The Lost Books of the Bible: The Great Rejected Texts - 18 of the most sought-after books available, which shed light on the evolution of our faith, our theology, and our church. Translations and commentary by the author of the best-selling book The Lost Books of Enoch, Joseph Lumpkin.

For centuries translations of the Bible have obscured our understanding and appreciation of the original text. Now And God Said provides listeners with an authoritative account of significant mistranslations and shows how new translation methods can give listeners their first glimpse into what the Bible really means.

A vast readership wants better access to the ancient words and ideas of the Bible. In The Bible Doesn't Say That, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the listener through dozens of instances of mistranslations, misconceptions, and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In 40 short chapters, Hoffman covers fundamental theology, morality, lifestyle, and biblical imagery.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate's staunchest supporters? Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism.

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today.

Historians know virtually nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time the man we know as the apostle Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have - the letters of Paul - as well as other early Christian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity.

The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side accusing the other of taking challenging and troubling passages out of context. In this handbook, Joshua Bowen not only provides the background to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, but engages with hotly contested topics like slavery, failed prophecy, and the authorship of debated Old Testament books.

This explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world's great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the first century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered.

In The Unseen Realm, Dr. Michael Heiser examines the ancient context of scripture, explaining how its supernatural worldview can help us grow in our understanding of God. He illuminates intriguing and amazing passages of the Bible that have been hiding in plain sight. You'll find yourself engaged in an enthusiastic pursuit of the truth, resulting in a new appreciation for God's word.

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.

Over the past hundred years, scholars have attacked the historical truth of the Gospels and argued that they were originally anonymous and filled with contradictions. In The Case for Jesus, Brant Pitre taps in to the wells of Christian scripture, history, and tradition to ask and answer a number of different questions, including: If we don't know who wrote the Gospels, how can we trust them? How are the four Gospels different from other Gospels, such as the lost Gospel of "Q" and the Gospel of Thomas?

In this sweeping narrative, which takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy.

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.

Nailed sheds light on ten beloved Christian myths, and, with evidence gathered from historians across the theological spectrum, shows how they point to a Jesus Christ created solely through allegorical alchemy of hope and imagination; a messiah transformed from a purely literary, theological construct into the familiar figure of Jesus - in short, a purely mythic Christ.

In a book that took eight years to research and write, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman explores how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty Creator of all things. Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death - alive again - did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God.

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.

Bringing to life the world of the Old and New Testaments, the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Don’t Know Much About® series transforms dry, difficult reading into colorful and realistic accounts. Relying on new research and improved translations, Kenneth C. Davis uncovers some amazing questions and contradictions about what the Bible really says: Jericho’s walls may have tumbled down because the city lies on a fault line; Moses never parted the Red Sea; There was a Jesus, but he wasn’t born on Christmas and he probably wasn't an only child....

This epic, thrilling journey through Bible scholarship and ancient religion shows how much of Scripture is historically false - yet the ancient writings also resound with theologies that crisscrossed the primeval world and that direct us today toward a deep, authentic inner experience of the truly sacred.

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.

Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion by teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction nor be accepted among the conservative evangelical community.

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.

Dan Brown's immensely popular New York Times best-selling The Da Vinci Code is one of the most successful books of recent history. It has captivated millions the world over with its enthralling suspense and its provocative questions about the true nature of Jesus' life.

This explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world's great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the first century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered.

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.

Following up on the first volume, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2 takes up the challenge of providing a clear and useful guide to those wanting a better understanding of the Old Testament, including its cultural and historical background, as well as discussions on contentious topics like violence and genocide, and whether the Exodus was a real historical event. Volume two also covers the narrative of the Old Testament, from the conquest to the divided monarchy, and a brief history of Egypt to help situate the biblical text within agreed historical events.

A man who has consciously and deliberately walked the path of Christ, John Shelby Spong has lived his entire life inside the Christian Church. In this profound and considered work, he offers a radical new way to look at the gospels today as he shows just how deeply Jewish the Christian Gospels are and how much they reflect the Jewish scriptures, history, and patterns of worship.

A quick non-technical introduction to the Koran designed to help Christians understand a hidden book revered by 1.3 billion Muslims, covering the background on its writing, a summary of its contents, a perspective on how it’s used and viewed by Muslims, a comparison of differences and similarities to the Bible, and some suggestions on how it should and should not be used in conversations with Muslims.

Who is Allah? What does he ask of those who submit to his teachings? Pulitzer Prize-winner Jack Miles gives us a deeply probing, revelatory portrait of the world’s second largest, fastest-growing, and perhaps most tragically misunderstood religion. In doing so, Miles illuminates what is unique about Allah, his teachings, and his resolutely merciful temperament, and he thereby reveals that which is false, distorted, or simply absent from the popular conception of the heart of Islam.

In this sweeping narrative, which takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy.

E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.

A vast readership wants better access to the ancient words and ideas of the Bible. In The Bible Doesn't Say That, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the listener through dozens of instances of mistranslations, misconceptions, and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In 40 short chapters, Hoffman covers fundamental theology, morality, lifestyle, and biblical imagery.

Evolutions brings to life the latest scientific thinking on the birth of the universe and the solar system, the journey from a single cell all the way to our human minds. Reawakening our sense of wonder and terror at the world around us and within us, Oren Harman uses modern science to create new and original mythologies.

With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of "once for all delivered to the saints".

For centuries translations of the Bible have obscured our understanding and appreciation of the original text. Now And God Said provides listeners with an authoritative account of significant mistranslations and shows how new translation methods can give listeners their first glimpse into what the Bible really means.

In Prince of Darkness, a groundbreaking and vivid account, eminent historian Shane White reveals the larger-than-life story of a man who defied every convention of his time. He wheeled and dealed in the lily-white business world, he married a White woman, he bought a mansion in rural New Jersey, he owned railroad stock on trains he was not legally allowed to ride, and generally he set his White contemporaries' teeth on edge when he wasn't just plain outsmarting them.

Bart Ehrman, author of the best sellers Misquoting Jesus and Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code, here takes listeners on another engaging tour of the early Christian church, illuminating the lives of three of Jesus' most intriguing followers: Simon Peter, Paul of Tarsus, and Mary Magdalene.

Historians know virtually nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time the man we know as the apostle Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have - the letters of Paul - as well as other early Christian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity.

Bringing to life the world of the Old and New Testaments, the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Don’t Know Much About® series transforms dry, difficult reading into colorful and realistic accounts. Relying on new research and improved translations, Kenneth C. Davis uncovers some amazing questions and contradictions about what the Bible really says: Jericho’s walls may have tumbled down because the city lies on a fault line; Moses never parted the Red Sea; There was a Jesus, but he wasn’t born on Christmas and he probably wasn't an only child....

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.

One by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. The Chinese government's brutal persecution of the Uyghur people had continued for years, but in 2017 it assumed a terrifying new scale. The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China, were experiencing an echo of the worst horrors of the twentieth century, amplified by China's establishment of an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Over a million people have vanished into China’s internment camps for Muslim minorities.

This is the astonishing true story of Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, who shared a personal history for more than three decades - and didn't know it. In her mid-30s, Schein finally decided to call an adoption agency to learn about her biological mother. Not expecting much, she instead got the surprise of her life. Her identical twin sister, Bernstein, lived just minutes away.