Religious beliefs and practices, which permeated all aspects of life in antiquity, traveled well-worn routes throughout the Mediterranean: itinerant charismatic practitioners journeying from place to place peddled their skills as healers, purifiers, cursers, and initiators; and vessels decorated with illustrations of myths traveled with them. New gods encountered in foreign lands by merchants and conquerors were sometimes taken home to be adapted and adopted. This collection of essays by a distinguished international group of scholars, drawn from the groundbreaking reference work "Religion in the Ancient World," offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.

Asks why Islamic Modernism took the shape it did and why it emerged when it didThis book studies the complex relationship of religion to modernity. Monica M. Ringer argues that modernity should be understood as the consequence, not the cause, of the new intellectual landscape of the 19th century. Using the lens of Islamic Modernism, she uncovers the underlying epistemology and methodology of historicism that penetrated the Middle East and South Asia in this period, both forcing and enabling a recalibration of the definition, nature, function and place of religion. And she shows that Muslim Modernists, like their counterparts in other religious traditions, engaged in a sophisticated project of theological reform designed to marry their twin commitments to religion and to modernity they were in conversation not only with European scholarship and Catholic Modernism but, more importantly, with their own complex Islamic traditions.

And the companion (Consort) was Mary of Magdala (Mary Magdalene). The Lord loved Mary more than all the other disciples and he kissed her often on her mouth (the text is missing here and the word mouth is assumed). The others saw his love for Mary and asked him: Why do you love her more than all of us? The Savior replied, Why do I not love you in the same way I love her? - (The Gospel of Philip) - Peter said to Mary; Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember and know, but we have not heard and do not know. Mary answered him and said; I will tell you what He hid from you. - (The Gospel of Mary Magdalene) - Seizing on the texts above, writers of both fiction and non-fiction allowed their pens to run freely amidst conjecture and postulation of marriage and children between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The writers of The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail took these passages and expanded them into storylines that have held readers captive with anticipation. Did Jesus take Mary to be his wife? Could the couple have produced children? Gnostic theology leaves open the possibility.

The conflicts between the three great monotheistic religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are shaping our world more than ever before. In this important new book Peter Sloterdijk returns to the origins of monotheism in order to shed new light on the conflict of the faiths today. Following the polytheism of the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians, Jewish monotheism was born as a theology of protest, as a religion of triumph within defeat. While the religion of the Jews remained limited to their own people, Christianity unfolded its message with proclamations of universal truth. Islam raised this universalism to a new level through a military and political mode of expansion. Sloterdijk examines the forms of conflict that arise between the three monotheisms by analyzing the basic possibilities stemming from anti-Paganism, anti-Judaism, anti-Islamism and anti-Christianism. These possibilities were augmented by internal rifts: a defining influence within Judaism was a separatism with defensive aspects, in Christianity the project of expansion through mission, and in Islam the Holy War. Today these three religions are now called upon to adjust their relations from peaceful coexistence to dialogue: zealous collectives must become parties in a civil society.

Despite Mongolia's centrality to East Asian history and culture, Mongols themselves have often been seen as passive subjects on the edge of the Qing formation or as obedient followers of so-called "Tibetan Buddhism," peripheral to major literary, religious, and political developments. But in fact Mongolian Buddhists produced multi-lingual and genre-bending scholastic and ritual works that profoundly shaped historical consciousness, community identification, religious knowledge, and practices in Mongolian lands and beyond. In Sources of Mongolian Buddhism, a team of leading Mongolian scholars and authors have compiled a collection of original Mongolian Buddhist works-including ritual texts, poetic prayers and eulogies, legends, inscriptions, and poems-for the first time in any European language.

As Hans Kung said, "No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundations of the religions." Accommodation and Acceptance is a crucial work in both promoting interreligious dialogue and exploring the turbulent history of Christian faith and identity in Asia down the years. From the reaction to missions, often inextricably linked with the practice of colonialism, to the rise of religious pluralism, Ambrose Mong examines the relationships between the leading faiths of Asia up to the present day. Whether practicing pluralism or exclusivism, the history of Christianity in Asia is long and fascinating. Ambrose Mong delves into the biography of intercultural pioneers like Matteo Ricci and Timothy Richard to understand better the theology - as well as the pragmatism - behind cultural accommodation, and the necessary mutability of an eternal church.

