A provocative new interpretation of the Adam and Eve story from an expert in Biblical literature. The Garden of Eden story, one of the most famous narratives in Western history, is typically read as an ancient account of original sin and humanity’s fall from divine grace. In this highly innovative study, Ziony Zevit argues that this is not how ancient Israelites understood the early biblical text. Drawing on such diverse disciplines as biblical studies, geography, archaeology, mythology, anthropology, biology, poetics, law, linguistics, and literary theory, he clarifies the worldview of the ancient Israelite readers during the First Temple period and elucidates what the story likely meant in its original context. Most provocatively, he contends that our ideas about original sin are based upon misconceptions originating in the Second Temple period under the influence of Hellenism. He shows how, for ancient Israelites, the story was really about how humans achieved ethical discernment. He argues further that Adam was not made from dust and that Eve was not made from Adam’s rib. His study unsettles much of what has been taken for granted about the story for more than two millennia—and has far-reaching implications for both literary and theological interpreters. “Classical Hebrew in the hands of Ziony Zevit is like a cello in the hands of a master cellist. He knows all the hidden subtleties of the instrument, and he makes you hear them in this rendition of the profoundly simple story of Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and their Creator in the Garden of Eden. Zevit brings a great deal of other biblical learning to bear in a surprisingly light-hearted book.”―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography

Hailed as "the most radical repackaging of the Bible since Gutenberg", these Pocket Canons give an up-close look at each book of the Bible.

Nira Stone (1938-2013) contributed to the understanding of mediaeval Armenian art and painting. Her interest ranged over a millennium of artistic expression, and over such fields of creativity as manuscript painting, frescos, and mosaics. The volume contains her published papers and one made newly public.

Ham explores 21 exciting and faith-affirming topics including the fall of Lucifer and the origin of evil, when life begins and why that matters, early biblical figures, evolution, and more.

This book entitled, Garden of Eden Found, is divided into three almost equal parts. Part I of the book is exactly what the title says. It reveals and explains the exact geographical location of the ancient site of the Garden of Eden. This is an absolutely new and a previously undiscovered site. People suppose that we must yet wait on a prophet of God to reveal its location, but this book explains that God through the prophet Moses said everything he could to explain the location of the Garden of Eden in the second chapter of Genesis. It is just that the names of the lands and rivers have changed. The original thing in this work, however, is that the ancient site of the Garden of Eden was located upon the North American continent. Note that according to Genesis 1:10 each land was called earth. Thus, it could have been on any continent. There has never been one fact of evidence to show that the Garden of Eden was located in the Middle East anyway. This has only been a supposition of the so-called learned; even those who write the text books; and most of whom do not believe in God or in revelation. The author has simply put together the Genesis account of Eden with the latter-day revelations concerning Adam-ondi-Ahman in America. Part II of this book reveals the ultimate meaning of the six days and the six nights and Sabbath of the creation account in Genesis chapter one. No one has ever discovered nor understood their ultimate meaning before this work. The author submits that this concept is the greatest concept that can be conceived by the mind of man concerning ultimate reality. This concept ties together the law of eternal progression, the order of the universes of the cosmos, and the days and nights of creation as one and the same thing. So the author begins Part II of his book with the following paragraph. If I were a scientist and was speaking before my other colleagues, then, I would name my address, "The Number and Order of the Universes of the Cosmos." If I was a philosopher and was presenting this topic before my fellow philosophers, I would entitle my presentation, "The Law of Eternal Progression to Ultimate Continuum." But if I happened to be a theologian, and was preaching a sermon to my parishioners, I would call my message, "The Meaning of the Six Days and Six Nights and a Sabbath of Creation." This is because these three subjects concern the same ultimate reality. The first is scientific, the second is philosophical, and the third is religious. Often the terms for universe and the cosmos are used interchangeably. Actually, this is the concept of mankind at the present time. Most people, including scientists, the philosophers, and the theologians, consider that the universe is the cosmos and that the cosmos is the universe. However, this is simply not the true case of the matter, for the cosmos is the sum total of the series of the twelve universes of the cosmos. However, would anyone have ever entertained the idea that the answer is to be found in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in the Bible? Who would have thought that God had hidden it in the simple account of the six days and the six nights and Sabbath of creation? I will attempt to show, in plainness and simplicity, that this is the true interpretation. SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt"Part III of this book explains the historic meaning of the symbolism in the Book of Revelation. The new truth to understand is that they represent only natural things and historical events of the past two-thousand years of Christian history. There are three general principles that we must accept in order to understand the symbolism of t

A “certainly weird . . . strangely wonderful . . . [and] often irresistible” search to find the real Garden of Eden (The New York Times Book Review). Where, precisely, was God’s Paradise? St. Augustine had a theory. So did medieval monks, John Calvin and Christopher Columbus. But when Darwin’s theory of evolution changed our understanding of human origins, shouldn’t the desire to put a literal Eden on the map have faded away? Not so fast. This “gloriously researched, pluckily written historical and anecdotal assay of humankind’s age-old quixotic quest for the exact location of the Biblical garden” (Elle) explores an obsession that has consumed scientists and theologians alike for centuries. To this day, the search continues, taken up by amateur explorers, clergymen, scholars, engineers and educators—romantic seekers all who started with the same simple-sounding Bible verses, only to end up at a different spot on the globe: Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, the North Pole, Mesopotamia, China, Iraq—and Ohio. Inspired by an Eden seeker in her own family, “Wilensky-Lanford approaches her subjects with respect, enthusiasm and conscientious research” (San Francisco Chronicle) as she traverses a century-spanning history provoking surprising insights into where we came from, what we did wrong, and where we go from here. And it all makes for “a lively journey” (Kirkus Reviews).

God’s Story Will End Better than It Began . . . Experienced Bible teacher Nancy Guthrie traces 9 themes throughout the Bible, revealing how God’s plan for the new creation will be far more glorious than the original. But this new creation glory isn’t just reserved for the future. The hope of God’s plan for his people transforms everything about our lives today.