Introduce your child to the enchanting world of Greek mythology with "Greek Mythology Tales for Bedtime: Stories of Gods and Monsters." Perfect for children aged 4-8, this beautifully illustrated book brings the magical tales of ancient Greece to life, making bedtime an exciting adventure. Each story is crafted to be both educational and entertaining, providing young readers with a glimpse into the fascinating myths of gods, heroes, and mythical creatures. From the mighty Zeus to the brave Hercules, these tales are filled with adventure, magic, and important life lessons. Why You'll Love This Book: Greek Mythology for Kids: Discover the rich tapestry of Greek myths retold in an engaging and accessible way for young readers. Bedtime Stories: Perfectly designed for bedtime, each story is just the right length to read aloud, making bedtime a special bonding time. Beautiful Illustrations: Captivating illustrations bring the stories to life, sparking children's imaginations and keeping them engaged. Educational and Fun: Learn about Greek gods, heroes, and mythical creatures while enjoying exciting stories that teach valuable lessons. Interactive Elements: Fun facts and questions at the end of each story encourage further discussion and exploration of Greek mythology. Inside This Book: Magical Tales: Follow the adventures of Zeus, Athena, and other Olympian gods as they navigate a world filled with wonder and danger. Mythical Creatures: Meet legendary creatures like the Minotaur, Medusa, and Pegasus, and discover their fascinating stories. Heroic Journeys: Learn about the brave deeds of heroes like Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, and their battles against formidable foes. Moral Lessons: Each story imparts important values such as bravery, wisdom, and friendship, making them perfect for teaching moments. About the Author: Elena Northwood is a beloved children's author with a passion for bringing ancient myths to young readers. Her engaging storytelling and love for mythology make her books a favorite among parents, educators, and children alike.

From The Matrix and Harry Potter to Stargate SG:1 and The X-Files, recent science fiction and fantasy offerings both reflect and produce a sense of the religious. This work examines this pop-culture spirituality, or "postmodern sacred," showing how consumers use the symbols contained in explicitly "unreal" texts to gain a secondhand experience of transcendence and belief. Topics include how media technologies like CGI have blurred the lines between real and unreal, the polytheisms of Buffy and Xena, the New Age Gnosticism of The DaVinci Code, the Islamic "Other" and science fiction's response to 9/11, and the Christian Right and popular culture. Today's pervasive, saturated media culture, this work shows, has utterly collapsed the sacred/profane binary, so that popular culture is not only powerfully shaped by the discourses of religion, but also shapes how the religious appears and is experienced in the contemporary world.

The Bible is teeming with monsters. Giants tromp through the land of milk and honey; Leviathan swims through the wine-dark sea. A stunning array of peculiar creatures, mind-altering spirits, and supernatural hitmen fill the biblical heavens, jarring in both their strangeness and their propensity for violence--especially on God's behalf. Traditional interpretations of the creatures of the Bible have sanded down their sharp, unsavory edges, transforming them into celestial beings of glory and light--or chubby, happy cherubs. Those cherubs? They're actually hybrid guardian monsters, more closely associated with the Egyptian sphinx than with flying babies. And the seraphim? Winged serpents sent to mete out God's vengeance. Demons aren't at war with angels; they're a distinct supernatural species used by Satan and by God. The pattern is chilling. Most of these monsters aren't God's opponents--they're God's entourage. Killer angels, plague demons, manipulative spirits, creatures with an alarming number of wings (and eyes all over)--these shapeshifters and realm-crossers act with stunning brutality, each reflecting a facet of God's own monstrosity. Confronting God's monsters--and the God-monster--may be uncomfortable, but the Bible is richer for their presence. It's not only richer; the stories of the monsters of the Bible can be as fun, surprising, and interesting as any mythology. For anyone interested in monsters, myths, folklore, demons, and more, God's Monsters is an entertaining deep dive into the creaturely strangeness of the Bible.

"A comprehensive modern-day bestiary."--The New Yorker

Leviathan, a manifestation of one of the oldest monsters in recorded history (3rd millennium BCE), and its sidekick, Behemoth, have been the object of centuries of suppression throughout the millennia. Originally cosmic, terrifying creatures who represented disorder and chaos, they have been converted into the more palatable crocodile and hippo by biblical scholars today. However, among the earliest Jews (and Muslims) and possibly Christians, these creatures occupied a significant place in creation and redemption history. Before that, they formed part of a backstory that connects the Bible with the wider ancient Near East. When examining the reception history of these fascinating beasts, several questions emerge. Why are Jewish children today familiar with these creatures, while Christian children know next to nothing about them? Why do many modern biblical scholars follow suit and view them as minor players in the grand scheme of things? Conversely, why has popular culture eagerly embraced them, assimilating the words as symbols for the enormous? More unexpectedly, why have fundamentalist Christians touted them as evidence for the cohabitation of dinosaurs and humans?