Who is Israel? Who were the priestly authors of the Pentateuch? This anthropological reading of the Bible, by a world-renowned scholar, starts by asking why the Book of Numbers lists the twelve tribes of Israel seven times. Mary Douglas argues that the editors, far from being a separate elite unconcerned with their congregation's troubles, cherished a political agenda, a religious protest against the government of Judah's exclusionary policies. The priestly theology depends on God's Covenant with all the descendants of Jacob, including the sons of Joseph. It would have been unpatriotic, even subversive, to speak against the wars with Samaria. This book suggest an explanation of the editors' disappearance from the history of Israel.

Should we merely celebrate diversity in the sphere of religion? What of the social cohesion of a country? There is a constant tug between belief in religious truth and the need for respect for other religions. Religious Diversity: Philosophical and Political Dimensions examines how far a firm faith can allow for toleration of difference and respect the need for religious freedom. It elucidates the philosophical credentials of different approaches to truth in religion, ranging from a dogmatic fundamentalism to a pluralism that shades into relativism. Must we resort to a secularism that treats all religion as a personal and private matter, with nothing to contribute to discussions about the common good? How should law approach the issue of religious freedom? Introducing the relevance of central discussions in modern philosophy of religion, the book goes on to examine the political implications of increasing religious diversity in a democracy.

How can we, as people and communities with different religions and cultures, live together with integrity? Does tolerance require us to deny our deep differences or give up all claims to truth, to trade our received traditions for skepticism or relativism? Cultural philosopher Lenn E. Goodman argues that we can respect one another and learn from one another's ways without either sharing them or relinquishing our own. He argues that our commitments to our own ideals and norms need not mean dogmatism or intolerance. In this study, Goodman offers a trenchant critique of John Rawls's pervasive claim that religious and metaphysical voices must be silenced in the core political deliberations of a democracy. Inquiry, dialogue, and open debate remain the safeguards of public and personal sanity, and any of us, Goodman illustrates, can learn from one another's traditions and explorations without abandoning our own.

Loving Stones is a study of devotees' conceptions of and worshipful interactions with Mount Govardhan, a sacred mountain located in the Braj region of north-central India that has for centuries been considered an embodied form of Krishna. It is often said that worship of Mount Govardhan "makes the impossible possible." In this book, David L. Haberman examines the perplexing paradox of an infinite god embodied in finite form, wherein each particular form is non-different from the unlimited. He takes on the task of interpreting the worship of a mountain and its stones for a culture in which this practice is quite alien. This challenge involves exploring the interpretive strategies that may explain what seems un-understandable, and calls for theoretical considerations of incongruity, inconceivability, and other realms of the impossible. This aspect of the book includes critical consideration of the place and history of the pejorative concept of idolatry (and its twin, anthropomorphism) in the comparative study of religions. Loving Stones uses the worship of Mount Govardhan as a site to explore ways in which scholars engaged in the difficult work of representing other cultures struggle to make "the impossible possible."

Love for the Future: Building One World of Freedom and Democracy Under God's Truth is a compilation of select international lectures given by Ryuho Okawa during his (ongoing) global missionary tours. While conflicting values of justice exists, this book espouses that freedom and democracy are vital principles for global unification that will resolutely foster peace and shared prosperity, if adopted universally. The culminating reason - these principles are based on a belief in God's Love and that we all contain divine nature within. Chapter 1 of Part 1 introduces Okawa's lecture and Q&A session in Germany, held in October 2018. Okawa conveys that the time is now to liberate all remorseful memories of 20th-century totalitarianism mired by the acts of the German Reich, and to band together to stifle the present-day totalitarian-communist superpower from mercilessly violating human rights and advancing hegemonism throughout the world. This is a crucial step to arresting global aggression from escalating into World War III. To address the global problems that we currently face, Okawa identifies what God seeks humanity to accomplish in the 21st century from a historical, political, and ultimately a religious perspective. Chapter 2 is based on Okawa's 2011 Hong Kong address and Q&A session. In this lecture, Okawa encouraged the 1.4 billion people of China to strive for freedom-based prosperity and for the citizens of Hong Kong to champion this crucial movement. Okawa's insight became the foundation on which the people of Hong Kong organized their democratization movement the Umbrella Revolution, which occurred several years later. Chapter 3 is a transcription of Okawa's 2019 lecture and Q&A session held in Taiwan. In it, Okawa identifies the three signs of a totalitarian country and articulates the importance of spreading the principles of freedom, democracy, and faith from Taiwan to mainland China. This, he says, is the righteous future in the eyes of God that will help to bring happiness to the people of mainland China. Furthermore, Okawa encourages neighboring countries to overcome past grievances and seek prosperous development based on trust and adulation. Part 2 reveals the national and global strategies of four key world leaders: Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Donald Trump. By accessing their hidden consciousnesses, through his unrivaled spiritual ability, Okawa divulges their true thoughts and intentions. What they candidly reveal underscores the importance of understanding and accepting the precepts expressed in Part 1, to safeguard peace from actions that are influenced by divisive political maneuverings. The new catalyst for humanity is to accept the universal spiritual Truths under which we all live: the inherent dignity of all people; God's Wisdom can resolve global conflict; God's Love extends to every person, beyond difference of race, nationality and religious ideology. Through these teachings, readers will sense from the depths of their souls, that the "Love of God," a universal force that watches over politics, philosophes and religions, is the coalescing power to lead humanity towards a prosperous and righteous tomorrow.

