Chan Buddhism in Dunhuang and Beyond: A Study of Manuscripts, Texts, and Contexts in Memory of John R. McRae is dedicated to the memory of the eminent Chan scholar John McRae and investigates the spread of early Chan in a historical, multi-lingual, and interreligious context. Combining the expertise of scholars of Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur, and Tangut Buddhism, the edited volume is based on a thorough study of manuscripts from Dunhuang, Turfan, and Karakhoto, tracing the particular features of Chan in the Northwestern and Northern regions of late medieval China.

Although recently more studies have been devoted to the representations of Biblical heroines in modern European art, less is known about the contribution to the portrayals of Biblical women by modern Jewish artists. This monograph explores why and how heroines of the Scripture: Judith, Esther and the Shulamite received a particular meaning for acculturated Jewish artists originating from the Polish lands in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century. It convincingly proves that artworks by Maurycy Gottlieb, Wilhem Wachtel, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Maurycy Minkowski, Samuel Hirszenberg and Boris Schatz significantly differed from renderings of contemporary non-Jewish artists, adopting a "Jewish perspective", creating complex and psychological portrayals of the heroines inspired by Jewish literature and as well as by historical and cultural phenomena of Jewish revival and the cultural Zionism movement.

In The Hebrew Bible: A Millennium, scholars from different fields and dealing with different material sources are trying to consider the Hebrew Bible as a whole. The development of new databases and other technological tools have an increasing impact on research practices. By inviting doctoral students, young researchers, and established scholars to contribute, this interdisciplinary book showcases methods and perspectives which can support future scientific collaborations in the field of the Hebrew Bible. This edited volume gathers relevant research from Dead Sea Scrolls Studies, Cairo Genizah Studies, European Genizah Studies, and from Late Medieval Biblical Manuscript Studies.

This Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his disciples, each of whom is a scholar in their own right. The many subjects covered display a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches and will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

Contemporary psychology is highly influenced by positivism and scientific naturalism. Psychological studies make efforts to control the variables and provide operational definitions of subjective constructs in order to reach the most concrete conclusions. Such efforts are admirable in natural sciences since they have led to a better life. But, this worldview has deprived contemporary psychology of more qualitative sources of knowledge like wahy (revelation). The present book introduces Islamic psychology as a paradigm, which can apply wahy knowledge and consider religious/spiritual dimensions of humans in scientific exploration. The first part discusses the possibility, foundations, and characteristics of Islamic psychology. The second part introduces research methodology in Islamic psychology. The third part reviews the Quranic theory of personality and highlights the concept of shakeleh. Finally, the fourth part presents the theories and methods of religious psychotherapy in the Islamic tradition. Each part provides introductory content for readers interested in Islamic psychology.

This work offers a seminal research into Arabic translations of the Pentateuch. It is no exaggeration to speak of this field as a terra incognita. Biblical versions in Arabic were produced over many centuries, on the basis of a wide range of source languages (Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, or Coptic), and in varying contexts. The textual evidence for this study is exclusively based on a corpus of about 150 manuscripts, containing the Pentateuch in Arabic or parts thereof.

The Qur'anic surahs and passages that are customarily taken to postdate Muhammad's emigration to Medina occupy a key position in the formative period of Islam: they fundamentally shaped later convictions about Muhammad's paradigmatic authority and universal missionary remit; they constitute an important basis for Islam's development into a religion with a strong legal focus; and they demarcate the Qur'anic community from Judaism and Christianity. The volume exemplifies a rich array of approaches to the challenges posed by this part of the Qur'an, including its distinctive literary and doctrinal features, its relationship to other late antique traditions, and the question of oral composition. Contributors are Karen Bauer, Saqib Hussain, Marianna Klar, Joseph E. Lowry, Angelika Neuwirth, Andrew J. O'Connor, Cecilia Palombo, Nora K. Schmid, Nicolai Sinai, Devin J. Stewart, Gabriel S. Reynolds, Neal Robinson and Holger Zellentin.

The Scholastic Culture of the Babylonian Talmud studies how and in what cultural context the Talmud began to take shape in the scholastic centers of rabbinic Babylonia. Bickart tracks the use of the term tistayem ("let it be promulgated") and its analogs, in contexts ranging from Amoraic disciple circles to Geonic texts, and in comparison with literatures of Syriac-speaking Christians. The study demonstrates increasing academization during the talmudic period, and supports a gradual model of the Talmud's redaction.

"The echo of the stone/ where I carved the [Buddha's] honorable footprints/ reaches the Heaven, [...]". This book presents the transcription, translation, and analysis of Chinese (753 AD) and Japanese inscriptions (end of the 8th century AD) found on two stones now in the possession of the Yakushiji temple in Nara. All these inscriptions praise the footprints of Buddha, and more exactly their carvings in the stone. The language of the Japanese inscription, which consists of twenty-one poems, reflects the contemporary dialect of Nara. Its writing system shows a quite unique trait, being practically monophonic. The book is richly illustrated by photos of the temple and of the inscriptions.