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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy
Offers an in depth comparative look at the Epic of Gilgamesh and
the Primeval History, which allows students to view the Genesis
within its Near Eastern context. Offers a fresh model for
approaching this comparative task, which has at times been stifled
by religious dogmatism, on the one hand, or disciplinary insularity
on the other. Written in a lucid style with explanation of all key
terms and themes, this book is suitable for students with no
background in the subjects.
Opening Israel's Scriptures is a collection of thirty-six essays on
the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Chronicles, which gives powerful
insight into the complexity and inexhaustibility of the Hebrew
Scriptures as a theological resource. Based on more than two
decades of lectures on Old Testament interpretation, Ellen F. Davis
offers a selective yet comprehensive guide to the core concepts,
literary patterns, storylines, and theological perspectives that
are central to Israel's Scriptures. Underlying the whole study is
the primary assumption that each book of the canon has literary and
theological coherence, though not uniformity. In both her close
readings of individual texts and in her broad demonstrations of the
coherence of whole books, Davis models the best practices of
contemporary exegesis, integrating the insights of contemporary
scholars with those of classical theological resources in Jewish
and Christian traditions. Throughout, she keeps an eye to the
experiences and concerns of contemporary readers, showing through
multiple examples that the critical interpretation of texts is
provisional, open-ended work-a collaboration across generations and
cultures. Ultimately what she offers is an invitation into the more
spacious world that the Bible discloses, which challenges ordinary
conceptions of how things "really" are.
Hadith is understood here in its broader meaning as the bulk of the
texts which contain information on the prophet Muhammad and his
Companions, having the form of transmissions from them. The
reliability of this material as a source for early Islam is still a
highly debated issue. This selection of articles presents the
different points of view in this debate and the varying
methodological approaches with which scholars trained in modern
secular sciences have tried to find a solution to the problem.
Judaic Sources and Western Thought: Jerusalem's Enduring Presence
explores the significance and enduring relevance of Judaic roots
and sources of important European and Western moral and political
ideas and ideals. The volume focuses on the distinct character of
Judaic thought concerning moral value, the individual human being,
the nature of political order, relations between human beings, and
between human beings and God. In doing so, it shows how Judaic
thought contains crucial resources for engaging some of the most
important issues of moral and political life.
The currents of thought that have shaped the so-called
'Judeo-Christian' tradition involve diverse perspectives and
emphases. The essays in this volume bring into relief the
distinctly Judaic origins of many of them and explicate how they
remain valuable resources for moral and political thought. These
are not essays in Jewish intellectual history; rather, their
purpose is to clarify the conceptual resources, insights, and
perspectives grounded in Judaic texts and thought. To realize that
purpose the essays address important topics in philosophical
anthropology, exploring the normative dimensions of human nature
and fundamental features of the human condition.
The essays speak to scholars and students in several disciplines
and areas of study. These include moral philosophy, religion,
philosophy of religion, ethics, Jewish intellectual history,
comparative religion, theology, and other areas.The volume draws
the work of ten scholars into a coherent whole, reflecting the
connections between fundamental insights and commitments of Judaic
thought and ideals.
With chapters written by leading scholars specifically for this volume, 'Back to the Sources' is the first comprehensive guide to this literary legacy: the Bible, the Talmud, the midrashic literature, the commentaries, the legal codes, the mystical texts of the Kabbalah and of Hasidism, the philosophical works and the prayerbook.
This book approaches the Dhamma, the Buddha's teaching, from a
Buddhistic perspective, viewing various individual teachings
presented in hundreds of early discourses of Pali canon,
comprehending them under a single systemic thought of a single
individual called the Buddha. It explicates the structure of this
thought, going through various contextual teachings and teaching
categories of the discourses, treating them as necessary parts of a
liberating thought that constitutes the right view of one who
embraces the Buddha's teaching as his or her sole philosophy of
life. It interprets the diverse individual dhammas as being in
congruence with each other; and as contributory to forming the
whole of the Buddha's teaching, the Dhamma. By exploring some
selected topics such as ignorance, configurations, not-self, and
nibbana in thirteen chapters, the book enables readers to
understand the whole (the Dhamma) in relation to the parts (the
dhammas), and the parts in relation to the whole, while realizing
the importance of studying every single dhamma category or topic
not for its own sake but for understand the entirety of the
teaching. This way of viewing and explaining the teachings of the
discourses enables readers to clearly comprehend the teaching of
the Buddha in early Buddhism.
