Award-winning religious scholar Richard Bauckham here explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and showing that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. To place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era, Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman…
The Church’s liturgical seasons are a study in change, especially during Lent and Easter. In this booklet, we focus on the dramatic changes in the life of Jesus—and on Lent’s insistent call to change our own lives. Jesus’ encounters with darkness and evil, including his betrayal and arrest and his death on the cross, attest to the reality of suffering in life, accepting what we must, an…
The authors comprehensively analyze all the available information regarding the ritual practices of Slavic pre-Christian religion that can be found in written medieval texts. After investigating every kind of reference to such practices, they offer a reconstruction of Slavic pre-Christian religion on the basis of these medieval testimonies. In doing so, they overcome the challenges presented by…
With the arrival of a so-called Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, Christian leaders gained the long-awaited tolerance of the empire. Christianity’s transition into the favored religious cult of the imperial household and Roman elite involved significant growing pains. The road to conformity was anything but smooth, as a series of controversial ecumenical councils demonstrated. I…
If you walk into the Ra?jara?j??varan ?iva temple in Ta?ipparamba, in the Ka???r district of northern Kerala, you will see many standard features: lush green lawns, old stone architecture, the occasional elephant munching on grass, low tiled roofs housing an array of deities that surround the main shrine. Having paid your respects to the various spirit…
International humanitarian law (IHL), now synonymous for many withjus inbello, is the branch of international law that governs the conduct of war. Eventhough the main instruments of IHL have been universally ratified, however,and IHL is perhaps the most effective means so far developed to limit theeffects of war, it is notoriously difficult to implement and enforce (Sassòli2007, 46–47; Bartl…
Cows—certain types ofbovinae—can evoke strong emotions among peo-ple, different emotions rooted in different worldviews. One worldview,which is arguably a galaxy of worldviews emerging over centuries in India,has come to be called “Hindu.” Some people who identify themselvesas Hindus have strong feelings about cows—feelings that tie into theirsense of conviction that cows are not just…
What is spirituality? What is the relationship between spirituality and religion? Are they inseparable or just coincidentally connected? Does spirituality need a reference to God or is true spirituality perhaps only possible without religion? How do different forms of spirituality affect the lives of individuals and society? This book is dedicated to these questions and thus comprehensively exp…
Ramon Harvey revisits the Muslim theologian Ab? Man??r al-M?tur?d? (d. 333/944) from Samarqand and puts his system, and that of the M?tur?d? school, into lively dialogue with modern thought.Combining rigorous study of Arabic M?tur?d? texts with insights from Husserl’s phenomenology and analytic theology, Harvey explores themes from epistemology and metaphysics to the nature of God and specifi…
The Details of Thomas Becket’s life and of the first fifty years or so of his cult are so well-known that they hardly bear retelling.1 For the fifteenthcentury monks who acted as custodians of his shrine there was a handy mnemonic for the most significant events of his path to sainthood—the Seven Wonderful Tuesdays—which they duly copied into the instructions written fo…
‘TheWalking Dead’in the title of the current study is of courseanod to the fa-moustelevision series, but it also hasamore serious meaningalludingtothefact that from an ancient Egyptian perspective,the deceased and other spiritualbeingswereactuallypart of the life of the living and interacted with them.Aflowery description of this worldview has been provided by Thomas Mannin his famousJoseph…
The debate between faith and science is an ongoing and quickly evolving field of study, which touches many areas of investigation. This collection of essays informs readers about some of the discourses and themes that are currently driving the faith-science debate. The aim is not to provide a uniform or exhaustive meta-narrative on faith and science nor to focus on micro…
In an age where there was broad recognition of the Christian religion and respect for the church as an institution in European culture on the one hand and immense human suffering on the other, the young German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply concerned about Christianity. His concern sprung from the fact that a person who professes to be a Christian and…
The seventeenth-century philosopher Anne Conway (1631–1679) has received renewed attention from scholars of various fields during the last three decades. Preeminently, the historian of philosophy Sarah Hutton has contributed import-ant work to this scholarly development by publishing a re-edited version of the Viscountess’ correspondence, published in 1992, …
During the evenings of 01 and 02 November 1561, a package containing a defensive plea [Dutch: verweerschrift] and an accompanying anonymous letter landed within the walls of the Castle of Doornik (Tournai). However, such a document never simply ‘falls from the sky’. The author, Guido de Brès, threw it over the wall within specific circumsta…
Let us retreat for a brief moment to the era that preceded the Late Middle Ages. In so doing, we might notice that some historians who have researched the Christianisation of Central and Eastern European societies as a continuous pro-cess, unfolding over centuries, estimate that pagan belief systems expired in the twelfth century, at the latest. The eminent Polish medievalist Henry…
