In the public sphere, it is often assumed that acts of violence carried out by Muslims are inspired by their religious commitment and encouraged by the Qur'an. Some people express similar concerns about the scriptures and actions of Christians and Jews. Might they be right? What role do scriptural texts play in motivating and justifying violence in these three traditions? Scripture and Violence explores the complex relationship between scriptural texts and real-world acts of violence. A variety of issues are addressed, including the prevalent modern tendency to express more concern about other people's texts and violence than one's own, to treat interpretation and application of scriptural passages as self-evident, and to assume that the actions of religious people are directly motivated by what they read in scriptures. Contributions come from a diverse group of scholars of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity with varying perspectives on the issues. Highlighting the complex relationship between texts and human actions, this is an essential read for students and academics studying religion and violence, Abrahamic religions, or scriptural interpretation. Scripture and Violence will also be of interest to researchers working on religion and politics, sociology and anthropology of religion, socio-political approaches to scriptural texts, and issues surrounding religion, secularity, and the public sphere. This volume could also form a basis for discussions in churches, synagogues, mosques, interfaith settings, and government agencies. The editors of Scripture and Violence have also set up a website including lesson plans/discussion guides for the different chapters in the book, available here: https://www.scriptureandviolence.org/scripture-and-violence-book-and-chapter-discussion-guides

This book focuses on the expressions used to describe Job's body in pain and on the reactions of his friends to explore the moral and social world reflected in the language and the values that their speeches betray. A key contribution of this monograph is to highlight how the perspective of illness as retribution is powerfully refuted in Job's speeches and, in particular, to show how this is achieved through comedy. Comedy in Job is a powerful weapon used to expose and ridicule the idea of retribution. Rejecting the approach of retrospective diagnosis, this monograph carefully analyses the expression of pain in Job focusing specifically on somatic language used in the deity attack metaphors, in the deity surveillance metaphors and in the language connected to the body and social status. These metaphors are analysed in a comparative way using research from medical anthropology and sociology which focuses on illness narratives and expressions of pain. Job's Body and the Dramatised Comedy of Moralising will be of interest to anyone working on the Book of Job, as well as those with an interest in suffering and pain in the Hebrew Bible more broadly.

Text Linguistics of Qur'anic Discourse is an in-depth investigation of the fabric of Qur'anic Discourse. It unravels the texture of the macro Qur'anic text; its cohesion and coherence systems; the notions of intertextuality, semantic relatedness, and thematic sequentiality; the macro textual features of ellipsis, repetition, and argumentation structure; and the contextual, co-textual, grammatical, and semantic factors involved in the macro Qur'anic text. This book is a valuable and methodologically consistent learning and teaching academic resource for universities worldwide in this intriguing new discipline. Through its methodologically coherent discussion and in-depth analysis that is hinged upon modern European text linguistics, Text Linguistics of Qur'anic Discourse provides an insight into the newly established discipline of text linguistics, and explores the different layers of the macro Qur'anic text as an academic requirement.

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.

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.

About Carole Satyamurti's translation "Carole Satyamurti's version of the Mahabharata moves swiftly and powerfully. She has found a voice that's capable of a wide variety of expression, and a line--basically classical English blank verse with a jazz-like freedom to swing--that propels the reader effortlessly onward through the cosmic, terrifying, erotic, sublime events of this extraordinary work. I think I shall never get tired of it." --PHILIP PULLMAN, author of The Golden Compass

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.

Indian art, increasingly popular in the west, cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of the religious and philosophical background. This book, first published in 1985, covers all aspects of Hindu iconography, and explains that its roots lie far back in the style of prehistoric art. The dictionary demonstrates the rich profusion of cults, divinities, symbols, sects and philosophical views encompassed by the Hindu religious tradition.

