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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy > Sacred texts > General
Opening Israel's Scriptures is a collection of thirty-six essays on
the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Chronicles, which gives powerful
insight into the complexity and inexhaustibility of the Hebrew
Scriptures as a theological resource. Based on more than two
decades of lectures on Old Testament interpretation, Ellen F. Davis
offers a selective yet comprehensive guide to the core concepts,
literary patterns, storylines, and theological perspectives that
are central to Israel's Scriptures. Underlying the whole study is
the primary assumption that each book of the canon has literary and
theological coherence, though not uniformity. In both her close
readings of individual texts and in her broad demonstrations of the
coherence of whole books, Davis models the best practices of
contemporary exegesis, integrating the insights of contemporary
scholars with those of classical theological resources in Jewish
and Christian traditions. Throughout, she keeps an eye to the
experiences and concerns of contemporary readers, showing through
multiple examples that the critical interpretation of texts is
provisional, open-ended work-a collaboration across generations and
cultures. Ultimately what she offers is an invitation into the more
spacious world that the Bible discloses, which challenges ordinary
conceptions of how things "really" are.
Take a fresh look at India's great epic and rediscover the lost
kingdoms, dynasties, and characters of the Mahabharata, accompanied
by beautiful images and discussion points. Often described as the
longest poem ever written, the Mahabharata is one of two Sanskrit
epics of ancient India. Its stories resonate with us even today
through its themes of conflict and dilemmas, and have been drawn on
for inspiration in film, theatre, and art. The Illustrated
Mahabharata follows the tale as it unfolds through 18 episodes, or
parvas, alongside stunning photographs, paintings, sculptures, and
historical artefacts. Discover the principal characters of the
Mahabharata and their family trees, and understand key moments -
from the birth of Pandavas and Kauravas to the death of the elders.
This definitive guide also highlights important quotes, themes, and
historical context points to explore and enrich your understanding
of the stories. Know the Mahabharata with this beautiful retelling
of India's greatest epic. "
The melodious recitation of the Quran is a fundamental aesthetic
experience for Muslims, and the start of a compelling journey of
ideas. In this important new book, the prominent German writer and
Islamic scholar Navid Kermani considers the manner in which the
Quran has been perceived, apprehended and experienced by its
recipients from the time of the Prophet to the present day. Drawing
on a wide range of Muslim sources, from historians, theologians and
philosophers to mystics and literary scholars, Kermani provides a
close reading of the nature of this powerful text. He proceeds to
analyze ancient and modern testimonies about the impact of Quranic
language from a variety of angles. Although people have always
reflected on the reception of texts, images and sounds that they
find beautiful or moving, Kermani explains that Islam provides a
particularly striking example of the close correlation, grounded in
a common origin, between art and religion, revelation and poetry,
and religious and aesthetic experience. This major new book will
enhance the dialogue between Islam and the West and will appeal to
students and scholars of Islam and comparative religion, as well as
to a wider readership interested in Islam and the Quran.
How Repentance Became Biblical tells the story of repentance as a
concept. Many today, in both secular and religious contexts, assume
it to be a natural and inevitable component of our lives. But where
did it originate? How did it become so prominent within Western
religious traditions and, by extension, contemporary culture? What
purposes does it serve? This book identifies repentance as a
product of the Hellenistic period, where it was taken up within
emerging forms of Judaism and Christianity as a mode of subjective
control. Lambert argues that, along with the rise of repentance, a
series of interpretive practices, many of which remain in effect to
this day, was put into place whereby repentance is read into the
Bible and the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament,
comes to be seen as repentance's source. Ancient Israelite rituals,
such as fasting, prayer, and confession, all of which are
incorporated later on within various religious communities as forms
of penitential discipline, are understood as external signs of
internal remorse. Hebrew terms and phrases, such as the prophetic
injunction to "return to YHWH," are read as ancient representations
of the concept, repentance. Prophetic literature as a whole is seen
as serving a pedagogical purpose, as aiming at the reformation of
Israel as a nation. Furthermore, it is assumed that, on the basis
of the Bible, sectarians living in the late Second Temple period,
from the Dead Sea sect to the early Jesus movement, believed that
their redemption depended upon their repentance. In fact, the
penitential framework within which the Bible is interpreted tells
us the most about our own interpretive tendencies, about how we
privilege notions of interiority, autonomy, and virtue. The book
develops other frameworks for explaining the biblical phenomena in
their ancient contexts, based on alternative views of the body,
power, speech, and the divine, and, thereby, offers a new account
of repentance's origins.
