This book is for people who are interested in Luke and the law, and specifically in Acts 15. For all students writing papers related to Luke and the law or Acts 15 and especially for professors who are teaching Acts, this is a book they must consider. This work provides a new approach to reading Acts 15. It reads both Peter's and James' speeches in Acts 15 in light of Jesus' view of the law in the Gospel of Luke. For example, this book proposes that Peter's reference to God's cleansing the heart of the Gentile believers, in conjunction with his speaking of the Jews' inability to do the law in Acts 15:9-10, should be understood against Luke 11:37-41. This book also proposes that in James' use of Amos 9:11-12 (in Acts 15:16-17), he recalls Jesus' stress upon his name in Luke 24. In Luke 24:47-48, Jesus explains that the Scriptures (the law of Moses, prophets, and Psalms) speak of the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations.

This scholarly introduction explores the mysteries of Qabalah through the symbolism of the Tree of Life and its four distinct elements: the three Pillars of Manifestation, the ten Holy Sephiroth, the Paths that run to and from the Sephiroth, and the Veils. For each Sephirah, Bonner provides detailed information on magical, astrological, and tarot correspondences - as well as how different religious traditions relate to the concepts contained in each.

Considers the three main conceptions of Quran Comprehensive in scope Brings both established scholars and newer voices to the discussion

Jeremiah in History and Tradition examines aspects of the Book of Jeremiah from a variety of perspectives including historical, textual, redaction, and feminist criticism, as well as the history of its reception. The book looks afresh at the Book of Jeremiah through the lens of intertextuality and reception history in the broadest sense, exploring Jeremiah in its historical context as well as the later history and interpretation of the text, and also reconsidering aspects of the Book of Jeremiah's traditions. This volume features essays from a unique assembly of scholars, both seasoned and new. It is divided into two parts: "Jeremiah in History", which explores a variety of readings of Jeremiah from the point of view of classical historical criticism; and "Jeremiah in Tradition", which discusses the portraits and use of both the book and the figure of Jeremiah in extra-biblical traditions. Offering challenging new theories, Jeremiah in History and Tradition is invaluable to scholars and students in the field of Biblical Studies. It is a useful resource for anyone working on the interpretation of the biblical text and the readings of the text of Jeremiah throughout history.

Animal liberation contends that humans and animals are of equal value and that standard views of human uniqueness are an anthropocentric prejudice called "speciesism." It advocates ending human use of animals in recognition of animal rights. Animal liberation theology attempts to ground similar views in the Bible. It typically envisions an original creation free of predation to be restored free of meat-eating and animal use. It views animal sacrifice as murder and speaks of a "deep incarnation" by which God in Christ takes on "all flesh" for the salvation of all creatures in a "cosmic redemption." This is the first full-fledged critique of animal liberation in general and so-called speciesism in particular from a biblical and theological standpoint, with accompanying scientific and philosophical analysis. After it introduces the major thinkers, the book demonstrates the incoherence of animal liberation with human evolution, the use of animals in the domestic and religious life of Israel, and the New Testament assertion that God the Son was uniquely incarnated in the human Jesus for human salvation. This book reasserts historic Christian faith as sufficient to the scientific, philosophical and ethical challenges posed by animal studies, and concludes with an appraisal of key ethical concerns regarding animal use and foundational issues within the animal liberation movement.

The book investigates modern Qur'an commentaries in South Asia and engages with how Muslim scholars have imagined and assessed their past intellectual heritage. The research is focused on British India from the time of the Mutiny of 1857 to the moment of the Partition of united India in 1947. Offering critical scrutiny of Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an in North India, the study especially focuses on the Qur'anic thought of Sayyid Ahmed Khan (d. 1989), Ashraf Ali Thanawi (d. 1943), and Hamid al-Din Farahi (d. 1930). The volume challenges widespread assumptions of an all-pervasive reform and revivalism underlying the academic study of Islam. Instead of looking for Muslim revivalism and reform as epistemological foundations, it stresses the study of modern Qur'an commentaries, in particular local and cosmopolitan contexts. Departing from the oft-repeated explanations of Muslim scholarship and modern Islam through the lens of traditionalism and modernism, it discovers how Muslim scholars viewed themselves in relation to the Islamic tradition, and how they imagined and assessed their past intellectual heritage. Studying the history of the interpretation of the Qur'an in the multiple contexts of nineteenth and early twentieth-century British India, the book will be of interest to readers of Qur'anic studies, modern Islam and South Asian studies.