The father-daughter dyad features in the Hebrew Bible in all of narratives, laws, myths and metaphors. In previous explorations of this relationship, the tendency has been to focus on discrete stories - notable among them, Judges 11 (the story of Jephthah's human sacrifice of his daughter) and Genesis 19 (the dark tale of Lot's daughters' seduction of their father). By taking the full spectrum into account, however, the daughter emerges prominently as (not only) expendable and exploitable (as an emphasis on daughter sacrifice or incest has suggested) but as cherished and protected by her father. Depictions of daughters are multifarious and there is a balance of very positive and very negative images. While not uncritical of earlier feminist investigations, this book makes a contribution to feminist biblical criticism and utilizes methods drawn from the social sciences and psychoanalysis. Alongside careful textual analysis, Johanna Stiebert offers a critical evaluation of the heuristic usefulness of the ethnographic honour-shame model, of parallels with Roman family studies, and of the application and meaning of 'patriarchy'. Following semantic analysis of the primary Hebrew terms for 'father' ( ) and 'daughter' ( ), as well as careful examination of inter-family dynamics and the daughter's role vis-a-vis the son's, alongside thorough investigation of both Judges 11 and Genesis 19, and also of the metaphor of God-the-father of daughters Eve, Wisdom and Zion, Stiebert provides the fullest exploration of daughters in the Hebrew Bible to date.

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.

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic's problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata.

This monograph demonstrates that the book of Deuteronomy is a result of highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Ezekiel. Likewise, it shows that the books of Joshua-Judges, taken together, are a result of one, highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. In both cases, the detailed reworking consists of almost 700 strictly sequentially organized conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences. The strictly sequential, hypertextual dependence on the earlier works explains numerous surprising features of Deuteronomy and Joshua-Judges. This critical analysis of Deuteronomy and Joshua-Judges sheds entirely new light on the question of the origin of the Pentateuch and the whole Israelite Heptateuch Genesis-Judges.

In The Second Canonization of the Qur'an, Nasser studies the transmission and reception of the Qur'anic text and its variant readings through the work of Ibn Mujahid (d. 324/936), the founder of the system of the Seven Eponymous Readings of the Qur'an. The overarching project aims to track and study the scrupulous revisions the Qur'an underwent, in its recited, oral form, through the 1,400-year journey towards a final, static, and systematized text. For the very first time, the book offers a complete and detailed documentation of all the variant readings of the Qur'an as recorded by Ibn Mujahid. A comprehensive audio recording accompanies the book, with more than 3,500 audio files of Qur'anic recitations of variant readings.

This volume is a systematic and comprehensive introduction to one of the most read texts in South Asia, the Bhagavad-gita. The Bhagavad-gita is at its core a religious text, a philosophical treatise and a literary work, which has occupied an authoritative position within Hinduism for the past millennium. This book brings together themes central to the study of the Gita, as it is popularly known - such as the Bhagavad-gita's structure, the history of its exegesis, its acceptance by different traditions within Hinduism and its national and global relevance. It highlights the richness of the Gita's interpretations, examines its great interpretive flexibility and at the same time offers a conceptual structure based on a traditional commentarial tradition. With contributions from major scholars across the world, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of religious studies, especially Hinduism, Indian philosophy, Asian philosophy, Indian history, literature and South Asian studies.

This collection of essays seeks to demonstrate that many biblical authors deliberately used Classical and Hellenistic Greek texts for inspiration when crafting many of the narratives in the Primary History. Through detailed analysis of the text, Gnuse contends that there are numerous examples of clear influence from late classical and Hellenistic literature. Deconstructing the biblical and Greek works in parallel, he argues that there are too many similarities in basic theme, meaning, and detail, for them to be accounted for by coincidence or shared ancient tropes. Using this evidence, he suggests that although much of the text may originate from the Persian period, large parts of its final form likely date from the Hellenistic era. With the help of an original introduction and final chapter, Gnuse pulls his essays together into a coherent collection for the first time. The resultant volume offers a valuable resource for anyone working on the dating of the Hebrew Bible, as well as those working on Hellenism in the ancient Levant more broadly.

This monograph demonstrates that the books of Exodus-Numbers, taken together, are the result of one, highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. This detailed reworking consists of around 1,200 strictly sequentially organized conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences between Exodus-Numbers and Deuteronomy. The strictly sequential, hypertextual dependence on Deuteronomy explains numerous surprising features of Exodus-Numbers. The critical analysis of Exodus-Numbers as a coherently composed hypertextual work disproves hypotheses of the existence in these writings of Priestly and non-Priestly materials or multiple literary layers.

