In the late eighteenth century, German Jews began entering the middle class with remarkable speed. That upward mobility, it has often been said, coincided with Jews' increasing alienation from religion and Jewish nationhood. In fact, Michah Gottlieb argues, this period was one of intense engagement with Jewish texts and traditions. One expression of this was the remarkable turn to Bible translation. In the century and a half beginning with Moses Mendelssohn's pioneering translation and the final one by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, German Jews produced sixteen different translations of at least the Pentateuch. Exploring Bible translations by Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, and Samson Raphael Hirsch, Michah Gottlieb argues that each translator sought a "reformation" of Judaism along bourgeois lines, which involved aligning Judaism with a Protestant concept of religion. Buber and Rosenzweig famously critiqued bourgeois German Judaism as a craven attempt to establish social respectability to facilitate Jews' entry into the middle class through a vapid, domesticated Judaism. But Mendelssohn, Zunz, and Hirsch saw in bourgeois values the best means to serve God and the authentic actualization of Jewish tradition. Through their learned, creative Bible translations, these scholars presented competing visions of middle-class Judaism that affirmed Jewish nationhood while lighting the path to a purposeful, emotionally-rich spiritual life grounded in ethical responsibility.

Leontius of Jerusalem is considered the most accomplished of the neo-Chalcedonian theologians of the sixth century. He shows himself, in his Testimonies of the Saints, to be an ecumenical theologian attempting to convince Syrian anti-Chalcedonians ('Monophysites') that their objections to Chalcedon are baseless, since all agree, beneath their antithetical formulae, on a christology of hypostatic union. They are urged to abandon their self-important yet discredited mentor, Severus, and to see that Chalcedon had no secret agenda. Gray's edition of this important early Christian treatise provides an introduction, the Greek text, and notes, together with a new translation into readable, modern English.

Distinguished experts from a range of disciplines (Orientalists, philologists, philosophers, theologians, and historians) with a common interest in late antiquity probe the apparent paradox of pagan monotheism and reach a better understanding of the historical roots of Christianity.

Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework. The introductory essay also provides some new views about the issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world. The focus of the book is a powerful traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument (in various forms) and defends it against some of the most salient criticisms, especially Ockhamism. The incompatibilist's argument is driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further argues that this incompatibility need not entail the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer develops a "semicompatibilist" view - the belief that God's foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do otherwise.

What is utopia? Why are communes created? Where are they, and what do they promote? The Palgrave Companion to North American Utopias is a fascinating virtual catalogue of utopian societies and communes from past to present. From the Shakers to the Mormons to the Raelians and the Hutterites, the quest for a utopian lifestyle has been a human endeavor since the beginning of time. In this intriguing guide, North American utopian communities are explored by Friesen and Friesen with a view to a new social system for the twenty first century. The authors assert that the formation of a utopian society is both possible and feasible, and give examples of how to create one of our own. This is a smart, clever and unique reference for all of us who are curious to know more about utopian communities. MARKET 1: Religion; Sociology; Anthropology

Frank Thomas Morano's search for holy men and women has taken him around the world. In his memoirs, The Secret Cycle, he shares the wisdom he has found.

This fascinating and nuanced volume engages with the innovative and at the same time contentious debate on religious pluralism mooted by John Hick, one of the most prominent British philosophers of religion. In celebrating Hick's voluminous work, a team of eminent and emerging scholars, representing a broad range of philosophical and theological perspectives, offer a succinct and incisive analysis of Hick's ideas and their enduring relevance for a world which is becoming increasingly polarized. These essays not only deal with theoretical and doctrinal aspects of interreligious discourse, but also focus on developing a discourse that challenges any form of religious absolutism.They address important questions such as how to articulate a philosophy or theology of religious pluralism that is not triumphalistic, how to affirm a spirituality that is not restrictive, how to speak about liberation that does not smack of theological finality. Besides issues related to religious pluralism, this volume also contains illuminating essays on themes such as suffering and theodicy. This insightful volume should be of immense interest and value to scholars and students of religion and lay readers.

