Here are 99 books that The Doctrine of the Trinity fans have personally recommended if you like
The Doctrine of the Trinity.
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I have been interested for years in the causes and dynamics of religious violence, since to work towards resolving conflicts involving religious faith, one needs to understand them as more than hair-splitting arguments between opposed schools of fanatics. The door to this project opened wide in Malta, where I spent six months teaching under a brilliant Catholic priest who was also a sociologist and an expert on Christian history. Father Joe steered me toward the books I needed to consult. More important, he understood that faith and reason should not be considered opposites, and that debating fundamental concepts is essential to the moral and spiritual health of a religious organization.
In Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, James Carroll, a former Catholic priest turned journalist and novelist, delivers a powerful indictment of the politicized religion that from the time of Constantine the Great persecuted heretics, non-Romans, and, most of all, Jews. Carroll’s historical account is colorful and accurate, but what this book mostly does is exorcise a demon that plagued the author personally for years: his shared responsibility as a Catholic believer and official for an anti-Semitic tradition that helped generate the Holocaust. This is a stirring job of writing that looks forward to Carroll’s later work as a novelist, including his lovely take on the story of Abelard and Heloise, The Cloister (Anchor, 2019).
A bold and moving book tracing the two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism by National Book Award–winning author James Carroll.
More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization. The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust—the infamous “silence” of Pius XII—is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine’s transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism,…
I have been interested for years in the causes and dynamics of religious violence, since to work towards resolving conflicts involving religious faith, one needs to understand them as more than hair-splitting arguments between opposed schools of fanatics. The door to this project opened wide in Malta, where I spent six months teaching under a brilliant Catholic priest who was also a sociologist and an expert on Christian history. Father Joe steered me toward the books I needed to consult. More important, he understood that faith and reason should not be considered opposites, and that debating fundamental concepts is essential to the moral and spiritual health of a religious organization.
The historian Peter Brown is the great expert on the late Roman/early Christian era, and he writes like a scholarly poet. I don’t think anyone has done a better job of putting the lives and thoughts of Christian intellectuals and laypeople in the context of a Roman society experiencing convulsive, transformative change. This book will change your views of both Roman and Christian cultures. If you’re like me, it will lead you to read Brown’s other works, such as his epic 2012 study, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD.
Peter Brown presents a masterly history of Roman society in the second, third, and fourth centuries. Brown interprets the changes in social patterns and religious thought, breaking away from conventional modern images of the period.
I have been interested for years in the causes and dynamics of religious violence, since to work towards resolving conflicts involving religious faith, one needs to understand them as more than hair-splitting arguments between opposed schools of fanatics. The door to this project opened wide in Malta, where I spent six months teaching under a brilliant Catholic priest who was also a sociologist and an expert on Christian history. Father Joe steered me toward the books I needed to consult. More important, he understood that faith and reason should not be considered opposites, and that debating fundamental concepts is essential to the moral and spiritual health of a religious organization.
In this lively and knowledgeable history of Christian controversies of the fifth century CE, Philip Jenkins produces a valuable and colorful sequel to the story told in When Jesus Became God. This book reveals what happened after the Council of Constantinople adopted a Trinitarian view of Jesus and Roman power shifted to the Byzantine East. The council “settled” the Arian controversy for the time being but generated an even more ferocious series of battles over Jesus’ divine/human nature and the relationship of Christianity to Greek thought. As the book’s subtitle suggests, Jenkins has a fine time showing how an admixture of imperial politics, Church politics, and theological ideas created “orthodox” Christian thought and practice.
Tells the fascinating, violent story of the Church's fifth century battles over 'right belief' that had a far greater impact on the future of Christianity and the world than the much-touted Council of Nicea convened by Constantine a century before.
