Late Roman Africa gives us plenty to ponder. Christianity there had been divided between two factions since the early fourth century. By the fifth, militants among the Donatists (or sectarians) struck at their rivals, whose leading spokesman, Augustine, is our principal source. But did he exaggerate the difficulties catholic Christianity faced or wholly fabricate to attract government attention and intervention? For the same purposes, did he invent a resurgence of paganism? Or were there d...

In Augustine's Leaders, Peter Iver Kaufman works from the premise that appropriations of Augustine endorsing contemporary liberal efforts to mix piety and politics are mistaken--that Augustine was skeptical about the prospects for involving Christianity in meaningful political change. His skepticism raises several questions for historians. What roles did one of the most influential Christian theologians set for religious and political leaders? What expectations did he have for emperors, st...

This book examines and reports the findings regarding the level of satisfaction by students, teachers and parents with an innovative senior secondary Religious Education curriculum ‘Religion, Meaning and Life’ (RML). The stimulus for RML is found in the changing profile of students within faith-based schools and the motivation of school authorities to be inclusive and responsive to changing needs and priorities of students and families. Curriculum practices typically mirror this continuing...

Peter Iver Kaufman shows that, although Giorgio Agamben represents Augustine as an admired pioneer of an alternative form of life, he also considers Augustine an obstacle keeping readers from discovering their potential. Kaufman develops a compelling, radical alternative to progressive politics by continuing the line of thought he introduced in On Agamben, Arendt, Christianity, and the Dark Arts of Civilization.Kaufman starts with a comparison of Agamben and Augustine's pr...

For years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historical and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to hav...

Many progressives have found passages in Augustine's work that suggest he entertained hopes for meaningful political melioration in his time. They also propose that his “political theology” could be an especially valuable resource for “an ethics of democratic citizenship” or for “hopeful citizenship” in our times. Peter Kaufman argues that Augustine's “political theology” offers a compelling, radical alternative to progressive politics. He chronicles Augustine's experiments with alternativ...

This book narrates a number of stories from the early clerical history of the church to illustrate how authority came to be shared among the institutions of church, book, and bishop. It is intended for a wide range of readers, including scholars, students.

The Reformation was the seismic event in European history over the past 1000 years, and one which tore the medieval world apart. Not just European religion, but thought, culture, society, state systems, personal relations - everything - was turned upside down. Just about everything which followed in European history can be traced back in some way to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which it provoked. The Reformation is where the modern world painfully and dramatically began, and...

The Man of Sorrowsby John Nelson Darby"Among the passages in the Hebrew Bible that have been identified by Christians as prefigurations of the Messiah, the Man of Sorrows of Isaiah 53 is paramount.The iconic image that is identified as the "Man of Sorrows" portrays Jesus crowned with the Crown of Thorns just before the Crucifixion; it is closely related to the Ecce Homo image, though actually earlier in origin, and is sometimes so described.The passage surviv...

A "witty and accessible look at Scripture" that explores what the Bible meant before two millennia of mistranslations and misinterpretations ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).In this fascinating book, acclaimed translator and biblical scholar Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the reader through dozens of mistranslations, misconceptions, and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In forty short, straightforward chapters, he covers morality, lifestyle, theology,...

For readers accustomed to the relatively undramatic standard translations of Prometheus Bound, this version by James Scully, a poet and winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize, and C. John Herington, one of the world's foremost Aeschylean scholars, will come as a revelation. Scully and Herington accentuate the play's true power, drama, and relevance to modern times. Aeschylus originally wrote Prometheus Bound as part of a tragic trilogy, and this translation is unique in includ...

The story of Japan's hidden Christians is the subject of a major motion picture by director Martin Scorsese, based on Shusaku Endo's famous novel, Silence.From the time the first Christian missionary arrived in Japan in 1549 to when a nationwide ban was issued in 1614, over 300,000 Japanese were converted to Christianity. A vicious campaign of persecution forced the faithful to go underground. For seven generations, Hidden Christians—or Kirishitan—preserve...