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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy
European Bible manuscripts and their Masorah traditions are still a
neglected field of studies and have so far been almost completely
disregarded within text-critical research. This volume collects
research on the Western European Masorah and addresses the question
of how Ashkenazic scholars integrated the Oriental Masoretic
tradition into the Western European Rabbinic lore and law. The
articles address philological and art-historical topics, and
present new methodological tools from the field of digital
humanities for the analysis of masora figurata. This volume is
intended to initiate a new approach to Masorah research that will
shed new light on the European history of the masoretic Bible and
its interpretation.
This textbook not only provides a historical overview of this
religious tradition but also focuses on Hinduism in American
society today. Making this a very comprehensive overview of the
subject areas. Each chapter includes a helpful pedagogy including a
general overview, case studies, suggestions for further reading,
questions for discussion, and a glossary. Making this the ideal
textbook for students approaching the topic for the first time. The
use of case studies and first person narratives provides a much
needed 'lived religion' approach to the subject area. Helping
students to apply their learning to the world around them.
The Mahabharata has been explored extensively as a work of
mythology, epic poetry, and religious literature, but the text's
philosophical dimensions have largely been under-appreciated by
Western scholars. This book explores the philosophical implications
of the Mahabharata by paying attention to the centrality of
dialogue, both as the text's prevailing literary expression and its
organising structure. Focusing on five sets of dialogues about
controversial moral problems in the central story, this book shows
that philosophical deliberation is an integral part of the
narrative. Black argues that by paying attention to how characters
make arguments and how dialogues unfold, we can better appreciate
the Mahabharata's philosophical significance and its potential
contribution to debates in comparative philosophy today. This is a
fresh perspective on the Mahabharata that will be of great interest
to any scholar working in religious studies, Indian/South Asian
religions, comparative philosophy, and world literature.
In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language
translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese
Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure
Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of
Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic
Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a
reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'.
In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely
misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that,
besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the
human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems
of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed,
discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also
shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist
cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to
reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete.
Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and
utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra
quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's
followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm
into a more coherent and modernized ideal.
This monograph demonstrates that the book of Genesis is a result of
highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Deuteronomy.
This detailed reworking consists of around 1,000 strictly
sequentially organized conceptual, and at times also linguistic
correspondences between Genesis and Deuteronomy. The strictly
sequential, hypertextual dependence on Deuteronomy explains
numerous surprising features of Genesis. The critical analysis of
Genesis as a coherently composed hypertextual work disproves
hypotheses of the existence in this writing of Priestly and
non-Priestly materials or multiple literary layers.
This is a group of devotions all written by evangelist Mark Jeske.
During the past few decades a great amount of scholarly work has
been done on the various prayer cultures of antiquity, both
Graeco-Roman and Jewish and Christian. In Jewish studies this
burgeoning research on ancient prayer has been stimulated
particularly by the many new prayer texts found at Qumran, which
have shed new light on several long-standing problems. The present
volume intends to make a new contribution to the ongoing scholarly
debate on ancient Jewish prayer texts by focusing on a limited set
of prayer texts, scil. , a small number of those that have been
preserved only in Greek. Jewish prayers in Greek tend to be
undervalued, which is regrettable because these prayers shed light
on sometimes striking aspects of early Jewish spirituality in the
centuries around the turn of the era. In this volume twelve such
prayers have been collected, translated, and provided with an
extensive historical and philological commentary. They have been
preserved on papyrus, on stone, and as part of Christian church
orders into which some of them have been incorporated in a
christianized from. For that reason these prayers are of great
interest to scholars of both early Judaism and ancient
Christianity.
This textbook not only provides a historical overview of this
religious tradition but also focuses on Hinduism in American
society today. Making this a very comprehensive overview of the
subject areas. Each chapter includes a helpful pedagogy including a
general overview, case studies, suggestions for further reading,
questions for discussion, and a glossary. Making this the ideal
textbook for students approaching the topic for the first time. The
use of case studies and first person narratives provides a much
needed 'lived religion' approach to the subject area. Helping
students to apply their learning to the world around them.
At the birth of the United States, African Americans were excluded
from the newly-formed Republic and its churches, which saw them as
savage rather than citizen and as heathen rather than Christian.
