Raymond E. Brown

Since its original publication in 1994 as a two-volume hardcover boxed set, "The Death of the Messiah" has lived up to early expectations and become the benchmark by which any future study of the Passion narratives will be measured. Raymond E. Brown's masterful study examines every detail of the four Gospel stories of the final agonizing days of Jesus' life. Where others simply describe the accounts of the death of the Messiah as if they were one seamless whole, Father Brown reads and explains each Gospel on its own terms and elucidates the themes that make each one unique. "The Death of the Messiah" is the ideal complement to Brown's Birth of the Messiah, as thorough and expert in its handling of the Passion narratives as his book on the infancy narratives of the Gospels.

"Many political observers have expressed doubts as to whether America's leaders are up to the task of addressing major policy challenges. Yet much of the critical commentary lacks grounding in the systematic analysis of the core institutions of the American political system including elections, representation, and the law-making process. Governing in a Polarized Age brings together more than a dozen leading scholars to provide an in-depth examination of representation and legislative performance. Drawing upon the seminal work of David Mayhew as a point of departure, these essays explore the dynamics of incumbency advantage in today's polarized Congress, asking whether the focus on individual re-election that was the hallmark of Mayhew's ground-breaking book, Congress: The Electoral Connection, remains useful for understanding today's Congress. The essays link the study of elections with close analysis of changes in party organization and with a series of systematic assessments of the quality of legislative performance"--

Examines "christology's"--or evaluations of Jesus' identity and divinity--based upon his words, his public ministry, and the Resurrection.

The role of Peter has remained one of the most sensitive and divisive areas of New Testament inquiry, particularly of its implications for the position of the papacy in Christendom. Now, under ecumenical sponsorship, a notable group of Protestant and Roman Catholic New Testament scholars have sat down together over a period of nearly two years to study this matter in the light of modern Biblical criticism -- surely a "first" in cooperative ventures since the Reformation. The results of their joint study, concisely presented in a form intelligible to the interested reader, are significant both in terms of what can be known with assurance about the historical career of Peter, and still more with regard to the development of the images of Peter after his death. This study, which moves the discussion beyond many old impasses, has Biblical, theological and ecumenical implications for all Christian Churches.