A leading scholar sheds critical light on the seemingly revelatory events behind new religions and spiritual movements Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. Revelatory Events provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. Ann Taves looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr., reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, Taves argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. A major work of scholarship, this compelling and accessible book traces the very human processes behind such events.

A leading scholar sheds critical light on the seemingly revelatory events behind new religions and spiritual movements Unseen presences. Apparitions. Hearing voices. Although some people would find such experiences to be distressing and seek clinical help, others perceive them as transformative. Occasionally, these unusual phenomena give rise to new spiritual paths or religious movements. Revelatory Events provides fresh insights into what is perhaps the bedrock of all religious belief—the claim that otherworldly powers are active in human affairs. Ann Taves looks at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and A Course in Miracles—three cases in which insiders claimed that a spiritual presence guided the emergence of a new spiritual path. In the 1820s, Joseph Smith, Jr., reportedly translated the Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates unearthed with the help of an angel. Bill Wilson cofounded AA after having an ecstatic experience while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1934. Helen Schucman scribed the words of an inner voice that she attributed to Jesus, which formed the basis of her 1976 best-selling self-study course. In each case, Taves argues, the sense of a guiding presence emerged through a complex, creative interaction between a founding figure with unusual mental abilities and an initial set of collaborators who were drawn into the process by diverse motives of their own. A major work of scholarship, this compelling and accessible book traces the very human processes behind such events.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

Annotation Ann Taves addresses the subject of religious experience directly and the problems of reductionism and humanistic fears of the sciences indirectly and by example. The orientation of this book is practical more than philosophical.

According to the pre-modern Christian tradition, knowledge of God is mainly testimonial: we know certain important truths about God and divine things because God himself has told them to us. In academic theology of late this view is often summarily dismissed. But to do so is a mistake, claims Mats Wahlberg, who argues that the testimonial understanding of revelation is indispensable to Christian theology. Criticizing the currently common idea that revelation should be construed exclusively in terms of God s self manifestation in history or through inner experience, Wahlberg discusses the concept of divine testimony in the context of the debate about how any knowledge of God is possible. He draws on resources from contemporary analytic philosophy -- especially John McDowell and Nicholas Wolterstorff -- to argue for the intellectual viability of revelation as divine testimony.

Internationally respected scholar Richard Bauckham offers a brief, engaging study of divine revelation in Scripture. He probes the deep meaning of well-known moments in the biblical story in order to address the key question the Bible is designed to answer: Who is God? Accessible for laypeople and important to scholars, this volume begins by exploring three key events in the Bible in which God is revealed: Jacob's dream at Bethel (the revelation of the divine presence), Moses at the burning bush (the revelation of the divine Name), and Moses on Mount Sinai (the revelation of the divine character). In each case, Bauckham traces these themes through the rest of Scripture. He then shows how the New Testament builds on the Old by exploring three revelatory events in Mark's Gospel, events that reveal the Trinity: Jesus's baptism, transfiguration, and crucifixion. This book is based on the Frumentius Lectures for 2015 at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa and on the Hayward Lectures for 2018 at Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia.

Why do bad things happen, even to good people? If there is a God, why aren't God's existence and God's will for humans more apparent? And if God really does miracles for some people, why not for others? This book examines these three problems of evil – suffering, divine hiddenness, and unfairness if miracles happen as believers claim – to explore how different ideas of God's power relate to the problem of evil. Keller argues that as long as God is believed to be all-powerful, there are no adequate answers to these problems, nor is it enough for theists simply to claim that human ignorance makes these problems insoluble. Arguing that there are no good grounds for the belief that God is all-powerful, Keller instead defends the understanding of God and God's power found in process theism and shows how it makes possible an adequate solution to the problems of evil while providing a concept of God that is religiously adequate.