Formalized by the tenth century, the expansive Bhagavata Purana
resists easy categorization. While the narrative holds together as
a coherent literary work, its language and expression compete with
the best of Sanskrit poetry. The text's theological message focuses
on devotion to Krishna or Vishnu, and its philosophical outlook is
grounded in the classical traditions of Vedanta and Samkhya. No
other Purana has inspired so much commentary, imitation, and
derivation. The work has grown in vibrancy through centuries of
performance, interpretation, worship, and debate and has guided the
actions and meditations of elite intellectuals and everyday
worshippers alike. This annotated translation and detailed analysis
shows how one text can have such enduring appeal. Key selections
from the Bhagavata Purana are faithfully translated, while all
remaining sections of the Purana are concisely summarized,
providing the reader with a continuous and comprehensive narrative.
Detailed endnotes explain unfamiliar concepts and several essays
elucidate the rich philosophical and religious debates found in the
Sanskrit commentaries. Together with the multidisciplinary readings
contained in the companion volume The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text
and Living Tradition (Columbia, 2013), this book makes a central
Hindu masterpiece more accessible to English-speaking audiences and
more meaningful to scholars of Hindu literature, philosophy, and
religion.
Impurity and Gender in the Hebrew Bible explores the role of female
blood in the Hebrew Bible and considers its theological
implications for future understandings of purity and impurity in
the Jewish religion. Influenced by the work of Jonathan Klawans
(Sin and Impurity in Ancient Judaism), and using the categories of
ritual and moral impurities, this book analyzes the way in which
these categories intersect with women and with the impurity of
female blood, and reads the biblical foundations of purity and
blood taboos with a feminist lens. Ultimately, the purpose of this
book is to understand the intersection between impurity and gender,
figuratively and non-figuratively, in the Hebrew Bible. Goldstein
traces this intersection from the years 1000 BCE-250 BCE and ends
with a consideration of female impurity in the literature of
Qumran.
‘In death thy glory in heaven, in victory thy glory on earth. Arise therefore, Arjuna, with thy soul ready to fight’ The Bhagavad Gita is an intensely spiritual work that forms the cornerstone of the Hindu faith, and is also one of the masterpieces of Sanskrit poetry. It describes how, at the beginning of a mighty battle between the Pandava and Kaurava armies, the god Krishna gives spiritual enlightenment to the warrior Arjuna, who realizes that the true battle is for his own soul. Juan Mascaró’s translation of The Bhagavad Gita captures the extraordinary aural qualities of the original Sanskrit. This edition features a new introduction by Simon Brodbeck, which discusses concepts such as dehin, prakriti and Karma.
Setting out from the observation made in the social sciences that
maternal grief can at times be a motor of societal change,
Ekaterina E. Kozlova demonstrates that a similar mechanism operates
also in the biblical world. Kozlova argues that maternal grief is
treated as a model or archetype of grief in biblical and Ancient
Near Eastern literature. The work considers three narratives and
one poem that illustrate the transformative power of maternal grief
in the biblical presentation: Gen 21, Hagar and Ishmael in the
desert; 2 Sam 21: 1-14, Rizpah versus King David; 2 Sam 14, the
speech of the Tekoite woman; Jer 31: 15-22, Rachel weeping for her
children. Although only one of the texts literally refers to a
bereaved mother (2 Sam 21 on Rizpah), all four passages draw on the
motif of maternal grief, and all four stage some form of societal
transformation.
This book offers a novel approach for the study of law in the
Judean Desert Scrolls, using the prism of legal theory. Following a
couple of decades of scholarly consensus withdrawing from the
"Essene hypothesis," it proposes to revive the term, and suggests
employing it for the sectarian movement as a whole, while
considering the group that lived in Qumran as the Yahad. It further
proposes a new suggestion for the emergence of the Yahad, based on
the roles of the Examiner and the Instructor in the two major legal
codes, the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. The
understanding of Essene law is divided into concepts and practices,
in order to emphasize the discrepancy between creed, rhetoric, and
practices. The abstract exploration of notions such as time, space,
obligation, intention, and retribution, is then compared against
the realities of social practices, including admission, initiation,
covenant, leadership, reproof, and punishment. The legal analysis
yields several new suggestions for the study of the scrolls: first,
Amihay proposes to rename the two strands of thought of Jewish law,
formerly referred to as "nominalism" and "realism," with the terms
"legal essentialism" and "legal formalism." The two laws of
admission in the Community Rule are distinguished as two different
laws, one of an association for a group as a whole, the other as an
admission of an individual. The law of reproof is proven to be an
independent legal procedure, rather than a preliminary stage of
prosecution. The methodological division in this study of thought
and practice provides a nuanced approach for the study of law in
general, and religious law in particular.
