My Side of the Mountain

My Side of the Mountain
Author: Jean Craighead George
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2001-05-21
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0593115007

"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."—The New York Times Book Review Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods—all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever. “An extraordinary book . . . It will be read year after year.” —The Horn Book

Introduction to the Spiritual Life

Introduction to the Spiritual Life
Author: Brant Pitre
Publisher: Image
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0525572775

A compelling exploration of the biblical foundations, contemplative practices, and spiritual path of Jesus himself—from the bestselling author of The Case for Jesus “What happens when a biblical theologian explores classic spirituality? This book. Pitre’s students have asked, Why have we never heard this before? The reader wonders the same.”—Dr. David Fagerberg, author of Liturgical Mysticism The path of following Jesus is an ancient and storied spiritual tradition. Yet many believers are not familiar with the three major forms of prayer and the three stages of spiritual growth that exist to bring them closer to God. In his most personal book yet, Brant Pitre, PhD, draws on the riches of the Bible, the words of Jesus, and the writings of mystics across the centuries to shed light on the mystery—and wonder—of the spiritual life. Starting with the age-old belief that the path of prayer is not only informative but transformative, Dr. Pitre explores • the scriptural roots of the major forms of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplation • the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of spiritual growth • the spiritual exercises of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving • the Jewish roots of the Lord’s Prayer • Lectio Divina: how to pray with the Bible • seven vices and their seven opposing virtues • the battle of prayer: how to deal with difficulty and distractions • the “dark night of the soul” in the Scriptures Full of sacred truths, contemplative insights, and practical steps, Introduction to the Spiritual Life is a biblical road map of the spiritual landscape that enables us to follow Jesus as our primary guide.

Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon

Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon
Author: Brant A. Gardner
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Total Pages: 490
Release: 2007-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Stop looking for the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica and start looking for Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon! Second Witness, a new six-volume series from Greg Kofford Books, takes a detailed, verse-by-verse look at the Book of Mormon. It marshals the best of modern scholarship and new insights into a consistent picture of the Book of Mormon as a historical document. Taking a faithful but scholarly approach to the text and reading it through the insights of linguistics, anthropology, and ethnohistory, the commentary approaches the text from a variety of perspectives: how it was created, how it relates to history and culture, and what religious insights it provides. The commentary accepts the best modern scholarship, which focuses on a particular region of Mesoamerica as the most plausible location for the Book of Mormon’s setting. For the first time, that location—its peoples, cultures, and historical trends—are used as the backdrop for reading the text. The historical background is not presented as proof, but rather as an explanatory context. The commentary does not forget Mormon’s purpose in writing. It discusses the doctrinal and theological aspects of the text and highlights the way in which Mormon created it to meet his goal of “convincing . . . the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.”

Science Probe 8

Science Probe 8
Author: Jean Bullard
Publisher: J. Wiley & Sons Canada
Total Pages: 550
Release: 1985
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780471797739

And There Was No Poor Among Them

And There Was No Poor Among Them
Author: Ryan D. Ward
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has expanded many fundamental Christian doctrines, salvation is still understood as pertaining exclusively to the next life. How should we understand salvation and what does the timing of the Restoration reveal about God’s vision of salvation for a suffering world? To answer these questions, author Ryan Ward traces the theological evolution of salvation from the liberation of Israel from oppression to the Western Christian development of salvation as an individualistic, transactional atonement. This evolution corresponded with the shift of Christianity from a covenant community to an official state religion aligned with imperial power structures. Ward also explores the economic and social movements in the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, which solidified the power of propertied elites at the expense of the poor, plundered entire continents, and killed millions. Synthesizing these theological and historical threads, And There Was No Poor Among Them: Liberation, Salvation, and the Meaning of the Restoration asserts that the Restoration is God's explicit rejection of social and economic systems and ideologies that have led to the globalization of misery. Instead, Ward shows how the Restoration and the gospel of Christ is an invitation to a participatory salvation realized in Zion communities where “there are no poor among us.”

Thinking Biblically

Thinking Biblically
Author: André LaCocque
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 468
Release: 1998
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226713434

Unparalled in its poetry, richness, and religious and historical significance, the Hebrew Bible has been the site and center of countless commentaries, perhaps none as unique as Thinking Biblically. This remarkable collaboration sets the words of a distinguished biblical scholar, André LaCocque, and those of a leading philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, in dialogue around six crucial passages from the Old Testament: the story of Adam and Eve; the commandment "thou shalt not kill"; the valley of dry bones passage from Ezekiel; Psalm 22; the Song of Songs; and the naming of God in Exodus 3:14. Commenting on these texts, LaCocque and Ricoeur provide a wealth of new insights into the meaning of the different genres of the Old Testament as these made their way into and were transformed by the New Testament. LaCocque's commentaries employ a historical-critical method that takes into account archaeological, philological, and historical research. LaCocque includes in his essays historical information about the dynamic tradition of reading scripture, opening his exegesis to developments and enrichments subsequent to the production of the original literary text. Ricoeur also takes into account the relation between the texts and the historical communities that read and interpreted them, but he broadens his scope to include philosophical speculation. His commentaries highlight the metaphorical structure of the passages and how they have served as catalysts for philosophical thinking from the Greeks to the modern age. This extraordinary literary and historical venture reads the Bible through two different but complementary lenses, revealing the familiar texts as vibrant, philosophically consequential, and unceasingly absorbing.

The Wood for the Trees

The Wood for the Trees
Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2016-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1101875763

From the author of Earth: An Intimate History, an exuberant "biography" of four acres of woodland, evoking a cosmos of living and inanimate things and imagining its millennia of existence A few years ago, award-winning scientist Richard Fortey purchased four acres of woodland in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. The Wood for the Trees is the joyful, lyrical portrait of what he found there. With one chapter for each month, we move through the seasons: tree felling in January, moth hunting in June, finding golden mushrooms in September. Fortey, along with the occasional expert friend, investigates the forest top to bottom, discovering a new species and explaining the myriad connections that tie us to nature and nature to itself. His textured, evocative prose and gentle humor illuminate the epic story of a small forest. But he doesn't stop at mere observation. The Wood for the Trees uses the forest as a springboard back through time, full of rich and unexpected tales of the people, plants, and animals that once called the land home. With Fortey's help, we come to see a universe in miniature.

The Philosophy of Piers Plowman

The Philosophy of Piers Plowman
Author: David Strong
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2017-04-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3319519816

This book examines William Langland’s late medieval poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, in light of contemporary intellectual thought. David Strong argues that where the philosophers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham revolutionize the view of human potential through their theories of epistemology, ethics, and freedom of the will, Langland vivifies these ideas by contextualizing them in an individual’s search for truth and love. Specifically, the text ponders the intersection between reason and the will in expressing love. While scholars have consistently noted the text’s indebtedness to these higher strains of thought, this is the first book-length study in over thirty years that explores the depth of this interconnection, and the only one that considers the salience of both Scotus and Ockham. It is essential reading for medieval literary specialists and students as well as any cultural historian who desires to augment their knowledge of truth and love.