English summary: Rainer Hirsch-Luipold interprets the function of imagery in Plutarch's works in individual studies from a strictly literary and philosophical standpoint. For Plutarch, philosopher and priest, images cover different phenomena in art, literature and religion and emphasize the representative character of the entire visible world. German description: Denken in Bildern? Hatte die uberwaltigende Fulle von Bildern, von Vergleichen und Gleichnissen aus allen Bereichen des antiken Wissens, noch bis ins 18. Jahrhundert zur Beliebtheit von Plutarchs Schriften beigetragen, so galt sie seit der Aufklarung eher als Zeichen mangelnder Seriositat und gedanklicher Stringenz. Rainer Hirsch-Luipold zeigt demgegenuber, wie Plutarch Bilder und Bildfelder als Teil einer besonderen philosophischen Darstellungsform begreift. Die umfassende Struktur des Bildhaften wird aus seiner Verwendung des griechischen Begriffs eikon deutlich. Unter diesem Begriff verbindet der Mittelplatoniker und delphische Priester Phanomene der darstellenden Kunst (Statue, Gemalde, Siegelabdruck etc.) und der Sprache (Gleichnis, Allegorie, Metapher, Ratselwort etc.) mit einer philosophischen Sicht der Welt als Abbild und Widerschein einer hoheren gottlichen Realitat. Neben Untersuchungen zur Rezeption von darstellender Kunst und zur Terminologie bildhafter Sprache bietet die Arbeit ausfuhrliche literarische und philosophische Interpretationen der Bildersprache ausgewahlter Schriften. Rainer Hirsch-Luipold interpretiert die Bilder als Teil der philosophischen Gedankenfuhrung, eroffnet so den Blick auf die philosophische und religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung Plutarchs und fuhrt zugleich ein Instrument zur Analyse des Aufbaus und der Struktur seiner Schriften vor. Aufgrund ihrer religiosen Farbung wird die Bildersprache Plutarchs zudem als pagane Parallele zur gleichzeitig entstehenden Gleichnissprache des Neuen Testaments interessant.

In Teaching Interreligious Encounters, editors Marc A. Pugliese and Alexander Y. Hwang have gathered together a multidisciplinary and international group of scholar-teachers to explore the pedagogical issues that occur at the intersection of different religious traditions. This volume is both a theoretical and practical guide for new teachers as well as seasoned scholars. It breaks the pedagogy of interreligious encounters down into five distinct components. In the first part, essays explore the theory of teaching these encounters; in the second, essays discuss course design. The parts that follow engage practical ideas for teaching textual analysis, practice, and real-world application. Despite their disciplinary, contextual, and methodological diversity, these essays share a common vision for the learning goals and outcomes of teaching interreligious encounters. This is a much needed resource for any teacher participating in these conversations.

One of the most comprehensive volumes on Myanmar’s identity politics to date, this book discusses the entanglement of ethnic and religious identities in Myanmar and the challenges presented by its extensive ethnic-religious diversity. Religious and ethnic conjunctions are treated from historical, political, religious and ethnic minority perspectives through both case studies and overview chapters. The book addresses the thorny issue of Buddhist supremacy, Burmese nationalism and ethnic-religious hierarchy, along with reflections on Buddhist, Christian and Muslim communities. Bringing together international scholars and Burmese scholars, this book combines the perspectives of academic observers with those of political activists and religious leaders from different faiths. Through the breadth of its disciplinary approach, its focus on identity issues and its inclusion of insider and outsider perspectives, this book provides new insights into the complex religious situation of Myanmar.

Brings together primary texts from influential Jewish and Christian writers, providing an accessible overview of the major issues and movements in the Christian-Jewish dialogue. The book includes key topics such as anti-Semitism, Jesus, Israel, women and the Holocaust.

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

Yale University religion scholar Miroslav Volf--widely known for the much-publicized course on faith and globalization he coteaches with Tony Blair--places this question at the root of the twenty-first century's most sensitive, and critical, geopolitical concerns. Volf reveals how the prevalent belief that these traditions worship different gods is directly linked to increased hostility and violence around the globe. Theological wars fuel real wars.

One of the critical issues in interreligious relations today is the connection, both actual and perceived, between sacred sources and the justification of violent acts as divinely mandated. "Fighting Words" makes solid text-based scholarship accessible to the general public, beginning with the premise that a balanced approach to religious pluralism in our world must build on a measured, well-informed response to the increasingly publicized and sensationalized association of terrorism and large-scale violence with religion. In his introduction, Renard provides background on the major scriptures of seven religious traditionsOCoJewish, Christian (including both the Old and New Testaments), Islamic, BahaOCOi, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Sikh. Eight chapters then explore the interpretation of select facets of these scriptures, focusing on those texts so often claimed, both historically and more recently, as inspiration and justification for every kind of violence, from individual assassination to mass murder. With its nuanced consideration of a complex topic, this book is not merely about the religious sanctioning of violence but also about diverse ways of reading sacred textual sources.