This work contains contributions by leading philosophers on the vast influence of Adolf Grunbaum on the philosophies of religion and science. A reprint of Grunbaum's "The Poverty of Theistic Cosmology" enriches the book. A highlight of this volume is an extended "Autobiographical-Philosophical Narrative" in which Grunbaum traces his intellectual journey, beginning with a poignant account of his early experiences with anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and his intellectual queries about religious belief, continuing through the major milestones of his career, and concluding with his current interests.

Hamner seeks to discover what makes pragmatism uniquely American. She argues that the inextricably American character of pragmatism of such figures as C.S. Peirce and William James lies in its often understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God-given mission and populated by God-fearing citizens. The development of Pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American Philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes Pragmatism uniquely American. Hamner argues that the inextricably American character of the Pragmatism of such figures as C.S Peirce and William James lies in its often understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God-given mission and a populated by God-fearing citizens. By looking at European and British thinkers whom pragmatists read, Hamner examines how pragmatism's notions of self, nation, and morality were formed in reaction to the work of these thinkers. Hamner finds that the pervasive religiosity of nineteenth-century American public language underlies Peirce's and James' resistance to aspects of the philosophy and science of their non-American colleagues. This religiosity, Hamner shows, is linked strongly to the continuing rhetorical power of American Puritanism.

Al-Kindi was the first philosopher of the Islamic world. He lived in Iraq and studied in Baghdad, where he became attached to the caliphal court. In due course he would become an important figure at court: a tutor to the caliph's son, and a central figure in the translation movement of the ninth century, which rendered much of Greek philosophy, science, and medicine into Arabic. Al-Kindi's wide-ranging intellectual interests included not only philosophy but also music, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Through deep engagement with Greek tradition al-Kindi developed original theories on key issues in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, physical science, and ethics. He is especially known for his arguments against the world's eternity, and his innovative use of Greek ideas to explore the idea of God's unity and transcendence.
Despite al-Kindi's historical and philosophical importance no book has presented a complete, in-depth look at his thought until now. In this accessible introduction to al-Kindi's works, Peter Adamson surveys what is known of his life and examines his method and his attitude towards the Greek tradition, as well as his subtle relationship with the Muslim intellectual culture of his day. Above all the book focuses on explaining and evaluating the ideas found in al-Kindi's wide-ranging philosophical corpus, including works devoted to science and mathematics. Throughout, Adamson writes in language that is both serious and engaging, academic and approachable. This book will be of interest to experts in the field, but it requires no knowledge of Greek or Arabic, and is also aimed at non-experts who are simply interested in one of the greatest of Islamicphilosophers.

