Much of the Old Testament narrates what it claims to be the history of Israel. However, a close reading of the biblical text in conjunction with other literary and archaeological evidence indicates that the "history" provided by the Old Testament is frequently inaccurate or untrue. Marc Zvi Brettler explores alternative ways of reading the biblical texts. Through an indepth analysis of texts from the "Book of Chronicles", "Genesis", "Deuteronomy", "Judges" and "Samuel", Brettler shows how the biblical historians were influenced by four key factors: typology, interpretation of earlier texts, satire and ideology. This work demonstrates how the historian, by taking account of this model of history writing, can start to piece together the history of ancient Israel using the Hebrew Bible as a source.

The "Lotus of the Wonderful (or Mystic) Law" is the most important religious book of the Far East, and has been described as "The Gospel of Half Asia". It is also the chief scripture of Buddhism in China, and therefore the chief source of consolation of the many millions of Buddhists in East Asia. It is justifiable to consider it as one of the greatest and most formative books of the world, and the text is here translated for the use of the Western student whilst an endeavour is made to reveal the contour of the most spiritual drama known in the Far East.

This book investigates two matters which initially appear unconnected: the nature of Buddha's enlightenment and the meaning of Buddhist symbolism. It concludes that these are in fact connected because they ultimately deal with meditative practice. The authors examine the relationship that appears to exist between Buddhist meditative techniques and certain examples of Buddhist symbolism as found in the earliest Pali texts and in the so-called twilight language of the tantras. In doing so, they bring together two approaches of Buddhist hermeneutics which in the past have never been properly integrated: the meditative-descriptive approach and the scholarly-historical approach. The result is an original interpretation of the higher stages of the Buddhist path of enlightenment, and of key aspects of Buddhist cosmology and doctrine.

Leading scholars reflect the wide range of modern perspectives on the Qu'ran and on the Muslim exegetical tradition.

This book provides a translation, with introduction, commentary, and annotation, of the medieval Hindu Sanskrit text the Devi Gita (Song of the Goddess). It is an important but not well-known text from the rich Sakta (Goddess) tradition of India. The Devi Gita was composed about the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier.

Around the sixth century C.E., following the rise of several male deities to prominence, a new theistic movement began in which the supreme being was envisioned as female, known as the Great Goddess (Maha-Devi). Appearing first as a violent and blood-loving deity, this Goddess gradually evolved into a more benign figure, a compassionate World-Mother and bestower of salvific wisdom. It is in this beneficent mode that the Goddess appears in the Devi Gita.

This work makes available an up-to-date translation of the Devi Gita, along with a historical and theological analysis of the text. The book is divided into sections of verses, and each section is followed by a comment explaining key terms, concepts, ritual procedures, and mythic themes. The comments also offer comparisons with related schools of thought, indicate parallel texts and textual sources of verses in the Devi Gita, and briefly elucidate the historical and religious background, supplementing the remarks of the introduction.

This is a translation of the 1911 Biblisch-Talmudiesche Medizin , an extensively researched text that gathers the medical and hygienic references found in the Jewish sacred, historical, and legal literatures, written by German physician and scholar Julius Preuss (1861-1913).

Providing an analysis of the complete story of Mary in its liturgical, narrative and rhetorical contexts, this literary reading is a prerequisite to any textual reading of the Qur'an whether juristic, theological, or otherwise. intertextuality between the Old Testament, New Testament and the Qur'an. The Qur'an is an oral event, linguistic phenomenon and great literature. So the application of modern literary theories is essential to have full comprehension of the history of the development of literary forms from pre-Islamic period such as poetry, story telling, speech-giving to the present. In addition, there is a need, from a feminist perspective, to understand in depth why a Christian mother figure such as Mary was important in early Islam and in the different stages of the development of the Qur'an as a communication process between Muhammad and the early Muslim community. Introducing modern literary theories, gender perspective and feminist criticism into Qur'anic scholarship for the first time, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers of Islamic Studies, Qur'anic and New Testament Studies, Comparative Literature and Feminist Theology.

