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The New York Times bestselling author of Buddha and Jesus weaves together historical narrative, mystery, exciting adventure, and intrigue in this masterfully told novel that reveals surprising discoveries about the unknown last disciple of Christ, and a new understanding of who Jesus was in his final days. When a solid gold reliquary missing from a church in Belgium suddenly resurfaces in America, a young newspaperman begins to investigate the story. At first, it seems like just another case of a treasure stolen during World War II that has resurfaced. But it soon becomes apparent that much more is at stake. Hidden within the medieval reliquary is a gold box that holds a sacred relic—a single finger bone—from an anonymous saint. Why would the remains of someone unknown to the Church be considered holy? The search for answers leads to a shocking discovery—a dangerous secret known only to a small band of people. If one touches the reliquary, a sacred vision is received—a vision involving a young girl who had a chance encounter with Jesus just before he was crucified. The few people who have been blessed with these miraculous messages have banded together into a mysterious school, a closed society that preserves this venerated wisdom. But their knowledge of the young girl and Jesus is at once so fascinating yet so highly controversial that it cannot be shared with the world. This young girl, curious about the charismatic man named Jesus, embarks on a quest to find out who he really was. What she finds—the knowledge the society protects—is at times far different from the accepted gospels. Could this unknown girl be the 13th Disciple—the last and truest apostle of Christ?
This is the groundbreaking novel that fills in so many puzzling passages and mysteries woven into the familiar scriptural stories of the Bible. Using the near- lost gospels of the earliest Judeo-Christian mystics recovered recent times, Peter Canova reconstructs Western spiritual history in a spellbinding novel of fall, transcendence, and redemption. Mary Magdalene's story in not just about the lost feminine voice of the early Church-her story is our story, the universal saga of humanity's origin, destiny, and purpose. It is the story of an explosive divine knowledge being silenced by opposing powers to prevent a shocking truth from transforming mankind with a new paradigm for existence. Magdalene escapes slavery and forced prostitution to become the primary disciple of Jesus and bear the secret, radical knowledge he taught to an elect few. Set against the clash of opposing empires and a backdrop of murder, espionage, and betrayal, Magdalene is pursued by a Roman assassin as she embarks on an odyssey across the ancient world. She seeks the key that will make her worthy to reveal the true message of the martyred Jesus before she too is silenced and her native Judea is destroyed in a rain of fire and blood.
A profound and moving journey into the heart of Christianity that explores the mysterious and often paradoxical lives and legacies of the Twelve Apostles—a book both for those of the faith and for others who seek to understand Christianity from the outside in. “Expertly researched and fascinating… Bissell is a wonderfully sure guide to these mysterious men.… This is a serious book about the origins of Christianity that is also very funny. How often can you say that?” —The Independent Peter, Matthew, Thomas, John: Who were these men? What was their relationship to Jesus? Tom Bissell provides rich and surprising answers to these ancient, elusive questions. He examines not just who these men were (and weren’t), but also how their identities have taken shape over the course of two millennia. Ultimately, Bissell finds that the story of the apostles is the story of early Christianity: its competing versions of Jesus’s ministry, its countless schisms, and its ultimate evolution from an obscure Jewish sect to the global faith we know today in all its forms and permutations. In his quest to understand the underpinnings of the world’s largest religion, Bissell embarks on a years-long pilgrimage to the supposed tombs of the Twelve Apostles. He travels from Jerusalem and Rome to Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, India, and Kyrgyzstan, vividly capturing the rich diversity of Christianity’s worldwide reach. Along the way, he engages with a host of characters—priests, paupers, a Vatican archaeologist, a Palestinian taxi driver, a Russian monk—posing sharp questions that range from the religious to the philosophical to the political. Written with warmth, empathy, and rare acumen, Apostle is a brilliant synthesis of travel writing, biblical history, and a deep, lifelong relationship with Christianity. The result is an unusual, erudite, and at times hilarious book—a religious, intellectual, and personal adventure fit for believers, scholars, and wanderers alike.
