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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian sacred works & liturgy > Sacred texts
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Galatians
(Hardcover)
Craig S. Keener
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R2,162
R1,759
Discovery Miles 17 590
Save R403 (19%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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This commentary offers a concise, incisive view of Galatians,
Paul's most polemical letter. Here, Paul is fighting for the
spiritual life and loyalty of some of his hard-won converts. Taking
advantage of a range of persuasive rhetorical approaches, his
letter appears to bristle with anger at the interlopers and the
anguish of spurned affection. In this commentary, Craig S. Keener
mines insights from the ancient world to highlight Paul's
persuasive tactics and how the Galatian Christians would have heard
his intense yet profound message. In so doing, Keener also helps
readers to confront Galatians afresh today, so they can hear more
closely what Paul is and is not saying for the church universal.
Drawing on a wide range of ancient Mediterranean sources to
reconstruct the context of Galatians, Keener helps us to grasp the
issues that Paul was addressing, the reasons that Paul wrote the
letter, and its continuing relevance for contemporary audiences.
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Galatians
(Paperback)
Craig S. Keener
|
R873
R728
Discovery Miles 7 280
Save R145 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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This commentary offers a concise, incisive view of Galatians,
Paul's most polemical letter. Here, Paul is fighting for the
spiritual life and loyalty of some of his hard-won converts. Taking
advantage of a range of persuasive rhetorical approaches, his
letter appears to bristle with anger at the interlopers and the
anguish of spurned affection. In this commentary, Craig S. Keener
mines insights from the ancient world to highlight Paul's
persuasive tactics and how the Galatian Christians would have heard
his intense yet profound message. In so doing, Keener also helps
readers to confront Galatians afresh today, so they can hear more
closely what Paul is and is not saying for the church universal.
Drawing on a wide range of ancient Mediterranean sources to
reconstruct the context of Galatians, Keener helps us to grasp the
issues that Paul was addressing, the reasons that Paul wrote the
letter, and its continuing relevance for contemporary audiences.
The Kalacakratantra is the latest and most comprehensive Buddhist Tantra that is available in its original Sanskrit. This will be the first thorough academic work to be published on this Tantra. The Kalacakratantra's five chapters are classified into three categories: Outer, Inner, and Other Kalacakratantra. The present work concentrates on the Inner Kalacakratantra, which deals with the nature of a human being.
In this book, Lynn Kaye examines how rabbis of late antiquity
thought about time through their legal reasoning and storytelling,
and what these insights mean for thinking about time today.
Providing close readings of legal and narrative texts in the
Babylonian Talmud, she compares temporal ideas with related
concepts in ancient and modern philosophical texts and in religious
traditions from late antique Mesopotamia. Kaye demonstrates that
temporal flexibility in the Babylonian Talmud is a means of
exploring and resolving legal uncertainties, as well as a tool to
tell stories that convey ideas effectively and dramatically. Her
book, the first on time in the Talmud, makes accessible complex
legal texts and philosophical ideas. It also connects the
literature of late antique Judaism with broader theological and
philosophical debates about time.
A unique resource for understanding the Islamic Holy Book. As
Islamic terrorism becomes a distressingly common feature of life in
North America and Europe, it has become increasingly important for
non-Muslims to be aware of the ideology that animates and motivates
jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women and others--an
ideology that's rooted in Islam's holy book, the Qur'an.
English-speaking people, however, have found attempts to understand
the Qur'an and Islam impeded by unclear, densely worded
translations and explanatory notes written by Islamic apologists
attempting to conceal, rather than reveal, how Islamic jihadis use
the texts and teachings of the Qur'an to justify violence and
supremacism, and to make recruits of peaceful Muslims. The Critical
Qur'an, in contrast, makes clear the passages that are used to
incite violence. Historian and Islamic scholar Robert Spencer
elucidates the Qur'anic text with extensive references to the
principal tafsir, or commentaries, that mainstream Muslims use
today to understand the Qur'an, showing how interpretations that
sanction violence are unfortunately not outliers, but central in
Islamic theology. The Critical Qur'an is the Islamic counterpart to
numerous critical and skeptical editions of the Bible that have
appeared over the last century and more. It is the one edition of
Islam's book that doesn't shy away from elucidating why the holy
book of Islam is so frequently quoted and referred to with
reverence by people who commit and/or justify acts of violence. It
is a basic resource for everyone who wishes to understand the
persistent phenomenon of Islamic terrorism, and the peculiar
provenance of this most provocative book.