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 book examines an undertheorized topic in the study of religion and sacred texts: the figure of the neighbor. By analyzing and comparing this figure in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts and receptions, the chapters explore a conceptual shift from "Children of Abraham" to "Ambiguous Neighbors." Through a variety of case studies using diverse methods and material, chapters explore the neighbor in these neighboring texts and traditions. The figure of the neighbor seems like an innocent topic at the surface. It is an everyday phenomenon, that everyone have knowledge about and experiences with. Still, analytically, it has a rich and innovative potential. Recent interdisciplinary research employs this figure to address issues of cultural diversity, gender, migration, ethnic relationships, war and peace, environmental challenges and urbanization. The neighbor represents the borderline between insider and outsider, friend and enemy, us and them. This ambiguous status makes the neighbor particularly interesting as an entry point into issues of cultural complexity, self-definition and identity. This volume brings all the intersections of religion, ethnicity, gender, and socio-cultural diversity into the same neighborhood, paying attention to sacred texts, receptions and contemporary communities. The Ambiguous Figure of the Neighbor in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Texts and Receptions offers a fascinating study of the intersections between Jewish, Christian and Islamic text, and will be of interest to anyone working on these traditions.

Exploring the literature of environmental moral dilemmas from the Hebrew Bible to modern times, this book argues the necessity of cross-disciplinary approaches to environmental studies, as a subject affecting everyone, in every aspect of life. Moral dilemmas are central in the literary genre of protest against the effects of industry, particularly in Romantic literature and 'Condition of England' novels. Writers from the time of the Industrial Revolution to the present-including William Blake, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, T.S. Eliot, John Steinbeck, George Orwell, and J.M. Coetzee-follow the Bible in seeing environmental problems in moral terms, as a consequence of human agency. The issues raised by these and other writers-including damage to the environment and its effects on health and quality of life, particularly on the poor; economic conflicts of interest; water and air pollution, deforestation, and the environmental effects of war-are fundamentally the same today, making their works a continual source of interest and insight. Sketching a brief literary history on the impact of human behavior on the environment, this volume will be of interest to readers researching environmental studies, literary studies, religious studies and international development, as well as a useful resource to scientists and readers of the Arts.

A hopeless individual is more vulnerable and is threatened with indifference, meaninglessness, apathy, anxiety, stress, and despair. Are there symptoms of this in the West? Is it an individual phenomenon or has it been historically-culturally transmitted? This book analyzes, from an interdisciplinary perspective (psychology, sociology, neuroscience, philosophy, theology), how hope contributes to forming a mentally healthy and mature identity. But what hope? Is this just for moments of despair? Can hope free imagination, enlarge desires and rehabilitate the zest for life? Is there a phenomenology of hope?

This book introduces readers to Indian philosophy by presenting the first integral English translation of Vaisesikasutra as preserved by the earliest canonical commentary of Candrananda (7th century AD) on the old aphorisms of the Vaisesika school of Indian philosophy. The present monograph offers a canonical description of the fundamental categories of ontology and metaphysics, among which the category of 'particularity' (visesa) plays a major role in the 'problem of individuation' of the 'nature' of substance in both Indian as well as Western metaphysics. This commentary should be read primarily in relation to Aristotle's Categories. It is structured in 3 parts. Chapter 1 contains a general introduction to Indian philosophy and the Vaisesika system. Chapter 2 is a textual-philological discussion on the commentary itself, since its first publication in 1961 by Muni Jambuvijayaji up to the present day. Chapter 3 is a 'philosophical translation' that reads Vaisesika in the global context of Comparative Philosophy and aims to render this text accessible and comprehensible to all readers interested in ontology and metaphysics. A new reference work and a fundamental introduction to anyone interested in Indian and Comparative Philosophy, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students in Classical Studies, Modern Philosophy, and Asian Religions and Philosophies.

We live in an age when it is not uncommon for politicians to invoke religious doctrine to explain their beliefs and positions on everything from domestic to foreign policy. And yet, many of us would be hard pressed to pinpoint the exact source of these political beliefs in the religious texts that are said to have spawned them. In Politics in the Hebrew Bible: God, Man, and Government, Kalman J. Kaplan and Matthew B. Schwartz offer a genre-straddling examination of the political themes in the Jewish Bible. By studying the political implications of 42 biblical stories (organized into the categories Social Order, Government and Leadership, Domestic Relations, Societal Relations, Morale and Mission, and Foreign Policy), the authors seek to discern a cohesive political viewpoint embodied by the Jewish Bible. Throughout the text, the views put forth in the Jewish Bible are compared to those put forth by Greco-Roman philosophers in order to argue that the Bible offers a worldview that fosters a "high degree of creative individualism within a supportive non-chaotic and well-functioning society". Kaplan and Schwartz are generous with their explanations of Greco-Roman philosophical concepts in the introductory chapters and with giving background information about the biblical stories engaged in the text.

