Lasker's Bookshelf

no cover photo available	Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times by Donald B. Redford	"Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia."
no cover photo available	Amulets and Superstitions : The Original Texts With Translations and Descriptions of a Long Series of Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Christian by Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis, Sir Budge, E. A. Wallis Budge	A must have for the ancient history enthusiast
	The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (abridged version) by Edward Gibbon, Dero A. Saunders (Editor)	Probably the most famous book ever written on Roman Empire.
no cover photo available	Egyptian Ideas of the Afterlife by E. A. Wallis Budge	"Drawing on religious works including The Book of the Dead, the former keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum offers authoritative insights into the meaning of immortality to the ancient Egyptians and its ramifications for Egyptian society. "
no cover photo available	The Unholy in Holy Scripture : The Dark Side of the Bible by Gerd Ludemann	"German scholar Gerd Ludemann asks the question of how we can continue to be Christians in the light of what he sees as "unholy" elements in Scripture, and in response points to the person of Jesus and his example."
no cover photo available	The Nag Hammadi Library in English by James M. Robinson (Editor)	The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in 1945 buried in a large stone jar in the desert outside the modern Egyptian city of Nag Hammadi. It is a collection of religious and philosophic texts gathered and translated into Coptic by fourth-century Gnostic Cristians and translated into English by dozens of highly reputable experts.
no cover photo available	The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics by Robert J. Miller, et al	Miller engages some of the most severe critics of the work of the Seminar in a courteous but trenchant critical debate about the methods and aims of research into the "historical Jesus."
	The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries : Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World by David Ulansey	In the centuries following the conquests of Alexander the Great the dramatic unification of the Mediterranean world created exceptionally fertile soil for the growth of new religions. Christianity,for example, was one of the innovative religious movements that arose during this time. However, Christianity had many competitors, and one of the most remarkable of these was the ancient Roman "mystery religion" of Mithraism.
no cover photo available	Celsus, on the True Doctrine : A Discourse Against the Christians by Celsus, R. Joseph Hoffmann (Translator)	"The works of many early critics of the Christian church were burned by ruling emperors or otherwise destroyed in the second and third centuries, but the writings of the Greek pagan philosopher, Celsus, have survived..."
no cover photo available	Mysteries of Mithra by Franz Cumont	"This is the classic book on Mithriac religious practice; it was written at the turn of the last century and then translated from the French. It obviously, after one hundred years has been built upon; it is still of wide use."
no cover photo available	Russia and the Golden Horde : The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History by Charles Halperin	"Not a quick read, this book will probably tell you lots more than you wanted to know if you have just a casual interest in the subject. That aside, it covers its subject thoroughly. Analyzing word etymology, documents, and institutions, Halperin shows that the Russians borrowed quite a bit from the Mongols -- and that the 300-year "Tatar Yoke" was far from being a dark age for Russia."
	Heretics : The Other Side of Early Christianity by Gerd Ludemann, John Bowden (Translator)	"Ludemann's critical examination of "holy scripture and its authority" is a meticulous historical investigation of early Christianity that seeks "to direct attention once again to Jesus.""
	From Jesus to Christ : The Origins of New Testament Images of Jesus by Paula Fredriksen	"How did Jesus of Nazareth become the Christ of the Christian tradition? And why did the earlyChristian communities develop different theological images of Jesus? In this exciting new book, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by placing the various canonical images of Jesus within theirhistorical context-the Hellenistic and Judaic cultures from which the Christian communities grew..."
	The Golden Ass : Or Metamorphoses by Apuleius, E.J. Kenney (Translator)	"Apuleius' great work is not read enough. As the story of an libertine who is unfortunately changed into an ass unfolds, we see a satire unfold that provides both entertainment and a biting commentary of life in the ancient Greco-Roman world. The book shows you the great distance between us moderns and the ancients, but what is likely to surprise you the most is precisely the opposite: those ways in which we are so similar. "
	Books and Readers in the Early Church : A History of Early Christian Texts by Harry Y. Gamble	"This fascinating and lively book provides the first comprehensive discussion of the production, circulation, and use of books in early Christianity. It explores the extent of literacy in early Christian communities; the relation in the early church between oral tradition and written materials; and how books were produced, who read them, and why. "
	The Keys of Egypt : The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Lesley Adkins, Roy Adkings	"The book wonderfully illustrates this story of a man obsessed with deciphering this new language and the level of genius required to open the secrets to the Egyptian civilization."
	Borderland : A Journey Through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid	"This vivid book tells the story of Ukraine by taking the reader there. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi labor camps, Anna Reid charts Ukraine's tragic past and explores its struggle to build a national future."
	Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100-400) by Ramsay MacMullen	"Christianizing the Roman Empire is an outstanding work of research by an eminently qualified authority. I found the material fascinating. Some of it attacked my pre-conceived notions, while other aspects of the book confirmed my reasoned suspicions. The book is written for those who already have some knowledge and study in church history during this era in Rome."
	The Christians As the Romans Saw Them by Robert L. Wilken	"Wilken draws on a variety of sources to present ``pagan criticism'' of Christianity from the beginning of the early second century to the late fourth century. He relies on some Christian sources the gospels, the letters of Paul, the works of Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Romeand devotes a chapter each to the views of various Roman and Greek philosophers and statesmen."
no cover photo available	Paul the Convert : The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee by Alan F. Segal	"In this 1990 work by Alan Segal, the author argues that the best way to understand Paul is by using the conversion language prevalent in the first century. Largely reacting to the writings of Krister Stendahl and E.P. Sanders, Segal writes that Paul did in fact undergo a conversion"