The American West of the nineteenth century was a world of freedom and adventure for men of every stripe—not least also those who admired and desired other men. Among these sojourners was William Drummond Stewart, a flamboyant Scottish nobleman who found in American culture of the 1830s and 1840s a cultural milieu of openness in which men could pursue same-sex relationships. This book traces Stewart’s travels from his arrival in America in 1832 to his return to Murthly Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, with his French Canadian–Cree Indian companion, Antoine Clement, one of the most skilled hunters in the Rockies. Benemann chronicles Stewart’s friendships with such notables as Kit Carson, William Sublette, Marcus Whitman, and Jim Bridger. He describes the wild Renaissance-costume party held by Stewart and Clement upon their return to America—a journey that ended in scandal. Through Stewart’s letters and novels, Benemann shows that Stewart was one of many men drawn to the sexual freedom offered by the West. His book provides a tantalizing new perspective on the Rocky Mountain fur trade and the role of homosexuality in shaping the American West.

Maybe you've heard of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body and wondered, vaguely, what it's all about. Maybe you've never heard of it until now and are asking, theology of the what? Maybe you're already familiar with the basics and are ready to incorporate this teaching on sex, love and marriage into your own life. Whatever your level of understanding, you're probably ready for some good news about sex in a culture littered with the bad news of divorce, adultery, sexually transmitted disease, heartache and loneliness. This guide is designed to help you appropriate the Pope's astonishing message: True, lasting love—that which humanity enjoyed in the beginning, before the Fall—is possible here and now. In nine straightforward lessons, Men and Women Are from Eden introduces the reader to the pope's warm, deeply biblical understanding of God's original plan for men and women, a plan that brings with it healing of mind in regard to sexuality and the body.

"You want me to tell of how I broke the world." It's the year 641 since the beginning of the world, and when Eve passes away, she leaves Adam the only man on earth who remembers everything from the beginning of the world. When Enoch, God's newly appointed prophet, decides to collect the stories of the faithful from previous generations, he finds Adam in desperate need to confess the dark secrets he's held onto for too long. Beside a slowly burning bonfire in the dead of night, Adam tells his story in searing detail. From the beginning of everything, to how he broke the world, shattered Eve's heart, and watched his family crumble. Will Enoch uncover what led so many of Adam's children away from God? And will Adam find the redemption and forgiveness he longs for?

A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors, in a commemorative hardcover edition In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century.

A provocative new interpretation of the Adam and Eve story from an expert in Biblical literature. The Garden of Eden story, one of the most famous narratives in Western history, is typically read as an ancient account of original sin and humanity’s fall from divine grace. In this highly innovative study, Ziony Zevit argues that this is not how ancient Israelites understood the early biblical text. Drawing on such diverse disciplines as biblical studies, geography, archaeology, mythology, anthropology, biology, poetics, law, linguistics, and literary theory, he clarifies the worldview of the ancient Israelite readers during the First Temple period and elucidates what the story likely meant in its original context. Most provocatively, he contends that our ideas about original sin are based upon misconceptions originating in the Second Temple period under the influence of Hellenism. He shows how, for ancient Israelites, the story was really about how humans achieved ethical discernment. He argues further that Adam was not made from dust and that Eve was not made from Adam’s rib. His study unsettles much of what has been taken for granted about the story for more than two millennia—and has far-reaching implications for both literary and theological interpreters. “Classical Hebrew in the hands of Ziony Zevit is like a cello in the hands of a master cellist. He knows all the hidden subtleties of the instrument, and he makes you hear them in this rendition of the profoundly simple story of Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and their Creator in the Garden of Eden. Zevit brings a great deal of other biblical learning to bear in a surprisingly light-hearted book.”―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography

Will Alexander, sheriff of a small town in southern Appalachia, is baffled by a murder case with no body and no suspect, and sets out to find the truth about what really happened to a local thug.

God did not curse Eve or limit woman in any way. Sadly, modern translations of Genesis 3:16 make it look like God did both. God didn't curse Adam either, but God did speak to him in a way exactly parallel to the other rebel in the Garden of Eden, the serpent-tempter. And two curses were imposed by God because of them. People have made up many myths and stories about what supposedly happened in Eden. They make it seem like God cursed the woman and that she somehow deserved it. She didn't. They make it seem like God instituted the man's bad behavior toward his wife. God didn't. The Bible tells us what really happened. And this book is all about what God really said especially in Genesis 3:16. When these chapters in Genesis are rightly understood, and we gain a true view of what God really said to the woman in Genesis 3:16, many New Testament passages can be reinvestigated. They too can be cleared away of the bias we find popping up in translations of, and commentary on, several key passages in the New Testament that look back to Genesis 2 and 3. This book is based on the episodes of Season One of The Eden Podcast (TheEdenPodcast.com).