A radical reassessment of the role of Mary the mother of Jesus and other women in the early Church Despite the commonly held assumption that the Bible says little about the mother of Jesus, there are many indications that Mary preceded and inspired her son in fostering the emergence of a new faith community. In the Gospel of John, Mary instigates Jesus' first miracle, and in all four gospels she is present at the crucifixion, suggesting hers was a place of unparalleled importance in the Christian story. Setting aside presuppositions based on doctrine, Chris Maunder returns to the New Testament to answer the question 'Who was Mary?' He re-examines the virgin conception of Jesus, Mary's contribution to Jesus' ministry, and her central role in the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection. In so doing, Maunder casts a thought-provoking new light on Mary and the women, including Mary Magdalene, who stood alongside her.

Small enough to take with you everywhere you go, this pocket Bible will ensure you have the Word of God at hand at all times. With a lilac pastel purple soft imitation leather cover and matching zip, the Bible pages will be kept tidy and clean. This lovely gift Bible has a removable presentation box and a pastel purple ribbon marker, and features a black and white hand-drawn pattern on the endpapers. First published in British English in 1979, the New International Version is the world's most popular modern English Bible. It is renowned for its combination of reliability and readability and is ideal for personal reading, public teaching and group study. This Bible also features: - clear, readable 6.75pt text - easy-to-read layout - shortcuts to key stories, events and people of the Bible - reading plan - book by book overview - quick links to find inspiration and help from the Bible in different life situations. This edition uses British spelling, punctuation and grammar to allow the Bible to be read more naturally. Royalties from all sales of the NIV Bible help Biblica in their work of translating and distributing Bibles around the world.

The study of the Chinese Buddhist Canon-the basic literature of Buddhism-does not have an eminent place in study either in China or in the Western World. For the contributors to this volume, their chapters are the result of decades of dedication to academic research, and they reveal many facets of the Buddhist Canon that were previously unstudied. This book originated in the first and second International Conferences on Chinese Buddhist Canon, and focuses on the communication of the Chinese Buddhist Canon through the medium of print. It enhances our knowledge of how the canon was collated, proofread and printed. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions.

This book sets out how contemporary Iranian scholars have approached the Qur'an during recent decades. It particularly aims to explore the contributions of scholars that have emerged in the post 1979-revolution era, outlining their primary interpretive methods and foundational theories regarding the reading of the Qur'an. Examining issues such as the status of women, democracy, freedom of religion and human rights, this book analyses the theoretical contributions of several Iranian scholars, some of which are new to the English-speaking academy. The hermeneutical approaches of figures such Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mohsen Kadivar, Hasan Yousefi-Eshkevari, Abolqasem Fanaie and Mostafa Malekian are presented and then analysed to demonstrate how a contextualist approach to the Qu'ran has been formed in response to the influence of Western Orientalism. The effect of this approach to the Qu'ran is then shown to have wide-ranging effects on Iranian society. This study reveals Qu'ranic thought that has been largely overlooked by the West. It will, therefore. Be of great use to academics in Religious, Islamic and Qur'anic studies as well as those studying the culture of Iran and the Middle East more generally.

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.

This book attempts to equip the reader with a holistic and accessible account of Islam and evolution. It guides the reader through the different variables that have played a part in the ongoing dialogue between Muslim creationists and evolutionists. This work views the discussion through the lens of al-Ghazali (1058-1111), a widely-known and well-respected Islamic intellectual from the medieval period. By understanding al-Ghazali as an Ash'arite theologian, a particular strand of Sunni theology, his metaphysical and hermeneutic ideas are taken to explore if and how much Neo-Darwinian evolution can be accepted. It is shown that his ideas can be used to reach an alignment between Islam and Neo-Darwinian evolution. This book offers a detailed examination that seeks to offer clarity if not agreement in the midst of an intense intellectual conflict and polarity amongst Muslims. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Science and Religion, Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Islamic Studies, and Religious Studies more generally. *Winner of the International Society for Science & Religion (ISSR) book prize 2022 (academic category)*

The Bible contains passages that allow both scholars and believers to project their hopes and fears onto ever-changing empirical realities. By reading specific biblical passages as utopia and dystopia, this volume raises questions about reconstructing the past, the impact of wishful imagination on reality, and the hermeneutic implications of dealing with utopia - "good place" yet "no place" - as a method and a concept in biblical studies. A believer like William Bradford might approach a biblical passage as utopia by reading it as instructions for bringing about a significantly changed society in reality, even at the cost of becoming an oppressor. A contemporary biblical scholar might approach the same passage with the ambition of locating the historical reality behind it - finding the places it describes on a map, or arriving at a conclusion about the social reality experienced by a historical community of redactors. These utopian goals are projected onto a utopian text. This volume advocates an honest hermeneutical approach to the question of how reliably a past reality can be reconstructed from a biblical passage, and it aims to provide an example of disclosing - not obscuring - pre-suppositions brought to the text.

