Piloted by Reform congregations throughout the country, this book is the first step in a program of Hebrew learning for adults. By carefully introducing the letters and vowels of the Hebrew alphabet, the goal is to develop the reader's ability to decode written Hebrew words as well as to ground the learning of Hebrew in the broader sense of its use in Jewish life, ritual, study, and tradition. Each chapter introduces two or three Hebrew letters; through instructional drills and exercises, the reader progressively becomes familiar with key Hebrew vocabulary and its role in Jewish tradition, text, and prayer.

This open access book addresses, for the first time, Islamic social work as an emerging concept at the interface of Islamic thought and social sciences. Applying a multidisciplinary approach it explores, on the one hand, the discourse that provides religious legitimisation to social work activities and, on the other hand, case studies of practical fields of Islamic social work including educational programmes, family counselling, and resettlement of prisoners. Although in many cases, these activities are oriented towards Muslim clients, more often than not they go beyond the boundaries of Muslim communities to benefit society as a whole. Muslim actors are also starting to professionalise their services and to negotiate the ways in which they can become fully recognised service-providers within the welfare state. At a more general level, the volume also shows that in contrast to the widespread processes of secularisation of social work and its separation from religious communities, new types of activities are now emerging, which bring back to the public arena both an increased sensitivity to the religious identities of the beneficiaries and the religious motivations of the benefactors. The edited volume will be of interest to researchers in Islamic Studies, Social and Political Sciences, Social Work, and Religious Studies. This is an open access book.

The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification.

Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a record of the 2012 Building Bridges seminar for leading Christian and Muslim scholars, convened by Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury. The essays in this volume explore what the Bible and Qur n-and the Christian and Islamic theological traditions-have to say about death, resurrection, and human destiny. Special attention is given to the writings of al-Ghazali and Dante. Other essays explore the notion of the good death. Funeral practices of each tradition are explained. Relevant texts are included with commentary, as are personal reflections on death by several of the seminar participants. An account of the informal conversations at the seminar conveys a vivid sense of the lively, penetrating, but respectful dialogue which took place. Three short pieces by Rowan Williams provide his opening comments at the seminar and his reflections on its proceedings. The volume also contains an analysis of the Building Bridges Seminar after a decade of his leadership.

Deism was often synonymous with 'natural religion' (as distinct from 'revealed religion') in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; it meant belief in a God, but not in any particular mystical or supernatural powers. The word itself was probably coined in the middle of the sixteenth century in France, but the concept began to emerge in British theology in the seventeenth century, most notably in De Veritate (1624) by Lord (Edward) Herbert of Cherbury. By the middle of the seventeenth century, deism was beginning to concern orthodox theologians, and any suggestion of it was quickly attacked. Interest in deism was not so much a movement or a philosophical system, as it was a concept which allowed those who were uneasy with the elements of superstition in revealed religion to accommodate within the enlarging boundaries of religion difficult theological, or even specifically Christian, ideas. Yet many Christian clerics felt that deism led invariably and inevitably to atheism and vigorously opposed the idea and were often intolerant of its adherents. The texts reprinted here combine major documents in the history of deism in britain with other less well-known texts whose relevance to the topic has yet to be properly assessed. Oracles of Reason contains some of Blount's best and most original work. Many of the articles in it had been circulated clandestinely in manuscript form for over ten years: publication of them was regarded as dangerous and would have been open to charges of subversion and treason. Its publication provoked a number of replies and attacks, effectively preparing the ground for a controversy that would spectacularly grow in the following years. An important and rare document in the history of deistic thought.

This book explores the protests of Job from the perspectives of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious and philosophical traditions. Shira Weiss examines how challenges to divine justice are understood from a Jewish theological perspective, including the pro-protest and anti-protest traditions within rabbinic literature, in an effort to explicate the ambiguous biblical text and Judaism's attitude towards the suffering of the righteous. Scott Davison surveys Christian interpretations of the book of Job and the nature of suffering in general before turning to a comparison of the lamentations of Jesus and Job, with special attention to the question of whether complaints against God can be expressions of faith. Sajjad Rizvi presents the systematic ambiguity of being present in monistic approaches to reality as one response to evil and suffering in Islam, along with approaches that attempt a resolution through the essential erotic nature of the cosmos, and explores the suggestion that Job is the hero of a metaphysical revolt that is the true sign of a friend of God. Each author also provides a response essay to the essays of the other two authors, creating an interfaith dialogue around the problem of evil and the idea of protest against the divine.

