A Restless Search

A literary detective story, a historical survey, and an important contribution to translation studies This book from Kenneth J. Thomas is both a philological and linguistic analysis of Persian translations and a call for interfaith cooperation. Thomas appraises biblical translation efforts from the fifth to the twenty-first centuries of Persian history when successive translators and groups of translators, sometimes of different faiths, worked to reshape and refine versions of the Bible in the supple Persian language of their times. Restless, impelled, and wide-ranging, this is a story of translations commissioned by shahs, undertaken by Christian and Jewish communities, and produced by teams working outside the country. Features Demonstration of the effects of the lack of a standard Persian vocabulary for key biblical terms on literary style and word choice Technical analyses and overviews of Persian biblical translations A careful examination of sixteen centuries' worth of Bible translations

Deep down it's easy to believe that the better job, the nicer house, or the more dynamic church will finally make us feel "at home." In Searching for Home, M. Craig Barnes challenges this belief. He reminds us that paradise is lost and we can't go home again. Our great comfort and hope, however, is that we are never lost to God. Seasoned by more than twenty years as a pastor, Barnes discusses the importance of confession, worship, and grace in our search for home. He offers advice about how we can move from being transient nomads "too frightened to be grateful" to pilgrims who are at home with God, guided by our pleasure in him. This book was written for both Christians and seekers who are still looking for a sense of belonging or "home." It will be a useful tool for pastors, adult Sunday school groups, and counselors of all kinds who are advising pilgrims along the way.

“Technologies have been shaping [our] emotional culture for more than a century, argue computer scientist Luke Fernandez and historian Susan Matt in this original study. Marshalling archival sources and interviews, they trace how norms (say, around loneliness) have shifted with technological change.” —Nature “A powerful story of how new forms of technology are continually integrated into the human experience...Anyone interested in seeing the digital age through a new perspective should be pleased with this rich account.” —Publishers Weekly Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states, but in this lively look at our evolving feelings about technology since the advent of the telegraph, we learn that the gadgets we use don’t just affect how we feel—they can profoundly change our sense of self. When we say we’re bored, we don’t mean the same thing as a Victorian dandy. Could it be that political punditry has helped shape a new kind of anger? Luke Fernandez and Susan J. Matt take us back in time to consider how our feelings of loneliness, vanity, and anger have evolved in tandem with new technologies.

Do your twenties feel restless? You're not the first young adult to feel this way. Saint Augustine describes the same struggle in his Confessions, the most-read spiritual memoir in history. He experimented with different religious options, tried to break destructive habits, struggled to find the right friends, experienced a devastating breakup, and nearly burned out in his career-all before his thirty-second birthday. He spent his twenties looking for rest in all the wrong places. In A Restless Age, Austin Gohn wades through Augustine's Confessions to show us how the five searches of young adulthood-answers, habits, belonging, love, and work-are actually searches for rest. "Our heart is restless," Augustine writes, "until it finds rest in you." Most of us spend our twenties looking for rest, but God is inviting you to spend your twenties living from rest. Endorsements "Austin Gohn shares my passionate hope that the Confessions will become as useful to Protestants as it has been to Catholics over the centuries. . . . he comes straight to the point in every discussion, and shows a virtuoso sympathy with young people in confusing, trying times." Sarah Ruden, Translator of Augustine's Confessions "Young adults need old, time-tested wisdom, especially in today's world of social media ephemera and soul-crushing digital delirium. Augustine is a good place to start, and A Restless Age tells us why." Brett McCracken, a senior editor at The Gospel Coalition and author of Uncomfortable "Austin Gohn's A Restless Age is an important read not only for people in their twenties but also those who live with, work with, and mentor them." Vince Burens, President/CEO, CCO "This is a wonderful book. Austin Gohn 'gets' Augustine and then gives Augustine to the twenty-something wondering why life hasn't turned out as expected. A Restless Age is rich in biblical insight, perceptive in cultural analysis, and grounded in truth that goes much deeper than today's headlines." Trevin Wax, Director for Bibles and Reference at LifeWay Christian Resources, author of This Is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel About the Author Austin Gohn is a pastor at Bellevue Christian Church, where he has worked primarily with young adults over the past seven years. He and his wife Julie, along with their son Levi, reside in Pittsburgh, PA.

This engaging book provides in-depth discussion of the various influences that an audience in 1606 would have brought to interpreting ‘King Lear’. How did people think about the world, about God, about sin, about kings, about civilized conduct? Learn about the social hierarchy, gender relationships, parenting and family dynamics, court corruption, class tensions, the literary profile of the time, the concept of tragedy – and all the subversions, transgressions, and oppositions that made the play an unsettling picture of a disintegrating world in free fall.

When Stanford M. Lyman authored The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil in 1978 it was hailed by Alasdair MacIntyre as "a book of absorbing interest and importance...[that] places us all in his debt." By Nelson Hart as "a masterful and thought-provoking book...[that] is the only scholarly treatment of sin that is so well-informed by the best of ancient through modern perspectives." By James A. Aho as a work whose "abstract hardly does justice to the scholarly and detailed analysis of sin." And by Harry Cohen as a "book...[that] stands as a beautiful illustration of what holistic, idiosyncratic, interdisciplinary, and creative thinking and writing can bring to bear on the age-old problem of society and evil." The American Sociological Association's section on the Sociology of the Emotions selected this book as one of the works that laid the foundations for the study of pride, lust, envy, and anger—basic sentiments embedded in the social process. For this revised and expanded edition Lyman has written a new chapter, "Sentiments, Sin, and Social Conflict: Toward a Sociology of the Emotions." The new edition will be a valuable work for courses in social psychology, ethics, deviance, and the sociology of morals and of religion.