Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands brings into conversation the distinct fields of tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis) studies and women's studies by exploring significant shifts in modern Qur'anic commentaries on the subject of women. Hadia Mubarak places three of the most influential, Sunni Qur'anic commentaries in the twentieth century- Tafsir al-Manar, Fi Zilal al-Qur'an, and al-Tahrir wa'l-Tanwir - against the backdrop of broader historical, intellectual, and political developments in modern North Africa. Mubarak illustrates the ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and modernization set into motion new ways of engaging with the subject of women in the Qur'an. Focusing her analysis on Qur'anic commentaries as a scholarly genre, Mubarak offers a critical and comparative analysis of these three modern commentaries with seven medieval commentaries, spanning from the ninth to fourteenth centuries, on verses dealing with neglectful husbands (4:128), rebellious wives (4:34), polygyny (4:3), and divorce (2:228). In contrast to assessments of the exegetical tradition as monolithically patriarchal, this book captures a medieval and modern tafsir tradition with pluralistic, complex, and evolving interpretations of women and gender in the Qur'an. Rather than pit a seemingly egalitarian Qur'an against an allegedly patriarchal exegetical tradition, Mubarak affirms the need for a critical engagement with tafsir studies among scholars concerned with women and gender in Islam. Mubarak argues that the capacity to bring new meanings to bear on the Qur'qan is not only an intellectually viable one but inherent to the exegetical tradition.

Various goddesses of the ancient Mediterranean world were once understood to be Virgin Mothers--creators who birthed the entire cosmos without need of a male consort. This is the first book to explore evidence of the original parthenogenetic power of deities such as Athena, Hera, Artemis, Gaia, Demeter, Persephone, & the Gnostic Sophia.

This interdisciplinary volume brings together 37 contributions, most of them on the history of Ancient Nordic religion. In addition, there are papers on later European and Mediterranean religious history and investigations into Bahai'ism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrism, and the history of research in the history of religion.

How did Christians in Classical Antiquity view history? How did they apply and modify traditional biblical options - for example the view of the apocalypse or salvation - in their interpretation of contemporary times? What role did the "Imperial Crisis" in the 3rd century and the changes in the 4th century play for the Christian's interpretation of history? Did Eusebius of Caesarea, the first Christian historian, merely write a "collection of materials" or was he guided by contemporary standards of academic historiography?This study provides answers to these questions and to other controversial issues in the discussion of Christian historiography in Classical Antiquity.

Landed wealth was crucial for the economies of all Greek city-states and, despite its peculiarities, Athens was no exception in that respect. This monograph is the first exhaustive treatment of sacred and public - in other words the non-private - real property in Athens. Following a survey of modern scholarship on the topic, Papazarkadas scrutinizes literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence in order to examine lands and other types of realty administered by the polis of Athens and its constitutional and semi-official subdivisions (such as tribes, demes, and religious associations). Contrary to earlier anachronistic models which saw sacred realty as a thinly disguised form of state property, the author perceives the sanctity of temene (sacred landholdings) as meaningful, both conceptually and economically. In particular, he detects a seamless link between sacred rentals and cultic activity. This link is markedly visible in two distinctive cases: the border area known as Sacred Orgas, a constant source of contention between Athens and Megara; and the moriai, Athena's sacred olive-trees, whose crop was the coveted prize of the Panathenaic games. Both topics are treated in separate appendices as are several other problems, not least the socio-economic profile of those involved in the leasing of sacred property, emerging from a detailed prosopographical analysis. However, certain non-private landholdings were secular and alienable, and their exploitation was often based on financial schemes different from those applied in the case of temene. This gives the author the opportunity to analyze and elucidate ancient notions of public and sacred ownership.

Many recent discoveries have confirmed the importance of Orphism for ancient Greek religion, philosophy and literature. Its nature and role are still, however, among the most debated problems of Classical scholarship. A cornerstone of the question is its relationship to Christianity, which modern authors have too often discussed from apologetic perspectives or projections of the Christian model into its supposed precedent. Besides, modern approaches are strongly based on ancient ones, since Orpheus and the poems and mysteries attributed to him were fundamental in the religious controversies of Late Antiquity. Both Pagan and Christian authors often present Orphism as a precedent, alternative or imitation of Chistianity. This free and thorough study of the ancient sources sheds light on these controversial questions. The presence of the Orphic tradition in Imperial Age, documented by literary and epigraphical evidence, is confronted with the informations transmitted by Christian apologists on Orphic poems and cults. The manifold Christian treatments of Pagan sources, and their particular value to understand Greek religion, are illuminated by this specific case, which exemplifies the complex encounter between Classical culture and Jewish-Christian tradition.

This revised translation of Fritz Graf's highly acclaimed introduction to Greek mythology offers a chronological account of the principal Greek myths that appear in the surviving literary and artistic sources and concurrently documents the history of interpretation of Greek mythology from the 17th century to the present. First surveying the various definitions of myth that have been advanced, Graf proceeds to examine topics such as the relationship between Greek myths and epic poetry, the connection between particular myths and shrines or holy festivals, the use of myth in Greek song and tragedy, and the uses and interpretations of myth by philosophers and allegorists.

The author analyzes the different ideas of the political structure of the province of Juda which is presupposed by the book Esra-Nehemia. Three constitutional concepts and their theological outline are worked out to give insight into the development of the theological-political thoughts of post-exilic times.

The Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (first published in 1878 under the title Geschichte Israels I, and as of 18832 under the first-named title) by Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) contains a concise summary and decisive further development of critical scholarship on the Old Testament in the 19th century. Wellhausen's source criticism and "Tendenzkritik" as exercised in the Prolegomena became the basis of further scholarly research on the Old Testament. For decades the Prolegomena stood in the shadow of research dominated by form criticism, but recent epigraphic and iconographic scholarship has lent Wellhausen's reconstruction of the religion of pre-exilic Israel new relevancy. This book, written fluently and absorbingly, provided with an index of references, is here again made available twenty years after the last reprint.