This monograph demonstrates that the book of Genesis is a result of highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. This detailed reworking consists of around 1,000 strictly sequentially organized conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences between Genesis and Deuteronomy. The strictly sequential, hypertextual dependence on Deuteronomy explains numerous surprising features of Genesis. The critical analysis of Genesis as a coherently composed hypertextual work disproves hypotheses of the existence in this writing of Priestly and non-Priestly materials or multiple literary layers.

Learning to Read Talmud is the first book-length study of how teachers teach and how students learn to read Talmud. Through a series of studies conducted by scholars of Talmud in classrooms that range from seminaries to secular universities and with students from novice to advanced, this book elucidates a broad range of ideas about what it means to learn to read Talmud and tools for how to achieve that goal. Bridging the study of Talmud and the study of pedagogy, this book is an essential resource for scholars, curriculum writers, and classroom teachers of Talmud.

This book, first published in 1968, comprises five articles on the immortality of the soul. According to Hindu tradition this immortality cannot be proved by the scientific method of reasoning - it is based upon scriptural evidence and on the direct experience of enlightened souls. These articles examine the Hindu tradition and provide reasoned support to the scriptures and experiences.

This book, first published in 1968, is a collection of twenty-five lectures by Swami Prabhavananda, the outstanding scholar and translator of Hindu scriptures. They present a direct and pragmatic approach to spiritual life, and a clear guide to Hinduism.

The Return of the Absent Father offers a new reading of a chain of seven stories from tractate Ketubot in the Babylonian Talmud, in which sages abandon their homes, wives, and families and go away to the study house for long periods. Earlier interpretations have emphasized the tension between conjugal and scholarly desire as the key driving force in these stories. Haim Weiss and Shira Stav here reveal an additional layer of meaning to the father figure's role within the family structure. By shifting the spotlight from the couple to the drama of the father's relationship with his sons and daughters, they present a more complex tension between mundane domesticity and the sphere of spiritual learning represented by the study house. This coauthored book presents a dialogic encounter between Weiss, a scholar of rabbinic literature, and Stav, a scholar of modern Hebrew literary studies. Working together, they have produced a book resonant in its melding of the scholarly norms of rabbinics with a literary interpretation based in feminist and psychoanalytic theory.

Publicly or secretly, traditional Jews increasingly doubt the historical reliability of the Torah. Here, Gellman provides an ""old-fashioned"" Jewish theology for accepting the contemporary critique of Torah and history. Gellman presents an outline of the scholarly conclusions, and then examines faith responses and rejects apologetic attempts to evade the challenge. The book elucidates the notions of Divine Providence and Divine Accommodation that then provide a basis for the thesis that for centuries Divine Providence has been guiding toward a non-historical, non-literal understanding of the Torah. This was from God. Gellman advocates Hasidic-type non-literal approaches as most fitting for our times. Then, in light of the book's thesis, Gellman offers his understanding of Torah from Heaven, prayer, and the continuing validity of the commandments, for present-day traditional Judaism.

This book analyzes the exceptional normative impact of R. Meir Simcha Hacohen's Biblical commentary, Meshekh Hokhmah, and his halakhic commentary, Or Sameah. It examines the reliance of the poskim on R. Meir Simcha's innovations and hermeneutic methods as well as their view of his interpretations that broadened or narrowed the scope of Maimonides' rulings. The book explores the broad-based judicial principles underlying R. Meir Simcha's legal decisions and approach to Jewish law. It further examines how his legal creativity was impacted by metahalakhic principles that guided him in addressing changing historical and social realities. The book also considers R. Meir Simcha's unique attitudes toward gentiles. His approach attests to his innovativeness and his halakhic moderation, as he tried to rule as leniently as possible on matters concerning non-Jews. In this book, R. Meir Simcha is shown to be a truly influential rabbi whose contributions will long be a source of study and discussion.

This multidisciplinary collective volume advances the scholarly discussion on the origins of Islam. It simultaneously focuses on three domains: texts, social contexts, and ideological developments relevant for the study of Islam's beginnings -- taking the latter expression in its broadest possible sense. The intersections of these domains need to be examined afresh in order to obtain a clear picture of the concurrent phenomena that collectively enabled both the gradual emergence of a new religious identity and the progressive delimitation of its initially fuzzy boundaries.