Book cover of St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate

Book description

St Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St Paul: The Misunderstood Apostle, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any…

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1 author picked St. Paul as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Karen Armstrong’s book on St Paul –her second—is wonderful. It takes into account recent scholarship on the historical Paul, and in accessible fashion, explains what was controversial about his agenda, and what was likely omitted or edited out of his work. Paul’s mission was influenced in no small part by the prevalent Stoic thinking—above all, cosmopolitanism: Paul was a cosmopolitan, literally, a citizen of no place—but of the universe itself. And central to his understanding of Jesus’ teaching, Paul wished to wash away the parochial distinctions that divide us. Hence the baptismal cry he advised: no more Greek or Jew,…

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Book cover of Our Lady of the Rock: Vision and Pilgrimage in the Mojave Desert

Our Lady of the Rock by Lisa M. Bitel,

Every month on the 13th, Maria Paula Acuña arrives at a barren spot in the Mojave Desert where she sees and speaks with the Virgin Mary. Hundreds of people follow her to the makeshift shrine, which Maria Paula named Our Lady of the Rock, to watch her and search the…

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