The tractate Keritot of the Babylonian Talmud belongs to the Order of Qodashim in the Mishnah. It discusses the Temple and its rituals, especially sacrifices, but deals mostly with laws of incest, sexual transgressions, childbirth, and miscarriages. In this commentary, Federico Dal Bo provides a historical, philological and philosophical investigation on these gender issues. He discusses almost the entire tractate, referring to many other sources, Jewish (the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sifra, and other rabbinic texts) as well as non-Jewish (Akkadian, Hittite, and Ugaritic). The author also provides accurate philological observations both on the Mishnah and the Gemara. Finally, he addresses gender issues by combining a reductionistic approach to Talmudic study (the so called "Brisker method") with philosophical deconstruction. Dal Bo shows that in nearly the entire tractate Keritot the rabbis discuss human sexuality in a tendentious and restrictive way, claiming that heterosexuality is the only proper sexual contact and progressively stigmatizing any other kind of sexual behavior.

'A wonderful book' David Park, Irish Times In 1949, when Marianne Elliott was just a baby, her parents moved into the White City, one of the first mixed-religion estates to be built in Belfast after the war. They were among the first tenants and they lived there until 1963. In this vivid and compelling new book - part memoir, part social history - Marianne Elliot tells the story of the estate where she grew up: of how it came to be built, of what it promised, of the people who lived there and of what happened to it. The story is, of course, deeply personal, but Elliott uses it to paint a rich and fascinating portrait of 1950s Belfast, a close-knit city recovering from the ravages of war and still in the throes of austerity but optimistic for the future. Drawing on her own memories and those of family, friends and former neighbours, and based on extensive historical research and interviews with current and former residents, this book tells the story of an overlooked and under-documented time in Belfast's history, the story of a pre-Troubles Belfast in which Catholics and Protestants lived side by side. 'A searching and illuminating memoir ... outstanding.' Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement

Muthuraj Swamy provides a fresh perspective on the world religions paradigm and 'interreligious dialogue'. By challenging the assumption that 'world religions' operate as essential entities separate from the lived experiences of practitioners, he shows that interreligious dialogue is in turn problematic as it is built on this very paradigm, and on the myth of religious conflict. Offering a critique of the idea of 'dialogue' as it has been advanced by its proponents such as religious leaders and theologians whose aims are to promote inter-religious conversation and understanding, the author argues that this approach is 'elitist' and that in reality, people do not make sharp distinctions between religions, nor do they separate political, economic, social and cultural beliefs and practices from their religious traditions. Case studies from villages in southern India explore how Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities interact in numerous ways that break the neat categories often used to describe each religion. Swamy argues that those who promote dialogue are ostensibly attempting to overcome the separate identities of religious practitioners through understanding, but in fact, they re-enforce them by encouraging a false sense of separation. The Problem with Interreligious Dialogue: Plurality, Conflict and Elitism in Hindu-Christian-Muslim Relations provides an innovative approach to a central issue confronting Religious Studies, combining both theory and ethnography.

This edited volume brings together important scholars of religion in the ancient world to honor the impact of Karen L. King's scholarship in this field. Her work shows that Christianity was diverse from its first moments - even before the word "Christian" was coined - and insists that scholars must engage both in deep historical work and in ethical reflection. These essays honor King's intellectual impact by further investigating the categories that scholars have used in their reconstructions of religion, by reflecting on the place of women and gender in the analysis of ancient texts, and by providing historiographical interventions that illuminate both the ancient world and the modern scholarship that has shaped our field.

What do Christian Churches say Islam is? What does the Church of England say Islam is? And, in the end, what space is there for genuine engagement with Islam? Richard Sudworth's unique study takes as its cue the question of political theology and brings this burgeoning area of debate into dialogue with Christian-Muslim relations and Anglican ecclesiology. The vexed subject of Christian-Muslim Relations provides the presenting arena to explore what political theologies enable the Church of England to engage with the diverse public square of the twenty-first century. Each chapter concludes with an `Anecdotes from the Field' section, setting themes from the chapter in the context of Richard Sudworth's own ministry within a Muslim majority parish.