The Story of Dinah examines the intersection of rape culture and
Jewish tradition by tracing over two thousand years of Jewish
commentary on Genesis 34. Using a definition of rape derived from
the Hebrew Bible, Ruit scrutinizes the commentaries on the text for
reflections of what would be deemed "rape myths" today. This book
journeys through time and tradition as it uncovers the evolution of
Jewish thought regarding women, rape, and women who have been
violated. Every period examined, from the biblical account and the
intertestamental writings all the way through to present day,
reveals surprising and powerful insights about Jewish tradition and
its attitudes towards women and sexual violation.
The sixth book of the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Yuddhakanda,
recounts the final dramatic war between the forces of good led by
the exiled prince Rama, and the forces of evil commanded by the
arch demon Ravana. The hero Rama's primary purpose in the battle is
to rescue the abducted princess Sita and destroy the demon king.
However, the confrontation also marks the turning point for the
divine mission of the Ramavatara, the incarnation of Lord Visnu as
a human prince, who will restore righteousness to a world on the
brink of chaos. The book ends with the gods' revelation to Rama of
his true divine nature, his emotional reunion with his beloved
wife, his long-delayed consecration as king of Kosala, and his
restoration of a utopian age. The Yuddhakanda contains some of the
most extraordinary events and larger-than-life characters to be
found anywhere in world literature. This sixth volume in the
critical edition and translation of the Valmiki Ramayana includes
an extensive introduction, exhaustive notes, and a comprehensive
bibliography.
A new English translation of the most influential legal text in
medieval India. A Treatise on Dharma, written in the fourth or
fifth century, is the finest example of the genre of
dharmasastra-texts on religious, civil, and criminal law and the
duties of rulers-that informed Indian life for a thousand years. It
illuminates major cultural innovations, such as the prominence of
documents in commercial and legal proceedings, the use of ordeals
in resolving disputes, and the growing importance of yoga in
spiritual practices. Composed by an anonymous author during the
reign of the imperial Guptas, the Treatise is ascribed to the
Upanishadic philosopher Yajnavalkya, whose instruction of a group
of sages serves as the frame narrative for the work. It became the
most influential legal text in medieval India, and a
twelfth-century interpretation came to be considered "the law of
the land" under British rule. This translation of A Treatise on
Dharma, based on a new critical edition and presented alongside the
Sanskrit original in the Devanagari script, opens the classical age
of ancient Indian law to modern readers.
A thoughtful guide to help anyone explore coping healing and
beginning again in a world changed by the pandemic.
This book examines historical changes in the grammar of the
Indo-Aryan languages from the period of their earliest attestations
in Vedic Sanskrit (around 1000 bc) to contemporary Hindi. Uta
Reinoehl focuses specifically on the rise of configurational
structure as a by-product of the grammaticalization of
postpositions: while Vedic Sanskrit lacks function words that
constrain nominal expressions into phrasal units - one of the
characteristics of a non-configurational language - New Indo-Aryan
languages have postpositions which organize nominal expressions
into postpositional phrases. The grammaticalization of
postpositions and the concomitant syntactic changes are traced
through the three millennia of Indo-Aryan attested history with a
focus on Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic Pali and Apabhramsha, Early
New Indic Old Awadhi, and finally Hindi. Among the topics discussed
are the constructions in which the postpositions grammaticalize,
the origins of the postpositional template, and the
paradigmatization of the various elements involved into a single
functional class of postpositions. The book outlines how it is
semantic and pragmatic changes that induce changes on the
expression side, ultimately resulting in the establishment of
phrasal, and thus low-level configurational, syntax.
