Despite the undeniable importance of anti-evolutionism in American cultural history, and the plethora of publications since the 1980s, few libraries have collected more than the occasional book or pamphlet on creationism and early creationist periodicals are almost impossible to find. This collection makes available works on creationism by such stalwarts as Arthur I. Brown, William Bell Riley, Harry Rimmer, Byron C. Nelson, George McCready Price, Harold W. Clark and Frank Lewis Marsh. It also reprints three of the earliest and rarest creationist journals in America: the Creationist, the Bulletin of Deluge Geology and the Forum for the Correlation of Science and the Bible. The collection as a whole plays an important part in the continuing debate in America over science and religion. There is a new preface to all volumes by the series editor Ronald L. Numbers.

Drawing on traditions of Jewish biblical commentary, the author employs the Creation account in Genesis to show how understanding God's creativity can give us courage to go on when we contemplate a future of continued trials and failures, because we can reaffirm that we are created in God's image.

The present volume is the seventeenth and last in this series of the Jerusalem Talmud. The four tractates of the Second Order - Ta'aniot, Megillah, Hagigah, Mo'ed Qatan (Masqin) - deal with different fasts and holidays as well as with the pilgrimage to the Temple. The texts are accompanied by an English translation and presented with full use of existing Genizah texts and with an extensive commentary explaining the Rabbinic background.

Ronald S. Hendel offers a careful and thorough re examination of the text of Genesis 1 11. He takes a strongly positive position on the value of the Septuagint as a reliable translation of its Hebrew parent text. This position is contrary to that taken in most existing studies of the text of Genesis, including some in standard editions and reference works. Nevertheless, Hendel shows, there is an accumulating mass of evidence indicating that his position is correct.
Hendel begins with a discussion of theory and method, and points out the lessons to be learned from the new biblical manuscripts discovered at Qumran. He goes on to argue for the preparation of eclectic critical editions of books of the Hebrew Bible a task long pursued in Classical, New Testament, and Septuagint studies, but still highly controversial with respect to the Hebrew scriptures. The critical edition of Genesis 1 11 which follows is Hendel's first step toward such a comprehensive task.

This text explores the unacknowledged psychological element in Maimonides' work, one which prefigures the latter insights of Freud. It also looks at Maimonidean mysticism and much more.

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most famous works of Hindu scripture. Among faithful Hindus it is ranked in importance alongside the Vedas and the Upanishads as a key sacred text. The work has been widely translated, with the result that its fame extends well beyond India.
Considering the popularity of this historical epic and the reverent feelings toward it, intellectuals in India have been reluctant to examine the text from a critical standpoint, as scholars in the West have done in regard to the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. A glaring exception to this kid-gloves attitude is this iconoclastic examination of the Gita, by journalist and humanist advocate V. R. Narla.
Taking a rationalist, skeptical approach, Narla critiques the Gita on many levels. Among other things, he points out the improbability of the historical events recounted, the logical inconsistencies in the work, and, above all, the retrograde moral perspective represented by the characters. He emphasizes that the long dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and Lord Krishna (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) ends up by condoning violence, even wholesale slaughter. Furthermore, the work extols the Hindu caste system as noble and reinforces superstitions about reincarnation and karma. All of this was anathema to Narla, who spent much of his career working for human rights and critical thinking.
For students of Indian literature in both the East and West, this critical appraisal of a classic Hindu epic will prove enlightening.

A number of passages in the Qur'an contain doctrinal and cultural criticism of Jews and Christians, from exclusive salvation and charges of Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation to cautions against the taking of Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates. Mun'im Sirry offers a novel exploration of these polemical passages, which have long been regarded as obstacles to peaceable interreligious relations, through the lens of twentieth-century tafsir (exegesis). He considers such essential questions as: How have modern contexts shaped Muslim reformers' understanding of the Qur'an, and how have the reformers' interpretations recontextualized these passages? Can the Qur'an's polemical texts be interpreted fruitfully for interactions among religious communities in the modern world? Sirry also reflects on the various definitions of apologetic or polemic as relevant sacred texts and analyzes reformist tafsirs with careful attention to argument, literary context, and rhetoric in order to illuminate the methods, positions, and horizons of the exegeses. Scriptural Polemics provides both a critical engagement with the tafsirs and a lucid and original sounding of Qur'anic language, logic, and dilemmas, showing how the dynamic and varied reformist intepretations of these passages open the way for a less polemical approach to other religions.

Post 9/11, sales of translations of the Qur'an have greatly increased. Students and general readers alike are increasingly interested in the sacred writings of Islam. But the Qur'an can often make difficult reading. It lacks continuous narrative, and different types of material dealing with different topics are often found in the same chapter. Also, readers often attempt to read the book from start to finish and without any knowledge of the life and experiences of both Muhammad and the community of Islam. Introductions to the Qur'an attempt to make interpretation of these complex scriptures easier by discussing context, history and different interpretations, and presenting selective textual examples. Bennett's new introduction takes a fresh approach to studying the Qur'an. By reordering parts of the Qur'an, placing its chapters and verses into a continuous narrative, the author creates a framework that untangles and elucidates its seemingly unconnected content. Through this new approach the reader will come to understand various aspects of the Qur'an's interpretation, from Muhammad's life, to Muslim conduct and prayer, to legal considerations.

This volume concludes the edition, translation, and commentary of the third order of the Jerusalem Talmud. The pentateuchal expression lqkh 'AAh a oeto take as wifea is more correctly translated either as a oeto acquire as wifea or a oeto select as wifea . The Tractate QidduAin deals with all aspects of acquisition as well as the permissible selections of wives and the consequences of illicit relations.

The language, themes and imagery of the Bible have been rewritten into texts across time. In the Revelation of John, the Hebrew Bible echoes and is reinvented, just as in James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) many explicit and implicit readings and interpretations of the Bible are offered. In Texts Reading Texts, these readings of the Bible, and the ways in which Revelation and Hogg's Confessions have themselves been read, are considered from the two postmodern perspectives of marginalization and deconstruction. By reading the two seemingly unrelated texts side by side from these perspectives, traditional readings of them both are disturbed and challenged.

In recent decades, there has been a resurgence of interest among both secular and religious Israelis in Talmudic stories. This growing fascination with Talmudic stories has been inspired by contemporary Israeli writers who have sought to make readers aware of the special qualities of these well-crafted narratives that portray universal human situations, including marriages, relationships between parents and children, power struggles between people, and the challenge of trying to live a good life. The Charm of Wise Hesitancy explores the resurgence of interest in Talmudic stories in Israel and presents some of the most popular Talmudic stories in contemporary Israeli culture, as well as creative interpretations of those stories by Israeli writers, thereby providing readers with an opportunity to consider how these stories may be relevant to their own lives.