In Muslim countries, apostasy and blasphemy laws are defended on the grounds that they are based on Islamic Shari'a and intended to protect religion. But blasphemy and apostasy laws can be used both to suppress thought and debate and to harass religious minorities, both inside and outside Islam. This book - comprising contributions from Muslim scholars, experts and activists - critically and constructively engages with the theological, historical and legal reasoning behind the most restrictive state laws around the world to open up new ways of thinking. The book focuses on the struggle within Muslim societies in Iran, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia where blasphemy and apostasy laws serve powerful groups to silence dissent and stifle critical thought. The first part of the book covers the development of the law in shifting historical circumstances and surveys the interpretations of Qur'anic verses that seem to affirm freedom of religion. The second part examines the present politics and practices of prosecuting alleged blasphemers and/or apostates in Muslim countries. The third part looks to the future and where reforms of the law could be possible. Debates on Islam and freedom of expression are often cast in polarizing terms of rights versus religion, East versus West. This volume avoids such approaches by bringing together a diverse group of Muslim scholars and activists with the knowledge, commitment and courage to contest repressive interpretations of religion and provide a resource for reclaiming the human rights to freedom of expression and belief.

In Enchanted Dulcinea, this English translation of the novel by Mexican author Angelina Muniz-Huberman, Dulcinea travels in a car writing novels in her mind about several Dulcineas: a medieval princess on a quest, a nineteenth-century lady-in-waiting in Mexico, and a twentieth-century young woman who was sent to Russia as a girl to escape the Spanish Civil War and later journeys to Mexico to reunite with her parents. Unsure of her identity, Dulcinea remembers, debates, and records memories of her exile. As she circles Mexico City, she examines the role of memory, speech, and writing through her fragmented narrative voice. Dulcinea explores her place in the world through storytelling, blurring the line between reality and imagination. This novel pairs a lyrical and contemplative style with experimental writing to present common themes of identity formation and exile in a unique form. Dulcinea's quest is also one of spiritual connection with apocalyptic and mystical overtones. With allusions to both Christian and Jewish mystical traditions, this novel reveals a crypto-Jewish presence typical of Muniz-Huberman's writing, forming part of a Sephardic literary tradition. This edition includes an introduction and annotations by the translator, Rebecca Marquis.

The Shoshinge is a gatha of particular importance from The Kyogyoshinso by Shinran (1173-1262). Living in Nenbutsu is a translation of, and commentary on the Shoshinge, which means Hymn on the Right Faith in Nenbutsu. In the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism, the term is usually understood as a particular 'practice' by virtue of which we attain birth in the Pure Land and ultimately the 'realisation' of Supreme Enlightenment. The Shin Buddhist notion of Nenbutsu, however, is something entirely different. In Shin Buddhism the Nenbutsu is actually seen as the working of Amida Buddha's great love and compassion, his call to all of us sentient beings to come to him just as we are without any reservation. This new translation and commentary will explore the Shoshinge in all its depth and meaning.

In a methodological discussion of this issue, the contributors cover a range of topics, from ancient poltics to modern ideology. The entity known as 'the Exile' has had an extremely forceful influence in Old Testament scholarship, both as an event and as a symbol. But was there an 'Exile'? And if so, how did it fit into the pattern of population deportations that characterized the imperial strategies of the ancient Near East? In a major methodological discussion of this issue, the contributors to this symposium of the European Seminar in Historical Methodology cover a range of topics, from ancient politics to modern ideology. In probing the meaning and implication of 'Exile' they also reflect a spectrum of opinions and conclusions. As with Volume 1 of this series, the editor has provided an introduction and concluding reflections.

The Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important, central and popular scriptures of Hinduism. A medieval Sanskrit text, its influence as a religious book has been comparable only to that of the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Ithamar Theodor here offers the first analysis for twenty years of the Bhagavata Purana (often called the Fifth Veda ) and its different layers of meaning. He addresses its lyrical meditations on the activities of Krishna (avatar of Lord Vishnu), the central place it affords to the doctrine of bhakti (religious devotion) and its treatment of older Vedic traditions of knowledge. At the same time he places this subtle, poetical book within the context of the wider Hindu scriptures and the other Puranas, including the similar but less grand and significant Vishnu Purana. The author argues that the Bhagavata Purana is a unique work which represents the meeting place of two great orthodox Hindu traditions, the Vedic-Upanishadic and the Aesthetic. As such, it is one of India s greatest theological treatises. This book illuminates its character and continuing significance."

