Winner of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize A Longman-History Today Book Prize Finalist A Sheik Zayed Book Award Finalist Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year "Deeply thoughtful...A delight."-The Economist "[A] tour de force...Bevilacqua's extraordinary book provides the first true glimpse into this story...He, like the tradition he describes, is a rarity." -New Republic In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a pioneering community of Western scholars laid the groundwork for the modern understanding of Islamic civilization. They produced the first accurate translation of the Qur'an, mapped Islamic arts and sciences, and wrote Muslim history using Arabic sources. The Republic of Arabic Letters is the first account of this riveting lost period of cultural exchange, revealing the profound influence of Catholic and Protestant intellectuals on the Enlightenment understanding of Islam. "A closely researched and engrossing study of...those scholars who, having learned Arabic, used their mastery of that difficult language to interpret the Quran, study the career of Muhammad...and introduce Europeans to the masterpieces of Arabic literature." -Robert Irwin, Wall Street Journal "Fascinating, eloquent, and learned, The Republic of Arabic Letters reveals a world later lost, in which European scholars studied Islam with a sense of affinity and respect...A powerful reminder of the ability of scholarship to transcend cultural divides, and the capacity of human minds to accept differences without denouncing them." -Maya Jasanoff "What makes his study so groundbreaking, and such a joy to read, is the connection he makes between intellectual history and the material history of books." -Financial Times

At last, an edition of the Bhagavad Gita that speaks with unprecedented fidelity and clarity. It contains an unusually informative introduction, the Sanskrit text of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's critical edition, an accurate and accessible English translation, a comprehensive glossary of names and epithets, and a thorough index.

The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia.

This is the study of an anonymous ancient work, usually called Joseph and Aseneth, which narrates the transformation of the daughter of an Egyptian priest into an acceptable spouse for the biblical Joseph, whose marriage to Aseneth is given brief notice in Genesis. Kraemer takes issue with the scholarly consensus that the tale is a Jewish conversion story composed no later than the early second century C.E. Instead, she dates it to the third or fourth century C.E., and argues that, although no definitive answer is presently possible, it may well be a Christian account. This critique also raises larger issues about the dating and identification of many similar writings, known as pseudepigrapha. Kraemer reads its account of Aseneth's interactions with an angelic double of Joseph in the context of ancient accounts of encounters with powerful divine beings, including the sun god Helios, and of Neoplatonic ideas about the fate of souls. When Aseneth Met Joseph demonstrates the centrality of ideas about gender in the representation of Aseneth and, by extension, offers implications for broader concerns about gender in Late Antiquity.

What can man know about God? This question became one of the main problems during the 4th-century Trinitarian controversy, which is the focus of this book. Especially during the second phase of the conflict, the claims of Anomean Eunomius caused an emphatic response of Orthodox writers, mainly Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. Eunomius formulated two ways of theology to show that we can know both the substance (ousia) and activities (energeiai) of God. The Orthodox Fathers demonstrated that we can know only the external activities of God, while the essence is entirely incomprehensible. Therefore the 4th-century discussion on whether the Father and the Son are of the same substance was the turning point in the development of negative theology and shaping the Christian conception of God.

This book explores how medieval and modern Muslim religious scholars ('ulama') interpret gender roles in Qur'anic verses on legal testimony, marriage, and human creation. Citing these verses, medieval scholars developed increasingly complex laws and interpretations upholding a male-dominated gender hierarchy; aspects of their interpretations influence religious norms and state laws in Muslim-majority countries today, yet other aspects have been discarded entirely. Karen Bauer traces the evolution of their interpretations, showing how they have been adopted, adapted, rejected, or replaced over time, by comparing the Qur'an with a wide range of Qur'anic commentaries and interviews with prominent religious scholars from Iran and Syria. At times, tradition is modified in unexpected ways: learned women argue against gender equality, or Grand Ayatollahs reject sayings of the Prophet, citing science instead. This innovative and engaging study highlights the effects of social and intellectual contexts on the formation of tradition, and on modern responses to it.

