As its name implies, Genesis is a book of origins. In it we are told of the origin of the universe, the beginnings of the human race and the birth of the Israelite nation. But it is more than an early record of origins. It is part of God's Word to us, what the apostle Paul calls "God-breathed" Scripture. Here we are given infallible instruction concerning where we all came from and why things are the way they are. The book of Genesis is also crucially important for our understanding of the rest of Scripture. It introduces us to the true and living God, to the beginnings of sin, its consequences and how it has affected the whole created order. - Publisher.

A New York Times-bestselling author explains how the physical world shaped the history of our species When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the south-east United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea. Everywhere is the deep imprint of the planetary on the human. From the cultivation of the first crops to the founding of modern states, Origins reveals the breathtaking impact of the earth beneath our feet on the shape of our human civilizations.

Everything—from the mundane (the pencil) to the catastrophic (the atom bomb)—has an origin, but often it’s not what we expect. A few things you may not have known: • Gandhi was married at age thirteen! • Chinese fortune cookies are an American invention and were not eaten in China until the 1990s when they were advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies.” • Bayer lost the trademark for aspirin (which they had held since 1897) as part of the reparations Germany was forced to pay after World War I. • The original idea for the electric chair came from an American dentist. For aspiring mindblowers and wanna-be know-it-alls, The Book of Origins is a treasure trove of trivia and fascinating facts guaranteed to entertain and enlighten.

#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • "Dr. Langdon is once again wrapped up in a global-scale event that could have massive ramifications on the world’s religions. As he does in all his novels, Brown[‘s] extensive research on art, architecture, and history informs every page." —Entertainment Weekly Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology, arrives at the ultramodern Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that “will change the face of science forever.” The evening’s host is Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire and futurist, and one of Langdon’s first students. But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch’s precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Facing an imminent threat, Langdon is forced to flee. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch. They travel to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch’s secret. Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme re­ligion, Langdon and Vidal must evade an enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain’s Royal Palace. They uncover clues that ultimately bring them face-to-face with Kirsch’s shocking discovery…and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us.

Paul presents an in-depth examination of how personalities are formed by biological, social, and emotional factors.

Lawrence Millman's The Book of Origins is a rattle-your-brains collection of tales in the tradition of George Carlin, Jonathan Swift, and Italo Calvino, but not Jane Austen or Henry James. In its pages, you will learn about a highly moral man who refuses to marry his grandmother, God's failure as a Supreme Being and his subsequent retirement, a man given a prison sentence for writing a novel, a U.S. president who decides to attack other countries because he's horny, a barely educated Middle American who's offered the Nobel Prize in Physics, and numerous other undocumented incidents in our planet's history.