As debates within the Church over the scientific details of creation become more frequent, the experts seem to grow more entrenched while the rest of us only become more confused. Somewhere between the endless arguments over distant starlight and Carbon-14 dating, calculating the mathematical improbabilities of things that already exist, and parsing ancient Hebrew and Greek, somebody needs to ask the simple question, If 3,500 years of scientific progress can't help modern Christians figure out Genesis, then how could the ancient Israelities possibly have understood it so well? What secret did this newly liberated gaggle of Hebrew nomads take with them out of Egypt that holds the key to understanding God's telling of His own creation story? Beyond the Firmament challenges all creationist camps --whether Young-Earth, Old-Earth, or Theistic Evolutionist -- to step outside of traditional paradigms and recognize how our modern, Western, post-Enlightenment scientific worldview actually blinds us from seeing the simple truth of Creation as it was originally intended, and how our failure to grasp the theological significance of the Biblical creation model puts science and faith on a collision course.

A 1994 scholarly edition of a major Renaissance text linked with Marlowe's Dr Faustus.

Sepher Rezial Hemelach is the longawaited first English translation of this famous magical text a translation from the ancient Hebrew in the rare and complete 1701 Amsterdam edition. According to Hebrew legend, the Sepher Rezial was presented to Adam in the Garden of Eden, given by the hand of God, and delivered by the angel Rezial. The myth thus suggests that this is the first book ever written, and of direct divine provenance. A diverse compendium of ancient Hebrew magical lore, this book was quite possibly the original source for later, traditional literature on angelic hierarchy, astrology, Qabalah, and Gematria. Moses Gaster mentions this in his introduction to The Sword of Moses (1896) suggesting that the Sepher Rezial could be a primary source for many magic and qabalistic books of the Middle Ages. Sepher Rezial Hemelach is a compilation of five books: "The Book of the Vestment," "The Book of the Great Rezial," "The Holy Names," "The Book of the Mysteries," and "The Book of the Signs of the Zodiac." It includes extensive explanatory text on the holy names of God, the divisions of Heaven and Hell, the names and hierarchy of the angels and spirits, as well as symbolic interpretations of both the Book of Genesis and Sepher Yetzirah. It also includes material on astronomy, astrology, gematria, and various magical talismans, most notably those used for protection during childbirth. In his introduction, Steve Savedow details the history, bibliographical citations, and lineage of this famous work. He lists the old and rare manuscripts still in existence, and provides a bibliography of other reference works for study of the Western esoteric tradition.