Recently, voices were raised in the worldwide Christian ecumenical movement that it was high time the Protestant-Catholic fundamental topic "Holy Scripture and Tradition" was approached and ecumenically reviewed. In Germany, this has already been achieved by the "OEkumenischer Arbeitskreis evangelischer und katholischer Theologen" (Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians; founded in 1946). The results of this study group were published in the 1990s under the title "Verbindliches Zeugnis" by Theodor Schneider and Wolfhart Pannenberg. This edition provides the essence of the three volume work for the first time in English. The treatment of this age-long dispute in Protestant and Catholic theology, but first of all its fundamental settlement can thus be recognised and discussed in the international ecumenical dialogue.

This unique work takes a method of textual analysis commonly used in studies of ancient Western and Eastern manuscripts and applies it to twenty-one early Qur'an manuscripts. Keith Small analyzes a defined portion of text from the Qur'an with two aims in view: to recover the earliest form of text for this portion, and to trace the historical development of this portion to the current form of the text of the Qur'an. Small concludes that though a significantly early edited form of the consonantal text of the Qur'an can be recovered, its original forms of text cannot be obtained. He also documents the further editing that was required to record the Arabic text of the Qur'an in a complete phonetic script, as well as providing an explanation for much of the development of various recitation systems of the Qur'an. This controversial, thought-provoking book provides a rigorous examination into the history of the Qur'an and will be of great interest to Quranic Studies scholars.

Fakhr al-Din Razi's "Tafsir", "The Great Exegesis', also known as "Mafatih al-Ghayb", is one of the great classics of Arabic and Islamic scholarship. Written in the twelfth century, this commentary on the Qur'an has remained until today an indispensable reference work. "The Great Exegesis" is a compendium not only of Qur'anic sciences and meanings, but also Arabic linguistics, comparative jurisprudence, Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy, dialectic theology and the spirituality of Sufism.---The present volume is the first ever translation into English from "The Great Exegesis" and focuses on the first chapter of the Qur'an, the "Fatiha". This scholarly yet accessible translation gives readers a thorough understanding of the most commonly recited chapter of the Qur'an; it also opens up for readers a window into the thought and practice of one of Islam's greatest theologians. This volume includes a foreword by Professor M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, King Fahd Professor of Islamic Studies, University of London.

"Web of Life" weaves its suggestive interpretation of Jewish culture in the Palestine of late antiquity on the warp of a singular, breathtakingly tragic, and sublime rabbinic text, "Lamentations Rabbah." The textual analyses that form the core of the book are informed by a range of theoretical paradigms rarely brought to bear on rabbinic literature: structural analysis of mythologies and folktales, performative approaches to textual production, feminist theory, psychoanalytical analysis of culture, cultural criticism, and folk narrative genre analysis.
The concept of context as the hermeneutic basis for literary interpretation reactivates the written text and subverts the hierarchical structures with which it has been traditionally identified. This book reinterprets rabbinic culture as an arena of multiple dialogues that traverse traditional concepts of identity regarding gender, nation, religion, and territory. The author's approach is permeated by the idea that scholarly writing about ancient texts is invigorated by an existential hermeneutic rooted in the universality of human experience. She thus resorts to personal experience as an idiom of communication between author and reader and between human beings of our time and of the past. This research acknowledges the overlap of poetic and analytical language as well as the language of analysis and everyday life.
In eliciting folk narrative discourses inside the rabbinic text, the book challenges traditional views about the social basis that engendered these texts. It suggests the subversive potential of the constitutive texts of Jewish culture from late antiquity to the present by pointing out the inherent multi-vocality of the text, adding to the conventionally acknowledged synagogue and academy the home, the marketplace, and other private and public socializing institutions.

