Three Books with Religious Themes

I've recently received the Midsummer catalog for Daedalus Books.

Here are three of the offerings the especially caught my eye. There is a common theme to them, as indicated by the headline above. I'll just present the bibliographic particulars here without further comment.

1) Thomas de Wesselow, THE SIGN: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection
Dutton 2013.

De Wesselow, an art historian by trade, contends that the famous shroud is not a work of art or a fraud but an authentic burial cloth from first century Palestine. Also, he contends that the shroud was central to the origins of Christianity.

He seems not to believe in the orthodox Christian account of events -- he is skeptical that the tomb was found empty or that Jesus later appeared to his disciples and ascended into heaven, etc. But he does believe that the early Christians believed in the resurrection with sufficient ardor to be martyred for it. So ... what convinced them? A mysterious piece of cloth.

2) Charlotte Gordon, THE WOMAN WHO NAMED GOD: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths. Little Brown 2009.

Gordon focuses on Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, and tells the story of the origins of monotheism accordingly.

3) Linda Wolk-Simon, RAPHAEL AT THE METROPOLITAN: The Colonna Altarpiece.
MMA/Yale 2006.

Also known as "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints" and portrayed above, the Colonna altarpiece is a classic work by one of the central figures of the Italian Renaissance. This book tells the story of its survival through the centuries and how it ended up at the Metropolitan, where it has been since 1916, and places the work artistically in the context of Raphael's career.

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