Rodney Stark, a sociologist by training, has written a book that should end much of the Christian-bashing occuring in academia.

The Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recounts how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle to become one of Christianity's most influential thinkers.

But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.

This book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject deserves serious historical consideration. Mapping out the lively current debate about Jesus, Hurtado explains the evidence, issues, and positions at stake.

The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.

In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today.

Reviews of the hardcover edition: "The publication of a new translation of Eusebius's The Church History is an important event.

But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians. In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community.

The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself.

1. To begin with -- 2. Human painter of the human condition -- 3. Rembrandt's Bible -- 4. Rembrandt's pictures -- 5. Rembrandt's meaning -- 6. Rembrandt's faith -- 7. Rembrandt's diary -- 8. To end with.