This is a study that digs deeply into this "other" slavery, the bondage of Europeans by north-African Muslims that flourished during the same centuries as the heyday of the trans-Atlantic trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Americas. Here are explored--perhaps for the first time--the actual extent of Barbary Coast slavery, the dynamic relationship between master and slave, and the effects of this slaving on Italy, one of the slave takers' primary targets and victims.

William Robertson Smith (1846-1894) was successively the embattled champion of the emergent "higher criticism" as applied to the Old Testament, chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. Today he is acknowledged to have been a pioneering figure in both social anthropology and the study of comparative religion, deeply influencing the thinking of J. G. Frazer, Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud. The first full-length biography of Robertson Smith to be published for almost a hundred years, this text makes use of hitherto unknown material preserved by the Smith family and draws upon the extensive range of correspondence between Smith and such scholars as Albrecht Ritschl, Paul de Lagarde, Julius Wellhausen, Abraham Kuenen and Theodor Nöldeke. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the biography locates and defines the place of this remarkable polymath within the context of Free Church Calvinism, the Scottish Enlightenment and 19th century German Protestant theology. It highlights Smith's interest in physics and philosophy, his friendship with contemporary artists, his Oriental travels, and his involvement in the social life of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In recent years, the image of Smith as a comparative religionist has come to dominate all other perspectives and indeed tends now to overshadow his fame as an Old Testament scholar. This book seeks to redress the balance, aiming to discover the theological drive behind Smith's manifold activities.

A NYT Bestseller, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi provides an intimate window into American Muslim life, describing how a passionate pursuit of Islam led him to Christ through friendship, apologetics, dreams and visions.

Providing an intimate view into a loving Muslim home, Qureshi shares how he developed a passion for Islam before discovering, almost against his will, evidence that Jesus rose from the dead and claimed to be God. Unable to deny the arguments but not wanting to deny his family, Qureshi struggled with an inner turmoil that will challenge Christians, Muslims, and all those who are interested in two of the world's greatest religions and the quest for truth.

Qureshi - with great courage and intimacy - wrote this book with three major purposes in mind:

• To tear down walls between two of the world's major religions by giving non-Muslim readers an insider's perspective into a Muslim's heart and mind.
• To equip the reader with facts and knowledge, showing the strength of the case for the gospel contrasted with the case for Islam.
• To portray the immense inner struggle of Muslims grappling with the gospel, including all the sacrifices and doubts that rise up along the way.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is more than the memoir of a man's pursuit of answers to the most important issues of life and faith. Ultimately, it's the story about the transformative grace and mercy of the one true God.

This edition has been expanded to include:

• A revised foreword and introduction

Critique of modern Western civilization from the point of view of traditional metaphysics

This is considered to be the most important book left out of the Bible. During the first two hundred years of Christianity it was the most widely read of all texts. This is the best available version because it was originally written in Ethiopic and the translator, R. H. Charles, directly and accurately translated it. It also includes additional research, which Charles added at a later time. He said of this work, The influence of I Enoch on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books put together. It is referred to in the Hebrew Zohar, The Book of Jubilees, The Epistle of St. Jude, and other ancient texts. Written mostly in the second century BC, it explains how evil came into the world with the arrival of the fallen angels. Enoch was chosen to be a scribe in the judgment process due to his neutral human standing. Many of the ideas adopted by Christianity were first found in this book, including the Final Judgment, the concept of demons, the origins of evil and the Messianic Kingdom. If you wish to go to the source of Christianity, this is a great place to start. This is by far the most complete and accurate version which every serious researcher and student should have.