Religious encounters with mystery can be fascinating, but also terrifying. So too when it comes to encounters with the monsters that haunt Jewish and Christian traditions. Religion has a lot to do with horror, and horror has a lot to do with religion. Religion has its monsters, and monsters have their religion. In this unusual and provocative book, Timothy Beal explores how religion, horror, and the monstrous are deeply intertwined. This new edition has been thoughtfully updated, reflecting on developments in the field over the past two decades and highlighting its contributions to emerging conversations. It also features a new chapter, "Gods, Monsters, and Machines," which engages cultural fascinations and anxieties about technologies of artificial intelligence and machine learning as they relate to religion and the monstrous at the dawn of the Anthropocene. Religion and Its Monsters is essential reading for students and scholars of religion and popular culture, as well as for any readers with an interest in horror theory or monster theory.

David Simon's The Wire lays out before us a city in which people struggle under the weight of poverty, political corruption, economic despair, educational collapse, and the drug trade. This volume explores the various theological, ethical, and philosophical challenges presented by The Wire. As each season of The Wire unfolds, the moral complexities of life in the city deepen, as the failures of one system have unforeseen effects in other corners of the city. Fleshing out the ongoing tension between the "earthly city" and the City of God, Corners in the City of God is a theological companion to David Simon's masterpiece, inviting the reader to wrestle with the implications of belonging fully to the cities of the world, in all of their splendor and tragedy.

Renounced priest Noble Lincoln finds hell upon the earth after being made a monster by the legendary African beast, the Asasabonsam, on a slave ship returning to America's new colonies. Lincoln Noble's new African master plans to use him to navigate slave markets, seeking revenge on the men responsible for murdering his family and trading his wife into slavery. Noble plans suicide to stop himself from becoming a monster. Returning home to his wife Elizabeth for one last visit, he awakens covered in his wife's blood. Sorrow and fear of the newly awakened monster within him drive Noble back to the only place he has ever felt safe: the church. Believing the beast is a demon, Noble demands the priest do an exorcism. That's when an angel steps in and, as divine punishment, places another curse on him. He cannot die, but he can never give in to the monster he has become and kill God’s creatures. There is only one hope to escape the curse set upon him by God and the African monster from across the sea: he must await the return of his reincarnated wife. Noble must find her, and she must fall in love with him and forgive him for what he has become and for the evils of his past. How can a creature with free reign only in the night hope to find one person in an ever-growing world and feed a monster who craves blood without giving in to it completely? Readers who love occult and horror vibes with devastating stakes will find this a thrilling and suspenseful ride with plenty of despair and blood to match.

Let Mark Brake open your eyes to how science fiction helped us dream of things to come and building the future we inhabit—from Star Trek to The Martian, from Back to the Future to Guardians of the Galaxy from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Avengers. Media headlines declare this the age of automation. The TV talks about the coming revolution of the robot, tweets tell tales of jets that will ferry travelers to the edge of space, and social media reports that the first human to live for a thousand years has already been born. The science we do, the movies we watch, and the culture we consume is the stuff of fiction that became fact, the future imagined in our past—the future we now inhabit. The Science of Science Fiction is the story of how science fiction shaped our world. No longer a subculture, science fiction has moved into the mainstream with the advent of the information age it helped realize. Explore how science fiction has driven science, with topics that include: Guardians of the Galaxy: Is Space Full of Extraterrestrials? Jacking In: Will the Future Be Like Ready Player One? Mad Max: Is Society Running down into Chaos? The Internet: Will Humans Tire of Mere Reality? Blade Runner 2049: When Will We Engineer Human Lookalikes? And many more! “This book is the story of how science fiction shaped our world. No longer a subculture, science fiction has moved into the mainstream with the advent of the information age it helped realize. Explore how science fiction has driven science. This book will open your eyes to the way science fiction helped us dream of things to come, forced us to uncover the nature and limits of our own reality, and helped us build the science-fiction-driven world we live in today.”

Describes the origins of the most important Greek myths along with the personalities and special powers of the major Greek gods and goddesses.