"It is time that we turn to the divine Other outside of correlationism, to discover again its nature and to witness its truth as creator and sustainer of worlds . . . Only on the basis of divine creation can the radical contingency of the world and its openness to its own miraculous nature be fully thought."
What should philosophical theology look like after the critique of Onto-theo-logy, after Phenomenology, and in the age of Speculative Realism? What does Kabbalah have to say to Philosophy? Since Kant and especially since Husserl, philosophy has only permitted itself to speak about how one relates to God in terms of the intentionality of consciousness and not of how God is in himself. This meant that one could only ever speak to God as an addressed and yearned-for holy Thou, but not to God as infinite creator of all.
In this book-length essay, the author argues that reality itself is made up of the Holy Name of God. Drawing upon the set-theoretical ontology of Alain Badiou, the computational theory of Stephen Wolfram, the physics of Frank Tipler, the psychoanalytical theory of Jacques Lacan, and the genius of Georg Cantor, the author works to demonstrate that the universe is a computer processing the divine Name and that all existence is made of information (the bit). As a result of this ontic pan-computationalism, it is shown that the future resurrection of the dead can take place and how it may in fact occur. Along the way, the book also offers compelling critiques of several significant theories of reality, including the phenomenological theologies of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion, Process Theology, and Object-Oriented Ontology.
Reality in the Name of God explores how the concepts of Jewish mysticism can be articulated and deployed as philosophical theses within current metaphysical debates. It provides a new and dynamic Structural Realist ontology of information. Ultimately, the book aims to deal a death blow to the restriction of philosophy and theology in relation to elaborations of a how a believer relates to a God outside the mind and to return thought to a direct encounter with the divine nature of reality itself and its creator.
INTRODUCTION: From Kabbalah to Correlationism and Beyond 1. Creation and Infinity 2. Cognitio Dei Experimentalis 3. Our Dear Friend Atheism CHAPTER ONE: Critique of Philosophical Theology 4. The Critique of Onto-theo-logy 5. The Levinasian Lure 6. The Thought of Jean-Luc Marion: Being Given (only to human consciousness) 7. Contra the Process Theologians 8. An Imperfect Logic: Charles Hartshorne's Panentheism CHAPTER TWO: The Kabbalah of Being 9. Badiou's First Thesis: Being is Sets 10. What is an Extensional Set? 11. The Second Thesis: 'The One is Not' 12. The Infinite Made Finite: The Meaning of the Transfinite 13. Creation from Numbers (Sets/Letters): The Sefirot 14. Creation from Letters (Sets/Names): Sefer Yetzirah 15. The God of Cantorianism 16. The Ontological/Modal Proof of Divine Insistence 17. Divine Insistence 18. Nothingness/The Void and its Mark: The Holy Name of God 19. Tzimtzum: Creation of Nothing to Create from Nothing 20. The Name and the Names CHAPTER THREE: 'From It to Bit': Informational Ontology 21. All is Mathematizable 22: The Holy Name as the Primordial Bit: An Ontology of Information 23. Against the Ontology of the Virtual (For it as Epistemology) 24. Information Inside-Out: Mind and Matter 25. Is Stephen Wolfram's New Kind of Science a Science of Kabbalistic Creation? CHAPTER FOUR: The Resurrection of the Dead and the Event of the Name 26. Free Will 27. Critique and Application: Quentin Meillassoux and the Contingency of Creation 28. The Resurrection of the Dead 29. The Event of the Name EPILOGUE 30. 'On that Day, God and God's Name will be One' 31. The Name of Prayer punctumbooks.com

In this significant book Mark C. Mattes critically evaluates the role of justification in the theologies of five leading Protestant thinkers -- Eberhard Jungel, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Robert W. Jenson, and Oswald Bayer -- pointing out their respective strengths and weaknesses and showing how each matches up with Luther's own views. Offering both an excellent review of recent trends in Christian theology and a powerful analysis of these trends, Mattes points readers to the various ways in which the doctrine of justification has been applied today. Despite the greatness of their thought, Jungel, Pannenberg, and Moltmann each accommodate the doctrine of justification to goals aligned with secular modernity. Both Jenson and Bayer, on the other hand, construe the doctrine of justification in a nonaccommodating way, thus challenging the secularity of the modern academy. In the end, Mattes argues that Bayer's position is to be preferred as closest to Luther's own, and he shows why it offers the greatest potential for confronting current attempts at self-justification before God.

Boethius is largely underrated in the history of Western thought. Scholarship often regarded him and his era - Late Antiquity -as mere intermediaries between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This volume shows that Boethius and his time can be appreciated in their own right.

In The Concealed Art of the Soul, Jonardon Ganeri presents a variety of perspectives on the nature of the self as seen by major schools of classical Indian philosophy.
For Indian thinkers, a philosophical treatise about the self should not only reveal the truth about the nature of the soul, but should also engage the reader in a process of study and contemplation that will eventually lead to self-transformation. By combining careful attention to philosophical content and sensitivity to literary form, Ganeri deepens our understanding of some of the greatest works in Indian literary history. His magisterial survey includes the Upanisads, the Buddha's discourses, the epic Mahabharata, and the writings of Candrakirti, whose work was later to provide the foundation for Tibetan Buddhism.
Ganeri argues that many Western theories of selfhood are not only present in, but are developed to high degree of sophistication in these writings, and that there are other ideas about the self found in the work of classical Indian thinkers which present-day analytic philosophers have not yet begun to explore.
Scholars and students of philosophy and religious studies, particularly those with an interest in Indian and Western conceptions of the self, will find this book fascinating reading.