I have been interested for years in the causes and dynamics of religious violence, since to work towards resolving conflicts involving religious faith, one needs to understand them as more than hair-splitting arguments between opposed schools of fanatics. The door to this project opened wide in Malta, where I spent six months teaching under a brilliant Catholic priest who was also a sociologist and an expert on Christian history. Father Joe steered me toward the books I needed to consult. More important, he understood that faith and reason should not be considered opposites, and that debating fundamental concepts is essential to the moral and spiritual health of a religious organization.
The year 381 marked the point at which the new Roman emperor, Theodosius, convened the Church council that outlawed Arianism and made Jesus’ role as God incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity, an essential part of Christian orthodoxy. For the historian Charles Freeman, this noxious combination of secular and ecclesiastical power stands as the origin of the development he described earlier in The Closing of the Western Mind (Anchor, 2005). Freeman’s analysis of the “Greek-ification” of Christian thinking is very sharp, and he tells the story of Theodosius well, even if he sometimes seems to be reading elements of modern dictatorial leadership back into that emperor’s character. A stimulating, provocative read.
In A.D. 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of God; all other interpretations were now declared heretical. It was the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Why has Theodosius's revolution been airbrushed from the historical record? In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed historian Charles Freeman argues that Theodosius's…
I'm a professor of philosophy in Munich who has been working on various aspects of medieval philosophy for nearly three decades. My own research is on philosophy in the Islamic world but I've always been fascinated by philosophy in medieval Christian Europe. What I find most interesting is the way medieval philosophy constantly overturns our expectations: we imagine that this was a deeply conservative and highly controlled society where it was almost impossible to explore new ideas. Yet, it was an incredibly diverse and innovative time in the history of human thought. Thanks to my History of Philosophy podcast project I had the chance to delve deeply into medieval philosophy in Latin Christendom.
A prejudice people have about medieval philosophy is that it is all about theology, and theology isn’t philosophy (or isn’t philosophically interesting). There are two answers to be given here: first, medieval philosophers thought about lots of things apart from theology, like logic, physics, ethics, and so on. But also, when they did theology the results could be philosophically fascinating! In this case, discussions of the Trinity turn out to involve explorations of such topics as the nature of relations and the philosophy of mind (because one idea was to understand the Trinity as being akin to interrelations between aspects of human psychology). Other topics worth looking at to show how philosophically rewarding theology could be would be the eucharist and angels.
How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be distinct and yet identical? Prompted by the doctrine of the divine Trinity, this question sparked centuries of lively debate. In the current context of renewed interest in Trinitarian theology, Russell L. Friedman provides the first survey of the scholastic discussion of the Trinity in the 100-year period stretching from Thomas Aquinas' earliest works to William Ockham's death. Tracing two central issues - the attempt to explain how the three persons are distinct from each other but identical as God, and the application to the Trinity of a 'psychological model',…
I was the little girl who always wanted to be at church, who felt compelled to tell people about the goodness of God, but because my religious communities did not allow women to be church leaders, I never imagined this was a path I could pursue. As an undergraduate, I was captured by the academic study of the Bible and could not imagine doing anything else with my life. Now, for the past 20+ years, I have been teaching the Bible in academic and ecclesial settings and have become one of many good scholars who are making a case that the Christian God fully values men and women.
This magisterial book opened my eyes to the connections between desire and God. It also showed me that experience matters for Christian theology; it is, after all, a faith that values human reality.
From the first time I read it until now, Coakley remains one of my theological heroes.
God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy…
I am passionate about solving problemsof any type. I have a long history of solving Computer problems that are known traditionally as “bugs”. After retiring, I turned my attention to other problems & mysteries, discovering I had a talent for historical detective work too! I wasn’t satisfied with the - very unconvincing - traditional “chocolate box” narrative of Shakespeare’s family and life. He musthave had much more impact on the wider world than is currently known and I believe, after 450 years, I finally cracked it!
Alan Green hosts a popular Youtube channel that explores the mysteries and secret codes built into the works of Shakespeare and his decryptions are quite extraordinary in their depth.
Green has been investigating these hidden “Bard codes” for more than 15 years and his book reflects the incredible effort he has put into his work. He was at one time the musical director of The Monkees!)
Six years' of intense research into Shakespeare's grave, monument, and Sonnets dedication, went into producing this ground-breaking work. Readers are taken on a fascinating journey in which they're guided to solve the codes that explain a hitherto completely unsuspected side to the greatest literary mystery ever. In a revelation of detective work, the author thoroughly documents the supporting role of Dr. John Dee, alchemist, mathematician, and leading cryptographer in the Elizabethan court.The codes predict an actual location — the Holy of Holies Altar Stone within the poet's church in Stratford-upon-Avon — where the Bard claims to have left physical evidence…
I’m a writer of all genres that’s found a lot of love, particularly in fantasy and thrillers. My love for epic fantasies first began when I was young, and like all young readers, was introduced to Harry Potter and the Magic Tree House series. The idea of being whisked away to a magical world captivated me, and so, I started to create my own stories to keep that magic alive.
After Ember loses her grandmother, she finds herself retreating from the Real World and going into the woods. They’re no ordinary woods though. They’re a portal to another world. One where Ember isn’t lonely. The only catch? She can never return to her real life. This book I felt had a lot of good metaphors for depression and grief mixed with the fantasy elements to give it both a powerful message and an entertaining feeling.
She wanted an escape from reality. Her ticket home could cost her life.
Ember Trouvé was never the same after her parents died tragically. Obsessed with finding other lost souls like herself, she collects missing-teenager flyers. But when they lead her to explore the eerie woods rumored to contain strange happenings, she's shocked to discover a group of happy-go-lucky high-schoolers.
As welcoming new friends and seductive boys show her the fun she's forgotten, Ember is reminded of the sweet taste of happiness. But just as her inner joy reignites, she learns there's a price for the forest's wondrous gift: She…
Barrie is an historian specializing in early Christianity. Today we now know that there were many different movements within the first few centuries, each claiming to be Christian. James’ Jewish group differed from Paul’s Christ religion and both differed from Gnostic Christianity which saw Jesus as a teacher of insight. None was dominant. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic writings add an intriguing overlay. The books selected are those that open up new ways of understanding the historical development of Christianity. Each in its own way has created a paradigm shift.
A well-written, well researched book by a prominent American archeologist and New Testament scholar that examines what we can now reliably know about the Jesus of history. Tabor carefully sifts through the conflicting evidence in the gospels, written 40-70 years after the death of Jesus, and illuminates his discussion with contemporary archeological finds. A paradigm changer in our search for the historical Jesus, not the Christ of faith.
If you thought Dan Brown's fiction was gripping, try the truth. This controversial book pieces together new evidence on the real life of Jesus. The true inspiration behind Kathy Reich's bestselling thriller, "Crossbones", archaeologist and scholar James Tabor takes us on a startling journey that changes the story of Christianity as we know it. Based on hand-on archaeological experience and ground-breaking academic research, real-life Indiana Jones, James Tabor, has produced a compelling and bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. So impressive is his work that Kathy Reichs, bestselling mystery writer of the "Tempe…
Barrie is an historian specializing in early Christianity. Today we now know that there were many different movements within the first few centuries, each claiming to be Christian. James’ Jewish group differed from Paul’s Christ religion and both differed from Gnostic Christianity which saw Jesus as a teacher of insight. None was dominant. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic writings add an intriguing overlay. The books selected are those that open up new ways of understanding the historical development of Christianity. Each in its own way has created a paradigm shift.
If we only had Paul to rely on for our knowledge of Jesus’ life, all we’d know is that he was born, was Jewish, had brothers and died. Written by a British academic, The Mythmaker is a break-through book that shows how Paul created Christianity by developing a mythology/theology about the significance of the death of Jesus as a Christ. Maccoby’s thought is further developed in my book, How Jesus Became Christian (2008) that demonstrates how different Paul’s religion was from that of Jesus.