Denied civil access to the basic rights granted to others, African
Americans have developed their own sacred traditions and their own
civil discourses. As part of this effort, African American
intellectuals offered interpretations of the Bible which were
radically different and often fundamentally oppositional to those
of many of their white counterparts. By imagining a freedom
unconstrained, their work charted a broader and, perhaps, a more
genuinely American identity. In Pillars of Cloud and Fire, Herbert
Robinson Marbury offers a comprehensive survey of African American
biblical interpretation. Each chapter in this compelling volume
moves chronologically, from the antebellum period and the Civil War
through to the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, the
black power movement, and the Obama era, to offer a historical
context for the interpretative activity of that time and to analyze
its effect in transforming black social reality. For African
American thinkers such as Absalom Jones, David Walker, Zora Neale
Hurston, Frances E. W. Harper, Adam Clayton Powell, and Martin
Luther King, Jr., the exodus story became the language-world
through which freedom both in its sacred resonance and its civil
formation found expression. This tradition, Marbury argues, has
much to teach us in a world where fundamentalisms have become
synonymous with "authentic" religious expression and American
identity. For African American biblical interpreters, to be
American and to be Christian was always to be open and oriented
toward freedom.
This monograph demonstrates that the books of Exodus-Numbers, taken
together, are the result of one, highly creative, hypertextual
reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. This detailed reworking
consists of around 1,200 strictly sequentially organized
conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences between
Exodus-Numbers and Deuteronomy. The strictly sequential,
hypertextual dependence on Deuteronomy explains numerous surprising
features of Exodus-Numbers. The critical analysis of Exodus-Numbers
as a coherently composed hypertextual work disproves hypotheses of
the existence in these writings of Priestly and non-Priestly
materials or multiple literary layers.
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary is one of the great biblical
exegeses produced by medieval Jewry. His commentary accompanies
almost every version of the Rabbinic Bible, and his influence on
biblical studies continues to this very day. Ibn Ezra sought to
provide the literal meaning of the biblical text. However, he did
more than that. His commentary is saturated with insights into
Hebrew grammar, medieval philosophy, and astrology. Rabbi Abraham
ibn Ezra's Commentary on Books 3-5 of Psalms: Chapters 73-150
completes the publication of the translation and annotation of Ibn
Ezra's commentary to Psalms, making it available to both scholars
and general readers.
Weaving together Jewish lore, the voices of Jewish foremothers, Yiddish fable, midrash and stories of her own imagining, Ellen Frankel has created in this book a breathtakingly vivid exploration into what the Torah means to women. Here are Miriam, Esther, Dinah, Lilith and many other women of the Torah in dialogue with Jewish daughters, mothers and grandmothers, past and present. Together these voices examine and debate every aspect of a Jewish woman's life -- work, sex, marriage, her connection to God and her place in the Jewish community and in the world. The Five Books of Miriam makes an invaluable contribution to Torah study and adds rich dimension to the ongoing conversation between Jewish women and Jewish tradition.
This monograph demonstrates that the book of Deuteronomy is a
result of highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of
Ezekiel. Likewise, it shows that the books of Joshua-Judges, taken
together, are a result of one, highly creative, hypertextual
reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. In both cases, the detailed
reworking consists of almost 700 strictly sequentially organized
conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences. The
strictly sequential, hypertextual dependence on the earlier works
explains numerous surprising features of Deuteronomy and
Joshua-Judges. This critical analysis of Deuteronomy and
Joshua-Judges sheds entirely new light on the question of the
origin of the Pentateuch and the whole Israelite Heptateuch
Genesis-Judges.
This volume deals with the female dynasty of the House of David and
its influence on the Jewish Messianic Myth. It provides a missing
link in the chain of research on the topic of messianism and
contributes to the understanding of the connection between female
transgression and redemption, from the Bible through Rabbinic
literature until the Zohar. The discussion of the centrality of the
mother image in Judeo-Christian culture and the parallels between
the appearance of Mary in the Gospels and the Davidic Mothers in
the Hebrew Bible, stresses mutual representations of ""the mother
of the messiah"" in Christian and Jewish imaginaire. Through the
prism of gender studies and by stressing questions of femininity,
motherhood and sexuality, the subject appears in a new light. This
research highlights the importance of intertwining Jewish literary
study with comparative religion and gender theories, enabling the
process of filling in the 'mythic gaps' in classical Jewish
sources. The book won the Pines, Lakritz and Warburg awards.