'Masterly work ... Leads the reader patiently but directly not merely into Qur'anic writing but into the heart of that Holy Book itself ... By the time we have followed Dr Ahmad to the end of this splendid work we have learned something new and indeed something uplifting about one of the world's great books.' Prof. F. E. Peters, New York University.

Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), physician, scientist, astronomer, philosopher, and theologian, emerged as a halakhist through his classic work, Commentary on the Mishnah, in which he sets out to explain to the layman the meaning and the purpose of the Mishnah, while bypassing the often complicated and concentrated discussions of the Gemara. It was Maimonides' wish to popularize the Mishnah and to make it easily accessible to the general reader. He did so by extracting the underlying principles involved in lengthy, often abstract, talmudic discussions and stating the halakhic decisions derived therein, interspersing them with ethical insights and philosophical teachings.

This second edition of a popular introduction to the Qur'an includes an essential updated reference guide, including a chronology of the revelation, links to internet resources, and suggestions for further reading. Exploring the Qur'an's reception through history, its key teachings, and its place in contemporary thought and belief, this volume analyzes: the Qur'an as the word of God; its reception and communication by the Prophet Muhammad; the structure and language of the text; conceptions of God, the holy law, and jihad; and Islamic commentaries on Qur'anic teachings through the ages. The Qur'an: The Basics, Second Edition is a concise and accessible introduction.

Bonhoeffer was convinced that God spoke to his people through the Bible. How did a theologian of his caliber, who was well acquainted with the historical-critical interpretation of the scriptures, justify such a claim, and how did he apply this conviction to his daily challenges as theologian, pastor and political dissident during the Nazi regime? This book presents the attempts by a group of international Bonhoeffer scholars to answer some of these questions. By approaching Bonhoeffer's theology from a number of different hermeneutical angles, the contributions in this volume cast new light both on his more general hermeneutical framework and on specific theological and political issues concerning his reading of the Bible. The essays underline Bonhoeffer's contemporary relevance for the current resurgence of theological interpretation and for postmodern discussions about the interpretive nature of truth.

The Trickster Revisited: Deception as a Motif in the Pentateuch explores the use of deception in the Pentateuch and uncovers a new understanding of the trickster's function in the Hebrew Bible. While traditional readings often «whitewash the biblical characters, exonerating them of any wrongdoing, modern scholars often explain these tales as significant at some earlier point in Israelite tradition. But this study asks the question: what role does the trickster have in the later pentateuchal setting? Considering the work of Victor Turner and the mythic function of the trickster, The Trickster Revisited explores the connections between tricksters, the rite de passage pattern, marginalization, and liminality. Marginalized individuals and communities often find trickster tales significant, therefore trickster stories often follow a similar literary pattern. After tracing this pattern throughout the Pentateuch, specifically the patriarchal narratives and Moses' interaction with Pharaoh in the Exodus, the book discusses the meaning these stories had for the canonizers of the Pentateuch. The author argues that in the Exile and post-exilic period, as the canon was forming, the trickster was the perfect manifestation of Israel's self-perception. The cognitive dissonance of prophetic words of hope and grandeur, in light of a meager socio-economic and political reality, caused the nation to identify itself as the trickster. In this way, Israel could explain its lowly state as a temporary (but still significant) «betwixt and between, on the threshold of a rise in status, i.e. the great imminent kingdom predicted by the prophets.

With impetus provided by the accumulated historical and textual evidence supporting reincarnation, this book first examines Gospel evidence that Jesus actually taught reincarnation and karma rather than resurrection. Deardorff's compelling analysis bolsters other studies indicating that the concept of resurrection displaced reincarnation in earliest Christianity due to its pre-belief by certain Pharisee converts, and specifies how the Gospels came to reflect this belief. Jesus in India reexamines the evidence that the "lost years" of Jesus' youth were spent in the India. Deardorff's analysis brings out the plausibility of Jesus having gained knowledge about reincarnation and related spiritual matters under certain yogis in India. With the empty tomb on Easter morning not to be explained by resurrection, the book reviews six resuscitation hypotheses and presents a seventh one that withstands previous objections. This well documented research constitutes an important addition to the existing literature on comparative religions and a thought provoking contribution to the on-going debate on the historicity of a wide range of New Testament passages.