A frank academic study of the Muslim holy scripture, the Qur'an, comparing it to the early extra-Qur'anic literature of Islam - and highlighting the differences and contrasts between the two. This exhaustive study goes on to analyse the Muslim holy book from a linguistic perspective, exploring some unconventional interpretations based upon the principle that in all Islamic matters, the last and definitive word is that of the Qur'an. It is the author's contention however, that the traditional Muslim view of Islam (based upon the infallibility of Hadith and Muslim scholars of early Islam) does not accurately reflect the reality of the Qur'an. In compiling this study, the author not only offers genuine insights into the sacred texts of Islam, but also pleads with Muslims to recognise some problems in their religious literature, and exercise more self-restraint in the face of objective criticism. To the Western world, the author asks that all Muslims should not be tarred with the same brush. "A few thousand - or more - militants who believe in terrorism do not represent the entire billion-strong Muslim community of today's world anymore than the few thousand slave traders of 18th century colonialism represent the entire Judeo-Christian world. Indeed, Islam has sprung from the same original source of Semitic monotheism of Abraham as have Judaism and Christianity; and, strangely enough, suffers from the very same problems of misrepresentations perpetuated through the centuries since its appearance."

In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.

Originally published in 1973, this volume consists of a sequence of essays in religious thinking, responsive to the impact of Quranic style and emphasis. It traces the implications of the Qur'an in the related fields of man and history, evil and forgiveness, unity and worship, wonder and the hallowing of the world. It does so with a critical eye for the classical commentators, three of whom are translated here in their exegesis of three important Surahs. The underlying emphasis of this book is inter-religious converse and responsibility in the contemporary world.

Originally published in 1966, this was the first of Muhammad 'Abduh's works to be translated into English. Risalat al Tauhid represents the most popular of his discussion of Islamic thought and belief. 'Abduh is still quoted and revered as the father of 20th Century Muslim thinking in the Arab world and his mind, here accessible, constituted both courageous and strenuous leadership in his day. All the concerns and claims of successive exponents of duty and meaning of the mosque in the modern world may be sensed in these pages. The world and Islam have moved on since 'Abduh's lifetime, but he remains a source for the historian of contemporary movements and a valuable index to the self-awareness of Arab Islam.

Originally published in 1956, this book brings together from the canonical writings of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity the most important of the passages in which the view of the Founder is reflected. It aims to let each of the sacred traditions tell its own story and only such comments have been added as seem necessary to bring out the full significance of the passage quoted. The final chapter summarizes some of the difficult questions which arise from a comparison of the extracts from the 3 traditions.

Originally published in 1953, The Hebrew Prophets' conception of the meaning and purpose of human history has considerable significance for a religious view of the world situation in the middle of the 20th Century. This book discusses the nature of the Hebrew prophets and the grounds for their claim to inspiration. He then examines the fundamental and universal religious ideas underlying their pronouncements. Particular attention is paid to their views on the basis of human morals, the character of the good society, the duties of government and the relation between religion and politics. Other chapters deal with their ideas of true religion and of the relation of God to human life.

Originally published in 1955, and containing some 500 passages, this Biblical anthology brings together, in their original wording, the highest expressions of the Biblical view of life. The anthology is non-historical and non-doctrinal. It starts with the confrontations of man with God as seen in the 'calls' of the prophets, and proceeds to the ways of life demanded of man and the duties accompanying the privilege of vocation. It ends with the visions of the ideal society which in times of trial the author believes have sustained the mind. When this was first published, the anthology used often forgotten texts, and in so doing stimulated much attention to these enduring religious documents.

Shoah and Torah systematically takes up the task of reading the Shoah through the lens of the Torah and the Torah through the lens of the Shoah.The investigation rests upon (1) the metaphysical standing that the Nazis ascribed to the Torah, (2) the obliteration of the Torah in the extermination of the Jews, (3) the significance of the Torah for an understanding of the Shoah, and (4) the significance of the Shoah for an understanding of the Torah.The basis for the inquiry lies not in the content of a certain belief but in the categories of a certain mode of thought. Distinct from all other studies, this book is grounded in the categories of Jewish thought and Judaism-the categories of creation, revelation, and redemption-that the Nazis sought to obliterate in the Shoah.Thus, the investigation is itself a response to the Nazi project of the extermination of the Jews and the millennial testimony of the Jews to the Torah.

Beginning with the insights of the "canonical criticism" of Brevard Childs and James Sanders, this book explores the canon of the Bible through readings in literature, art and cinema. It places the Bible within the concerns of contemporary feminist thought, postmodern anxiety and modern apocalyptic thought. It returns the reader to a sense of the centrality of the biblical canon, expanding the notion of "reading" to picture and film.

