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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy > Sacred texts > General
Though considered one of the most important informants about
Judaism in the first century CE, the Jewish historian Flavius
Josephus's testimony is often overlooked or downplayed. Jonathan
Klawans's Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism reexamines
Josephus's descriptions of sectarian disagreements concerning
determinism and free will, the afterlife, and scriptural authority.
In each case, Josephus's testimony is analyzed in light of his
works' general concerns as well as relevant biblical, rabbinic, and
Dead Sea texts. Many scholars today argue that ancient Jewish
sectarian disputes revolved primarily or even exclusively around
matters of ritual law, such as calendar, cultic practices, or
priestly succession. Josephus, however, indicates that the
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes disagreed about matters of
theology, such as afterlife and determinism. Similarly, many
scholars today argue that ancient Judaism was thrust into a
theological crisis in the wake of the destruction of the second
temple in 70 CE, yet Josephus's works indicate that Jews were
readily able to make sense of the catastrophe in light of biblical
precedents and contemporary beliefs. Without denying the importance
of Jewish law-and recognizing Josephus's embellishments and
exaggerations-Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism calls
for a renewed focus on Josephus's testimony, and models an approach
to ancient Judaism that gives theological questions a deserved
place alongside matters of legal concern. Ancient Jewish theology
was indeed significant, diverse, and sufficiently robust to respond
to the crisis of its day.
The "Platform Sutra" comprises a wide range of important
Chan/Zen Buddhist teachings. Purported to contain the autobiography
and sermons of Huineng (638--713), the legendary Sixth Patriarch of
Chan, the sutra has been popular among monastics and the educated
elite for centuries. The first study of its kind in English, this
volume offers essays that introduce the history and ideas of the
sutra to a general audience and interpret its practices. Leading
specialists on Buddhism discuss the text's historical background
and its vaunted legacy in Chinese culture.
Incorporating recent scholarship and theory, chapters include an
overview of Chinese Buddhism, the crucial role of the "Platform
Sutra "in the Chan tradition, and the dynamics of Huineng's
biography. They probe the sutra's key philosophical arguments, its
paradoxical teachings about transmission, and its position on
ordination and other institutions. The book includes a character
glossary and extensive bibliography, with helpful references for
students, general readers, and specialists throughout. The editors
and contributors are among the most respected scholars in the study
of Buddhism, and they assess the place of the "Platform Sutra" in
the broader context of Chinese thought, opening the text to all
readers interested in Asian culture, literature, spirituality, and
religion.
The fourth volume in a new translation of Sahih Muslim, the second
most authentic collection of Prophetic traditions, with Imam
Nawawi's commentary. Imam Nawawi's commentary on Sahih Muslim is
one of the most highly regarded works in Islamic thought and
literature. Accepted by every sunni school of thought, and
foundational in the Shaafi school, this text, available for the
first time in English, is famed throughout the Muslim world. After
the Qur'an, the prophetic traditions are the most recognised source
of wisdom in Islam. Amongst the collected Hadith, Sahih Muslim is
second only to the the collection of Imam Bukhari. With a
commentary by Imam Nawawi, whose other works are amongst the most
widely-read books on Islam, and translated by Adil Salahi, a modern
scholar of great acclaim, this immense work, finally available to
English readers, is an essential addition to every Muslim library,
and for anybody with an interest in Islamic thought.
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Haggadah
(Hardcover)
Jonathan Safran Foer
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R797
R587
Discovery Miles 5 870
Save R210 (26%)
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From the bestselling author of Here I Am, Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close and We are the Weather - Jonathan Safran Foer
presents a new edition of the sacred Jewish Haggadah Read each year
around the Seder table, the Haggadah recounts through prayer and
song the extraordinary story of Exodus, when Moses led the ancient
Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to wander through the desert for
forty years before reaching the Promised Land. In this new version
of the traditional Haggadah text, Jonathan Safran Foer brings
together some of the most preeminent voices of our time. Nathan
Englander's new translation, beautifully designed and illustrated
in full colour by the Israeli artist and typographer Oded Ezer, is
accompanied by thought-provoking commentaries by four major Jewish
writers and thinkers: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Lemony Snicket,
Jeffrey Goldberg and Nathaniel Deutsch; plus a timeline by Mia Sara
Bruch.