Comedy is both relative, linked to a time and culture, and
universal, found pervasively across time and culture. The Hebrew
Bible contains comedy of this relative, yet universal nature.
Melissa A. Jackson engages the Hebrew Bible via a comic reading and
brings that reading into conversation with feminist-critical
interpretation, in resistance to any lingering stereotype that
comedy is fundamentally non-serious or that feminist critique is
fundamentally unsmiling.
Dividing comic elements into categories of literary devices,
psychological/social features, and psychological/social function,
Jackson examines the narratives of a number of biblical characters
for evidence of these comic elements. The characters include the
trickster matriarchs, the women involved in the infancy of Moses,
Rahab, Deborah and Jael, Delilah, three of David's wives (Michal,
Abigail, Bathsheba), Jezebel, Ruth, and Esther. Nine particularly
instructive points of contact between comedy and feminist
interpretation emerge: both (1) resist definition, (2) exist amidst
a self/other, subject/object dichotomy, (3) emphasise and utilise
context, (4) promote creativity, (5) acknowledge the concept of
distancing, (6) work towards revelation, (7) are subversive, (8)
are concerned with containment and control, and (9) enable
survival. The use of comedy as an interpretive lens for the Hebrew
Bible is not without difficulties for feminist interpretation.
While maintaining an uncomfortable, even painful, awareness of the
hold patriarchy retains on the Hebrew Bible, feminist critics can
still choose to allow comedy's revelatory, subversive, survivalist
nature to do its work revealing, subverting, and surviving.
The essays in this volume address the conundrum of how Jewish
believers in the divine character of the Sinaitic revelation
confront the essential questions raised by academic biblical
studies. The first part is an anthology of rabbinic sources, from
the medieval period to the present, treating questions that reflect
a critical awareness of the Bible. The second part is a series of
twenty-one essays by contemporary rabbis and scholars on how they
combine their religious beliefs with their critical approach to the
Bible.
The book of Numbers in Hebrew, Bemidbar, In the Wilderness is a key text for our time. It is among the most searching, self-critical books in all of literature about what Nelson Mandela called the long walk to freedom. Its message is that there is no shortcut to liberty. Numbers is not an easy book to read, nor is it an optimistic one. It is a sober warning set in the midst of a text the Hebrew Bible that remains the West s master narrative of hope.
The Mosaic books, especially Exodus and Numbers, are about the journey from slavery to freedom and from oppression to law-governed liberty. On the map, the distance from Egypt to the Promised Land is not far. But the message of Numbers is that it always takes longer than you think. For the journey is not just physical, a walk across the desert. It is psychological, moral, and spiritual. It takes as long as the time needed for human beings to change....
You cannot arrive at freedom merely by escaping from slavery. It is won only when a nation takes upon itself the responsibilities of self-restraint, courage, and patience. Without that, a journey of a few hundred miles can take forty years. Even then, it has only just begun.
This volume offers a new reading of Maimonides' Guide of the
Perplexed. In particular, it explores how Maimonides' commitment to
integrity led him to a critique of the Kalam, to a complex concept
of immortality, and to insight into the human yearning for
metaphysical knowledge. Maimonides' search for objective truth is
also analyzed in its connection with the scientific writings of his
time, which neither the Kalam nor the Jewish philosophical
tradition that preceded him had endorsed. Through a careful
analysis of these issues, this book seeks to contribute to the
understanding of the modes of thought adopted in The Guide of the
Perplexed, including the "philosophical theologian" model of
Maimonides' own design, and to the knowledge of its sources.
In his articles Stefan Reif's articles have dealt with Jewish
biblical exegesis and the close analysis of the evolution of Jewish
prayer texts. Some fourteen of these that appeared in various
collective volumes are here made more easily available, together
with a major new study of Numbers 13, an introduction and extensive
indexes. Reif attempts to establish whether there is any
linguistic, literary and exegetical value in the traditional Jewish
interpretation of the Hebrew Bible for the modern scientific
approach to such texts and whether such an approach itself is
always free of theological bias. He demonstrates how Jewish
liturgical texts may illuminate religious teachings about wisdom,
history, peace, forgiveness, and divine metaphors. Also clarified
in these essays are notions of David, Greek and Hebrew, divine
metaphors, and the liturgical use of the Hebrew Bible.