In this comprehensive open access book, written for readers from any or no religious background, Leena El-Ali does something remarkable. Never before has anyone taken on every last claim relating to Islam and women and countered it not just with Qur'anic evidence to the contrary, but with easy-to-use tools available to all. How can a woman's testimony be worth half of a man's? How can men divorce their wives unilaterally by uttering three words? And what's with the obsession with virgins in Paradise? Find the chapter on any of the seventeen topics in this book, and you will quickly learn a) where the myth came from and b) how to bust it. The methodology pursued is simple. First, the Qur'an is given priority over all other literary or "scriptural" sources. Second, the meaning of its verses in the original Arabic is highlighted, in contrast to English translations and/or widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

In this age of uncertainty, Christians want and need more than ever before to understand what the Bible reveals about the future. As authors Amir Tsarfati and Barry Stagner teach on the end times, their question-and-answer sessions remain a massively popular part of their ministry, demonstrating people’s profound hunger to know more about the last days.

In Bible Prophecy: The Essentials, Amir and Barry team up to answer 70 of their most commonly asked questions. Through succinct, Scripture-focused teachings, Amir and Barry address seven foundational themes of Bible prophecy:

• Israel
• the church
• the rapture
• the tribulation
• the millennium
• the Great White Throne judgment
• heaven

When studied with wisdom and discernment, God’s Word provides all you need to know about what is to come. User-friendly and organized by topic, Amir and Barry’s thoughtful and informative question-and-answer book will become your go-to resource as you prayerfully grow in your understanding of Bible prophecy.

Many of the most pressing issues in theology and the church today depend greatly on the understanding of the Bible. Recent debates on the theological interpretation of scripture have emerged which consider whether the meaning of scripture should concern theologians and church leaders at all. "The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning" is an account of these debates in examining the concept of meaning in current proposals of theological interpretation. The concept of meaning is educed either from the supposed nature of the texts and their authors or from the function of the texts in religious communities. Thus, approaches to theological interpretation become debates between ontological and pragmatic strategists. Stephen Fowl and Kevin Vanhoozer have embraced the term "theological interpretation" for their separate projects, but their ideas of what this means and how "meaning" is a part of it, differ greatly. Christopher Spinks describes their respective concepts of meaning and argues for a more holistic concept that allows theological interpreters to understand their craft not so much as a discovery of intentions or the creation of interests but as a conversation in which truth is mediated.

J. L. Schellenberg articulates and defends a simple but revolutionary idea: we are still at a very early stage in the possible history of intelligent life on our planet, and should frame our religious attitudes accordingly. Humans have begun to adapt to a deep past-one measured in billions of years, not thousands. But we have not really noticed how thin is the sliver of past time in which all of our religious life is contained. And the eons that may yet see intelligent life have hardly started to come into focus. When these things are internalized, our whole picture of religion may change. For then we will for the first time be in a position to ask: Might there be a form of religion appropriate to such an early stage of development as our own? Might such 'evolutionary religion' be rather different from the forms of religion we see all around us today? And might it be better fitted to meet the demands of reason? Though most concerned simply to get a new discussion going, Evolutionary Religion maintains that the answer is in each case 'yes'. When the light of deep time has fully been switched on, a new form of skepticism but, at the same time, new possibilities of religious life will come into view. We will find ourselves drawn to religious attitudes that, while not foregoing the idea of a transcendent ultimate, manage to do without believing and without details. As Schellenberg reveals, pursuing evolutionary religion instead of embracing a scientific naturalism is something that can rationally be done, even if traditional religious belief is placed out of bounds by argument. And ironically it is science that should help us see this. Indeed, in a new cultural dispensation evolutionary religion may come to be a preferred option among those most concerned for our intellectual enrichment and for our survival into the deep future.

Using Christian communities in the former Yugoslavia as a case study, Branko Sekulic introduces the concept of ethnoreligiosity to the theological discussion in order to resolve the confusion that occurs when scholars talk about the concepts of ethno-religion or ethnoreligion. Ethno-religion/ethnoreligion came to describe the phenomenon of ethnic religion as a certain cultural specificity and which by itself has no negative connotation, but due to the lack of a better expression , it has been used as a term for the phenomenon of ethnic and religious conflict and discrimination. In that sense, ethnoreligiosity can be defined as a phenomenon resulting from the usurpation of the religious aspect of human life by the ethnic one, or more precisely, it emerges as a consequence of an ethnic (ethnonational) ideological overtaking of the structures of the religious organization. It takes place through the attempt to give sacral connotation to a particular ethnonational myth as an integral part of ethnonational ideology, with the result that religious feeling is no longer generated on a religious but primarily on an ethnonational base. By understanding the proper definition and manifestation of ethnoreligiosity, one will have the opportunity to discern the basic components of this phenomenon not only within the countries of the former Yugoslavia, but in other countries as well.

