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.

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.

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.

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 not a standard translation of "Mulamadhyamakakarika." Translator Nishijima Roshi believes that the original translation from Chinese into Sanskrit by the Ven. Kumarajiva (circa 400 C.E.) was faulty and that Kumarajiva's interpretation has influenced every other translation since. Avoiding reference to any other translations or commentaries, Nishijima Roshi has translated the entire text anew. This edition is, therefore, like no other. An expert in the philosophical works of Dogen Zenji (1200-1254 CE), Nishijima says in his introduction, "My own thoughts regarding Buddhism rely solely upon what Master Dogen wrote about the philosophy. So when reading the "Mulamadhyamakakarika" it is impossible for me not to be influenced by Master Dogen's Buddhist ideas." Thus this book is heavily and unabashedly influenced by the work of Master Dogen. Working with Brad Warner, Nishijima has produced a highly readable and eminently practical translation and commentary intended to be most useful to those engaged in meditation practice.
The "Mulamadhyamakakarika" (MMK) was written by Master Nagarjuna, an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the second century. Mahayana Buddhism had arrived at its golden age and Nagarjuna was considered its highest authority. The MMK is revered as the most conclusive of his several Buddhist works. Its extraordinarily precise and simple expression suggests that it was written when Master Nagarjuna was mature in his Buddhist practice and research.

For legendary Talmud scholar and prolific author Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, the Lubavitcher Rebbe embodied a lifelong mission to better the world. Far surpassing the role of teacher, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was at once a scientific mind and faithful believer; educational innovator and social activist; spiritual guide and master network builder.

My Rebbe is Rabbi Steinsaltz's long-awaited personal testament to the man whose passion and vision transformed Chabad-Lubavitch from a tiny group of Chassidim into an educational and spiritual movement that spans the globe. With the admiration of a close disciple, the astute observation of a scholar and the spiritual depth of a mystic, Steinsaltz crafts an intimate portrait of a revolutionary religious leader whose dedication to intellectual, religious, and spiritual principles impacted generations of followers.

For countless generations families have lived in isolated communities in the Godavari Delta of coastal Andhra Pradesh, learning and reciting their legacy of Vedas, performing daily offerings and occasional sacrifices. They are the virtually unrecognized survivors of a 3,700-year-old heritage, the last in India who perform the ancient animal and soma sacrifices according to Vedic tradition. In Vedic Voices, David M. Knipe offers for the first time, an opportunity for them to speak about their lives, ancestral lineages, personal choices as pandits, wives, children, and ways of coping with an avalanche of changes in modern India. He presents a study of four generations of ten families, from those born at the outset of the twentieth century down to their great-grandsons who are just beginning, at the age of seven, the task of memorizing their Veda, the Taittiriya Samhita, a feat that will require eight to twelve years of daily recitations. After successful examinations these young men will reside with the Veda family girls they married as children years before, take their places in the oral transmission of a three-thousand-year Vedic heritage, teach the Taittiriya collection of texts to their own sons, and undertake with their wives the major and minor sacrifices performed by their ancestors for some three millennia. Coastal Andhra, famed for bountiful rice and coconut plantations, has received scant attention from historians of religion and anthropologists despite a wealth of cultural traditions. Vedic Voices describes in captivating prose the geography, cultural history, pilgrimage traditions, and celebrated persons of the region. Here unfolds a remarkable story of Vedic pandits and their wives, one scarcely known in India and not at all to the outside world.

For the first time in human history, the Zohar, the sacred 2,000-year old guide to the books of the Bible, appears in English! With an unabridged translation and general commentary written for the layperson, this powerful text brings serenity, wisdom and hope, giving order and harmony to the chaos of modern life!

"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.

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.

This book breaks fresh ground in the interpretation of the Apocalypse with an interdisciplinary methodology called aural-performance criticism that assesses how the first-century audience would have heard the Apocalypse. First-century media culture is probed by assessing the dynamics of literacy, orality, aurality, and performance in the Gospels, parts of the Pauline corpus, and also Jewish apocalyptic literature. The audience constructs of informed, minimal, and competent assist the interpreter to apply the methodology. Sound maps and an aural-performance commentary of Revelation 1 and 11 are developed that analyze aural markers, sound style, identity markers, repetition, themes, and the appropriation of the message by the audience. The book concludes by examining the sociological, theological, and communal aspects of aurality and performance and its implications for interpreting the Apocalypse.

