Author: Anton Horvath File Type: pdf Global Warming - just that term evokes many people to nod their heads and fret about an impending climate disaster. In this book, the authors address some of the recent media coverage of global warming and Hollywoods involvement in the issue. Included is a discussion on former Vice President Al Gores movie An Inconvenient Truth. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretence of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy. This book summarises some of the recent developments in the controversy over whether or not humans have created a climate catastrophe. Details on how teams of international scientists have dissented from the UN IPCCs view of climate science is included in this book as well.

Author: Raymond E. Brown File Type: pdf From the experience of a lifetime of scholarship, preaching, teaching, and writing, Raymond E. Brown covers the entire scope of the New Testament with ease and clarity. He walks readers book by book through the basic content and issues of the New Testament. While a wealth of information is contained in these pages, the works most impressive features are the basic summaries of each book, a historical overview of the ancient Greco-Roman world, discussions of key theological issues, and the rich supplementary materials, such as illustrative tables, maps, bibliographies, and appendixes. Using this basic data, Brown answers questions raised by todays readers, relates the New Testament to our modern world, and responds to controversial issues, such as those raised by the Jesus Seminar.Every generation needs a comprehensive, reliable Introduction to the New Testament that opens the biblical text to the novice. Raymond E. Browns An Introduction to the New Testament is the most trustworthy and authoritative guidebook for a generation seeking to understand the Christian Bible.Universally acknowledged as the dean of New Testament scholarship, Father Brown is a master of his discipline at the pinnacle of his career. Who else could cover the entire scope of the New Testament with such ease and clarity? This gifted communicator conveys the heartfelt concern of a beloved teacher for his students, as he walks the reader through the basic content and issues of the New Testament. Those opening to the New Testament for the first time and those seeking deeper insights could not ask for more in a primer to the Christian Bible.** A long-awaited abridgement of Raymond Browns classic and best-selling introduction to the New Testament Since its publication in 1997, Raymond Browns Introduction to the New Testament has been widely embraced by modern readers seeking to understand the Christian Bible. Acknowledged as a paragon of New Testament studies in his lifetime, Brown was a gifted communicator who wrote with ease and clarity. Abridged by Marion Soards, who worked with Brown on the original text, this new, concise version maintains the essence and centrist interpretation of the original without tampering with Browns perspective, insights, or conclusions. The biblical writings themselves remain the focus, but there are also chapters dealing with the nature, origin, and interpretation of the New Testament texts, as well as chapters concerning the political, social, religious, and philosophical world of antiquity. Furthermore, augmenting Browns commentary on the New Testament itself are topics such as the Gospels relationship to one another the form and function of ancient letters Pauls thought and life, along with his motivation, legacy, and theology a reflection on the historical Jesus and a survey of relevant Jewish and Christian writings. This comprehensive, reliable, and authoritative guidebook is now more accessible for novices, general readers, Bible study groups, ministers, scholars, and students alike. **

Author: Angeliki E. Laiou File Type: pdf The essays in this volume investigate themes related to the place of law in Byzantine ideology and society. Although the Byzantines had a formal legal system, deriving from Justinians codification, this does not solve the problem but rather poses important questions. Was this a society which was meant to be governed by law? For answers, one must look at the intent of the legislators (to address specific problems, or to order society according to an ideal pattern?) the attitudes toward the law the relationship between law, religion, literature, and art. What were the spheres--political, economic, private--that the laws and the lawgivers sought to regulate? The concepts of law and justice are quite different from each other, and the relationship between them is investigated here. Of importance also, in this medieval society, are the connections between law and religion. There is the problem of the provenance of the law--whether the Emperor or God himself is the source of law--and the broad implications of the answer. At another level, ecclesiastical law was very important for everyday life, and the question arises of how much knowledge people had of it and how profound was their knowledge. Both peoples perceptions and their practices were shaped by their views of human justice and divine justice whether these coincided, and whether they were administered through the same means, for the intervention of saints or icons might be seen as an alternative to human justice. As for human justice, there are questions that involve both societys view of it and the education, knowledge, and interests of those who administered it. Such issues are present in all medieval societies the case of Byzantium is of particular interest because of the interplay between formal law and the conceptualizations and practicessome quite divergent from the ostensible purpose of legislationwhich affected the legislators, the practitioners, and all of society. **About the Author Angeliki E. Laiou was Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History at Harvard University. Dieter Simon is Director of the Max-Planck-Institut fur Europaische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt.

Author: Michael J. Klarman File Type: pdf Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views. One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that they also had interests. Based on prodigious research and told largely through the voices of the participants, Michael Klarmans The Framers Coup narrates how the Framers clashing interests shaped the Constitution--and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of collapse was always present. Had the convention dissolved, any number of adverse outcomes could have resulted, including civil war or a reversion to monarchy. Not only does Klarman capture the knifes-edge atmosphere of the convention, he populates his narrative with riveting and colorful stories the rebellion of debtor farmers in Massachusetts George Washingtons uncertainty about whether to attend Gunning Bedfords threat to turn to a European prince if the small states were denied equal representation in the Senate slave staters threats to take their marbles and go home if denied representation for their slaves Hamiltons quasi-monarchist speech to the convention and Patrick Henrys herculean efforts to defeat the Constitution in Virginia through demagoguery and conspiracy theories. The Framers Coup is more than a compendium of great stories, however, and the powerful arguments that feature throughout will reshape our understanding of the nations founding. Simply put, the Constitutional Convention almost didnt happen, and once it happened, it almost failed. And, even after the convention succeeded, the Constitution it produced almost failed to be ratified. Just as importantly, the Constitution was hardly the product of philosophical reflections by brilliant, disinterested statesmen, but rather ordinary interest group politics. Multiple conflicting interests had a say, from creditors and debtors to city dwellers and backwoodsmen. The upper class overwhelmingly supported the Constitution many working class colonists were more dubious. Slave states and nonslave states had different perspectives on how well the Constitution served their interests. Ultimately, both the Constitutions content and its ratification process raise troubling questions about democratic legitimacy. The Federalists were eager to avoid full-fledged democratic deliberation over the Constitution, and the document that was ratified was stacked in favor of their preferences. And in terms of substance, the Constitution was a significant departure from the more democratic state constitutions of the 1770s. Definitive and authoritative, The Framers Coup explains why the Framers preferred such a constitution and how they managed to persuade the country to adopt it. We have lived with the consequences, both positive and negative, ever since. **