Set at the end of the 4th century, a young slave in ancient Egypt must choose between joining the Christianity movement, which will give him freedom, and Hypatia, the woman he loves, who is his master and an atheist.

"In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln said both North and South "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." Lincoln quoted several biblical texts in this address - which, according to Frederick Douglass, "sounded more like a sermon than a state paper." The Bible, as Lincoln's famous speech illustrated, saturated the Civil War. In this book, James Byrd offers the most thorough analysis yet...