Books about Commentaries from Amazon.com

They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees.

They believe they’re unique, yet somehow they’re all exactly the same, talking about how they “get” Sarah Silverman’s “subversive” comedy and Wes Anderson’s “droll” films. They’re also down with diversity and up on all the best microbrews, breakfast spots, foreign cinema, and authentic sushi. They’re organic, ironic, and do not own TVs.

You know who they are: They’re white people. And they’re here, and you’re gonna have to deal. Fortunately, here’s a book that investigates, explains, and offers advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion. So kick back on your IKEA couch and lose yourself in the ultimate guide to the unbearable whiteness of being..
Price: $7.51 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible.

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.

Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.

Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down..
Price: $9.24 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This introductory textbook has several distinctive features: a strong emphasis on the scriptural basis for each doctrine; clear writing, with technical terms kept to a minimum; and a contemporary approach..
Price: $25.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Word is made fresh by the irrepressible Mother Angelica as she personally escorts you through the Scriptures, unearthing lessons for daily living--the perfect companion to the New York Times bestselling Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality.

The founder of the world's largest religious media empire shares her beloved wit and down-to-earth spirituality in MOTHER ANGELICA'S PRIVATE AND PITHY LESSONS FROM THE SCRIPTURES. Editor Raymond Arroyo draws on hundreds of never-before-released private lessons to present the renowned nun's definitive take on the Good Book. Angelica provides readers with guided meditations, probing personal questions, and reveals an often-overlooked practical spirituality. She doesn't just explain the stories, she relates them to our daily lives, helping even those who've never opened the Bible experience its power and life-altering lessons. The apostles Paul ("the little shrimp"), Peter ("that great bungler") and all the characters of the Scriptures are suddenly human again, complete with their foibles and triumphs. Here is the Greatest Story, newly told as only Mother Angelica can. The Bible and you will never be the same.

A portion of the royalties from this book goes to support the work of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery

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Price: $10.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Takes a look at the pilgrimage theme found in Psalms 120 134 and explores the major feasts of Israel. For the ancient Israelites, pilgrimage was a three-times-per-year journey to the temple in Jerusalem; for New Testament believers all of life becomes a journey together toward the new Jerusalem. Contains homework for six sessions. Leader Kit, Leader Guide, and Audio CDs available separately. (7 sessions).
Price: $11.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Former Congressman and Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Mark D. Siljander takes us on an eye-opening journey of personal, religious, and political discovery. In the 1980s, Siljander was a newly minted Reagan Republican from Michigan who joined Congress in the same generation as Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, ready to remake the world. A staunch member of the Religious Right, he once walked out of the National Prayer Breakfast when a speaker quoted from the Qur'an.

But after losing reelection, Siljander dove into the Bible to look for the passage in which the Bible says it is our job as Christians to convert others in order to save them from eternal damnation. He couldn't find it; in fact, he couldn't even find a passage saying that Jesus set out to form a new religion. This discovery was the first step on a spiritual and political journey that started with an in-depth linguistic study of the Bible and led to the discovery that Christianity and Islam share many base words and concepts. In his role as ambassador to the United Nations Siljander began sharing his insights on the connections between Islam and Christianity, with surprising results.

A Deadly Misunderstanding recounts Siljander's amazing discoveries as he travels to some of the most remote and hostile places in the world—deep into Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, and India—forging deep ties with both heads of state and religious leaders. What he has learned could radically shift the contemporary religious landscape and help heal the rift between Islam and the West. No Christian or Muslim will be unaffected after reading this book.

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Price: $14.37 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Judging by today's bestseller lists, one would think that religion is either irrational or extreme What's missing is a genuine debate between the atheists and fanatics; someone to point out that religion has value in the modern world. Why Faith Matters is an articulate defense of religion in America. It makes the case for faith and shows its relationship to history and science. Refuting the cold reason of the atheists and the hatred of the fanatics with a vision of religion informed by faith, love, and understanding, Rabbi David J. Wolpe follows in a literary tradition that stretches from Cardinal Newman to C. S. Lewis to Thomas Merton—all individuals of faith who brought religion and culture together in their own works. Drawing on the personal and powerful story of his battle with cancer, Wolpe offers a moving statement in support of religion today. In a poignant response to the new atheists, Wolpe takes readers through the origins and nature of faith, the role of the Bible in modern life, and the compatibility of God and science. He concludes with a powerful argument for the place of God, faith, and religion in today's world.

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Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.

Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe..
Price: $6.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Through the Apostles, we come to Jesus himself." -- Pope Benedict XVI

In this fascinating and inspirational journey with the chosen disciples of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI demonstrates a profound, unbreakable continuity -- built upon the foundation of the Apostles and alive in the succession of the Apostles -- by which Christ is present today in His Church.

"At the start of the third millennium, my beloved predecessor John Paul II invited the Church to contemplate the Face of Christ (cf. Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 16 ff.). Continuing in the same direction, I would like to show in this book how it is precisely the light of that Face that is reflected on the face of the Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 1), notwithstanding the limits and shadows of our fragile and sinful humanity. After Mary, a pure reflection of the light of Christ, it is from the Apostles, through their word and witness, that we receive the truth of Christ. Their mission is not isolated, however, but is situated wthin a mystery of communion that involves the entire People of God and is carried out in stages from the Old to the New Covenant." -- From The Apostles.
Price: $8.10 [Notify me when price goes down.]