Written in the early eighth century, the "Kojiki" is considered
Japan's first literary and historical work. A compilation of myths,
legends, songs, and genealogies, it recounts the birth of Japan's
islands, reflecting the origins of Japanese civilization and future
Shinto practice. The "Kojiki" provides insight into the lifestyle,
religious beliefs, politics, and history of early Japan, and for
centuries has shaped the nation's view of its past. This innovative
rendition conveys the rich appeal of the "Kojiki" to a general
readership by translating the names of characters to clarify their
contribution to the narrative while also translating place names to
give a vivid sense of the landscape the characters inhabit, as well
as an understanding of where such places are today. Gustav Heldt's
expert organization reflects the text's original sentence structure
and repetitive rhythms, enhancing the reader's appreciation for its
sophisticated style of storytelling.
The Psalms have resulted in controversies between Jews and
Christians over the centuries and it is only from the mid twentieth
century onwards that the two traditions have worked side by side in
the academy at least. This is one of the very few volumes on the
psalms to incorporate scholarship from both these traditions for
nearly a century, and the result is a rich celebration of these
extraordinary ancient songs. This innovative essay collection draws
together internationally renowned Jewish and Christian scholars of
the Psalms, with one tradition responding to the other, in areas as
diverse as Qumran studies, Medieval Jewish interpretation,
Reception History, Liturgical Psalters and Chagall's Church Windows
and more recent Literary Studies of the Psalter as a Book. The
range of topics chosen will be of interest not only to those
specializing in the Psalms but also to others interested more
generally in biblical studies. Several musical and artistic
representations of selected psalms are also included and the book
includes a colour plate section which illustrates several of the
chapters.
In the wake of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the
displacement of exile, there is a unique story that is told about
the remnant left behind after the invasion. The narrative of
Jeremiah 40-44 unfolds the challenges and crises of this community
who remain in Judah as they negotiate their survival following the
catastrophe of Jerusalem's fall. After the Invasion shares the
often overlooked, but compelling story that emerges from the five
later chapters of Jeremiah. Keith Bodner expertly reveals the
assortment of personalities, geographic locations, shifts in point
of view, temporal compression, and layers of irony. Primary focused
on the narrative design of this text, Professor Bodner proves that
these chapters form a creative and sophisticated narrative that
make a rich, though perhaps underestimated, contribution to the
book of Jeremiah as a whole.
Was Jesus of Nazareth a real historical person or a fictional
character in a religious legend? What do the Dead Sea Scrolls
reveal about the origins of Christianity? Has there been a
conspiracy to suppress information in the Scrolls that contradicts
traditional church teaching? John Allegro addresses these and many
other intriguing questions in this fascinating account of what may
be the most significant archaeological discovery of the twentieth
century.
As one of the original scholars entrusted with the task of
deciphering these ancient documents, Allegro worked on some of the
most important texts, including the Biblical commentaries. In 1961,
King Hussein of Jordan appointed him to be honorary advisor to the
Jordanian government on the Dead Sea Scrolls. In his engaging and
highly readable style, Allegro conveys the excitement of the
initial archaeological find and takes the reader on a journey of
intellectual discovery that goes to the heart of Western culture.
Allegro suggests that Christianity evolved out of the Messianic
theology of the Essenes, the Jewish sect that wrote the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
This new edition of Allegro's book also contains an essay in which
he describes the in-fighting among the scholars assigned to study
the scrolls and his thirty-year battle to release all of the texts
to the public. Allegro was one of the first scholars to protest the
long delay in publishing the Scrolls and to criticize his
colleagues for their secretive and possessive attitudes. This issue
has recently been the focus of national media coverage, with the
result that after forty years, open access to all of the Dead Sea
Scrolls has finally been permitted.
If he had lived to see it, John Allegro would have been very
pleased by this resolution of the controversy. In the same spirit
of free inquiry that Allegro championed, Prometheus is reissuing
his book in paperback to encourage open discussion of these
important ancient texts.
Hasidism is an influential spiritual revival movement within
Judaism that began in the eighteenth century and continues to
thrive today. One of the great classics of early Hasidism, The
Light of the Eyes is a collection of homilies on the Torah, reading
the entire Five Books of Moses as a guide to spiritual awareness
and cultivation of the inner life. This is the first English
translation of any major work from Hasidism's earliest and most
creative period. Arthur Green's introduction and annotations survey
the history of Hasidism and outline the essential religious and
moral teachings of this mystical movement. The Light of the Eyes,
by Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, offers insights that remain as
fresh and relevant for the contemporary reader as they were when
first published in 1798.
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