Whenever people from different cultural and religious backgrounds converge, it produces tension and ambivalence. This study delves into conflicts in interreligious educational processes in both theory and practice, presenting the results of empirical research conducted at schools and universities and formulating ground-breaking practical perspectives for interreligious collaboration in various religious-pedagogical settings.

This collection of essays constitute an extended argument for an anthropocentric, human-focused, study of religious practices. The basic premise of the argument, offered in the opening section, is that there is nothing special or extraordinary about human behaviors and constructs that are claimed to have uniquely religious status and authority. Instead, they are fundamentally human and so the scholar of religion is engaged in nothing more or less than studying humans across time and place and all their complex existence-that includes creating more-than-human beings and realities. As an extended and detailed example of such an approach, the second part of the book contains essays that address practices, rhetoric and other data in early Christianities within Greco-Roman cultures and religions. The underlying aim is to insert studies of the New Testament and non-canonical texts, most often presented as "biblical studies," into the anthropocentric study of religion proposed in the opening section. For a general reading of modern biblical scholarship makes clear the assumption that the Christian bible is a "sacred text" whose principal raison d'etre is to stand, fetish-like, as the foundational and highest authority in matters moral, ritual or theological; how might we instead approach the study of these texts if they are nothing more or less than human documents deriving from situations that were themselves all too human? Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins seeks to answer just that question-doing so in a way that readers working outside Christian origins will undoubtedly find useful applications for the people, places, and historical periods that they study.

To everyone who has ever laid in bed wondering about life after death, or the existence of God.

For all of us, reaching out for any tiny piece of evidence to corroborate our beliefs, or strengthen our doubts. For everyone undergoing a serious illness at home, or in the hospital, or are nearing the end of our journey, and now reside in a hospice, or nursing home. For all of us crying out for some sense to our suffering, this book may offer some relief.

This book is not meant to be an academic study, but a source of hope, a comforting perspective, and a reassurance of the existence of God.

It is my presumption that the actual orders of creation are very similar. In fact when compared to any other religious beliefs, Genesis is the closest in description, to the actual scientific order of creation we know today.

This book is an informal look at the origins of life on this planet, looking at science and Genesis.

The question is simple. Does the Book of Genesis, written thousands of years ago, accurately describe the chronological Order of Creation on this planet?

Is this coincidence, or divine inspiration?