CHRISTIAN STUDIES: Books & Ebooks

Six years in the making, this state-of-the-art dictionary offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of biblical subjects and scholarship. An essential reference for every serious reader of the Bible. B & W illustrations and line-art throughout.

The Encyclopedia of the Early Church is a two-volume reference work providing concise and precise information on all topics concerning the first eight centuries of Christianity. Valuable to historians, archaeologists, philosophers, and philologists as well as theologians, this work extends the knowledge of how Christianity evolved to become the most important influence in the history of Western civilization. Tracing the growth of the church from its tiny beginnings in an upper room to its dominance of Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa in the eighth century, scholars from many disciplines produced articles ranging from a few sentences to ten thousand words on all the major and most of the minor people, works, ideas, and issues of the formative period of Christianity. The first major encyclopedia to cover the life, thought, and growth of Christianity, this work offers full treatment of doctrines, creeds, and heresies, of iconography and art history, of archaeology and geography, and of monasticism and asceticism.

This new edition of the Oxford Bible Atlas, now with full-colour maps and illustrations, has been thoroughly revised to bring it up to date with regard both to biblical scholarship and to archaeology and topography. The Atlas will help readers of the Bible understand the contexts in which itsstories are set and to appreciate the world from which it emerged and which formed its background. Maps show the geographical setting of the Bible's stories and reflect the successive stages of the Bible's accounts, while specially chosen full-colour illustrations bring the countries and theirpeoples to life. The accompanying text describes the land of Palestine, and its wider ancient Near Eastern and east Mediterranean settings. It outlines clearly the successive historical periods, and describes the major civilizations with which Israelites, Jews, and early Christians came intocontact. There is also an illustrated survey of the relevance of archaeology for the study of the Bible. The Atlas provides a superb guide to the geography of the Holy Land throughout biblical history, from the Exodus period through to New Testament times.

The new, revised edition of a perennial reference favorite! The Handbook of Denominations is widely recognized as the most accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of information on America's religious denominations. Revisions in the 11th edition include: new introductory article, "Religion in America";  reorganization of church "family" groupings, with expanded treatment of Catholic, Fundamentalist, Holiness, and Pentecostal churches, among others; updated and standardized statistical information; thoroughly revised directory of denominational offices; new appendices, including information on membership in the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Council of the Churches of Christ; chart showing the historical relationships of church bodies to one another; and revised bibliography.