In Granada, on a thirty-five-acre plateau atop a last spur of the Sierra Nevada, Spanish Islam erected its last royal palace, the Alhambra. For two and half centuries, twenty sultans of the royal house of Nasrid - named for Nasr, the grandfather of its founder - enjoyed this majestic residence, the last and best-preserved monument of a long-lived culture. Today, it remains a place of perfection, redolent of spiritual balance, not decay. The Alhambra reveals in its structures and decoration...

For more than half a century, James Hamilton has been an active participant and an inside observer of some of the most consequential moments in modern US history. He has been involved in investigations concerning Watergate, the Kennedy assassination, "Debategate," the Keating Five, the Clinton impeachment, Vince Foster's suicide, the Valerie Plame affair, Benghazi, and the Major League Baseball steroids scandal.Advocate discusses the travails of prominent politicians and o...

In the recent history of philosophy few works have appeared which favorably portray Idealism as a plausible philosophical view of the world. Considerably less has been written about Idealism as a viable framework for doing theology. While the most recent and significant works on Idealism, composed by the late John Foster (Case for Idealism and A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism), have put this theory back on the philosophical map, no such attempt has b...

There is a widespread belief that reason and faith are incompatible and opposed to each other. Faith is viewed as subjective, emotional, a crutch for those who find the real world too hard. Though many of the world's finest minds hold this view, the Bible teaches that it is the fool who says there is no God.Dr. R. C. Sproul clearly and simply argues that at its core Christianity is rational. He focuses on defending the basic truth claims for two of the most crucial issues of apolog...

Life's Ultimate Questions is unique among introductory philosophy textbooks. By synthesizing three distinct approaches—topical, historical, and worldview/conceptual systems—it affords students a breadth and depth of perspective previously unavailable in standard introductory texts.Part One, Six Conceptual Systems, explores the philosophies of: naturalism, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas.Part Two, Important Problems in Philosophy, sheds light on: ...

Although God is making a comeback in our society, popular culture still takes its orders from the Enlightenment, a movement that denied faith a prominent role in society. Today, many are questioning this elevation of reason over faith. How should Christians respond to a secular world that continues to push faith to the margins?While there is still no consensus concerning what a postmodern society should look like, James K. A. Smith suggests that the answer is a reaffirmation of the...

Through the intensely intimate relationship that arises between God and humans in the incarnation of the Word in Christ, God gives us the gift of God's own life. This simple claim provides the basis for Kathryn Tanner's powerful study of the centrality of Jesus Christ for all Christian thought and life: if the divine and the human are united in Christ, then Jesus can be seen as key to the pattern that organizes the whole, even while God's ways remain beyond our grasp. Drawing on the histor...

When first published in 1983, Biblical Words and Their Meaning broke new ground by introducing to students of the Bible the principles of linguistics, in particular, on lexical semantics -- that branch that focuses on the meaning of individual words. Silva's structural approach provides the interpreter with an important lexical tool for more responsible understanding of the biblical text and more effective use of standard exegetical resources. This revised edition includes a bibliographica...

In this provocative book James K. A. Smith, one of the most engaging Christian scholars of our day, offers an innovative approach to hermeneutics. The second edition of Smith's well-received debut book provides updated interaction with contemporary hermeneutical discussions and responds to criticisms.

Which translation do I choose?In an age when there is a wide choice of English Bible translations, the issues involved in Bible translating are steadily gaining interest. Consumers often wonder what separates one Bible version from another.The contributors to this book argue that there are significant differences between literal translations and the alternatives. The task of those who employ an essentially literal Bible translation philosophy is to produce ...

Many contemporary theologians claim that the classical picture of God painted by Augustine and Aquinas is both outmoded and unbiblical. But rather than abandoning the traditional view completely, John Feinberg seeks a reconstructed model—one that reflects the ongoing advances in human understanding of God's revelation while recognizing the unchanging nature of God and His Word. Feinberg begins by exploring the contemporary concepts of God, particularly the openness and process views, and t...

Comprising groundbreaking dialogues by many of the most prominent scholars in Christian apologetics and the philosophy of religion, this volume offers a definitive treatment of central questions of Christian faith. The essays are ecumenical and broadly Christian, in the spirit of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, and feature lucid and up-to-date material designed to engage readers in contemporary theistic and Christian issues. Beginning with dialogues about God's existence and the c...