When we encounter a text, whether ancient or modern, we typically
start at the beginning and work our way toward the end. In Tracking
the Master Scribe, Sara J. Milstein demonstrates that for biblical
and Mesopotamian literature, this habit can yield misleading
results. In the ancient Near East, "master scribes"-those who had
the authority to produce and revise literature-regularly modified
their texts in the course of transmission. One of the most
effective techniques for change was to add something to the
front-what Milstein calls "revision through introduction." This
method allowed scribes to preserve their received material while
simultaneously recasting it. As a result, numerous biblical and
Mesopotamian texts manifest multiple and even competing viewpoints.
Due to the primary position of these additions, such reworked texts
are often read solely through the lens of their final
contributions. This is true not only for biblical and cuneiform
texts in their final forms, but also for Mesopotamian texts that
are known from multiple versions: first impressions carry weight.
Rather than "nail down every piece of the puzzle," Tracking the
Master Scribe demonstrates what is to be gained when engaging
questions of textual transmission with attention to how scribes
actually worked. Working from the two earliest corpora that allow
us to track large-scale change, the book provides broad overviews
of evidence available for revision through introduction, as well as
a set of detailed case studies that offer fresh insight into
well-known biblical and Mesopotamian literary texts. The result is
the first comprehensive and comparative profile of this key scribal
method: one that was not only ubiquitous in the ancient Near East
but also epitomizes the attitudes of the master scribes toward the
literature that they produced.
Part of the ancient Hindu epic The Mahabharata, The Bhagavad Gita
is one of the enduring religious texts of the world The Bhagavad
Gita is an early poem that recounts the conversation between Arjuna
the warrior and his charioteer Krishna, a manifestation of God. In
the moments before a great battle, Krishna sets out the important
lessons Arjuna must learn to understand his own role in the war he
is about to fight. Krishna reveals to Arjuna his true cosmic form
and counsels the warrior to act according to his sacred
obligations. Ranging from instructions on yoga to moral discussion,
the Gita has served for centuries as an everyday, practical guide
to living well. Translated with an introduction by Laurie L. Patton
Printed editions of midrashim, rabbinic expositions of the Bible,
flooded the market for Hebrew books in the sixteenth century. First
published by Iberian immigrants to the Ottoman Empire, they were
later reprinted in large numbers at the famous Hebrew presses of
Venice. This study seeks to shed light on who read these new books
and how they did so by turning to the many commentaries on midrash
written during the sixteenth century. These innovative works reveal
how their authors studied rabbinic Bible interpretation and how
they anticipated their readers would do so. Benjamin WIlliams
focuses particularly on the work of Abraham ben Asher of Safed, the
Or ha-Sekhel (Venice, 1567), an elucidation of midrash Genesis
Rabba which contains both the author's own interpretations and also
the commentary he mistakenly attributed to the most celebrated
medieval commentator Rashi. Williams examines what is known of
Abraham ben Asher's life, his place among the Jewish scholars of
Safed, and the publication of his book in Venice. By analysing
selected passages of his commentary, this study assesses how he
shed light on rabbinic interpretation of Genesis and guided readers
to correct interpretations of the words of the sages. A
consideration of why Abraham ben Asher published a commentary
attributed to Rashi shows that he sought to lend authority to his
programme of studying midrash by including interpretations ascribed
to the most famous commentator alongside his own. By analysing the
production and reception of the Or ha-Sekhel, therefore, this work
illuminates the popularity of midrash in the early modern period
and the origins of a practice which is now well-established-the
study of rabbinic Bible interpretation with the guidance of
commentaries.
The thirteenth-century Jewish mystical classic Sefer ha-Zohar (The
Book of Splendor), commonly known as the Zohar, took shape against
a backdrop of rising anti-Judaism in Spain. Mystical Resistance
reveals that in addition to the Zohar's role as a theological
masterpiece, its kabbalistic teachings offer passionate and
knowledgeable critiques of Christian majority culture. During the
Zohar's development, Christian friars implemented new missionizing
strategies, forced Jewish attendance at religious disputations, and
seized and censored Jewish books. In response, the kabbalists who
composed the Zohar crafted strategically subversive narratives
aimed at diminishing Christian authority. Hidden between the lines
of its fascinating stories, the Zohar makes daring assertions that
challenge themes important to medieval Christianity, including
Christ's Passion and ascension, the mendicant friars' new
missionizing strategies, and Gothic art's claims of Christian
dominion. These assertions rely on an intimate and complex
knowledge of Christianity gleaned from rabbinic sources, polemic
literature, public Church art, and encounters between Christians
and Jews. Much of the kabbalists' subversive discourse reflects
language employed by writers under oppressive political regimes,
treading a delicate line between public and private, power and
powerlessness, subservience and defiance. By placing the Zohar in
its thirteenth-century context, Haskell opens this text as a rich
and fruitful source of Jewish cultural testimony produced at the
epicenter of sweeping changes in the relationship between medieval
Western Europe's Christian majority and its Jewish minority.
