In How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the listener chapter by chapter through the "quiet revolution" of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today''s researchers differ from what people have always thought.

According to Sumerian scholar Zecharia Sitchin, a superior race of beings once inhabited our world. In The 12th Planet—the product of 30 years of intensive research—Sitchin persuasively argues that humanity sprang from extraterrestrial forebears. In this remarkable account, you'll hear the story of how these ancient visitors traveled to Earth from the stars and planted the genetic seed that would ultimately blossom into a remarkable species—the human being.

How the Bible Actually Works makes clear that there is no one right way to read or listen to the Bible. Moving us beyond the damaging idea that “being right” is the most important measure of faith, Enns’ freeing approach to Bible study helps us to instead focus on pursuing enlightenment and building our relationship with God - which is exactly what the Bible was designed to do.

Founded by Alexander the Great and built by self-styled Greek pharaohs, the city of Alexandria at its height dwarfed both Athens and Rome. It was the marvel of its age, legendary for its vast palaces, safe harbors, and magnificent lighthouse. But it was most famous for the astonishing intellectual efflorescence it fostered and the library it produced. If the European Renaissance was the "rebirth" of Western culture, then Alexandria, Egypt, was its birthplace.

Why does the Bible depict a world in which humans, with surprising regularity, encounter the divine - wrestling an angel, addressing a burning bush, issuing forth prophecy without any choice in the matter? These stories spoke very differently to their original audience than they do to us, and they reflect a radically distinct understanding of reality and the human mind. Yet over the course of the thousand-year biblical era, encounters with God changed dramatically.

For thousands of years, the prophet Moses was regarded as the sole author of the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. According to tradition, Moses was divinely directed to write down foundational events in the history of the world: the creation of humans, the worldwide flood, the laws as they were handed down at Mt. Sinai, and the cycle of Israel’s enslavement and liberation from Egypt. However, these stories—and their frequent discrepancies—provoke questions.

What sort of "person" is God? Is it possible to approach him not as an object of religious reverence, but as the protagonist of the world's greatest book--as a character who possesses all the depths, contradictions, and abiguities of a Hamlet? In this "brilliant, audacious book" ( Chicago Tribune), a former Jesuit marshalls a vast array of learning and knowledge of the Hebrew Bible to illuminate God--and man--with a sense of discovery and wonder.

Bolder even than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.

Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to the mystery of the exodus. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account.

Does your knowledge of the Old Testament feel like a grab bag of people, books, events, and ideas? How many times have you resolved to really understand the OT? To finally make sense of it? Perhaps you are suffering from what Sandra Richter calls the "dysfunctional closet syndrome". If so, she has a solution. Like a home-organizing expert, she comes in and helps you straighten up your cluttered closet. Whether you are a frustrated do-it-yourselfer or a beginning student enrolled in a course, The Epic of Eden will organize your understanding of the Old Testament.

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century. The Greeks and Romans continue to fascinate the West today. But of all the world's civilizations, none have intrigued people more than the Mayans, whose culture, astronomy, language, and mysterious disappearance all continue to captivate people. In 2012 especially, there was a renewed focus on the Mayans, whose advanced calendar led many to speculate the world would end on the same date the Mayan calendar ends.

Edgar Bronfman's clarion call to a generation of secular, disaffected, and unaffiliated Jews, Why Be Jewish? addresses the most critical question confronting Judaism worldwide. Completed in December 2013, just weeks before he passed away, Why Be Jewish? expresses Edgar Bronfman's awe, respect, and deep love for his faith and heritage. Bronfman walks listeners through the major tenets and ideas in Jewish life, fleshing out their meanings and offering proof texts from the Jewish tradition.

The ancient books of Genesis and Enoch tell us that sprit beings known as the Watchers descended to the Earth, had sex with women, and begat a hybrid race of offspring known as the Nephilim. Such tales are as old as humanity itself. These histories and accounts of visitations and subsequent mixed-blood, alien-human races comprise the bulk of the world's myths, legends, religions, and superstitions.

Waiting to be rediscovered in the British Library is an ancient manuscript of the early Church, copied by an anonymous monk. The manuscript is at least 1,450 years old, possibly dating to the first century, Jesus' lifetime. And now, The Lost Gospel provides the first-ever translation from Syriac into English of this unique document that tells the inside story of Jesus' social, family, and political life. The Lost Gospel takes listeners on an unparalleled historical adventure through a paradigm-shifting manuscript.

The author of such acclaimed books as The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology.