{"title":"Candida Moss","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"gods-ghostwriters-book-candida-moss-9780008612177","title":"Gods Ghostwriters","description":"‘Monumental and eye-opening’ Reza Aslan           'A revelation […and…] an intellectual triumph' Irish Independent           '[A] massive achievement' Spectator           ‘Refreshingly readable' Guardian                        The untold story of how enslaved people created, gave meaning to, and spread the word of the New Testament, shaping the very foundations of Christianity.                        For he past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture has credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. But the truth is that these individuals did not write alone. In some meaningful ways they did not write at all.             Hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators, almost all of whom go uncredited. They were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament. They took dictation, sometimes editorialising in the process, and polished and refined the final manuscripts. When the Christian message began to move independently from the first apostles it was enslaved missionaries who undertook the dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean and along dusty Roman roads to move Christianity from Jerusalem and the Levant to Rome, Spain, North Africa and Egypt. Finally, when these texts were read aloud to new audiences of curious potential converts, it was educated and trained enslaved workers who performed them – deciding whether a statement was sincere or sarcastic; a throwaway remark or something central to be emphasised. Their influence in the spread of Christianity and making of the Bible was enormous, yet their role has been almost entirely overlooked until now.             Filled with profound revelations for reading and understanding the gospels themselves, God’s Ghostwriters is a groundbreaking and rigorously researched book about how enslaved people shaped the Bible, and with it all of Christianity. It’s also an intimate portrait of lives not often considered by history, and a reckoning with the motives and methods of the early Christians as they spread their message across the ancient world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49749184741649,"sku":"NGR9780008612177","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50469405688081,"sku":"GOR013640780","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50609673699601,"sku":"GOR014012409","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52407288365329,"sku":"NLS9780008612177","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53062247678225,"sku":"GOR014721812","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/000861217X.jpg?v=1751429631"},{"product_id":"myth-of-persecution-how-early-christians-invented-a-story-of-martyrdom-book-candida-moss-9780062104557","title":"The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Moss, however, exposes that the \"Age of Martyrs\" is a fiction--there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were--and always will be--persecuted by a hostile, secular world. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49916123316497,"sku":"CIN0062104551G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50816354189585,"sku":"NGR9780062104557","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50981327929617,"sku":"GOR014159417","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50998983885073,"sku":"NIN9780062104557","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694880260369,"sku":"CIN0062104551VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52502341910801,"sku":"NLS9780062104557","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53151826444561,"sku":"GOR009971260","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0062104551.jpg?v=1751445626"},{"product_id":"myth-of-persecution-book-candida-moss-9780062104526","title":"The Myth of Persecution","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAccording to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoss, however, exposes that the \"Age of Martyrs\" is a fiction--there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were--and always will be--persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50049092845841,"sku":"GOR004793398","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50232854053137,"sku":"CIN0062104527VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50914233483537,"sku":"CIN0062104527G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0062104527.jpg?v=1751226149"},{"product_id":"god-s-ghostwriters-book-candida-moss-9780316564670","title":"God's Ghostwriters","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom an award-winning biblical scholar, the story of how enslaved people created, gave meaning to, and spread the message of the New Testament, shaping the very foundations of Christianity in ways both subtle and profound. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture have credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. 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