new work that will break open some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions. “A brilliant and momentous book.” —Karen L. King, Harvard Divinity School “Raises profound questions . . . This provocative book will change the way we think of the Gospels in their Jewish context.” —John J. Collins, Yale Divinity School “It’s certainly noteworthy when one of the world’s leading Jewish scholars publishes a book about Jesus . . . Extremely stimulating.” —Daniel C. Peterson, The Deseret News

In The Crucified Book, Anne Kreps shows how the Gospel of Truth, a second-century text associated with the Christian Platonist Valentinus, and its ideas about the nature of authoritative writing engaged with Greco-Roman culture and cohered with Jewish and Christian ideas about books in antiquity.

This book discusses the decoration types of Sephardic illuminated Bibles in their broader historical, and social context in an era of cultural transition in Iberia and culture struggle within Spanish Jewry.

In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within the earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of the most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows that the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we’re willing to listen.

Major new edition of a modern classic, fully revised and expanded. Contains a substantial new chapter on 'The Bible in Practice'. John Barton is one of the world's most influential and widely respected biblical scholars, and questions about biblical authority and inspiration are as topical and controversial as ever.

Noticing how the world today is sinking into darkness as it did many times before through its history, seeing how the Muslims are working hard against the message that Allah sent, how Christian created their own preaching and faith, how the Jews worked all of their lives against the LORD and the men that the LORD sent. Mohammad Fawzi saw the need to do something, and this book is the first of many he is working on in hope he may be able to correct the mistakes done today from all the beliefs, he will also deal with the darkness of the Atheists. In a world full with darkness and evil done against the LORD, the need for those who have the truth is increasing, not the false truth some claim to have, but the genuine truth that is supported with solid proofs and convincing evidence. It is time for those who can do something to step up.

Some manuscripts have been produced for the personal use of their scribe only; whereas a number of them are valued as autographs, most have been ephemeral and were discarded. Personal manuscripts were not written for a patron, commissioner, or client. They are personal copies, anthologies, florilegia, personal notes, excerpts, drafts and notebooks, as well as family books, accountancy notebooks and many others; these forms often being mixed with one another. This volume introduces a number of such manuscripts in a comparative perspective, from Japan to Europe through the Middle East, with a focus on the Near and Middle East. The main concern is the possibility of identifying typical features of such manuscripts in terms of materials, visual organization and content. In attempting this, both the conditions of production and traces of the manuscripts' use are taken into consideration, with particular attention to their material aspects.