Neelima Shukla-Bhatt offers an illuminating study of Narsinha Mehta, one of the most renowned saint-poets of medieval India and the most celebrated bhakti (devotion) poet from Gujarat, whose songs and sacred biography formed a vital source of moral inspiration for Gandhi. Exploring manuscripts, medieval texts, Gandhi's more obscure writings, and performances in multiple religious and non-religious contexts, including modern popular media, Shukla-Bhatt shows that the songs and sacred narratives associated with the saint-poet have been sculpted by performers and audiences into a popular source of moral inspiration.
Drawing on the Indian concept of bhakti-rasa (devotion as nectar), Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat reveals that the sustained popularity of the songs and narratives over five centuries, often across religious boundaries and now beyond devotional contexts in modern media, is the result of their combination of inclusive religious messages and aesthetic appeal in performance. Taking as an example Gandhi's perception of the songs and stories as vital cultural resources for social reconstruction, the book suggests that when religion acquires the form of popular culture, it becomes a widely accessible platform for communication among diverse groups. Shukla-Bhatt expands upon the scholarship on the embodied and public dimension of bhakti through detailed analysis of multiple public venues of performance and commentary, including YouTube videos.
This study provides a vivid picture of the Narasinha tradition, and will be a crucial resource for anyone seeking to understand the power of religious performative traditions in popular media.

The study discusses the Old Testament's parable of Nathan and the subsequent condemnation of King David. The intriguing episode of the Prophet Nathan pronouncing judgment on the erring King David has always attracted the interest of the exegete and various researchers have used different methods to separate the condemnation of King David from the ancient author. This study presents a synchronic reading of the canonical text that reveals the episode as the mirror image of the oracle of eternal dynasty pronounced to David by the same prophet in the Second Book of Samuel 7. It is indeed the work of the deuteronomistic writer who has adapted an oracle against the dynasty of David and trimmed it to the advantage of his hero in the unfolding of history.

The Nay Science offers a new perspective on the problem of scientific method in the human sciences. Taking German Indological scholarship on the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita as their example, Adluri and Bagchee develop a critique of the modern valorization of method over truth in the humanities.
The authors show how, from its origins in eighteenth-century Neo-Protestantism onwards, the critical method was used as a way of making theological claims against rival philosophical and/or religious traditions. Via discussions of German Romanticism, the pantheism controversy, scientific positivism, and empiricism, they show how theological concerns dominated German scholarship on the Indian texts. Indology functions as a test case for wider concerns: the rise of historicism, the displacement of philosophical concerns from thinking, and the belief in the ability of a technical method to produce truth.
Based on the historical evidence of the first part of the book, Adluri and Bagchee make a case in the second part for going beyond both the critical pretensions of modern academic scholarship and and the objections of its post-structuralist or post-Orientalist critics. By contrasting German Indology with Plato's concern for virtue and Gandhi's focus on praxis, the authors argue for a conception of the humanities as a dialogue between the ancients and moderns and between eastern and western cultures.

Do we need the Old Testament? That's a familiar question, often asked. But as an Old Testament scholar, John Goldingay turns that question on its head: Do we need the New Testament? What's new about the New Testament? After all, the Old Testament was the only Bible Jesus and the disciples knew. Jesus affirmed it as the Word of God. Do we need anything more? And what happens when we begin to look at the Old Testament, which is the First Testament, not as a deficient old work in need of a christological makeover, but as a rich and splendid revelation of God's faithfulness to Israel and the world? In this cheerfully provocative yet probingly serious book, John Goldingay sets the question and views it from a variety of angles. Under his expert hand, each facet unfolds the surprising richness of the Old Testament and challenges us to recalibrate our perspective on it.

This book deals with the theology of the Church of Smyrna from its foundation up to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The author provides a critical historical evaluation of the documentary sources and certain aspects particularly deserving of discussion. He makes a meticulous study of the history of the city, its gods and institutions, the set-up of the Jewish and Christian communities and the response of the latter to the imperial cult. Finally, he undertakes a detailed analysis both of the reception of the Hebrew Scriptures and the apostolic traditions, as well as examining the gradual historical process of the shaping of orthodoxy and the identity of the community in the light of the organisation of its ecclesial ministries, its sacramental life and the cult of its martyrs.