This book focuses on Muslim-Christian cultural relations across a
number of centuries. As for the methodology, the book represents an
intersection of religious studies, linguistics and translations
studies. The bases of research are a Tatar tefsir and 19th- and
20th-century printed translations of the Qur'an into Polish. In the
period of the Reformation, the Tatar adherents of Sunni Islam
conducted the dialogue with Christianity. They translated the
Qur'an into Polish already in the second half of the 16th century.
They used the Arabic alphabet to record the translation and
conferred the form of a tefsir to it. Who were the Tatar
translators? Did they break the ban on the translation of the Holy
Book of Islam? What sources did they use? How did they translate
the Muslim religious terminology? Why is their translation of the
Qur'an not familiar to researchers? These are only a few questions
which are explored in this work.
This third volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition completes the
Zohar's commentary on the book of Genesis. Here we find spiritual
explorations of numerous biblical narratives, including Jacob's
wrestling with the angel, Joseph's kidnapping by his brothers, his
near seduction by Potiphar's wife, his interpretation of Pharaoh's
dreams, and his reunion with his brothers and father. Throughout,
the Zohar probes the biblical text and seeks deeper meaning-for
example, the divine intention behind Joseph's disappearance, or the
profound significance of human sexuality. Divine and human
realities intertwine, affecting one another. Toward the end of
Genesis, the Bible states: Jacob's days drew near to die-an
idiomatic expression that the Zohar insists on reading
hyperliterally. Each human being is challenged to live his days
virtuously. If he does, those days themselves are woven into a
garment of splendor; at death, they "draw near," enveloping him,
escorting him to the beyond. Sefer ha-Zohar (The Book of Radiance)
has amazed and overwhelmed readers ever since it emerged
mysteriously in medieval Spain toward the end of the thirteenth
century. Written in a unique Aramaic, this masterpiece of Kabbalah
exceeds the dimensions of a normal book; it is virtually a body of
literature, comprising over twenty discrete sections. The bulk of
the Zohar consists of a running commentary on the Torah, from
Genesis through Deuteronomy.
This book invites readers to reconsider what they think they know
about the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, from the
creation of the world, through the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel,
the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, to the introduction of Abraham.
Edwin M. Good offers a new translation of and literary commentary
on these chapters, approaching the material as an ancient Hebrew
book. Rather than analyzing the chapters in light of any specific
religious position, he is interested in what the stories say and
how they work as stories, indications in them of their origins as
orally performed and transmitted, and how they do and do not
connect with one another. Everyone, from those intimately familiar
with Genesis to those who have never read it before, will find
something new in "Genesis 1-11: Tales of the Earliest World."
The Latter Prophets-Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the
Twelve-comprise a fascinating collection of prophetic oracles,
narratives, and vision reports from ancient Israel and Judah.
Spanning centuries and showing evidence of compositional growth and
editorial elaboration over time, these prophetic books offer an
unparalleled view into the cultural norms, theological convictions,
and political disputes of Israelite communities caught in the
maelstrom of militarized conflicts with the empires of ancient
Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia. Instructive for scholar and student
alike, The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets features wide-ranging
discussion of ancient Near Eastern social and cultic contexts;
exploration of focused topics such as the persona of the prophet
and the problem of violence in prophetic rhetoric; sophisticated
historical and literary analysis of key prophetic texts; issues in
reception history, from these texts' earliest reinterpretations at
Qumran to Christian appropriations in contemporary homiletics;
feminist, materialist, and postcolonial readings engaging the
insights of influential contemporary theorists; and more. The
diversity of interpretive approaches, clarity of presentation, and
breadth of expertise represented here will make this Handbook
indispensable for research and teaching on the Latter Prophets.
Jewish thought since the Middle Ages can be regarded as a sustained
dialogue with Moses Maimonides, regardless of the different social,
cultural, and intellectual environments in which it was conducted.
Much of Jewish intellectual history can be viewed as a series of
engagements with him, fueled by the kind of 'Jewish' rabbinic and
esoteric writing Maimonides practiced. This book examines a wide
range of theologians, philosophers, and exegetes who share a
passionate engagement with Maimonides, assaulting, adopting,
subverting, or adapting his philosophical and jurisprudential
thought. This ongoing enterprise is critical to any appreciation of
the broader scope of Jewish law, philosophy, biblical
interpretation, and Kabbalah. Maimonides's legal, philosophical,
and exegetical corpus became canonical in the sense that many
subsequent Jewish thinkers were compelled to struggle with it in
order to advance their own thought. As such, Maimonides joins
fundamental Jewish canon alongside the Bible, the Talmud, and the
Zohar.