From the concrete experience of war, Michael S. Yandell constructs a phenomenology of "negative revelation" in which false or distorted claims of goodness and justice disintegrate, becoming meaningless. Yandell argues that the disintegration of meaning in war is itself a meaningful experience; "revealing" comes to signify the presence of goodness and justice through the profound experience of their absence. The heart of this work adds a layer of complexity or depth to the term "moral injury" as a negative revelation. Yandell emphasizes the context and logic of war itself beyond the actions of individuals, paying specific attention to the U.S. led Global War on Terror. Moral injury as a negative revelation is a disintegration of false normative claims of goodness and justice, as well as a disintegration of one's sense of self oriented toward those normative claims. This disintegration is prompted by the recognition of life in the midst of war's diminishment of life.

This title offers an introduction to the most influential movement in Catholic theology in the 20th century which prepared the ground for the Second Vatican Council. La nouvelle theologie - New Theology - was the name of one of the most dynamic and fascinating movements within Catholic theology in the 20th century. Although first condemned by Pope Pius XII. in 1946 and later in his encyclical Humani generis in 1950, it became influential in the preparation of the Second Vatican Council. The movement was instigated by French Dominican Yves Congar with his Dominican confreres Marie-Dominique Chenu and Louis Charlier and linked with the Dominican academy at Le Saulchouir (Tournai), but soon taken over by Jesuits of the same generation of theologians: Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, Henri Bouillard and Yves de Montcheuil. They laid strong emphasis on the supernatural, the further implementation of historical method within theology, the ressourcement (back to Scripture, liturgy and Fathers), and the connection between life, faith and theology. Many of them were participating as periti in the Second Vatican Council, which finally accepted the striving of the new theology. Hence, the original perception of the New Theology as novitas would become an auctoritas in the field of Catholic theology. On the basis of research of archives and literature Jurgen Mettepenningen shows in his book the different theological positions of both Dominican and Jesuit protagonists, the development of their ideas in close relationship with the theological view and the sanctions of the Roman Catholic Church, and the great importance of the generation of the discussed Dominican and Jesuit theologians and their New Theology. He proves that the protagonists of both the first and the second phase of the nouvelle theologie constituted together the generation of theologians necessary to implement the striving of the modernist era within the Church at the time of Vatican II.

Margarete Susman was among the great Jewish women philosophers of the twentieth century, and largely unknown to many today. This book presents, for the first time in English, six of her important essays along with an introduction about her life and work. Carefully selected and edited by Elisa Klapheck, these essays give the English-speaking reader a taste of Susman's religious-political mode of thought, her originality, and her importance as Jewish thinker. Susman's writing on exile, return, and the revolutionary impact of Judaism on humanity, illuminate enhance our understanding of other Jewish philosophers of her time: Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Bloch (all of them her friends). Her work is in particularly fitting company when read alongside Jewish religious-political and political thinkers such as Bertha Pappenheim, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Gertrud Stein. Initially a poet, Susman became a follower of the Jewish Renaissance movement, secular Messianism, and the German Revolution of 1918. This collection of essays shows how Susman's work speaks not only to her own time between the two World Wars but to the present day.

For centuries, Muslim countries and Europe have engaged one another through theological dialogues, diplomatic missions, political rivalries, and power struggles. In the last thirty years, due in large part to globalization and migration from Islamic countries to the West, what was previously an engagement across national and cultural boundaries has increasingly become an internalized encounter within Europe itself. Questions of the Hijab in schools, freedom of expression in the wake of the Danish Cartoon crisis, and the role of Shari'a have come to the forefront of contemporary European discourse.
The Oxford Handbook of European Islam is the first collection to present a comprehensive approach to the multiple and changing ways Islam has been studied across European countries. Parts one to three address the state of knowledge of Islam and Muslims within a selection of European countries, while presenting a critical view of the most up-to-date data specific to each country. These chapters analyze the immigration cycles and policies related to the presence of Muslims, tackling issues such as discrimination, post-colonial identity, adaptation, and assimilation. The thematic chapters, in parts four and five, examine secularism, radicalization, Shari'a, Hijab, and Islamophobia with the goal of synthesizing different national discussion into a more comparative theoretical framework. The Handbook attempts to balance cutting edge assessment with the knowledge that the content itself will eventually be superseded by events. Featuring eighteen newly-commissioned essays by noted scholars in the field, this volume will provide an excellent resource for students and scholars interested in European Studies, immigration, Islamic studies, and the sociology of religion.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.