Zen Buddhism is often said to be a practice of "mind-to-mind
transmission" without reliance on texts -- in fact, some great
teachers forbid their students to read or write. But Buddhism has
also inspired some of the greatest philosophical writings of any
religion, and two such works lie at the center of Zen: The Heart
Sutra, which monks recite all over the world, and The Diamond
Sutra, said to contain answers to all questions of delusion and
dualism. This is the Buddhist teaching on the "perfection of
wisdom" and cuts through all obstacles on the path of practice.
As Red Pine explains: "The Diamond Sutra may look like a book,
but it's really the body of the Buddha. It's also your body, my
body, all possible bodies. But it's a body with nothing inside and
nothing outside. It doesn't exist in space or time. Nor is it a
construct of the mind. It's no mind. And yet because it's no mind,
it has room for compassion. This book is the offering of no mind,
born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all the sutras that
teach this teaching, this is the diamond."
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies innovatively combines the ways
in which scholars from fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology,
religious studies, literary studies, history, sociology,
anthropology, political science, and economics have integrated the
study of Sikhism within a wide range of critical and postcolonial
perspectives on the nature of religion, violence, gender,
ethno-nationalism, and revisionist historiography. A number of
essays within this collection also provide a more practical
dimension, written by artists and practitioners of the tradition.
The Handbook is divided into eight thematic sections that explore
different 'expressions' of Sikhism. Historical, literary,
ideological, institutional, and artistic expressions are considered
in turn, followed by discussion of Sikhs in the Diaspora, and of
caste and gender in the Panth. Each section begins with an essay by
a prominent scholar in the field, providing an overview of the
topic. Further essays provide detail and further treat the fluid,
multivocal nature of both the Sikh past and the present. The
Handbook concludes with a section considering future directions in
Sikh Studies.
Der Autor erforscht die Anwendungsdynamiken des islamischen Rechts
(fiqh) in wandelnden Kontexten anhand der Werke von Hayreddin
Karaman, einem beruhmten islamischen Rechtsgelehrten in der Turkei.
Dabei analysiert er die Entwicklungen chronologisch seit dem Beginn
in der Prophetenperiode und die wissenschaftlichen Entfaltungen der
Nachfolgezeit bis in die sakulare Postmoderne. Anhand der
diachronischen Forschungsmethode untersucht der Autor die
innovative fiqh-Anwendung bei Karaman und zeigt seine Methode auf.
Es geht hierbei um die Anknupfung an die Tradition und die daraus
gewonnene Innovation in ihrem wissenschaftlich-argumentativen
Diskurs. Auf kritischer Grundlage begegnet Karaman den
Herausforderungen eines innovativen Aufschwungs in der sakularen
Postmoderne.
The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature
explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen)
Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the
earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of
Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and
one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the
texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical
Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature in China, others have
been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently.
Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the
historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first
time into English or other Western language. He surveys the
distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and
analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key
processes of textual production during this period. Although his
main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan
tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era
(618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and
Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan
collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative
adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with
novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of
Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several
distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the
subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East
Asia.
Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, wielding an authority second only
to the Qur'an. The words of Muhammad (d. 11/632), God's messenger
and prophet of Islam, have a special place in the hearts of his
followers. Wielding an authority second only to the Qur'an,
Muhammad's hadith are cited by scholars as testimonial texts in a
vast array of disciplines-including law, theology, metaphysics,
poetry, grammar, history, and medicine-and are quoted by Muslims to
one another in their daily lives. Assembling Muhammad's words has
been a major preoccupation for scholars throughout the fourteen
centuries since his death, resulting in an abundance of
compilations. Among the legally-grounded collections, which aimed
to guide the community in its practice of religious law and ritual
worship, one which stands out in particular is Light in the Heavens
(Kitab al-Shihab) by al-Qadi al-Quda'i, a Shafi'i judge in the
Fatimid court in Egypt. The collection's overall conceptualization
is distinctively ethical and pragmatic, and offers humanitarian
lessons and practical insights with universal appeal. From North
Africa to India, generations have used Light in the Heavens as a
teaching text for children as well as adults, and many of its 1200
sayings are familiar to individuals of diverse denominations and
ethnicities. For Muslims-who consider Muhammad's teachings the
fount of wisdom and the beacon of guidance in all things, mundane
and sublime-these sayings provide a direct window into the inspired
vision of one of the most influential humans to have walked the
Earth. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.
For countless generations families have lived in isolated
communities in the Godavari Delta of coastal Andhra Pradesh,
learning and reciting their legacy of Vedas, performing daily
offerings and occasional sacrifices. They are the virtually
unrecognized survivors of a 3,700-year-old heritage, the last in
India who perform the ancient animal and soma sacrifices according
to Vedic tradition. In Vedic Voices, David M. Knipe offers for the
first time, an opportunity for them to speak about their lives,
ancestral lineages, personal choices as pandits, wives, children,
and ways of coping with an avalanche of changes in modern India. He
presents a study of four generations of ten families, from those
born at the outset of the twentieth century down to their
great-grandsons who are just beginning, at the age of seven, the
task of memorizing their Veda, the Taittiriya Samhita, a feat that
will require eight to twelve years of daily recitations. After
successful examinations these young men will reside with the Veda
family girls they married as children years before, take their
places in the oral transmission of a three-thousand-year Vedic
heritage, teach the Taittiriya collection of texts to their own
sons, and undertake with their wives the major and minor sacrifices
performed by their ancestors for some three millennia. Coastal
Andhra, famed for bountiful rice and coconut plantations, has
received scant attention from historians of religion and
anthropologists despite a wealth of cultural traditions. Vedic
Voices describes in captivating prose the geography, cultural
history, pilgrimage traditions, and celebrated persons of the
region. Here unfolds a remarkable story of Vedic pandits and their
wives, one scarcely known in India and not at all to the outside
world.
Neelima Shukla-Bhatt offers an illuminating study of Narsinha
Mehta, one of the most renowned saint-poets of medieval India and
the most celebrated bhakti (devotion) poet from Gujarat, whose
songs and sacred biography formed a vital source of moral
inspiration for Gandhi. Exploring manuscripts, medieval texts,
Gandhi's more obscure writings, and performances in multiple
religious and non-religious contexts, including modern popular
media, Shukla-Bhatt shows that the songs and sacred narratives
associated with the saint-poet have been sculpted by performers and
audiences into a popular source of moral inspiration.
Drawing on the Indian concept of bhakti-rasa (devotion as nectar),
Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat reveals that the sustained popularity of
the songs and narratives over five centuries, often across
religious boundaries and now beyond devotional contexts in modern
media, is the result of their combination of inclusive religious
messages and aesthetic appeal in performance. Taking as an example
Gandhi's perception of the songs and stories as vital cultural
resources for social reconstruction, the book suggests that when
religion acquires the form of popular culture, it becomes a widely
accessible platform for communication among diverse groups.
Shukla-Bhatt expands upon the scholarship on the embodied and
public dimension of bhakti through detailed analysis of multiple
public venues of performance and commentary, including YouTube
videos.
This study provides a vivid picture of the Narasinha tradition, and
will be a crucial resource for anyone seeking to understand the
power of religious performative traditions in popular media.
In Reclaiming Jihad: A Qur'anic Critique of Terrorism, ElSayed Amin
presents a detailed critique of institutional and legal definitions
of terrorism. He engages the Qur'an exegetical tradition, both
classical and contemporary, to critique key verses of the Qur'an
that have been misread to establish violence as a relational norm
between Muslims and non-Muslims. This pioneering work is a
sustained scholarly attempt to separate Islamic jihad, as well as
the notion of armed deterrence, from modern terrorism through the
examination of the 9/11 terrorism attacks, and it proposes legal
proscriptions for terrorism from the Qur'an, on the basis of its
political, social and psychological impacts.
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