With so many religions in the world, it isn’t always easy to recall each faith’s key influences, spiritual figures, and dogmas. Written in easy-to-understand language, Religion 101 offers a fascinating—and memorable—glimpse at the sacred stories, traditions, and doctrines that have influenced today’s most popular religions. From Jesus and the Four Noble Truths to the Buddhist Wheel…
No Church is monolithic—this is the preliminary premise of this volume on the public place of religion in a representative number of post-communist countries. The studies confirm that within any religious organization we can expect to find fissures, factions, theological or ideological quarrels, and perhaps even competing interest groups, such as missionary workers, regular clergy versus secu…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rarely out of the news or the public imagination. Images of red-eyed Terminators illustrate press accounts of incremental advances in medical diagnosis, facial recognition, natural language processing, and robotics. Such advances are transforming society through measurable impacts on people’s decisions and opportunities. Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An…
These lines constitute the beginning and end of a letter, written on papyrus in a dialect of the Coptic Egyptian language and dating to the middle of the fourth century CE.2 The letter would not have been known today had it not been discovered by excavators at Ismant el-Kharab, now a sand-covered ruin in an oasis west in Egypt, once a prosperous…
Papyrus letters seem to convey close and personal information, directly from the mouth (or the pen) of an ancient author. Piene’s letter to his mother Maria accentuates a vivid sense of proximity and similarity. A boy, traveling far away from his mother, expresses his affection for her in a most elegant manner. How different is he from you and me?Intimate as it may feel, this passage may also…
Present- day Germany is a post- Christian nation. Religious pluralism, a decrease of ethical and religious convictions originating in Christianity, individualism, and secularization describe the cultural influences in Germany.1 Mainline churches have suffered from a drastic decline in membership for several decades and expect to lose half of their members by 2060.2 The average…
Humans, animals, plants, rivers, air, earth, seas and mountains – robust, strong and resilient – are not indestructible. The survival of nature itself – of which we are a part – however breathtaking, dazzling, over-powering, awe-inspiring and often endearing it may be, cannot be taken for granted. We are threatened by multiple disruptions.I have long argued that we should not avoid life…
The Viennese Jesuit astronomer Maximilian Hell was a nodal figure in the eighteenth-century circulation of knowledge. This study of his career sheds light on the Enlightenment, Catholicism, reform in the Habsburg monarchy, and the cultivation of science in the Republic of Letters. Readership: Anyone interested in eighteenth-century Central Europe and Scandinavia, in the production and circulati…
This edited volume of chapters resulted from an international conference held at the University of Adelaide in July 2016 under the same title to explore the multifaceted concept of ?ilm in Islam — its agency and manifestations in the connected realms of science, religion, and the arts. The aim is to explore the Islamic civilisational responses to major shifts in the concept of ‘knowledge’…
As the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entr…
It was late morning in May 2014, and I was sitting on the sofa in the lobby of a Radisson Blu Hotel. The sliding doors of the hotel opened onto a typical, international hotel lobby with marbled floors, a series of lifts, a spiralling staircase and clusters of small, hard, colourful square-shaped sofas and arm-chairs. If you could only see the lobby, and not the street outside, you would not hav…
This is the first in a series of sourcebooks charting the reception of Avicenna (Ibn S?n?, d.1037) in the Islamic East (from Syria to central Asia) in the 12th-13th centuries CE. Avicenna was the dominant philosophical authority in this period, who provoked generations of thinkers to subtle critique, defense, and development of his ideas. The series will translate and analyze hundreds of passag…
A powerful argument for humanism as an alternative to organized religion, by New York Times bestselling author A.C. Grayling, one of the world's leading public intellectuals. Examining all the arguments for and against religion and religious belief--across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious and how they stand up to scrutiny--The God Argument is a landmark b…
The book examines the late ancient history of one pivotal concept of contemporary culture, that of human dignity, with the view to identifying the moment in history when European culture worked out a systematic category for human axiological status. Whereas some studies concentrate on the notion of dignity in the Renaissance, suggesting that the earlier Christian thought emphasized human insign…
This title is published in Open Access with the support of the University of Helsinki Library. The book surveys and analyzes changes in religious groups and identities in late antique Arabia, ca. 300-700 CE. It engages with contemporary and material evidence: for example, inscriptions, archaeological remains, Arabic poetry, the Qur??n, and the so-called Constitution of Medina. Also, it suggests…
The question of genre has dominated scholarship focused on the narrative of King David in the Second Book of Samuel and the First Book of Kings. This nar-rative has variously been called, the Succession Narrative,1 the Court History,2 and the David Saga.3 In this book, A King and a Fool? The Succession Narrative as a Satire, I offer a new perspective on the genre of, what I will hereafter refer…
Wandering religious poets – that is to say, poets for whom wande-ring is a way of life and whose poetry deals with religious themes – can be found in a variety of ancient and modern cultures. In India, Tibet, and Japan the ascetic or saint who travels from place to place has been the subject of both veneration and fear for hund-reds, or even thousands, of years, as is evident i…