Throughout history, the study of sacred texts has focused almost
exclusively on the content and meaning of these writings. Such a
focus obscures the fact that sacred texts are always embodied in
particular material forms-from ancient scrolls to contemporary
electronic devices. Using the digital turn as a starting point,
this volume highlights material dimensions of the sacred texts of
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The essays in this collection
investigate how material aspects have shaped the production and use
of these texts within and between the traditions of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, from antiquity to the present day.
Contributors also reflect on the implications of transitions
between varied material forms and media cultures. Taken together,
the essays suggests that materiality is significant for the
academic study of sacred texts, as well as for reflection on
developments within and between these religious traditions. This
volume offers insightful analysis on key issues related to the
materiality of sacred texts in the traditions of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, while also highlighting the significance
of transitions between various material forms, including the
current shift to digital culture.
With its promise of personal improvement, physical well-being and
spiritual enrichment, yoga is enjoying a resurgence in popularity
at the turn of the third millennium. To unravel the mystery of the
discipline, its philosophies and relevance in contemporary life,
the original text of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali must be explored.
This book offers the first accessible translation and commentary on
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. An introductory section examines the
multidimensional aspects of yoga as philosophy, psychology,
science, and religion, as well as exploring popular versions of
yoga in the West. The core of the book offers a new translation of
the entire text of the Yoga Sutras, in a language that is clear and
comprehensible to students. Commentaries are presented to highlight
the meaning of various statements (sutras) and key themes are
outlined via sectional summaries. A full glossary of key words and
names is also provided. Concluding chapters look at yoga in
contemporary life, revealing the popularity of yoga in the 21st
century through Star Wars, and exploring yoga's connection to
health and science, contrasting yoga's holistic view of healing
with that of the limited view of present day medical science.
Sample physical, breathing and meditation exercises are provided.
An Introduction to Yoga Philosophy offers a comprehensive
introduction to the Yoga Sutras text of Patanjali to all students
and interested readers of Indian philosophy and religion, world
religions, east-west psychology, and mysticism.
This is a subset of the Sacred Books of the East Series which
includes translations of all the most important works of the seven
non-Christian religions which have exercised a profound influence
on the civilizations of the continent of Asia. The works have been
translated by leading authorities in their field.
The position of the Qur'an as the central symbol and reference
point of Islam cannot be disputed. Despite this significance, the
academic study of the Qur'an has lagged far behind that of the
Bible. In these studies Andrew Rippin reflects upon both the
principles and the problems of studying the Qur'an within the
discipline of religious studies. He also pursues detailed
investigations of the meaning of variants to the text and the
history of Muslim interpretation of the text in its diversity. A
newly written introduction lays out some of the general
implications of these studies, while extensive indexes of Qur'anic
verses, books, authors and topics make this research more readily
accessible.
A study of liturgy in Byzantium, Armenia, Syria and Palestine. The
author shows how the central Christian liturgy, the Eucharist,
poses all-too human problems of structure, text, history, context
and meaning. For humankind's unfailing, incessant ritual repetition
of the Lord's Supper down through the ages and across multiple
Christian cultures in the liturgies of east and west, in obedience
to Jesus' Last Supper mandate, Do this in remembrance of me, has,
inevitably, given rise within the same recognizably common
framework to innumerable diversities of shape, text, cultural
context and theological interpretation. It has also given rise to
debates, sometimes heated, among modern experts about the most
suitable methods for resolving the problems arising from these
differences. The work explores the theories of Anton Baumstark, Dom
Gregory Dix and Josef Andreas Jungmann, and what we can derive from
their insights. Their way of working, applied to the problems of
cultural history, structural, historical and textual
reconstruction, theological interpretation, and method involved in
the modern scholarly debate on these issues, are the object of the
author's studies in this volume.