This book offers a catalogue of techniques of biblical interpretation in early rabbinic Judaism. It describes and illustrates how a central document of early talmudic Judaism, the Mishnah, integrates into its mostly legal discourse the words of Scripture. A fresh conceptual foundation is laid for the systematic study and description of rabbinic hermeneutics and its comparison with other hermeneutic traditions.

The work of the twelfth-century Shi'ite scholar al-Tabrisi, Majma' al-bayan, is one of the most important works of medieval commentary on the Qur'an, and is still in use today. This work is an in-depth case study of Islamic exegetical methods and an exploration of the nature of scriptural interpretation in Islam. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including unpublished manuscripts, the author examines how exegesis serves to construct, maintain and defend the status of the Qur'an as scripture and to uphold certain ideological agendas, among them the notion of the literary and rhetorical supremacy of God's revelation in Arabic. Focusing on the genre and process of Qur'anic exegesis itself, he treats Qur'an interpretation as part of a category of religious practice recognizable from the history and comparative study of religion. Written in clear and accessible style, Qur'anic Hermeneutics makes Qur'anic exegesis intelligible to specialists in Islam as well as those interested in scripture and its interpretation in general. As such, it will be a valuable reference to scholars of Islamic studies, religion and scripture.

This book presents an inductive account, through systematic inquiry into data, of the hermeneutics of the principal documents of Rabbinic Judaism. It undertakes a hypothetical-logical reconstruction of the thought-processes that generated the category-formations of the Halakhah, that is, the exegesis of the hermeneutics of Halakhic exegesis. To do so, Neusner asks whether a determinate theory of interpretation guides the sages in their exposition of the topics, the category-formations, of Rabbinic Judaism in the documents that expound those formations. His answer is, a hermeneutics of comparison and contrast yielding a hierarchical classification of data governs the selection of data and the interpretation thereof for the entire corpus of category-formations of the Halakhah. Hence 'Halakhic hermeneutics' here bears the primary meaning, 'a hermeneutics of analogical-contrastive analysis.'

Within the classical Islamic tradition, the field of Qur'anic exegesis, more commonly referred to as tafsir, occupies a revered place among the traditional Muslim sciences. Although tafsir encompasses various approaches to the explication of the Qur'an and these include legal, theological, rhetorical, linguistic, mystical, literary, and philosophical treatments, it is the technical tools and methodologies applied in Qur'anic exegesis and the history of their development which make the discipline so unique in its Islamic context. Given the significance of tafsir within the religious tradition, western academic scholars have devoted considerable attention to the field. This interest remains vigorous today and represents one of the key areas of research in modern Islamic studies. This collection of articles on tafsir provides a definitive overview of the tradition of tafsir in its early, medieval, and modern settings. Tafsir: Interpreting the Qur'an includes works germane to the history and development of exegesis; materials which focus on the tradition's great commentators and their commentaries; articles which look at the genres, themes and contexts of the tafsir tradition; research on exegetical ideas, sources, and constructs; and, finally, articles which examine the hermeneutic tools defined by scholarship for the explication of the sacred text. It is an essential work of reference destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource.

First Published in 1966. This is a study into the question of whether religion in general, and the Christian religion in particular, is to be regarded as an instrument of social stimulation and disturbance, or as a means of social reconciliation and stabilisation by focusing on religious literature of the sixteenth century.

This is a study of the relationship between two cognate religious components of Judaism, the laws of the Pentateuch and the corpus of Halakhah set forth by the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli. Both contain normative rules or Halakhah. The four relationships between the Torah and the Halakhah are [1] dependent, the Halakhah simply amplifying the Halakhic topic and proposition of Scripture, [2] autonomous, the Halakhah simply defining its own category-formation and determining the proposition that animates that category-formation, [3] interstitial (in-between) but derivative, and [4] interstitial yet fundamentally original. As to these latter two relationships, in the first of the two, Scripture defines the category-formation and determines the proposition to be explored in that connection. In the second of the two, Scripture supplies the topic, but the Halakhah on its own defines the proposition it wishes to explore in connection with that topic.