"Paganism" is an evocative word that even today conjures up deep-seated emotions and prejudices. Until recently, it was primarily a derogatory term used by Christians to describe the non-Christian cultures vanquished by their churches. For some it evokes images of sacrifice and barbaric behavior, while for others it symbolizes a peace-loving, nature-worshipping spiritual relationship with the e…
Chintiya Rubert diutus oleh ibunya, Friska Aisyaharni, untuk menemui neneknya di Ampek Angkek, Sumatera Barat. Misi Chintiya adalah meminta warisan yang menjadi hak ibunya. Friska sendiri tak mau menginjakkan kaki di kampung halamannya. Ia masih memendam dendam karena sikap ibunya yang keras dan selalu menghalang-halanginya, termasuk menentang keras keinginannya menikah dengan Hans Leonard Rube…
Prathik was a young ayurvedic physician, fresh out of college, and studying one of the Sanskrit medical classics, the A????gah?daya,at Mookkamangalam gurukula in India’s southwestern state of Kerala when he told me this.2 Prathik and I had spoken about his education over the course of several days, and he was always candid about the differences he saw betwee…
A statue of a Madonna and Child in a New York kitchen appears in the opening shot of Martin Scorsese’s Who’s Th at Knocking at My Door (1967–9); and the fi nal image of Silence (2016) is of a handmade crucifi x glowing in the fl ames of a crematory fi re in seventeenth-century Japan. It is inarguable that there is a Catholic dimension to Scorsese’s …
That God loves us is the most profound truth in the universe. Experiencing this love has the potential to answer every question, solve every problem, and satisfy the deepest yearnings of the heart. So why are many people who believe this still unable to fully utilize the power of God's love in their personal lives? In this probing book, Dr. David Jeremiah reveals that not fully understanding…
In 2007,the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministe-rium für Bildung undForschung)instituted theKäte HamburgerInternational Cen-tres (KHK) with the purpose of advancinginnovative,interdisciplinary,and inter-nationallyvisible research in the social sciencesand the humanities. In the secondround of calls of proposals for KHK theMinistry widened the reach by funding twoc…
In my Introduction to Zen Buddism, an outline of Zen teaching is sketched, and in The Training of the Zen Monk a description of the Meditation Hall and its life is given. To complete a triptych the present Manual has been compiled. The object is to inform the reader of the various literary materials relating to the monastery life. Foreign students often express their desire to know about what t…
A few years ago, Shauna found herself exhausted and isolated, her soul and body sick. She was tired of being tired and burned out on busy. It seemed like almost everyone she talked to was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, and depth, but settling for busy. But then something changed. She decided to trade the hustle and bustle for grace, love, stillness, and play, and it chang…
St. Gregory of Nazianzus' (ca. AD 330-390) classicizing Christian verse is the earliest Greek verse of its kind that survives in any great quantity. This is a critical edition, with introduction and commentary, of four poems (I.2.17; II.1.10, 19, 32). The commentary is primarily linguistic, but attention is paid to historical and theological matters. The poems' fate in Byzantium is also examine…
Diverse processes of democratic participation – and exclusion – are braided with or propelled onwards by ritual acts and complexes. This volume is the result of collaborations and conversations between international researchers who have focused on the employment and deployment of those cultural resources identifiable as ‘ritual’ as pa…
This book presents a detailed analysis of the translation of the Qur’an in Saudi Arabia, the most important global actor in the promotion, production and dissemination of Qur’an translations. From the first attempts at translation in the mid-twentieth century to more recent state-driven efforts concerned with international impact, The Kingdom and the Qur’an adeptly elucidates the link bet…
An introduction to Christian beliefs and culture discusses the life and teachings of Jesus, the Gospels, divisions and sects within Christianity, and Christian life.
Every body contains multitudes, but no body is immune to the ideology of oneness: one true self, one sexuality, one gender, one vision of the world, one true God. For many who identify (or who have been named by others) as transgender, queer, and nonbinary, the refusal to fit within the illusion of one set of sex and gender expectations has been met with violence and suppression. While the myth…
According to the Qur’an, God created two parallel species, man and the jinn, the former from clay and the latter from fire. Beliefs regarding the jinn are deeply integrated into Muslim culture and religion, and have a constant presence in legends, myths, poetry, and literature. In Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn, Amira El-Zein explores the integral role these mythological …
South and Meso-America gave rise to several major civilizations in the region that today encompasses 21 countries. The mythology that emerged from this land of extremes is rich with stories of floods and fires, horrific monsters, heroes who help create the world before their fathers are born, and a host of gods and goddesses who are alternately jealous, kind, evil, and arrogant. South and Meso-…
Celtic Mythology A to Z is a clearly written, illustrated guide to the characters, objects, and places that make up the mythic lore of the Celtic peoples of Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Wales. With hundreds of entries providing definitions, explanations, and descriptions of the major stories, gods and goddesses, places, and beliefs, this book is the perfect resource for young people …
This book provides alphabetically listed entries identify and explain the characters, events, and important places of Norse mythology.