Like flipping pages through a wedding album, the rich imagery in
His Majesty Requests paints a vivid portrait of who the Beloved
bride truly is and how she makes herself ready for the marriage
supper of the Lamb. By matting and framing the story of one
father's desire to find a suitable wife for his son in ancient
Israel, the mystery of God's love for Jews and non-Jews throughout
the ages is revealed. This devotional beautifully illuminates the
spiritual significance of the ancient Hebrew wedding customs and
how the Messiah fulfilled each one. As family heirlooms, many of
these traditions such as bride price and the veil may be
recognizable, while others will flash new insight into the
teachings and ways of a Jewish Savior. The restoration and
brilliance of these lost pictures are sure to fill the believer's
heart with a renewed love for their Heavenly Bridegroom.
Originally published in 1973, this volume consists of a sequence of
essays in religious thinking, responsive to the impact of Quranic
style and emphasis. It traces the implications of the Qur'an in the
related fields of man and history, evil and forgiveness, unity and
worship, wonder and the hallowing of the world. It does so with a
critical eye for the classical commentators, three of whom are
translated here in their exegesis of three important Surahs. The
underlying emphasis of this book is inter-religious converse and
responsibility in the contemporary world.
Originally published in 1966, this was the first of Muhammad
'Abduh's works to be translated into English. Risalat al Tauhid
represents the most popular of his discussion of Islamic thought
and belief. 'Abduh is still quoted and revered as the father of
20th Century Muslim thinking in the Arab world and his mind, here
accessible, constituted both courageous and strenuous leadership in
his day. All the concerns and claims of successive exponents of
duty and meaning of the mosque in the modern world may be sensed in
these pages. The world and Islam have moved on since 'Abduh's
lifetime, but he remains a source for the historian of contemporary
movements and a valuable index to the self-awareness of Arab Islam.
Twelve Anglicists (from France, America, Poland, and Romania) who
met in Bucharest to debate Religion and Spirituality in Literature
and the Arts at the ACED Conference in June 2015 join their voices
in demonstrating the vitally spiritual power of Christianity in the
recently modern world (in twentieth and twenty-first century
literature and society). Poetry (by Eliot, Yeats, Heaney, David
Jones, Hill, G.M. Brown) and fiction (Henry James, Lodge, Evelyn
Waugh, Flannery O'Connor, Rose Macaulay and Ron Hansen),
interpreted with (Thomist and more recent) theology (J.H. Newman's,
Paul Tillich's, Hans Urs von Balthasar's, De Certeau's) and
philosophy (from Plato to Gadamer) in mind, give heartening
suggestions for transcending, along Catholic, Anglican, and
Orthodox lines, the modern secular ethos.
Originally published in 1956, this book brings together from the
canonical writings of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity the most
important of the passages in which the view of the Founder is
reflected. It aims to let each of the sacred traditions tell its
own story and only such comments have been added as seem necessary
to bring out the full significance of the passage quoted. The final
chapter summarizes some of the difficult questions which arise from
a comparison of the extracts from the 3 traditions.
Originally published in 1953, The Hebrew Prophets' conception of
the meaning and purpose of human history has considerable
significance for a religious view of the world situation in the
middle of the 20th Century. This book discusses the nature of the
Hebrew prophets and the grounds for their claim to inspiration. He
then examines the fundamental and universal religious ideas
underlying their pronouncements. Particular attention is paid to
their views on the basis of human morals, the character of the good
society, the duties of government and the relation between religion
and politics. Other chapters deal with their ideas of true religion
and of the relation of God to human life.
Originally published in 1955, and containing some 500 passages,
this Biblical anthology brings together, in their original wording,
the highest expressions of the Biblical view of life. The anthology
is non-historical and non-doctrinal. It starts with the
confrontations of man with God as seen in the 'calls' of the
prophets, and proceeds to the ways of life demanded of man and the
duties accompanying the privilege of vocation. It ends with the
visions of the ideal society which in times of trial the author
believes have sustained the mind. When this was first published,
the anthology used often forgotten texts, and in so doing
stimulated much attention to these enduring religious documents.
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