Positioned at the boundary of traditional biblical studies, legal history, and literary theory, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation shows how the leglislation of Deuteromomy reflects the struggle of its authors to renew late seventh-century Judaean society. Seeking to defend their revolutionary vision during the neo-Assyrian crisis, the reformers turned to earlier laws, even when they disagreed with them, and revised them in such a way as to lend authority to their new understanding of God's will. Passages that other scholars have long viewed as redundant, contradictory, or displaced actually reflect the attempt by Deuteronomy's authors to sanction their new religious aims before the legacy of the past. Drawing on ancient Near Eastern law and informed by the rich insights of classical and medieval Jewish commentary, Levinson provides an extended study of three key passages in the legal corpus: the unprecedented requirement for the centralization of worship, the law transforming the old Passover into a pilgrimage festival, and the unit replacing traditional village justice with a professionalized judiciary. He demonstrates the profound impact of centralization upon the structure and arrangement of the legal corpus, while providing a theoretical analysis of religious change and cultural renewal in ancient Israel. The book's conclusion shows how the techniques of authorship developed in Deuteronomy provided a model for later Israelite and post-biblical literature. Integrating the most recent European research on the redaction of Deuteronomy with current American and Israeli scholarship, Levinson argues that biblical interpretation must attend to both the diachronic and the synchronic dimensions of the text. His study, which provides a new perspective on intertextuality, the history of authorship, and techniques of legal innovation in the ancient world, will engage Pentateuchal critics and historians of Israelite religion, while reaching out toward current issues in literary theory and Critical Legal Studies. `Bernard Levinson is a brilliant young scholar who has written an outstanding book about how the Covenant Code from Mount Sinai became the Code of Deuteronomy at the borders of the River Jordan. It is a fascinating discourse on how to change law without changing tradition. The importance of Biblical law for canon theory, Biblical narrative, and Israelite religion usually is underestimated; this new approach will hopefully get more people reading law, and especially Deuteronomy. It will be compelling to both American and European readers as it integrates the leading scholarly discourses of both communities.' Norbert Lohfink, SJ, Professor of Biblical Studies, Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt `An exemplary work of biblical scholarship-careful and controlled by analytic rigour, yet bold and innovative in its scope and suggestions. Students of ancient law, legal literature, religion, and culture will greatly benefit from Levinson's work.' Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Chicago `In noting that the Deuteronomic innovations were not simply interpolated into a reworked version of the Covenant Code but rather presented in a new, complete composition, Levinson demonstrates his own primary commitment to the text, to the history of textual transmission, and to the social milieu in which the text functions. Levinson elegantly presents the use of the Covenant Code as both a source and resource for the Deuteronomic authors.' Martha T. Roth, Professor, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago and Editor-in-Charge of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary `Bernard Levinson's book is a major study. He demonstrates the radical break with the past and the way in which the authors or composers of Deuteronomy not only transformed religion and society in ancient Israel but also radically revised its literary history. The power and accomplishment of the Deuteronomic movement has rarely been so clearly demonstrated. Levinson's work is a clarification of the way in which hermeneutics is not something that starts with the interpreter's handling of the canonical text but is a process by which the canonical text itself came into being. He shows how the new text subverts and dominates older texts in behalf of a radical cultural and religious transformation. With this book, Levinson places himself in the front rank of Deuteronomy scholars.' Patrick D. Miller, Charles P. Haley Professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary

This critical study traces the development of the literary forms and conventions of the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, analyzing those forms as expressions of emergent rabbinic ideology. The Bavli, which evolved between the third and sixth centuries in Sasanian Iran (Babylonia), is the most comprehensive of all documents produced by rabbinic Jews in late antiquity. It became the authoritative legal source for medieval Judaism, and for some its opinions remain definitive today. Kraemer here examines the characteristic preference for argumentation and process over settled conclusions of the Bavli. By tracing the evolution of the argumentational style, he describes the distinct eras in the development of rabbinic Judaism in Babylonia. He then analyzes the meaning of the disputational form and concludes that the talmudic form implies the inaccessibility of perfect truth and that on account of this opinion, the pursuit of truth, in the characteristic talmudic concern for rabbinic process, becomes the ultimate act of rabbinic piety.

