Caesar's Census, God's Jubilee

Caesar's Census, God's Jubilee PDF Author: W. Scott McAndless
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781493624133
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus of Nazareth was born during a census that had been ordered by Caesar Augustus and, because of this census, his parents made a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, arriving just in time for his birth. It is a wonderful story that has inspired millions down through the ages, but it is also a story that has left some very puzzled.Questions abound for many readers of the story who have any knowledge of the history of those times. Questions like:• Did Caesar really conduct a census of the whole world at once?• When did such a census take place?• When is Luke saying that Jesus was born?• Why does Luke say that all the people registered for the census in the places where their ancestors came from?• Doesn't it make more sense to register people where they actually live?• What was the normal Roman procedure for taking censuses?This book is an attempt to work through questions like this is a way that takes the scriptural story seriously but that also deals honestly and openly with what we know about the historical situation. It does this in two ways.RethinkingThis book suggests that we have simply misunderstood some things about Luke's nativity story. This is partly because we have insisted on harmonizing his story with the nativity story in the Gospel of Matthew. It also explores how the Old Testament notion of jubilee might offer a better reason for the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.ReimaginingThe nativity story has been painted and drawn by some of the greatest artists who have ever lived, sung by some of the greatest singers and told by some of the greatest storytellers. A whole rich and well-populated world has grown up around the nativity story—a world so detailed that it seems very real even if much of it has little connection with the Biblical accounts. Because of this, it is not enough to just an attempt to correct a few misunderstandings about the Christmas story. New ideas would seem to attack that entire imaginative world that has grown up around the story over the centuries and would be resisted for that reason alone.Therefore this book also includes some retelling of the Christmas story in short vignettes (called interludes) that help us to imagine the journey of Mary and Joseph within a historical setting that Luke would recognize.Warning: if you read this book, you just might not be able to see the old familiar Christmas story in the same way ever again.

Caesar's Census, God's Jubilee

Caesar's Census, God's Jubilee PDF Author: W. Scott McAndless
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781493624133
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Get Book Here

Book Description
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus of Nazareth was born during a census that had been ordered by Caesar Augustus and, because of this census, his parents made a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, arriving just in time for his birth. It is a wonderful story that has inspired millions down through the ages, but it is also a story that has left some very puzzled.Questions abound for many readers of the story who have any knowledge of the history of those times. Questions like:• Did Caesar really conduct a census of the whole world at once?• When did such a census take place?• When is Luke saying that Jesus was born?• Why does Luke say that all the people registered for the census in the places where their ancestors came from?• Doesn't it make more sense to register people where they actually live?• What was the normal Roman procedure for taking censuses?This book is an attempt to work through questions like this is a way that takes the scriptural story seriously but that also deals honestly and openly with what we know about the historical situation. It does this in two ways.RethinkingThis book suggests that we have simply misunderstood some things about Luke's nativity story. This is partly because we have insisted on harmonizing his story with the nativity story in the Gospel of Matthew. It also explores how the Old Testament notion of jubilee might offer a better reason for the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.ReimaginingThe nativity story has been painted and drawn by some of the greatest artists who have ever lived, sung by some of the greatest singers and told by some of the greatest storytellers. A whole rich and well-populated world has grown up around the nativity story—a world so detailed that it seems very real even if much of it has little connection with the Biblical accounts. Because of this, it is not enough to just an attempt to correct a few misunderstandings about the Christmas story. New ideas would seem to attack that entire imaginative world that has grown up around the story over the centuries and would be resisted for that reason alone.Therefore this book also includes some retelling of the Christmas story in short vignettes (called interludes) that help us to imagine the journey of Mary and Joseph within a historical setting that Luke would recognize.Warning: if you read this book, you just might not be able to see the old familiar Christmas story in the same way ever again.

Why This Jubilee?

