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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy > Sacred texts > General
Engagement with the Muslim world and Muslim people is inevitable
for Christians. After all, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in
the United States. But what does the Qur'an really say about things
like Jesus, war, and non-Muslims? What does the Bible say on these
matters? If Christians are to engage in informed, loving
conversation with their Muslim neighbors, they need to be equipped
with more than the often-specious talking points they glean from
the news or email forwards.
"Comparing the Qur'an and the Bible "offers readers an
unprecedented collection of Scriptures and doctrines of both faiths
presented side by side for easy study and comparison, covering such
key issues as
Jesus
Abraham
creation
angels/jinn
jihad
the fall of humankind
predestination
ransom for sin/sacrifice
grace
rebirth
God/Allah
women
marriage and divorce
homosexuality
suicide
resurrection
judgment
Paradise
prayer
A brief explanation of each passage in the Qur'an and the Bible is
given, as well as biblical answers to Islamic teaching. The book
also motivates readers to have hearts for Muslims and seek to bring
them to Christ, offering "door openers" to sharing the Good News.
This indispensible collection will be treasured by anyone seeking
to understand and engage their Muslim neighbors.
The Upanisads are among the most sacred foundational scriptures in
the Hindu religion. Composed from 800 BCE onwards and making up
part of the larger Vedic corpus, they offer the reader "knowledge
lessons" on life, death, and immortality. While they are essential
to understanding Hinduism and Asian religions more generally, their
complexities make them almost impenetrable to anyone but serious
scholars of Sanskrit and ancient Indian culture. This book is
divided into five parts: Composition, authorship, and transmission
of the Upanisads; The historical, cultural, and religious
background of the Upanisads; Religion and philosophy in the
Upanisads; The classical Upanisads; The later Upanisads. The
chapters cover critical issues such as the origins of the
Upanisads, authorship, and redaction, as well as exploring the
broad religious and philosophical themes within the texts. The
guide analyzes each of the Upanisads separately, unpacking their
contextual relevance and explaining difficult terms and concepts.
The Upanisads: A Complete Guide is a unique and valuable reference
source for undergraduate religious studies, history, and philosophy
students and researchers who want to learn more about these
foundational sacred texts and the religious lessons in the Hindu
tradition.
The untold story of how the Arabic Qur'an became the English Koran
For millions of Muslims, the Qur'an is sacred only in Arabic, the
original Arabic in which it was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in
the seventh century. To many Arab and non-Arab believers alike, the
book literally defies translation, yet English translations are
growing in both number and importance. Bruce Lawrence tells the
remarkable story of the centuries-long quest to translate the
Qur'an's lyrical verses-and to make English itself an Islamic
language. A translation saga like no other, this panoramic book
looks at cyber Korans, versions by feminist translators, and even a
graphic Qur'an by the acclaimed visual artist Sandow Birk.
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.
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.
Paramahansa Yogananda - author of the bestselling classic
"Autobiography of a Yogi" - delves into the deeper meaning of the
Bhagavad Gita's symbology, and sheds a fascinating light on the
true intent of India's beloved scripture. He describes how each of
us, through applying the profound wisdom of yoga, can achieve
material and spiritual victory on the battlefield of daily life.
This concise and inspiring book is a compilation of selections from
Yogananda's in-depth, critically acclaimed two-volume translation
of and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita ("God Talks with Arjuna").
The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most widely read Hindu scriptures
in the Western world. Taking the form of a dialogue between the
warrior Arjuna and the divine Krishna on the eve of battle, it is
concerned with the most profound aspects of social and religious
duty, and the relationship of human beings to God. In its eighteen
short chapters it explores the spiritual struggle of the human soul
and the search for both the true self and eternal life, culminating
in an unparalleled vision of God the omnipotent.
The Pitfalls of Piety for Married Women shows how problematic the
practice of Buddhist piety could be in late imperial China. Two
thematically related "precious scrolls" (baojuan) from the Ming
dynasty, The Precious Scroll of the Red Gauze and The Precious
Scroll of the Handkerchief, illustrate the difficulties faced by
women whose religious devotion conflicted with the demands of
marriage and motherhood. These two previously untranslated texts
tell the stories of married women whose piety causes them to be
separated from their husbands and children. While these women labor
far away, their children are cruelly abused by murderous
stepmothers. Following many adventures, the families are reunited
by divine intervention and the evil stepmothers get their just
deserts. While the texts in The Pitfalls of Piety for Married Women
praise Buddhist piety, they also reveal many problems concerning
married women and mothers. Wilt L. Idema's translations are
preceded by an introduction that places these scrolls in the
context of Ming dynasty performative literature, vernacular
literature, and popular religion. Set in a milieu of rich
merchants, the texts provide a unique window to family life of the
time, enriching our understanding of gender during the Ming
dynasty. These popular baojuan offer rare insights into lay
religion and family dynamics of the Ming dynasty, and their
original theme and form enrich our understanding of the various
methods of storytelling that were practiced at the time.