This innovative volume is focused on the impact of religion on the realization of democratic citizenship. The researchers contributing provide empirical evidence on how religion influences attitudes towards citizenship and democracy in different countries. The book also tackles the challenges and opportunities for citizenship education. Experts contributing from sociology, political science, theology, and educational science look at the impact of religious beliefs and practices on democratic attitudes and behavior. Chapters also concern how religion influences the recognition of others as citizens. The text appeals to graduates and researchers in these fields with a secondary market for the general interest reader.

On the seventh day, God rested and thus completed his creation. Likewise, man should rest on the seventh day and every seven years leave the fields fallow to rest. If you like, a divine economic and environmental programme is encountered here. "Subdue the earth" is not to be misunderstood as a mandate to subjugate and exploit, but on the contrary as a call to preserve God's "very good" creation. Its current explosiveness illustrates precisely this fundamental relationship. Even secular circles now speak of the "integrity of creation" as a matter of course. And in Muslim countries, scholars and activists are preparing to launch a "green Islam", based of course on Quranic principles. At the same time, faith communities and churches with their commitment to nature and to a just world of work are moving into the concrete focus of public attention and are serious players in the current discourse. Reason enough, then, to get to the bottom of the concept of "environment" in the world religions. How do religions position themselves on the ecological question? What are the foundations of their decisions? And can they make a significant contribution to the current problem and to the enquiries of many people?

Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe that their Scriptures preserve God's words to humanity, and that those words were spoken uniquely to them. In "The Voice, the Word, the Books," F. E. Peters leads readers on an extraordinary journey through centuries of written tradition to uncover the human fingerprints on the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran, sacred texts that have enriched millions of lives.

Bringing the latest Biblical and Quranic scholarship to a general audience, Peters explains how these three powerfully influential books passed from God's mouth, so to speak, to become the Scriptures that we possess today. He reveals new insights into their origins, contents, canonization, and the important roles they have played in the lives of their communities. He explores how they evolved through time from oral to written texts, who composed them and who wrote them, as well as the theological commonalities and points of disagreement among their adherents. Writing in the comparative style for which he is renowned, Peters charts the transmission of faith from the spoken word to the printed page, from the revelations on Sinai and Mount Hira to Mamluk ateliers in Cairo and Gutenberg's press in Mainz.

Peters is an acknowledged expert who has written extensively on these three great world religions, each of them an inheritor of the faith of Abraham. Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the British Library, this illustrated book includes beautiful images of the rare editions on exhibit and constitutes Peters's most ambitious and illuminating examination yet of the sacred texts that so inform civilization both East and West.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. Published in 1913, F. B. Jevons's volume Comparative Religion offers a broad historical survey of various religious viewpoints ranging from ideas about magic and ancestor-worship to Buddhism and monotheism.

This book introduces Islam through a "humanistic" lens, by highlighting the affective traditions and expressions associated with Sufism and Shi'ism. While most introductory books emphasize the shari’a, and especially the “Five Pillars,� as the primary defining characteristic of Islam, Vernon James Schubel provides an alternative introduction which instead underscores the importance of humanity and the human being within Islamic thought and practice. The book stresses the diversity of Islamic beliefs and practices, presenting them as varied responses to the shared multivalent concepts of tawhid (the unity of God), nubuwwa (prophecy) and qiyama (the Day of Judgment). Readers are introduced to essential aspects of Islam including the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur’an, the development of the shari‘a, and the emergence of the Sunni, Shi‘a and Sufi traditions. The book concludes with a call to redefine “mainstream� Islam, as a religious tradition focused on the centrality of love and rooted in the importance of humanity and universal human virtues. 

The miracle stories of the founders and saints of the major world religions have much in common. Written by international experts, this Companion provides an authoritative and comparative study of miracles in not only Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism, but also, indigenous religions. The authors promote a discussion of the problems of miracles in our largely secular culture, and of the value of miracles in religious belief. The miracles of Jesus are also contextualized through chapters on the Hebrew Bible, classical culture to the Romans, Second Temple and early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. This book provides students with a scholarly introduction to miracles, which also covers philosophical, medical and historical issues.