1828 unterzeichneten 23 Professoren aus Freiburg i. Br. Petitionen zur Abschaffung des Zoelibates und verteidigten diese mit einer erlauternden "Denkschrift". Hierauf antwortete Johann Adam Moehler (1796-1838) mit der "Beleuchtung der Denkschrift". Die Autorin analysiert den geschichtlichen und literarischen Hintergrund sowie die Grundlinien und Rezeptionsgeschichte dieses bisher in der Forschung noch sehr wenig beachteten Werkes. Eine Auswertung von Moehlers Methodik, ein Schriftenvergleich sowie die vorgenommene Systematisierung der Kernaussagen zeigen, dass die "Beleuchtung" uber eine reine Rezensionsschrift hinausreicht. Die Untersuchung belegt eindrucksvoll, dass der Tubinger (und spatere Munchener) Theologe hier eine im echten Sinne fundamentaltheologische Schrift vorgelegt hat, die einen Massstab fur sein folgendes systematisches Schaffen setzt.

How did Jews perceive the first Christians? By what means did they come to appreciate Christianity as a religion distinct from their own? In The Christian Schism in Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Professor Joshua Ezra Burns addresses those questions by describing the birth of Christianity as a function of the Jewish past. Surveying a range of ancient evidences, he examines how the authors of Judaism's earliest surviving memories of Christianity speak to the perspectives of rabbinic observers who were conditioned by the unique circumstances of their encounters with Christianity to recognize its adherents as fellow Jews. Only upon the decline of the Church's Jewish demographic were their successors compelled to see Christianity as something other than a variation of Jewish cultural expression. The evolution of thought in the classical Jewish literary record thus offers a dynamic account of Christianity's separation from Judaism counterbalancing the abrupt schism attested in contemporary Christian texts.

Manifestations of hatred of Jews and Israel have risen over the last few decades in the Arab and Muslim world. This hatred is demonstrated in many ways -- from propaganda to terrorism. But is such hatred the result of Islamic anti-Semitism, as widely claimed? Or does it have other roots and reasons? This book sets the record straight by explaining that while anti-Semitism is the credo of fanatic groups and regimes, such an attitude is not representative of traditional and contemporary Islam. For centuries Muslim attitudes to Jews were ambivalent: contempt and antagonism alongside tolerance and co-operation. In fact Jews under Islam were better off than their Christian neighbours, and much better off than their Jewish brethren under Christianity. A similar pattern of relations has developed over the last several decades between Muslim nations and the Jewish state of Israel: hostility and violence, mostly by Muslim Arabs, but also dialogue and co-operation by and with many other Muslims. These complex relations are discussed here by Muslim and Jewish scholars -- from Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the USA, Palestine and Turkey -- who analyse the religious, cultural, political and economic factors that have shaped Muslim attitudes to Jews and Israel. Ideas and suggestions are put forward to improve Muslim-Jewish relations -- the theme of which was first conceived at an international conference organised by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Divinity School, Harvard University.

The story of the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls has become a part of Western lore. Who has not heard about the Bedouin shepherd who threw a rock into a cave, heard a crash, went in to explore, and found the scrolls? The story in that form may be accurate, but it turns out to be something of a simplification. As a matter of fact, much remains unknown about the exact circumstances under which those scrolls were discovered. The story of the discovery at first deals with just one cave; the other ten were located at later times.

A Common Word Between Us and You (ACW) is an open letter, dated 13 October 2007, from leaders of the Islamic religion to those of the Christian religion. It calls for peace between Muslims and Christians and seeks common ground and understanding between both religions. This volume examines the document from a number of perspectives. Exploring the events that led to ACW, it provides an overview of responses to the document and its use of scripture. It also relates the reception of ACW to several specific and contrasting contexts, and recommends new avenues for ACW-inspired discussion. Advancing debate and dialogue between Jews, Muslims and Christians, this volume promotes a distinctive methodology for inter-religious studies, and serves as an invaluable resource for students and scholars of theology and religious studies.

