The return of the gift

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Michael Peppard

Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term 'son of God' has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of 'begotten' and 'adoptive' sonship.

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Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari

Race and Human Evolution is a far-ranging account by leading researchers in the field that describes the latest scientific evidence and the conflicting theories about human evolution. Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari describe the "Eve" or "Out-of-Africa" theory, which holds that all living people are the descendants of a single common ancestor ("Eve") who began a new species of humanity in Africa some 200,000 years ago and whose progeny spread throughout the world, giving rise to the different human races. The authors show that the evidence of the fossil record and genetic data support "Multiregionalism," which posits that for some two million years human populations have been entwined in a network of widespread peoples who evolved together because they met and interbred, giving the races today many ancestors, not a single common one. Race and Human Evolution shows how the debate over the "Eve" theory reflects a long history of theories about human origins and race that has been fraught with social and political implications. The debate now raging cannot free itself of this background. Certain to be controversial but also to illuminate an argument that has persisted for centuries and which persists in some of today's most inflammatory social and political issues, Race and Human Evolution provides an authoritative account of the science and the scientists behind the controversy over the origin of humanity and its racial differences.

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Patrick Grant

"This book makes an original contribution to the study of modern Northern Ireland by examining the complex relationships among religion, literature and ethnicity since 1967. Patrick Grant focuses on a contradiction within sectarianism between the Christian injunction to love one's enemies, and the scapegoating, stereotyping and mirror oppositions that result from an annexation of religion to ethnic exclusivism. In general, a 'post-critical' view of religion is offered, welcoming the critique provided by secularism and maintaining that the varieties of imagination - whether literary or religious - can be liberative and mutually supporting."--Jacket.

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Marc Cortez

The book explores the relationship between Christology and theological anthropology through the lens provided by the theology of Karl Barth and the mind/body discussion in contemporary philosophy of mind. It thus comprises two major sections. The first develops an understanding of Karl Barth's theological anthropology focusing on three major facets: (1) the centrality of Jesus Christ for any real understanding of human persons; (2) the resources that such a christologically determined view of human nature has for engaging in interdisciplinary discourse; and (3) the ontological implications of this approach for understanding the mind/body relationship. The second part draws on this theological foundation to consider the implications that Christological anthropology has for analyzing and assessing several prominent ways of explaining the mind/body relationship. Specifically, it interacts with two broad categories of theories: 'nonreductive' forms of physicalism and 'holistic' forms of dualism. After providing a basic summary of each, the book applies the insights gained from Barth's anthropology to ascertain the extent to which the two approaches may be considered christologically adequate