Lost in antiquity, rediscovered in 1896, and only recently accessible for study, The Secret Revelation of John offers a firsthand look into the diversity of Christianity before the establishment of canon and creed. Karen L. King offers an illuminating reading of this ancient text‹a narrative of the creation of the universe and humanity and a guide to justice and salvation, said to be Christ's revelation to his disciple John.

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"This is a masterpiece. It belongs on everyone's shelf next to William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience. Tweed's book is at once elegant and informed, a thorough intellectual sighting of religion."
‹Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University

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Richard Barber traces the history of the legends surrounding the Grail, beginning with Chrétien de Troyes's great romances of the twelfth cenutry and the medieval Church's religious versions of the secular ideal. He pursues the myths through Victorian obsessions and enthusiasms to the popular bestsellers of the late twentieth century that have embraced its mysteries. From Lancelot to Parsifal, chivalric romances to Wagner's Ring, T.S. Eliot to Monty Python, the Grail has fascinated and lured the Western imagination from beyond the reach of the ordinary world.

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"What is Gnosticism? Offers an original and persuasive account of how we have come to speak of 'gnosticism,' and what various people have meant by that. Karen King's important new ook transforms our understanding of the origins of Christianity."
‹Elaine Pagels, Princeton University

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"O'Malley's succinct analysis of the Four Cultures of the West is one of those rare books that uses history to tell us as much about the intellectual conflicts of the present as it does about those of the past. I predict his categorical analysis will be widely cited and widely debated by commentators well beyond academic specialists."
‹Kenneth Woodward, contributing editor for Newsweek

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This book demonstrates the intimate connection between Troeltsch's philosophical writings on the essence of Christianity and his historical investigations of Christianity's past. Lori Pearson argues that as a result of his historical work, Troeltsch moved beyond the category of essence and sought new ways of theorizing Christian identity in the context of modernity's pluralistic yet fragmented society.

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The discovery and publication of the Apocryphon of James from Nag Hammadi has significantly expanded the spectrum of early Christian literature about Jesus. In this informative monograph, which has been out of print until now, Ron Cameron provides a form-critical analysis that aims to clarify the ways in which the sayings of Jesus were used and transformed in early Christian communities. By recognizing the importance of this particular document, scholars will no longer be able to regard the synoptic gospels of the New Testament as unique or sufficient for understanding the trajectory of the Jesus tradition. The "synoptic problem" must now be seen as a gospels problem.

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"Now at last we have a book about...William James, and it has been produced by a religiously obsessed man himself. Charles Taylor has been writing philosophy for many years, and the scope of his achievement is extraordinary. He has written on ethics, epistemology, language, and politics. He has analyzed Greek, medieval, Renaissance, and modern thought in learned discourses on the history of ideas. Even more amazing, perhaps, is that a corpus of philosophy so wide should be so intellectually coherent."
‹Erin Leib, New Republic

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"If historians will find Putney's revisions fascinating, the general reader will also be riveted by the story he tells; his prose is as vigorous as his subject matter, and the anecdotes he scatters liberally throughout the book are captivating. In an age when Christian leaders like Bill McCartney are again using athletics to get men into the church, this study couldn't be more timely."
­Publishers Weekly

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"Using his pioneering 1998 National Congregation Survey, the first study to delve into the specific activities of a truly representative sampling of the nation's religious congregations, [Chaves] finds that politics and service programs are not the main draws. Indeed, most congregations put little effort into community work...What congregations are most engaged in, Chaves reveals, are cultural activities. That includes education and the many components of worship, of course, but also the generally less-remarked-upon activities of producing and consuming art and culture, particularly musical and theatrical performances, outside of worship."
‹Jay Tolson, U.S. News and World Report

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