There is no question that the Torah is one of the most influential
documents in Western civilization. It is the source of widely known
characters like Joseph, Moses, and Noah, and timeless stories such
as the Garden of Eden and the Exodus. Jointly authored by
professors of Judaism and Christianity, The Torah: A Beginner's
Guide takes a unique approach, exploring the interplay and dynamics
of how these two religions share this common scripture. Drawing on
both scholarly and popular sources, Kaminsky and Lohr examine the
key debates, while simultaneously illustrating the importance of
the Torah in western jurisprudence, ethics, and contemporary
conceptions of the family, morality, and even politics.
Jewish Bible Translations is the first book to examine Jewish Bible
translations from the third century BCE to our day. It is an
overdue corrective of an important story that has been regularly
omitted or downgraded in other histories of Bible translation.
Examining a wide range of translations over twenty-four centuries,
Leonard Greenspoon delves into the historical, cultural,
linguistic, and religious contexts of versions in eleven languages:
Arabic, Aramaic, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian,
Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish. He profiles many Jewish
translators, among them Buber, Hirsch, Kaplan, Leeser, Luzzatto,
Mendelssohn, Orlinsky, and Saadiah Gaon, framing their aspirations
within the Jewish and larger milieus in which they worked.
Greenspoon differentiates their principles, styles, and
techniques-for example, their choice to emphasize either literal
reflections of the Hebrew or distinctive elements of the vernacular
language-and their underlying rationales. As he highlights
distinctive features of Jewish Bible translations, he offers new
insights regarding their shared characteristics and their limits.
Additionally, Greenspoon shows how profoundly Jewish translators
and interpreters influenced the style and diction of the King James
Bible. Accessible and authoritative for all from beginners to
scholars, Jewish Bible Translations enables readers to make their
own informed evaluations of individual translations and to
holistically assess Bible translation within Judaism.
This new verse translation of the classic Sanskrit text combines
the skills of leading Hinduist Gavin Flood with the stylistic verve
of award-winning poet and translator Charles Martin. The result is
a living, vivid work that avoids dull pedantry and remains true to
the extraordinarily influential original. A devotional, literary,
and philosophical masterpiece of unsurpassed beauty and imaginative
relevance, The Bhagavad Gita has inspired, among others, Mahatma
Gandhi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Isherwood,
and Aldous Huxley. Its universal themes life and death, war and
peace, sacrifice resonate in a West increasingly interested in
Eastern religious experiences and the Hindu diaspora."
The Inner Chapters are the oldest pieces of the larger collection
of writings by several fourth, third, and second century B.C.
authors that constitute the classic of Taoism, the Chuang-Tzu (or
Zhuangzi). It is this core of ancient writings that is ascribed to
Chuang-Tzu himself.
An exploration of storytelling and narrative devices in the
Qur'anIn this book, Leyla Ozgur Alhassen approaches the Qur'an as a
literary, religious and oral text that affects its audience. She
looks at how Qur'anic stories function as narrative: how characters
and dialogues are portrayed; what themes are repeated; what verbal
echoes and conceptual links are present; what structure is
established; and what beliefs these narrative choices strengthen.
And she argues that in the Qur'an, some narrative features that are
otherwise puzzling can be seen as instances in which God, as the
narrator, centres himself while putting the audience in its place.
In essence, this makes the act of reading an interaction between
God and the audience.Qur'anic Stories demonstrates that a
narratological and rhetorical approach to the canonised text can
contribute new insights to our understanding of the Qur'an and its
worldview.
Let the wisdom of Colossians transform relationships in every area
of your life -- home, church, and even the world -- with this study
guide from renowned Bible teacher Joyce Meyer. Paul's letter to the
Colossians reminds us that as we have died with Christ, we also
need to die to our sins. It encourages us that because we have also
been raised in Him, we must submit to Jesus and adopt qualities
motivated by Christian love. In this comprehensive study tool,
Joyce Meyer's commentary on Colossians affirms the Lordship of
Christ and offers practical advice on family, relationships, and
faith.
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