In 1965 the Second Vatican Council declared that God loves the Jews. Before that, the Church had taught for centuries that Jews were cursed by God and, in the 1940s, mostly kept silent as Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. How did an institution whose wisdom is said to be unchanging undertake one of the most enormous, yet undiscussed, ideological swings in modern history? The radical shift of Vatican II grew out of a buried history, a theological struggle in Central Europe in the years just before the Holocaust, when a small group of Catholic converts (especially former Jew Johannes Oesterreicher and former Protestant Karl Thieme) fought to keep Nazi racism from entering their newfound church. Through decades of engagement, extending from debates in academic journals, to popular education, to lobbying in the corridors of the Vatican, this unlikely duo overcame the most problematic aspect of Catholic history. Their success came not through appeals to morality but rather from a rediscovery of neglected portions of scripture. From Enemy to Brother illuminates the baffling silence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, showing how the ancient teaching of deicide - according to which the Jews were condemned to suffer until they turned to Christ - constituted the Church's only language to talk about the Jews. As he explores the process of theological change, John Connelly moves from the speechless Vatican to those Catholics who endeavored to find a new language to speak to the Jews on the eve of, and in the shadow of, the Holocaust.

Religious pluralism has characterized America almost from its seventeenth-century inception, but the past half century or so has witnessed wholesale changes in the religious landscape, including a proliferation of new spiritualities, the emergence of widespread adherence to "Asian" traditions, and an evangelical Christian resurgence. These recent phenomena-important in themselves as indices of cultural change-are also both causes and contributions to one of the most remarked-upon and seemingly anomalous characteristics of the modern United States: its widespread religiosity. Compared to its role in the world's other leading powers, religion in the United States is deeply woven into the fabric of civil and cultural life. At the same time, religion has, from the 1600s on, never meant a single denominational or confessional tradition, and the variety of American religious experience has only become more diverse over the past fifty years. Gods in America brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to explain the historical roots of these phenomena and assess their impact on modern American society.

Across centuries, the Islamic Middle East hosted large populations of Christians and Jews in addition to Muslims. Today, this diversity is mostly absent. In this book, Heather J. Sharkey examines the history that Muslims, Christians, and Jews once shared against the shifting backdrop of state policies. Focusing on the Ottoman Middle East before World War I, Sharkey offers a vivid and lively analysis of everyday social contacts, dress, music, food, bathing, and more, as they brought people together or pushed them apart. Historically, Islamic traditions of statecraft and law, which the Ottoman Empire maintained and adapted, treated Christians and Jews as protected subordinates to Muslims while prescribing limits to social mixing. Sharkey shows how, amid the pivotal changes of the modern era, efforts to simultaneously preserve and dismantle these hierarchies heightened tensions along religious lines and set the stage for the twentieth-century Middle East.

Discussions of Islam in Turkey are still heavily dominated by political considerations and the dualistic paradigms of modern v. traditional, secular v. religious. Yet there exists a body of Muslim institutions in the country - Turkish theology faculties - whose work overcomes ideological divisions. By engaging with Turkish theology in its theological rather than political concerns, this book sheds light on complex Muslim voices in the context of a largely Western and Christian modernity. Featuring the work of Recep Alpyagil and Saban Ali Duzgun, this innovative study provides a concise survey of Turkish Muslim positions on religious pluralism and atheism as well as detailed treatments of both critical and appreciative Turkish Muslim perspectives on Western Christianity. The result is a critical reframing of the category of modernity through the responses of Turkish theologians to the Western intellectual tradition.

Relations between Christians and Jews over the past two thousand years have been characterised to a great extent by mutual distrust and by Christian discrimination and violence against Jews. In recent decades, however, a new spirit of dialogue has been emerging, beginning with an awakening among Christians of the Jewish origins of Christianity, and encouraging scholars of both traditions to work together. An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations sheds fresh light on this ongoing interfaith encounter, exploring key writings and themes in Jewish-Christian history, from the Jewish context of the New Testament to major events of modern times, including the rise of ecumenism, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the creation of the state of Israel. This accessible theological and historical study also touches on numerous related areas such as Jewish and interfaith studies, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, international relations and the political sciences.

Is the Christian church in Europe doomed to collapse under the weight of globalization, Western secularism, and a flood of Muslim immigrants? Is Europe on the brink of becoming "Eurabia"?
Though many pundits are predicting just such a scenario, God's Continent reveals the flaws in these arguments and offers a much more measured assessment of Europe's religious future. While frankly acknowledging current tensions, Philip Jenkins shows, for instance, that the overheated rhetoric about a Muslim-dominated Europe is based on politically convenient myths: that Europe is being imperiled by floods of Muslim immigrants, exploding Muslim birth-rates, and the demise of European Christianity. He points out that by no means are Muslims the only new immigrants in Europe. Christians from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe are also pouring into the Western countries, and bringing with them a vibrant and enthusiastic faith that is helping to transform the face of European Christianity. Jenkins agrees that both Christianity and Islam face real difficulties in surviving within Europe's secular culture. But instead of fading away, both have adapted, and are adapting. Yes, the churches are in decline, but there are also clear indications that Christian loyalty and devotion survive, even as institutions crumble.
The third book in an acclaimed trilogy that includes The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, God's Continent offers a realistic and historically grounded appraisal of the future of Christianity in a rapidly changing Europe.