In hierdie versamelbundel is daar ‘n groep uiteenlopende mense gevra om elk ‘n onafhanklike essay te skryf na aanleiding van ‘n Bybelteks.

Daar is skrywers, ekonome, musikante, akademici en joernaliste. Die enigste voorwaardes was dat dit persone moet wees wat nie meer kerklik betrokke en/ of ‘n dominee of teoloog is nie. Baie essays is bloot verhale, vertellings, reise of verduidelikings wat met ‘n teks verbind kan word.

Ons almal is medereisigers in hierdie verbygaande wêreldse bestel. Kom ons luister met ‘n oop gemoed na mekaar. Dán staan ons ‘n kans om te verstaan, te begryp, eerder as om te oordeel.

Van die bekende en bekroonde skrywers wat deelneem aan hierdie projek is onder andere Jurie van den Heever, Annelie Botes, Dana Snyman, Pik Botha, Heinz Modler, Lizette Rabe, Dawie Roodt, Rachelle Greeff, Piet Croukamp, Joan Hambidge, Koos Kombuis, Karin Brynard, Jean Oosthuizen, Christine Barkhuizen Le Roux, Lina Spies, Valda Jansen, Valiant Swart, Nathan Trantraal, Churchil Naude, Riku Lätti en Luke Alfred.

Endorsed by WJEC/Eduqas, the Student Book offers high quality support you can trust. / Written by experienced teachers and authors with an in-depth understanding of teaching, learning and assessment at A Level and AS. / A skills-based approach to learning, covering content of the specification with examination preparation from the start. / Developing skills feature focuses on what to do with the content and the issues that are raised with a progressive range of AO1 examples and AO2 exam-focused activities. / Questions and Answers section provides practice questions with student answers and examiner commentaries. / It provides a range of specific activities that target each of the Assessment Objectives to build skills of knowledge, understanding and evaluation. / Includes a range of features to encourage you to consolidate and reinforce your learning.

Written by Gregory A. Barker and Peter Cole, this innovative Revision Guide provides students with an effective way to recall and revise the comprehensive content of their Religious Studies A Level Year 2 and A2 course. / It reinforces the knowledge and skills provided by the officially endorsed and popular Student Book, and takes students to the next level in preparation for their exams. / Successful revision through an innovative and proven 'Trigger' approach / Essential AO1 information is provided in easy to understand bullet points, and key AO2 issues are clearly and fully explained / Students will develop the skills required to manage the essential information from the course, and transfer everything they have learned into the exam / Revision activities help students unpack their knowledge and prepare for the exam / Sample answers for AO1 and AO2 exam-style questions, with expert insight and advice on creating an effective answer / Synoptic Links show how other areas of the specification can enhance or support answers.

Engage students with the 'Philosophy of Religion' content for OCR A Level Religious Studies; build their knowledge, deepen their understanding and develop their skills using this accessible textbook, brought to you by subject specialists with examining experience and the leading A Level Religious Studies publisher and OCR's Publishing Partner. - Confidently cover the content your students need to know in an appropriate level of depth with this component textbook that has been written in light of what has been learned from from the first assessment - Enable students to develop and hone the AO2 skills they need, with Analyse and Evaluate tables in every topic outlining the key evaluation points - Help students of all ability levels to build their subject knowledge with key content explained clearly throughout using accessible language - Engage students with the content; each topic begins with a real-life example which puts the content into context and has discussion points throughout to get students actively thinking about key concepts - Encourage students to critically engage with challenging issues and ideas; core, stretch and challenge activities at the end of every topic help students to develop a comprehensive and nuanced understanding - Provide students with the opportunity to check their knowledge and practise exam questions with the 'Wrap-up' section at the end of each topic

'There are certain words which possess, in themselves, when properly used, a virtue which illumines and lifts up towards the good' The philosopher and activist Simone Weil was one of the most courageous thinkers of the twentieth century. Here she writes, with honesty and moral clarity, about the manipulation of language by the powerful, the obligations of individuals to one another and the needs - for order, equality, liberty and truth - that make us human. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

The God Delusion caused a sensation when it was published in 2006. Within weeks it became the most hotly debated topic, with Dawkins himself branded as either saint or sinner for presenting his hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types. His argument could hardly be more topical. While Europe is becoming increasingly secularized, the rise of religious fundamentalism, whether in the Middle East or Middle America, is dramatically and dangerously dividing opinion around the world. In America, and elsewhere, a vigorous dispute between 'intelligent design' and Darwinism is seriously undermining and restricting the teaching of science. In many countries religious dogma from medieval times still serves to abuse basic human rights such as women's and gay rights. And all from a belief in a God whose existence lacks evidence of any kind. Dawkins attacks God in all his forms. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children. The God Delusion is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.