The New York Times bestselling author of Buddha and Jesus weaves together historical narrative, mystery, exciting adventure, and intrigue in this masterfully told novel that reveals surprising discoveries about the unknown last disciple of Christ, and a new understanding of who Jesus was in his final days. When a solid gold reliquary missing from a church in Belgium suddenly resurfaces in America, a young newspaperman begins to investigate the story. At first, it seems like just another case of a treasure stolen during World War II that has resurfaced. But it soon becomes apparent that much more is at stake. Hidden within the medieval reliquary is a gold box that holds a sacred relic—a single finger bone—from an anonymous saint. Why would the remains of someone unknown to the Church be considered holy? The search for answers leads to a shocking discovery—a dangerous secret known only to a small band of people. If one touches the reliquary, a sacred vision is received—a vision involving a young girl who had a chance encounter with Jesus just before he was crucified. The few people who have been blessed with these miraculous messages have banded together into a mysterious school, a closed society that preserves this venerated wisdom. But their knowledge of the young girl and Jesus is at once so fascinating yet so highly controversial that it cannot be shared with the world. This young girl, curious about the charismatic man named Jesus, embarks on a quest to find out who he really was. What she finds—the knowledge the society protects—is at times far different from the accepted gospels. Could this unknown girl be the 13th Disciple—the last and truest apostle of Christ?
Judas: Images of the Lost Discipletraces the development of the stories about the most famous traitor in the history of Western Civilization. Its purpose is not to find the Judas of history, but rather to provide readers with a map that shows the similarities and connections between generations of Judas's story. Judas has been portrayed as an effete intellectual, a jealous lover, a greedy scoundrel, a misguided patriot, a doomed hero, a man destroyed by despair, or God's special, misunderstood messenger and agent. Judas means as many different things to us as does Jesus or God. The enigma of Judas's story in the Gospels left later literature and legend with a creative challenge they richly answered, and which is presented here: to write the real story of the worst villain of all time.
Paul Stutzman's hiking shoes have slogged through Maine's mud, filled with Mississippi River water, traversed Spain's plains, and now tread, in awe, some of the same hillsides, shores, and streets where Jesus' sandals trod. On a hike through Israel, Paul and his friend Craig visit places that were prominent in the life and ministry of Jesus. Paul is seeking two things: to better know the human Jesus and to find the answer to a question that has puzzled him for years-What does it mean to follow Jesus? This journey changes Paul's understanding of many of the stories in the Gospels. He writes his account in hopes that you, too, will find a closer relationship with Jesus of Nazareth as you go with him and Craig to Nazareth, Capernaum, the far country, the gates of hell, the manger in Bethlehem, the Garden Tomb, and the city of Jerusalem.
This is a fictional story of the life of Jesus, as seen and recorded by an ordinary Galilean. Simple Jacob was a harmless, hardworking young man when he first came in contact with Jesus. He first saw Jesus when they were both baptized by John the Baptist and later when he came to the Sea of Galilee to recruit his disciples. Jacob felt compelled to protect Jesus faithfully until his death on the cross. He had an absolute faith in God and was one of the very few who recognized Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the messenger of the coming of God's kingdom, predicted in the Old Testament.
April DeConick offers a new translation of the Gospel of Judas, one which seriously challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas.
For 1,600 years its message lay hidden. When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Christianity, and which few experts had even thought existed–a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history’s ultimate traitor. And far from being a villain, the Judas that emerges in its pages is a hero. In this radical reinterpretation, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas Iscariot is presented as a role model for all those who wish to be disciples of Jesus and is the one apostle who truly understands Jesus. Discovered by farmers in the 1970s in Middle Egypt, the codex containing the gospel was bought and sold by antiquities traders, secreted away, and carried across three continents, all the while suffering damage that reduced much of it to fragments. In 2001, it finally found its way into the hands of a team of experts who would painstakingly reassemble and restore it. The Gospel of Judas has been translated from its original Coptic to clear prose, and is accompanied by commentary that explains its fascinating history in the context of the early Church, offering a whole new way of understanding the message of Jesus Christ.
Acts is the sequel to Luke's gospel and tells the story of Jesus's followers during the 30 years after his death. It describes how the 12 apostles, formerly Jesus's disciples, spread the message of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean against a background of persecution. With an introduction by P.D. James