Markus McDowell examines how the literature of the Second Temple period portrays women at prayer through an examination of the literary context and character of those prayers. The goal of this work is a greater understanding of how women were portrayed in literary sources and an offering of some fresh insights for the study of women's religious and social roles in the ancient world. The texts are analyzed and categorized within five areas: social location, content, form, occasion, and gender perspective. The prayers are also compared and contrasted with men's prayers in the same sources. The analysis includes locating (as much as possible) the historical, literary, and cultic context of each document in which these prayers appear. By examining all prayers in these texts uttered by women (not just prayers of named or prominent women), and then comparing them with all the prayers of men in those same texts, certain patterns appear. This study adds to our knowledge of women and religion in Second Temple Judaism by primarily exploring patterns that appear among the prayers in the literature of the Second Temple period. While there are fewer prayers by women than men in this literature, the prayers of women are not portrayed as significantly different from those of men in terms of social location, content, form, or occasion. At the same time, the prayers of women exhibit other patterns of language - and in a minor way, form and occasion - that differ from the prayers of men.

In this volume Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas brings together twelve essays that deal with the role and importance of rhetoric in theology, literature and politics in Late Antiquity, more specifically in the fourth century CE. The point of departure of this book is the assumption that religious, cultural and political issues of that period were fought in the rhetorical arena. Thus aspects related to religious orthodoxy and the condemnation of heresies, to spiritual advancement, to the composition of a literary work, or to the ideological objectives of the rhetorical education in Late Antiquity are discussed in this volume. Authors such as Themistius, Libanius, Augustine, Evagrius, Firmicus, or the emperor Julian deployed in their works rhetorical devices and strategies in order to strengthen their arguments. The protean nature of rhetoric facilitated its use as a hermeneutical, persuasive and exegetical tool. Contributors: Nicholas Baker-Brian, Lieve Van Hoof, David Konstan, Manfred Kraus, Josef Lossl, Guadalupe Lopetegui, Laura Miguelez, Peter Van Nuffelen, Robert Penella, Aglae Pizzone, Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas, Ilaria Ramelli, Philip Rousseau, John Watt

The Book of Tribulations is the earliest complete Muslim apocalyptic text to survive, and as such has considerable value as a primary text. It is unique in its importance for Islamic history: focusing upon the central Syrian city of Hims, it gives us a picture of the personalities of the city, the tribal conflicts within, the tensions between the proto-Muslim community and the majority Christian population, and above all details about the wars with the Byzantines. Additionally, Nu`aym gives us a range of both the Umayyad and the Abbasid official propaganda, which was couched in apocalyptic and messianic terms.

This volume presents international perspectives on interreligious dialogue, with a particular focus on how this can be found or understood within biblical texts. The volume is in four parts covering both the Old and New Testaments (and related Greco Roman texts) as well as the history of reception and issues of hermeneutics. Issues of the relationships between religious cultures are assessed both in antiquity and modernity In Part 1 (Old Testament) contributions range from the discussion of the bible and plurality of theologies in church life (Erhard Gerstenberger) to the challenge of multi-culturalism (Cornelis Van Dam). Part 2 (New Testament and Greco-Roman Texts) considers such things as Pagan, Jewish and Christian historiography (Armin Baum) and the different beliefs it is possible to discern in the Ephesian community (Tor Vegge). Part 3 provides issues from the history of reception - including the role of Jesus in Islam (Craig A. Evans). The volume is completed by a hermeneutical reflection by Joze Krasovec, which draws the threads of dialogue together and questions how we can best examine the bible in a modern, international, multicultural society.

A Guide to Religious Thought and Practices devotes a chapter to each of the world religions, all but one of which are written by a member of that faith community. Readers thus gain insiders views into the theology, spirituality, and religious practice of each faith. The introduction encourages respect and engagement with those of other faiths. It emphasizes the cultural nature of religion and its importance to society, and it notes the rise of interest in the study of religious traditions in the face of contemporary geopolitics. This book does not, however, attempt to address these politics, leaving the reader to think about and interpret the issues for themselves.The International Study Guides (ISGs) are clear and accessible resources, contextual and ecumenical in content and missional in direction. The contributors are theological educators who come from different countries and different religious backgrounds and bring practical emphasis alongside contemporary scholarly reflection.