'A spiritual polymath, the first and possibly greatest' Deepak Chopra What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously Too often we fall into the trap of anticipating the future while lamenting the past and in the midst of this negative loop we forget how to live in the now. In this iconic and prescient text, pioneering Zen scholar Alan Watts shows us how, in an age of unprecedented anxiety, we must embrace the present in order to live a fulfilling life.

Science fiction imagines a universe teeming with life and thrilling possibility, but also hidden and hideous dangers. Christian theology, often a polemical target for science fiction, reflects on the plenitude out of which and for which the universe exists. In Science Fiction Theology , Alan Gregory investigates the troubled relationship between science fiction and Christianity and, in particular, how both have laid claim to the modern idea of sublimity. To the extent that science fiction has appropriatedaand reveledain the sublime, it has persisted in a sometimes explicit, sometimes subterranean, relationship with Christian theology. From its seventeenth-century beginnings, the sublime, with its representations of immensity, has informed the imagining of God. When science fiction critiques or reinvents religion, its writers have engaged in a literary guerrilla war with Christianity over what is truly sublime and divine. Gregory examines the sublime and its implicit theologies as they appear in early American pulp science fiction, the horror writing of H. P. Lovecraft, science fiction narratives of evolution and apocalypse, and the work of Philip K. Dick. Ironically, science fiction's tussle with Christianity hides the extent to which the sublime, especially in popular culture, serves to distort the classical Christian understanding of God, secularizing that God and rendering God's transcendence finite. But by turning from the sublime to a consideration of the beautiful, Gregory shows that both Christian and science-fictional imaginations may discover a new and surprising conversation.

How should we construct sacred spaces, the places where we worship? Transcending Architecture considers the mysterious, profound, and real power of designed environments to address the spiritual dimension of our humanity. By incorporating perspectives from within and without architecture, the book o ers a wide, critical, and nuanced understandin of the lived relationship between the built and the numinous worlds. Far from avoiding the charged issues of subjectivity, culture andintangibility, the book examines phenomenological, symbolic and designerly ways in which the holy gets fixed and experienced through buildings, landscapes, and urban forms, and not just in institutionally defined religious or sacred places. Acknowledging that no individual voice can exhaust the topic, Transcending Architecture brings together a stellar group of scholars and practitioners to share their insights: architect Juhani Pallasmaa and philosopher Karsten Harries, comparative religion scholar Lindsay Jones and architectural theoretician Karla Britton, sacred architecture researcher Thomas Barrie and theologian Kevin Seasoltz, landscape architect Rebecca Krinke and Faith & Form magazine editor Michael Crosbie, are among the illustrious contributors. The result is the most direct, clear, and subtle scholarly text solely focused on the transcendental dimension of architecture available. This book thus provides, on one hand, understanding, relief, and growth to an architectural discipline that usually avoids its ineffable dimension and, on the other hand, a necessary dose of detail and reality to fields such as theological aesthetics, material anthropology, or philosophical phenomenology that too often fall trapped into unproductive generalizations and over-intellectualizations.

The term ars erotica refers to the styles and techniques of lovemaking with the honorific title of art. But in what sense are these practices artistic and how do they contribute to the aesthetics and ethics of self-cultivation in the art of living? In this book, Richard Shusterman offers a critical, comparative analysis of the erotic theories proposed by the most influential premodern cultural traditions that shaped our contemporary world. Beginning with ancient Greece, whose god of desiring love gave eroticism its name, Shusterman examines the Judaeo-Christian biblical tradition and the classical erotic theories of Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Japanese cultures, before concluding with medieval and Renaissance Europe. His exploration of their errors and insights shows how we could improve the quality of life and love today. By using the engine of eros to cultivate qualities of sensitivity, grace, skill, and self-mastery, we can reimagine a richer, more positive vision of sex education.

The most comprehensive book on the topic, Thinking about Good and Evil traces the most salient Jewish ideas about why innocent people seem to suffer, why evil individuals seem to prosper, and God's role in such matters of (in)justice, from antiquity to the present. Starting with the Bible and Apocrypha, Rabbi Wayne Allen takes us through the Talmud; medieval Jewish philosophers and Jewish mystical sources; the Ba'al Shem Tov and his disciples; early modern thinkers such as Spinoza, Mendelssohn, and Luzzatto; and, finally, modern thinkers such as Cohen, Buber, Kaplan, and Plaskow. Each chapter analyzes individual thinkers' arguments and synthesizes their collective ideas on the nature of good and evil and questions of justice. Allen also exposes vastly divergent Jewish thinking about the Holocaust: traditionalist (e.g., Ehrenreich), revisionist (e.g., Rubinstein, Jonas), and deflective (e.g., Soloveitchik, Wiesel). The conclusion includes Jewish answers as to why there is evil in the world and why human beings suffer, summarizing this engaging, accessible volume, which illuminates well-known, obscure, and novel Jewish solutions to the problem of good and evil.

