In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians

To many in the church in the West, exorcism seems like the stuff of movies. It requires acceptance of the premise that evil spirits exist and can invade, control, and impair the health of an individual and that the individual can, in turn, be cured through someone forcing the evil spirits to leave. "For the vast majority of biblical scholars," asserts Graham H. Twelftree, "this is tantamount to believing in such entities as elves, dragons, or a flat earth." But for Christians throughout the...