This book explores the early Jewish understanding of divine knowledge as divine presence, which is embodied in major biblical exemplars, such as Adam, Enoch, Jacob, and Moses. The study treats the concept of divine knowledge as the embodied divine presence in its full historical and interpretive complexity by tracing the theme through a broad variety of ancient Near Eastern and Jewish sources, including Mesopotamian traditions of cultic statues, creational narratives of the Hebrew Bible, and later Jewish mystical testimonies. Orlov demonstrates that some biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts postulate that the theophany expresses the unique, corporeal nature of the deity that cannot be fully grasped or conveyed in some other non-corporeal symbolism, medium, or language. The divine presence requires another presence in order to be transmitted. To be communicated properly and in its full measure, the divine iconic knowledge must be "written" on a new living "body" which can hold the ineffable presence of God through a newly acquired ontology. Embodiment of Divine Knowledge in Early Judaism will provide an invaluable research to students and scholars in a wide range of areas within Jewish, Near Eastern, and Biblical Studies, as well as those studying religious elements of anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and gender studies. Through the study of Jewish mediatorial figures, this book also elucidates the roots of early Christological developments, making it attractive to Christian audiences.

This volume challenges a long history of normalizing patriarchal approaches to the Qur'an and calls for a questioning of the interpretive credibility of many inherited Qur'anic commentaries. The author presents a fresh reading of the sacred text and Islamic teaching traditions as the rediscovery of a lost humanitarian and gender-egalitarian textual richness that has been poorly and loosely handled for centuries. The book stresses the importance of reviewing the interpretive linguistic choices that jurists and exegetes over the last fourteen centuries have adopted to semantically reshape the Qur'anic text. The vigilant reading the author provides of carefully chosen texts and commentaries suggests that many interpretive approaches to the Qur'an are dominated by sociopolitical factors alien to the intrinsic values of the text itself. More importantly, inconsistencies across putatively sound books of tafsir indicate that the Qur'anic text often suffers from historical and systematic drainage of its humanitarianism, gender-egalitarianism, and religious pluralism.

Gospel Characters: Jesus and His Contemporaries contributes to an understanding of Jesus in the New Testament that is persons-centred. It highlights how different biblical characters help shape the stories that have come down to us. This book provokes thoughts for further research on other biblical figures and themes. It is an invaluable resource for catechists, pastoral workers, evangelizers and for instructions in Houses of Formation, particularly in furthering the ministry of the Word Made Flesh, who dwells among us.

At the birth of the United States, African Americans were excluded from the newly-formed Republic and its churches, which saw them as savage rather than citizen and as heathen rather than Christian. Denied civil access to the basic rights granted to others, African Americans have developed their own sacred traditions and their own civil discourses. As part of this effort, African American intellectuals offered interpretations of the Bible which were radically different and often fundamentally oppositional to those of many of their white counterparts. By imagining a freedom unconstrained, their work charted a broader and, perhaps, a more genuinely American identity. In Pillars of Cloud and Fire, Herbert Robinson Marbury offers a comprehensive survey of African American biblical interpretation. Each chapter in this compelling volume moves chronologically, from the antebellum period and the Civil War through to the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Obama era, to offer a historical context for the interpretative activity of that time and to analyze its effect in transforming black social reality. For African American thinkers such as Absalom Jones, David Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Frances E. W. Harper, Adam Clayton Powell, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the exodus story became the language-world through which freedom both in its sacred resonance and its civil formation found expression. This tradition, Marbury argues, has much to teach us in a world where fundamentalisms have become synonymous with "authentic" religious expression and American identity. For African American biblical interpreters, to be American and to be Christian was always to be open and oriented toward freedom.

Exploring the Heart Sutra offers readers an interdisciplinary philosophical approach to this much-loved Buddhist classic, with a new translation and commentary. Situating the Heart Sutra within a Chinese context, Sarah A. Mattice brings together voices past and present, Asian and Western, on topics from Buddhology, translation theory, feminism, religious studies, ethnography, Chinese philosophy, and more, in order to inspire readers to understand the sutra in a new light. Mattice's argument for the importance of appreciating the Heart Sutra from a Chinese philosophical context includes a new hermeneutic paradigm for approaching composite texts; an argument for translating the text from the Chinese, rather than the Sanskrit; an extended discussion of the figure of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion and main speaker of the Heart Sutra, as a distinctively Chinese figure; an inquiry in to the history of women's practice, with a special focus on China; and a commentary on the text that draws on philosophical resources from Chinese Buddhist, Ruist, and Daoist traditions. Mattice presents the Heart Sutra in its depth and complexity, inviting readers to return to this classic text with fresh perspectives and new insights into its relevance for living well in the contemporary world.

"Torah, as both book and process, is the taproot that penetrates to the heart of Jewish meaning, understanding, and expression. Torah study is how we mine not just meaning from the text, but our awareness of God's will," writes Rabbi Daniel Pressman in the introduction to Torah Encounters: Genesis. This book invites readers into the richness of the Torah, sharing context and information for each parasha, as well as commentary from generations of Biblical interpreters-historical and modern, and Rabbi Pressman's own insights. The third in the five-volume Torah Encounters series, Torah Encounters: Leviticus makes the weekly Torah portion approachable and applicable. It is a wonderful resource for clergy, adult or high school Hebrew education, or personal study.