Luminous Essence is a complete introduction to the world of tantric thought and practice. Composed by the renowned Tibetan master Jamgon Mipham (1846-1912), the text provides an overview of the theory and experiential assimilation of a seminal tantric scripture, the Tantra of the Secret Essence (Guhyagarbha Tantra). Embodying the essence of tantric practice, this text has been a central scripture in Tibetan Buddhism for well over a thousand years. Mipham's explanation of this text, here translated for the first time, is one of the most celebrated commentaries on the Tantra of the Secret Essence, which today occupies an important place in the tantric curriculum of Tibetan monastic colleges. Luminous Essence is a specialized guide meant for initiated tantric practitioners. To fully appreciate and assimilate its message, it should be studied under the guidance of a qualified teacher by those who have received the appropriate empowerments, reading transmissions, and oral instructions.

The Owner's Manual to the Soul is a summary of the spiritual service that God asks of us as described in traditional Jewish texts. By learning and applying the teachings in this book, one will then be ready for the "light" of Kabbalistic meditation.

This multi-volume series offers fresh perspectives on the individual characters of the sages (Hazal), the historical contexts in which they lived, and the creativity they brought to the pursuit of Jewish wisdom. Volume II covers the period from Yavne to the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Published in cooperation with Beit Morasha.

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classic The Lotus Sutra is among the most venerated scriptures of Buddhism. Composed in India some two millennia ago, it asserts the potential for all beings to attain supreme enlightenment. Donald Lopez and Jacqueline Stone provide an essential reading companion to this inspiring yet enigmatic masterpiece, explaining how it was understood by its compilers in India and, centuries later in medieval Japan, by one of its most influential proponents. In this illuminating chapter-by-chapter guide, Lopez and Stone show how the sutra's anonymous authors skillfully reframed the mainstream Buddhist tradition in light of a new vision of the path and the person of the Buddha himself, and examine how the sutra's metaphors, parables, and other literary devices worked to legitimate that vision. They go on to explore how the Lotus was interpreted by the Japanese Buddhist master Nichiren (1222-1282), whose inspired reading of the book helped to redefine modern Buddhism. In doing so, Lopez and Stone demonstrate how readers of sacred works continually reinterpret them in light of their own unique circumstances. An invaluable guide to an incomparable spiritual classic, this book unlocks the teachings of the Lotus for modern readers while providing insights into the central importance of commentary as the vehicle by which ancient writings are given contemporary meaning.

Liberation from Empire investigates the phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark. The Marcan narrator writes from an anti-imperialistic point of view with allusions to, yet never directly addressing, the Roman Empire. In his baptism, Jesus was authorized by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to wage cosmic war with Satan. In Jesus' first engagement, his testing in the wilderness, Jesus bound the strong one, Satan. Jesus explains this encounter in the Beelzebul controversy. Jesus' ministry continues an on-going battle with Satan, binding the strong one's minions, demonic/unclean spirits, and spreading holiness to the possessed until he is crucified on a Roman cross. The battle is still not over at Jesus' death, for at Jesus' parousia God will make a final apocalyptic judgment. Jesus' exorcisms have cosmic, apocalyptic, and anti-imperial implications. For Mark, demonic possession was different from sickness or illness, and exorcism was different from healing. Demonic possession was totally under the control of a hostile non-human force; exorcism was full deliverance from a domineering existence that restored the demoniac to family, to community, and to God's created order. Jesus commissioned the twelve to be with him, to learn from him, and to proclaim the kingdom of God by participating with him in healing and exorcism. Jesus expands his invitation to participate in building the kingdom of God to all those who choose to become part of his new dyadic family even today.

Got 3 minutes to spare? You'll find the spiritual pick-me-up you desire in "3-Minute Devotions for Women. "Written especially the twenty-first-century woman, this delightful devotional packs a powerful dose of comfort, encouragement, and inspiration into just-right-sized readings for women on the go. Minute 1: scripture to meditate on; Minute 2: a short devotional reading; Minute 3: a prayer to jump-start a conversation with God. This portable package makes a fabulous any-occasion gift for every woman.