What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? Paul Griffiths finds the answer in "religious reading" --- the kind of reading in which a religious believer allows his mind to be furnished and his heart instructed by a sacred text, understood in the light of an authoritative tradition. He favorably contrasts the practices and pedagogies of traditional religious cultures with those of our own fragmented and secularized culture and insists that religious reading should be preserved.

Ancient Readers and their Scriptures explores the various ways that ancient Jewish and Christian writers engaged with and interpreted the Hebrew Bible in antiquity, focusing on physical mechanics of rewriting and reuse, modes of allusion and quotation, texts and text forms, text collecting, and the development of interpretative traditions. Contributions examine the use of the Hebrew Bible and its early versions in a variety of ancient corpora, including the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic works, analysing the vast array of textual permutations that define ancient engagement with Jewish scripture. This volume argues that the processes of reading and cognition, influenced by the physical and intellectual contexts of interpretation, are central aspects of ancient biblical interpretation that are underappreciated in current scholarship.

"Re-Biographing and Deviance" examines the Jewish Midrashic model for self-renewal through time. In this important new study, author Rotenberg questions how traditional Judaism, with its contradictory notions of teshuvah (repentance) and of remembrance of the past, allows for the contemporary Jew to maintain a healthy cognitive dialogue between past failures and future aspirations. The author illustrates how the Midrashic narrative philosophy entails a psychotherapeutic system for reinterpretation of past sins into positive future-oriented biographies--which in turn provide fuel for Jewish vitality and its continuity between past, present and future.

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.

In The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls Ken M. Penner determines whether Qumran Hebrew finite verbs are primarily temporal, aspectual, or modal. Standard grammars claim Hebrew was aspect-prominent in the Bible, and tense-prominent in the Mishnah. But the semantic value of the verb forms in the intervening period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were written has remained controversial. Penner answers the question of Qumran Hebrew verb form semantics using an empirical method: a database calculating the correlation between each form and each function, establishing that the ancient author's selection of verb form is determined not by aspect, but by tense or modality. Penner then applies these findings to controversial interpretations of three Qumran texts.

Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire. But in this nuanced, literary analysis, Diane Lipsett traces the intriguing interplay of desire and self-restraint in three ancient tales of conversion: The Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Joseph and Aseneth. Lipsett treats "conversion"--marked change in a protagonist's piety and identity--as in part an effect of story, a function of narrative textures, coherence, and closure. Her approach is theoretically versatile, drawing on Foucault, psychoanalytic theorists, and the ancient literary critic Longinus. Well grounded in scholarship on Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth, the closely paced readings sharpen attention to each story, while advancing discussions of ancient views of the self; of desire, masculinity, and virginity; of the cultural codes around marriage and continence; and of the textual energetics of conversion tales.

"Genizat Germania" is a project at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz focused on the search for and analysis of Hebrew and Aramaic binding fragments found in the books and files of archives and libraries. In recent years this systematic search has revealed several hundred new fragments, including some rare Talmudic, Midrashic and liturgical fragments. The new discoveries both in Germany and elsewhere in Europe have broadened the knowledge of Jewish literature in the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods. This volume collects the papers of international scholars which cover recent discoveries in Germany, the "European Genizah" or fragments found in Italy, Poland, Great Britain and Austria, the approaches of similar projects in Austria and the Czech Republic, as well as an extensive bibliography.

An essential introductory text for the study of the Qur'an, its content, and its place in Muslim society.
An insightful and authoritative introduction to the book at the heart of Muslim life, written by a well-known Islamic scholar
Examines the doctrines contained in the Qur'an, providing a comprehensive explanation of their significance to individual Muslims and the societies in which they live
Surveys the key themes of the Qur'an, its most significant historical interpretations, and some of the most significant figures who transmitted and taught the sacred scripture over the centuries
Considers the influence of the Qur'an on all major aspects of Muslim society, including personal relationships, popular culture, law, art and architecture, political movements, science, and literature
Helps the reader to understand the Qur'an, while throwing a much-needed light on what it means to be a Muslim.

Liberation is a fundamental subject in South Asian doctrinal and philosophical reflection. This book is a study of the discussion of liberation from suffering presented by Dharmakirti, one of the most influential Indian philosophers. It includes an edition and translation of the section on the cessation of suffering according to Manorathanandin, the last commentator on Dharmakirti's Pramanavarttika in the Sanskrit cosmopolis. The edition is based on the manuscript used by Sankrtyayana and other sources. Methodological issues related to editing ancient Sanskrit texts are examined, while expanding on the activity of ancient pandits and modern editors.

The Hebrew Bible in Fifteenth-Century Spain: Exegesis, Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts investigates the relationship between the Bible and the cultural production of Iberian societies between the anti-Jewish riots of 1391 and the Expulsion of 1492. During this turbulent and transformative period, the Bible intersected with virtually all aspects of late medieval Iberian culture: its languages of expression, its material and artistic production, and its intellectual output in literary, philosophical, exegetic, and polemical spheres. The articles in this cross-cultural and interdisciplinary volume present instantiations of the Hebrew Bible's deployment in textual and visual forms on diverse subjects (messianic exegesis, polemics, converso liturgy, Bible translation, conversion narrative, etc.) and utilize a broad range of methodological approaches (from classical philology to Derridian analysis).

Argument and Design features fifteen essays by leading scholars of the Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, discussing the Mahabharata's upakhyanas, subtales that branch off from the central storyline and provide vantage points for reflecting on it. Contributors include: Vishwa Adluri, Joydeep Bagchee, Greg Bailey, Adam Bowles, Simon Brodbeck, Nicolas Dejenne, Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Robert P. Goldman, Alf Hiltebeitel, Thennilapuram Mahadevan, Adheesh Sathaye, Bruce M. Sullivan, and Fernando Wulff Alonso.

Both the Quran and Bible purportedly hold the keys to creation, but when you examine both closely, only one of them holds up.

A closer examination of Muhammad's life and the Quran shows that both are opposed to all that God declares pure and holy. Join author John Tharp, who has traveled the world and studied these texts side by side, as he explores

why it's no accident that the Ten Commandments were omitted from the Quran; which facts show Muhammad's life and teachings are not pure and holy; how Islam's teachings contribute to a world full of turmoil.

Tharp also examines the secrets that Muslims don't share with people outside of their religion, as well as the future implications of the continuing conflict between Islam and Christianity.

Cross the boundaries that divide Christianity, Islam and, other world religions to determine how and why they are different and why these differences are important. You'll develop a deep understanding of how satanic deception breeds hostility against those who live a godly life in "The Quran."

This fascinating narrative illustrates and clarifies rabbinic views relating to more than 250 topics. The Talmud has been a source of study and debate for well over a millennia. What the Rabbis Said: 250 Topics from the Talmud brings that discussion out of the yeshiva to describe and clarify the views of the talmudic rabbis for modern readers. Much more than a compilation of isolated rabbinic quotations, the book intersperses talmudic statements within the narrative to provide a thoroughly engaging examination of the rabbinic point of view. Exploring the development of traditional Jewish thought during its formative period, the book summarizes the major rabbinic comments from the vast expanse of the Talmud and midrashic literature, demonstrating, among other things, that the rabbis often took divergent positions on a given issue rather than agreeing on a single "party line." As it delves into such broad topics as God, the Torah, mitzvot, law and punishment, synagogue and prayer, and life-cycle events, What the Rabbis Said will help readers understand and appreciate the views of those who developed the rabbinic Judaism that persists to the present day. Numerous endnotes provide a wealth of information for the scholarly reader without interrupting the flow of the text A glossary of lesser-known terms facilitates understanding