A new "bible" title that reveals the science of our brains. The term "mind mapping" has been used in various contexts over time, however this book, The Neuroscience Bible, is strictly about the human brain as a vital organ and how it controls the nervous system and thus our life. It is a crash-course in the latest scientific knowledge of the workings of the brain and the nervous system it controls. The most elusive concepts, such as memory and addiction and the difference between the brain and the mind, are broken down into easily understandable bite-sized pieces. In pictures of the brain, the cerebrum is most noticeable. Sitting at the top of the brain, it is the source of all intellectual activities. It is split into two halves -- the proverbial "left brain and right brain" -- which communicate via nerve fibers. Information collected by your senses moves along a network of linked nerve cells called neurons, which are the basic building blocks of the nervous system. These neurons are active in both sides of the brain, which although looking the same, are different. Words are formed in the left hemisphere, abstract reasoning in the right. Together, they control every brain activity -- from memories, planning, imagination, recognizing friends and reading books to playing games and creating art. The Neuroscience Bible explains all this and much more. Topics include: The anatomy of the brain Neurons, synapses and axons The building blocks of the brain The difference between the brain and the mind The biology of mental illness Modern treatment of mental illness The effects on the brain of alcohol and drugs Memory, senses, cravings Fight or flight Exploring the brain's billions of neurons with mind mapping The future of neuroscience. As you read this book, your brain and your nervous system will be busy making sense of the words. Nerve cells in your eyes will sense the letters' boundaries and transmit them from your eyes to your brain which forms the words and recalls their meanings.

What you believe about God actually changes your brain. Psychiatrist Tim Jennings unveils how our brains and bodies thrive when we have a healthy understanding of who God is. This expanded edition now includes a study guide to help you discover how neuroscience and Scripture come together to bring healing and transformation to our lives.

Before the Bible reveals the landscape of scripture in an era prior to the crystallization of the rabbinic Bible and the canonization of the Christian Bible. Most accounts of the formation of the Hebrew Bible trace the origins of scripture through source critical excavation of the archaeological "tel" of the Bible or the analysis of the scribal hand on manuscripts in text-critical work, but the discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls have transformed our understanding of scripture formation. Judith Newman focuses not on the putative origins and closure of the Bible, but on the reasons why scriptures remained open, with pluriform growth in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Drawing on new methods from cognitive neuroscience and the social sciences as well as traditional philological and literary analysis, Before the Bible argues that the key to understanding the formation of scripture is the widespread practice of individual and communal prayer in early Judaism. The figure of the teacher as a learned and pious sage capable of interpreting and embodying the tradition is central to understanding this revelatory phenomenon. The book considers the entwinement of prayer and scriptural formation in five books reflecting the diversity of early Judaism: Ben Sira, Daniel, Jeremiah/Baruch, Second Corinthians, and the Qumran Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns). While not a complete taxonomy of scripture formation, the book illuminates performative dynamics that have been largely ignored as well as the generative role of interpretive tradition in accounts of how the Bible came to be.

Many Christians in the world live a life of contradictions. They are fully aware and thoroughly cognizant of what is expected of them and yet their practices do not reflect that. There is a need for spiritual transformation in these Christians. This book proposes that spiritual transformation has everything to do with our mind (brain function) control. It describes how a recently discovered brain phenomenon called neuroplasticity (brain malleability) can be harnessed to bring about spiritual transformation. The book identifies some incongruities (conflicts) in the life of a Christian. It then describes the brain as the pinnacle of God’s creation. Neurons (also called nerve cells) are the basic units of the brain. Neurons receive sensory input from the external world. For example, they send motor commands to our muscles to act, interpret what our ears hear and what our eyes see, and coordinate all the necessary functions of life. Their interactions define who we are as people created in the image of God. Neurons make this possible through a highly complex and sophisticated network (fibers) called neural pathways constituting what neuroscientist refer to as the NeuroverseTM; that is influenced by every thought we have, every challenge we encounter, every new perspective we become aware of, as well as every habit we develop.

The Old Testament can seem strange and disturbing to contemporary readers. What should Christians make of Genesis 1-3, seemingly at odds with modern scientific accounts? Why does the Old Testament contain so much violence? How should Christians handle texts that give women a second-class status? Does the Old Testament contradict itself? Why are so many Psalms filled with anger and sorrow? What should we make of texts that portray God as filled with wrath? Combining pastoral insight, biblical scholarship, and a healthy dose of humility, gifted teacher and communicator Matthew Schlimm explores perennial theological questions raised by the Old Testament. He provides strategies for reading and appropriating these sacred texts, showing how the Old Testament can shape the lives of Christians today and helping them appreciate the Old Testament as a friend in faith.

Technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionised our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in psychology and anthropology posit evolutionary explanations for the ubiquity and persistence of religious beliefs and the reports of religious experiences across human cultures, while gesturing toward physical bases for these behaviours. What is missing from this literature is a strong voice speaking to these behavioural and social scientists - as well as to the intellectually curious in the religious studies community - from the perspective of a brain scientist.

Between 1996 and 2014, Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church multiplied from its base in Seattle into fifteen facilities spread across five states with 13,000 attendees. When it closed, the church was beset by scandal, with former attendees testifying to spiritual abuse, emotional manipulation, and financial exploitation. In Biblical Porn Jessica Johnson examines how Mars Hill's congregants became entangled in processes of religious conviction. Johnson shows how they were affectively recruited into sexualized and militarized dynamics of power through the mobilization of what she calls "biblical porn"—the affective labor of communicating, promoting, and embodying Driscoll's teaching on biblical masculinity, femininity, and sexuality, which simultaneously worked as a marketing strategy, social imaginary, and biopolitical instrument. Johnson theorizes religious conviction as a social process through which Mars Hill's congregants circulated and amplified feelings of hope, joy, shame, and paranoia as affective value that the church capitalized on to grow at all costs.