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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy > Sacred texts > Criticism & exegesis of sacred texts
Alejandro Botta locates the Aramaic legal formulary in context of
the Egyptian legal tradition and looks at the influence of foreign
legal practices on other formulae which do not have their roots in
Egypt.This is a study of the interrelationships between the
formulary traditions of the legal documents of the Jewish colony of
Elephantine and the legal formulary traditions of their Egyptian
counterparts.The legal documents of Elephantine have been
approached in three different ways thus far: first, comparing them
to the later Aramaic legal tradition; second, as part of a
self-contained system, and more recently from the point of view of
the Assyriological legal tradition. However, there is still a
fourth possible approach, which has long been neglected by scholars
in this field, and that is to study the Elephantine legal documents
from an Egyptological perspective. In seeking the Egyptian
parallels and antecedents to the Aramaic formulary, Botta hopes to
balance the current scholarly perspective, based mostly upon
Aramaic and Assyriological comparative studies.It was formerly the
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement.
In this publication new light is shed on the Qumran community, its
organisational structure, its ultra conservative way of life, and
how its leaders interpreted the books of the Old Testament by
compiling their own commentaries. Emphasis is also placed on
facilitating an understanding of references in the Gospels whilst
providing an insight into a community that existed parallel to the
New Testament community, and to which some of Jesus' followers
could have belonged.
In hierdie publikasie word nuwe lig gewerp op die
Qumran-gemeenskap, die struktuur waarin hulle georganiseer was en
hul ultrakonserwatiewe leefwyse. Die wyse waarop hul leiers die
boeke van die Ou Testament geinterpreteer het, blyk uit die
kommentare wat hulle geskryf het. Hierdie publikasie help die leser
om verwysings in die evangelies beter te begryp en bied insig in 'n
gemeenskap wat in dieselfde tyd as die Nuwe-Testamentiese
gemeenskap geleef het en waaraan sommige van Jesus se volgelinge
moontlik behoort het.
A completely new, expanded edition of this classic college text
book about two key kinds of writing in the Old Testament: wisdom
and law. Completely revised and updated, the book also includes
much more on literary interpretation. This book is intended for
primarily aimed at college students studying the Old Testament, on
religious studies courses.
This volume delves into the socio religious milieu of the authors,
editors, and propagators of the ""Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra""
(Questions of Rastrapala), a Buddhist text circulating in India
during the first half of the first millennium C.E. Daniel Boucher
first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahayana
Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have
often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the
innovations of this new literature. Following that is a careful
analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an
examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for
charting the sutra's evolution.The first part of the study looks at
the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and
the ascetic career that produced it within the socioeconomic world
of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. Boucher then focuses on a
third-century Chinese translation of the sutra and traces the
changes in the translation to the late tenth century. He concludes
with an annotated translation of the sutra based on a new reading
of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript.
American evangelicalism is at a crisis point. The naked grasping at
political power at the expense of moral credibility has revealed a
movement in disarray. Evangelicals are now faced with a quandary:
will they double-down and continue along this perilous path, or
will they stop, reflect, and change course? And while support of
Donald Trump has produced the tipping point of the evangelical
crisis, it is not by any means its only problem. Evangelicals claim
the Bible as the supreme authority in matters of faith. But in
reality, it is particular readings of the Bible that govern
evangelical faith. Some evangelical readings of the Bible can be
highly selective. They distort the Bible's teaching in crucial ways
and often lead evangelicals to misguided attempts to relate to the
world around them. Many Christians who once self-professed as
"evangelicals" can no longer use the term of themselves because of
what it has come to represent--power-mongering, divisiveness,
judgementalism, hypocrisy, pride, greed. Some leave not just
evangelicalism but Christianity for good. Jesus v. Evangelicals is
an insider's critique of the evangelical movement according to its
own rules. Since evangelicals regard themselves governed by the
Bible, biblical scholar Constantine Campbell engages the Bible to
critique evangelicals and to call out the problems within the
contemporary evangelical movement. By revealing evangelical
distortions of the Bible, this book seeks to restore the dignity of
the Christian faith and to renew public interest in Jesus, while
calling evangelicals back to his teaching. Constantine Campbell
appeals to evangelicals to break free from the grid that has
distorted their understanding of the Bible and to restore public
respect for Christianity in spite of its misrepresentations by the
evangelical church.