KNOWING GOD is one of the most significant and popular Christian books of our time and has deepened the faith and understanding of millions of people around the world. 'Dr Packer says we're cruel to ourselves if we try to live in his world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. I'm convinced we're cruel if we deny ourselves the wisdom contained in this Christian classic.' Rico Tice

The unsettling language of blood has been invoked throughout the history of Christianity. But until now there has been no truly sustained treatment of how Christians use blood to think with. Eugene F. Rogers Jr. discusses in his much-anticipated new book the sheer, surprising strangeness of Christian blood-talk, exploring the many and varied ways in which it offers a language where Christians cooperate, sacrifice, grow and disagree. He asks too how it is that blood-talk dominates when other explanations would do, and how blood seeps into places where it seems hardly to belong. Reaching beyond academic disputes, to consider how religious debates fuel civil ones, he shows that it is not only theologians or clergy who engage in blood-talk, but also lawmakers, judges, generals, doctors and voters at large. Religious arguments have significant societal consequences, Rogers contends; and for that reason secular citizens must do their best to understand them.

Exam board: AQA Level: A-level Subject: Religious Studies First teaching: September 2016 First exams: Summer 2017 Target success in AQA A-level Religious Studies with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide you can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. With My Revision Notes you can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidate subject knowledge by working through clear and focused content coverage - Test understanding and identify areas for improvement with regular 'Now Test Yourself' tasks and answers - Improve exam technique through practice questions, expert tips and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

Exam board: OCR Level: A-level Subject: Religious Studies First teaching: September 2016 First exams: Summer 2017 Target success in OCR A Level Religious Studies with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide you can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. With My Revision Notes you can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidate subject knowledge by working through clear and focused content coverage - Test understanding and identify areas for improvement with regular 'Now Test Yourself' tasks and answers - Improve exam technique through practice questions, expert tips and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

Amidst the many voices clamoring to interpret the environmental crisis, some of the most important are the voices of religious traditions. Long before modernity's industrialism began the rape of Earth, premodern religious and philosophical traditions mediated to untold generations the wisdom of living as a part of nature. These traditions can illuminate and empower wiser ways of postmodern living. The original writings of Worldviews and Ecology creatively present and interpret worldviews of major religious and philosophical traditions on how humans can live more sustainably on a fragile planet. Contributors include Charlene Spretnak, Larry Rasmussen, Noel Brown, Jay McDaniel, Tu Wei-Ming, Thomas Berry, David Ray Griffin, J. Baird Callicott, Eric Katz, Roger E. Timm, Robert A. White, Christopher Key Chapple, Brian Swimme, Brian Brown, Michael Tobias, Ralph Metzner, George Sessions, and Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Insights from traditions as diverse as Jain, Jewish, ecofeminist, deep ecology, Christian, Hindu, Bahai, and Whiteheadian will interest all who seek an honest analysis of what religious and philosophical traditions have to say to a modernity whose consciousness and conscience seems tragically narrow, the source of attitudes that imperil the biosphere.

Ours is an age full of desires but impoverished in its understanding of where those desires lead-an age that claims mastery over the world but also claims to find the world as a whole absurd or unintelligible. In The Vision of the Soul, James Matthew Wilson seeks to conserve the great insights of the western tradition by giving us a new account of them responsive to modern discontents. The western- or Christian Platonist- tradition, he argues, tells us that man is an intellectual animal, born to pursue the good, to know the true, and to contemplate all things in beauty. Wilson begins by reconceiving the intellectual conservatism born of Edmund Burke's jeremiad against the French Revolution as an effort to preserve the West's vision of man and the cosmos as ordered by and to beauty. After defining the achievement of that vision and its tradition, Wilson offers an extended study of the nature of beauty and the role of the fine arts in shaping a culture but above all in opening the human intellect to the perception of the form of reality. Through close studies of Theodor W. Adorno and Jacques Maritain, he recovers the classical vision of beauty as a revelation of truth and being. Finally, he revisits the ancient distinction between reason and story-telling, between mythos and logos, in order to rejoin the two. Story-telling is foundational to the forms of the fine arts, but it is no less foundational to human reason. Human life in turn constitutes a specific kind of form-a story form. The ancient conception of human life as a pilgrimage to beauty itself is one that we can fully embrace only if we see the essential correlation between reason and story and the essential convertibility of truth, goodness and beauty in beauty. By turns a study in fundamental ontology, aesthetics, and political philosophy, Wilson's book invites its readers to a renewal of the West's intellectual tradition.