The Qur'an makes extensive use of older religious material,
stories, and traditions that predate the origins of Islam, and
there has long been a fierce debate about how this material found
its way into the Qur'an. This unique book argues that this debate
has largely been characterized by a failure to fully appreciate the
Qur'an as a predominately oral product. Using innovative
computerized linguistic analysis, this study demonstrates that the
Qur'an displays many of the signs of oral composition that have
been found in other traditional literature. When one then combines
these computerized results with other clues to the Qur'an's origins
(such as the demonstrably oral culture that both predated and
preceded the Qur'an, as well as the "folk memory" in the Islamic
tradition that Muhammad was an oral performer) these multiple lines
of evidence converge and point to the conclusion that large
portions of the Qur'an need to be understood as being constructed
live, in oral performance. Combining historical, linguistic, and
statistical analysis, much of it made possible for the first time
due to new computerized tools developed specifically for this book,
Bannister argues that the implications of orality have long been
overlooked in studies of the Qur'an. By relocating the Islamic
scripture firmly back into an oral context, one gains both a fresh
appreciation of the Qur'an on its own terms, as well as a fresh
understanding of how Muhammad used early religious traditions,
retelling old tales afresh for a new audience.
In an age when physical books matter less and less, here is a
thrilling story about a book that meant everything. This true-life
detective story unveils the journey of a sacred text - the
tenth-century annotated bible known as the Aleppo Codex - from its
hiding place in a Syrian synagogue to the newly founded state of
Israel. Based on Matti Friedman's independent research, documents
kept secret for fifty years, and personal interviews with key
players, the book proposes a new theory of what happened when the
codex left Aleppo, Syria, in the late 1940s and eventually surfaced
in Jerusalem, mysteriously incomplete. The codex provides vital
keys to reading biblical texts. By recounting its history, Friedman
explores the once vibrant Jewish communities in Islamic lands and
follows the thread into the present, uncovering difficult truths
about how the manuscript was taken to Israel and how its most
important pages went missing. Along the way, he raises critical
questions about who owns historical treasures and the role of myth
and legend in the creation of a nation.
Comprised of rabbinic debates in the aftermath of the destruction
of the Second Temple (70 C.E.), the Talmud has provided the basis
for Jewish ethical and practical norms for centuries. It is also an
extremely long and forbiddingly difficult work that has accumulated
countless commentaries just as complex. A recent translation with
extensive notes has made the Talmud more accessible to
English-language readers, but the textual difficulties remain. This
volume looks at Avodah Zarah, one tractate of the Talmud concerned
with idolatry, page by page. Idolatry was one of the cardinal sins
for which an observant Jew was to accept death before
transgressing. Daily Reflections on Idolatry offers a modern
commentary with doses of humor and comparative examples in an
effort to both explain and humanize the text and make it even more
accessible to contemporary readers.
Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., Judaism
faced a serious crossroads. The rabbis of late antiquity spent the
next few centuries in extensive debates in an effort to create an
ethical and practical basis for a Torah-based faith. Their
extensive discussions constitute the bulk of what we now know as
the Talmud. This collection is not only massive; it is forbiddingly
difficult and has accumulated numerous commentaries over the
centuries since it first appeared. Recent translations have made it
somewhat more accessible to English-language readers, but textual
difficulties remain. This volume looks at tractate Zevachim
(Sacrifices), which is mostly concerned with meat offerings
slaughtered and presented at the Temple (when it stood). Joshua A.
Fogel approaches the text, page by page, commenting with doses of
humor and comparisons in a manner meant to explain and humanize the
text for contemporary readers.
This book is the first of two volumes that aim to produce something
not previously attempted: a synthetic history of Muslim responses
to the Bible, stretching from the rise of Islam to the present day.
It combines scholarship with a genuine narrative, so as to tell the
story of Muslim engagement with the Bible. Covering Sunni, Imami
Shi'i and Isma'ili perspectives, this study will offer a scholarly
overview of three areas of Muslim response, namely ideas of
corruption, use of the Biblical text, and abrogation of the text.
For each period of history, the important figures and dominant
trends, along with exceptions, are identified. The interplay
between using and criticising the Bible is explored, as well as how
the respective emphasis on these two approaches rises and falls in
different periods and locations. The study critically engages with
existing scholarship, scrutinizing received views on the subject,
and shedding light on an important area of interfaith concern.
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