This book examines religions across the world, offering an insight
into each tradition's views of the world, through their scriptural
texts and spiritual practices. As we increasingly move toward a
global world view, it is important that we understand the
traditions of other members of the global community. "Sacred
Scriptures of the World Religions" examines religions across the
world, offering an insight into each tradition's views of the
world, through their scriptural texts and spiritual practices. By
taking this perspective, the author has produced an indispensable
introductory textbook which provides students with an overview of
the meaning and guidance that people find in their religion through
these sacred wisdoms. Each chapter provides introductory
explanations of key issues to provide undergraduate religion
students with a unique sense of each faith, followed by
illustrative scriptural passages. "Sacred Scriptures of the World
Religions" is essential reading for those studying religion,
honoring both the richness and universality of religious truths
contained in the world's great scriptures.
An original and uncompromising study of the Qur'anic foundations of
women's identity and agency, this book is a bold call to Muslim
women and men to reread and reinterpret the Qur'an, Islam's most
authoritative source, and to discover within its revelations an
inherent affirmation of gender equality. Nimat Hafez Barazangi
asserts that Muslim women have been generally excluded from equal
agency, from full participation in Islamic society, and thus from
full and equal Islamic identity, primarily because of patriarchal
readings of the Qur'an and the entire range of early Qur'anic
literature. Based on her pedagogical study of the sacred text, she
argues that Islamic higher learning is a basic human right, that
women have equal authority to participate in the interpretation of
Islamic primary sources, and that women will realize their just
role in society and their potential as human beings only when they
are involved in the interpretation of the Qur'an. Consequently, a
Muslim woman's relationship with God must not be dependent on her
husband's or father's moral agency. Barazangi, an American Muslim
of Syrian origin, is a scholar, an activist, and a concerned
feminist. Her analysis of the complex interaction of gender,
religion, and the power of knowledge for self-identity offers a
paradigm shift in Islamic studies. She documents the historical
development of Islamic thought and describes how Muslim males have
arrived at the prevailing exclusionary positions. She considers the
issues of dependent morality and of modesty, especially in attire -
a polarizing subject for many Muslim women - and she concludes that
the majority of Muslim women today are not educated even for a
complementary role in society. The book offers a curricular
framework for self-learning that could prepare Muslim women for an
active role in citizenship and policy making in a pluralistic
society and may serve as a guideline for moving toward a ""gender
revolution."" Her main thesis, if carried out in the lives of
Muslims in America or elsewhere, would be so radical and liberating
that her discourse is more powerful than those of many Muslim
feminists. She writes, ""I intend this book to affirm the
self-identity of the Muslim woman as an autonomous spiritual and
intellectual human being.
This first full-scale account of Leviticus by a world renowned
anthropologist presents the biblical work as a literary
masterpiece. Seen in an anthropological perspective Leviticus has a
mystical structure which plots the book into three parts
corresponding to the three parts of the desert tabernacle, both
corresponding to the parts of Mount Sinai. This completely new
reading transforms the interpretation of the purity laws. The pig
and other forbidden animals are not abhorrent, they command the
same respect due to all God's creatures. Boldly challenging several
traditions of Bible criticism, Mary Douglas claims that Leviticus
is not the narrow doctrine of a crabbed professional priesthood but
a powerful intellectual statement about a modern religion which
emphasizes God's justice and compassion.
aFor the general reader, and the ever-burgeoning number of students
in Jewish studies programs, the "Essential Papers" series brings
together a wealth of core secondary material, while the
commentaries offered by the editors aim to place this material in
critical comparative context.a
--"Jewish Journal of Sociology"
No work has informed Jewish life and history more than the
Talmud. This unique and vast collection of teachings and traditions
contains within it the intellectual output of hundreds of Jewish
sages who considered all aspects of an entire peopleas life from
the Hellenistic period in Palestine (c. 315 B.C.E.) until the end
of the Sassanian era in Babylonia (615 C.E.). This volume adds the
insights of modern talmudic scholarship and criticism to the
growing number of more traditionally oriented works that seek to
open the talmudic heritage and tradition to contemporary readers.
These central essays provide a taste of the myriad ways in which
talmudic study can intersect with such diverse disciplines as
economics, history, ethics, law, literary criticism, and
philosophy.
Contributors: Baruch Micah Bokser, Boaz Cohen, Ari Elon, Meyer
S. Feldblum, Louis Ginzberg, Abraham Goldberg, Robert Goldenberg,
Heinrich Graetz, Louis Jacobs, David Kraemer, Geoffrey B. Levey,
Aaron Levine, Saul Lieberman, Jacob Neusner, Nahum Rakover, and
David Weiss-Halivni.
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