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.

Tabari's Tafsir or "Comprehensive Exposition of the Interpretation of the Verses of the Qur'an" is one of the great monuments of classical Arabic and Islamic scholarship which, over a millennium, has been a fundamental reference work for scholars engaged in the tradition of Quranic commentary and exegesis. This two-volume translation focuses on thirty selected verses and Suras, or Chapters, associated with special merits and blessings and also includes Tabari's own introduction to the Tafsir. Volume I contains: Tabari's introduction; The Opening; the Throne Verse and the final three verses from The Cow (2:255 & 284-286); The Family of Imran (3:7 & 18); Repentance (9:38-40 & 128-129); the story of Moses and Khadir from The Cave (18:60-82); the Verse of Light from The Light (24:35-42); Prostration; Ya' Sin. Volume II contains: The Companies (39:53-55); The Smoke; The Beneficent; The Inevitable Occasion; Iron; The Gathering (59:18-24); Sovereignty; The Resurrection; The Most High; The Sun; The Night; The Earthquake; The Chargers; Rivalry; The Disbelievers; Aid; Sincerity; Daybreak; People.

The goal of this book is to suggest that Jesus as a creative artist was heavily influenced by the Hebrew Bible's Book of Proverbs. It posits that he created some of his short parables from specific verses found in Proverbs, suggests that he expanded some basic sapient themes present in this book when composing his parables, and shows him reacting negatively to the commonly held belief that this Book's overall concept of wisdom is that the wise are rewarded and the fools are punished by God through their own self-destructive choices and subsequent actions. Thus this text points to Jesus as an inventive artist, a concept not usually associated with him, and it complicates simplistic ways of defining biblical wisdom. Part I demonstrates how Jesus might have created his tales from specific proverbs found in the Book of Proverbs. The overarching theme for these parables is wisdom: Jesus as wisdom (I Cor. 1:24) speaking wisdom in new ways. Part II discusses Jesus as a self-actualized artist who creatively designed these tales. It examines what shaped Jesus' artistry, what might have been the sources of his literacy, why he might have chosen to expand individual proverbs imaginatively in order to create his moral tales, and how his wisdom enhanced conventional attitudes toward wisdom as the former included and clarified his new "kingdom of God" concepts. This book could be used in courses treating Literature and the Bible, Biblical Art, The Humanity of Jesus, and Wisdom Literature Common to Christians and Jews.

Ritual in Deuteronomy explores the symbolic world of Deuteronomy's ritual covenant and curses through a lens of religious studies and anthropology, drawing on previously unexamined Mesopotamian material. This book focuses on the ritual material in Deuteronomy including commands regarding sacrifice, prayer objects, and especially the dramatic ritual enactment of the covenant including curses. The book's most unique feature is an entirely new comparative study of Deut 27-30 with two ritual texts from Mesopotamia. No studies to date have undertaken a comparison of Deut 27-30 with ancient Near Eastern ritual texts outside of the treaty oath tradition. This fresh comparison illuminates how the ritual life of ancient Israel shaped the literary form of Deuteronomy and concludes that the performance of oaths was a social strategy, addressing contemporary anxieties and reinforcing systems of cultural power. This book offers a fascinating comparative study which will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students in biblical studies, classical Hebrew, theology, and ancient Near Eastern studies. The book's more technical aspects will also appeal to scholars of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy, Biblical Law, Ancient Near Eastern History, Mesopotamian Studies, and Classics.

This book studies the absolute reality of the Qur'an, which is signified by the struggle of truth against falsehood in the framework of monotheistic unity of knowledge and the unified world-system induced by the consilience of knowledge. In such a framework the absolute reality reveals itself not by religious dogmatism. Rather, the methodology precisely comprises its distinctive parts. These are namely the 'primal ontology' as the foundational explained axiom of monotheistic unity; the 'secondary ontologies' as explanatory replications of the law of unity in the particulars of the world-system; 'epistemology' as the operational model; and 'phenomenology' as the structural nature of events induced by the monotheistic law, that is by knowledge emanating from the law. The imminent methodology remains the unique explanatory reference of all events that take place, advance, and change in continuity across continuums of knowledge, space, and time.