Why This Jubilee? PDF Author: James C. Howell
Publisher: Upper Room Books
ISBN: 0835814963
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Music is such an important part of Advent and Christmas. Can you imagine Advent without "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"? How about Christmas without carols like "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night," and "Joy to the World"? It pleases the Lord Jesus when we sing of his coming with carols we know by heart. It pleases him even more when we think about the words we are singing. In 24 reflections on well-known carols and Christmas songs, James Howell explores the birth of Jesus. He ponders the meaning of certain phrases from these songs and relates them to our daily lives. The four weeks of devotions are arranged by topic: The Place The Men (Joseph, shepherds, magi) The Mother The Child A guide for weekly discussion is included. Join Howell in this rich remembrance for the Advent and Christmas seasons.

Baxter's Explore the Book

Baxter's Explore the Book PDF Author: J. Sidlow Baxter
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310871395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1846

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Book Description
Explore the Book is not a commentary with verse-by-verse annotations. Neither is it just a series of analyses and outlines. Rather, it is a complete Bible survey course. No one can finish this series of studies and remain unchanged. The reader will receive lifelong benefit and be enriched by these practical and understandable studies. Exposition, commentary, and practical application of the meaning and message of the Bible will be found throughout this giant volume. Bible students without any background in Bible study will find this book of immense help as will those who have spent much time studying the Scriptures, including pastors and teachers. Explore the Book is the result and culmination of a lifetime of dedicated Bible study and exposition on the part of Dr. Baxter. It shows throughout a deep awareness and appreciation of the grand themes of the gospel, as found from the opening book of the Bible through Revelation.

Seeing Like a State

Seeing Like a State PDF Author: James C. Scott
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252986
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

God and Caesar

God and Caesar PDF Author: George Pell
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 081321503X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Drawing on a deep knowledge of history and human affairs, the essays pinpoint the key issues facing Christians and non-believers in determining the future of modern democratic life

Herod the Great and Jesus: Chronological, Historical and Archaeological Evidence

Herod the Great and Jesus: Chronological, Historical and Archaeological Evidence PDF Author: Gerard Gertoux
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1329698169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
The traditional date of 4 BCE for Herod's death, as set forth by E. Schurer (1896), has been accepted by historians for years without notable controversy. However, according to the texts of Luke and Matthew, Herod died shortly after Jesus' birth, which can be fixed in 2 BCE. Consequently, there is apparently a major chronological contradiction, however Josephus gives a dozen synchronisms that enable us to date his death on 26 January 1 BCE just after a total lunar eclipse (9 January 1 BCE) prior to the Passover. Two important events confirm the dating of Herod's death: the 'census of Quirinius' in Syria which was a part of the 'Inventory of the world' ordered by Augustus when he became 'Father of the Country' in 2 BCE and the 'war of Varus' after Herod's death conducted under the auspices of Caius Caesar, the imperial legate of the East, and dated during the year of his consulship in 1 CE."

Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism

Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism PDF Author: Stanley E. Porter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004234764
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
In Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism, Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through reference to Hellenistic Judaism and its literary forms.

The Day Christ Was Born

The Day Christ Was Born PDF Author: Jim Bishop
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060607947
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
A reissue of the classic retelling of the Nativity. "Written with dignity, unerring taste, and with no straining for effects."--Chicago Sunday Tribune

Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution

Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution PDF Author: André Trocmé
Publisher: The Plough Publishing House
ISBN: 1570755388
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
André Trocmé of Le Chambon is famous for his role in saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis during World War II. But his bold deeds did not spring from a void. They were rooted in his understanding of Jesus’ way of nonviolence – an understanding that gave him the remarkable insights contained in this long out-of-print classic. In this book, you’ll encounter a Jesus you may have never met before – a Jesus who not only calls for spiritual transformation, but for practical changes that answer the most perplexing political, economic, and social problems of our time.

The Patient Ferment of the Early Church

The Patient Ferment of the Early Church PDF Author: Alan Kreider
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493400339
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.