This book presents an intellectual history of today's Muslim world,
surveying contemporary Muslim thinking in its various
manifestations, addressing a variety of themes that impact on the
lives of present-day Muslims. Focusing on the period from roughly
the late 1960s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, the
book is global in its approach and offers an overview of different
strands of thought and trends in the development of new ideas,
distinguishing between traditional, reactionary, and progressive
approaches. It presents a variety of themes and issues including:
The continuing relevance of the legacy of traditional Islamic
learning as well as the use of reason; the centrality of the
Qur'an; the spiritual concerns of contemporary Muslims; political
thought regarding secularity, statehood, and governance; legal and
ethical debates; related current issues like human rights, gender
equality, and religious plurality; as well as globalization,
ecology and the environment, bioethics, and life sciences. An
alternative account of Islam and the Muslim world today,
counterbalancing narratives that emphasise politics and
confrontations with the West, this book is an essential resource
for students and scholars of Islam.
Liberation from Empire investigates the phenomenon of demonic
possession and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark. The Marcan narrator
writes from an anti-imperialistic point of view with allusions to,
yet never directly addressing, the Roman Empire. In his baptism,
Jesus was authorized by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to
wage cosmic war with Satan. In Jesus' first engagement, his testing
in the wilderness, Jesus bound the strong one, Satan. Jesus
explains this encounter in the Beelzebul controversy. Jesus'
ministry continues an on-going battle with Satan, binding the
strong one's minions, demonic/unclean spirits, and spreading
holiness to the possessed until he is crucified on a Roman cross.
The battle is still not over at Jesus' death, for at Jesus'
parousia God will make a final apocalyptic judgment. Jesus'
exorcisms have cosmic, apocalyptic, and anti-imperial implications.
For Mark, demonic possession was different from sickness or
illness, and exorcism was different from healing. Demonic
possession was totally under the control of a hostile non-human
force; exorcism was full deliverance from a domineering existence
that restored the demoniac to family, to community, and to God's
created order. Jesus commissioned the twelve to be with him, to
learn from him, and to proclaim the kingdom of God by participating
with him in healing and exorcism. Jesus expands his invitation to
participate in building the kingdom of God to all those who choose
to become part of his new dyadic family even today.
This book examines literary analogies in Christian and Jewish
sources, culminating in an in-depth analysis of striking parallels
and connections between Christian monastic texts (the Apophthegmata
Patrum or 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers') and Babylonian
Talmudic traditions. The importance of the monastic movement in the
Persian Empire, during the time of the composition and redaction of
the Babylonian Talmud, fostered a literary connection between the
two religious populations. The shared literary elements in the
literatures of these two elite religious communities sheds new
light on the surprisingly inclusive nature of the Talmudic corpora
and on the non-polemical nature of elite Jewish-Christian literary
relations in late antique Persia.
One of the most influential books in the history of literature,
recognized as the greatest literary masterpiece in Arabic, the
Qur'an is the supreme authority and living source of all Islamic
teaching, the sacred text that sets out the creed, rituals, ethics,
and laws of Islam. First published in 2004, M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's
superb English translation has been acclaimed for both its
faithfulness to the original and its supreme clarity. Now Haleem's
translation is published side-by-side with the original Arabic
text, to give readers a greater appreciation and understanding of
the holy book.
Revised for the new edition, this translation is written in
contemporary language that remains true to the meaning and spirit
of the original, making the text crystal clear while retaining all
of this great work's eloquence. It is now set page-for-page against
the most widespread traditional calligraphic Arabic text, for the
benefit of Muslims who wish to make the connection between the
translation and the Arabic text, as well as Arabic readers and
non-Arabs learning to read the Qur'an in Arabic. As in the original
volume, the translation is completely free from the archaisms,
incoherence, and alien structures that mar other translations.
Furthermore, Haleem includes notes that explain geographical,
historical, and personal allusions as well as an index in which
Qur'anic material is arranged into topics for easy reference. His
introduction traces the history of the Qur'an, examines its
structure and stylistic features, and considers issues related to
militancy, intolerance, and the subjection of women.
This brilliant bilingual edition of the Qur'an is the best
available English-language translation. It has been approved by
Al-Azhar University, the oldest Muslim university and the world's
leading institution for the study of Arabic and Islam.
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