The work of the twelfth-century Shi ite scholar al-Tabrisi, Majma al-bayan, is one of the most important works of medieval commentary on the Qur an, and is still in use today. This work is an in-depth case study of Islamic exegetical methods and an exploration of the nature of scriptural interpretation in Islam.

Drawing on a wide variety of sources including unpublished manuscripts, the author examines how exegesis serves to construct, maintain and defend the status of the Qur an as scripture and to uphold certain ideological agendas, among them the notion of the literary and rhetorical supremacy of God 's revelation in Arabic. Focusing on the genre and process of Qur anic exegesis itself, he treats Qur an interpretation as part of a category of religious practice recognizable from the history and comparative study of religion.

Written in clear and accessible style, Qur anic Hermeneutics makes Qur anic exegesis intelligible to specialists in Islam as well as those interested in scripture and its interpretation in general. As such, it will be a valuable reference to scholars of Islamic studies, religion and scripture.

This book focuses on Muslim-Christian cultural relations across a number of centuries. As for the methodology, the book represents an intersection of religious studies, linguistics and translations studies. The bases of research are a Tatar tefsir and 19th- and 20th-century printed translations of the Qur'an into Polish. In the period of the Reformation, the Tatar adherents of Sunni Islam conducted the dialogue with Christianity. They translated the Qur'an into Polish already in the second half of the 16th century. They used the Arabic alphabet to record the translation and conferred the form of a tefsir to it. Who were the Tatar translators? Did they break the ban on the translation of the Holy Book of Islam? What sources did they use? How did they translate the Muslim religious terminology? Why is their translation of the Qur'an not familiar to researchers? These are only a few questions which are explored in this work.

With chapters written by leading scholars specifically for this volume, 'Back to the Sources' is the first comprehensive guide to this literary legacy: the Bible, the Talmud, the midrashic literature, the commentaries, the legal codes, the mystical texts of the Kabbalah and of Hasidism, the philosophical works and the prayerbook.

The position of the Qur'an as the central symbol and reference point of Islam cannot be disputed. Despite this significance, the academic study of the Qur'an has lagged far behind that of the Bible. In these studies Andrew Rippin reflects upon both the principles and the problems of studying the Qur'an within the discipline of religious studies. He also pursues detailed investigations of the meaning of variants to the text and the history of Muslim interpretation of the text in its diversity. A newly written introduction lays out some of the general implications of these studies, while extensive indexes of Qur'anic verses, books, authors and topics make this research more readily accessible.

Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., Judaism faced a serious crossroads. The rabbis of late antiquity spent the next few centuries in extensive debates in an effort to create an ethical and practical basis for a Torah-based faith. Their extensive discussions constitute the bulk of what we now know as the Talmud. This collection is not only massive; it is forbiddingly difficult and has accumulated numerous commentaries over the centuries since it first appeared. Recent translations have made it somewhat more accessible to English-language readers, but textual difficulties remain. This volume looks at tractate Zevachim (Sacrifices), which is mostly concerned with meat offerings slaughtered and presented at the Temple (when it stood). Joshua A. Fogel approaches the text, page by page, commenting with doses of humor and comparisons in a manner meant to explain and humanize the text for contemporary readers.

This book illustrates how the macro-structure of the « body of Romans essentially follows that of the diatribes in Epictetus's Discourses. As in Discourses, the diatribe in Romans begins with the thesis (1.16-17), then follows an indictment (1.18-32) and dialogues with a fictitious second-person singular in chapter two. Arguments with the mē genoito formula dominate the middle part of the diatribe. In the middle of chapter eleven, the phase changes back to dialogues with the second-person singular. The ending of the diatribe Romans also, like Discourses, includes cynic and hyperbolic statements (14.21 and 14.23). Thus, the « body of Romans should not be read as a real letter, but as a diatribe that was distributed in Paul's school-room and later appropriated as a letter. This teaching was not directed to a specific group of people, viz., the Christians in Rome, but rather intrinsically universalized. Therefore, its message is intrinsically more powerful for us.