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Divine Doppelgängers: YHWH’s Ancient Look-Alikes
By Collin Cornell. 2020
The Bible says that YHWH alone is God and that there is none like him—but texts and artwork from antiquity…
show that many gods looked very similar. In this volume, scholars of the Hebrew Bible and its historical contexts address the problem of YHWH’s ancient look-alikes, providing recommendations for how Jews and Christians can think theologically about this challenge.Sooner or later, whether in a religion class or a seminary course, students bump up against the fact that God—the biblical God—was one among other, comparable gods. The ancient world was full of gods, including great gods of conquering empires, dynastic gods of petty kingdoms, goddesses of fertility, and personal spirit guardians. And in various ways, these gods look like the biblical God. Like the God of the Bible, they, too, controlled the fates of nations, chose kings, bestowed fecundity and blessing, and cared for their individual human charges. They spoke and acted. They experienced wrath and delight. They inspired praise. All of this leaves Jews and Christians in a bind: how can they confess that the God named YHWH was (and is) the true and living God, in view of this God’s profound similarities to all these others?The essays in this volume address the theological challenge these parallels create, providing reflections on how Jews and Christians can keep faith in YHWH as God while acknowledging the reality of YHWH’s divine doppelgängers. It will be welcomed by undergraduates studying religion; seminarians and graduate students of Bible, theology, and the ancient world; and adult education classes.Leo Strauss on Plato’s Euthyphro: The 1948 Notebook, with Lectures and Critical Writings
By Hannes Kerber and Svetozar Y. Minkov. 2023
Leo Strauss famously asserted that the fundamental, defining debate within Western civilization is that between Jerusalem and Athens, piety and…
philosophy, the Bible and Plato. And yet, surprisingly, Strauss never published any of his thoughts on Plato’s dialogue on piety, the Euthyphro.This volume presents, for the first time, Strauss’s 1948 notebook on the dialogue, written in preparation for a class at the New School for Social Research. Featuring close analysis and line-by-line commentary, the notebook opens a window onto a philosophic mind in action, as Strauss asks questions of the classic text, jots down observations and formulations, and analyzes very specific terms and arguments but also steps back, reviews the overall movement of the dialogue, and reconsiders previous conclusions. Beyond the notebook, the volume also brings together all the known materials that lay out Strauss’s thoughts on the Euthyphro. This includes newly transcribed and edited public lectures, illuminating appendixes, critical essays by volume editors Hannes Kerber and Svetozar Y. Minkov and scholar Wayne Ambler, an account of Strauss’s public lecture, and a new English translation of Plato’s Euthyphro by Seth Benardete, a classicist and one of Strauss’s students.Engaging and inspiring, Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Euthyphro” is a vital resource for scholars and students of political theory, readers interested in the intersection of philosophy and religion, and a must-have for anyone who studies Strauss.Classical Samaritan Poetry
By Laura Suzanne Lieber. 2022
This book introduces the evocative but largely unknown tradition of Samaritan religious poetry from late antiquity to a new audience.…
These verses provide a unique window into the Samaritan religious world during a formative period.Prepared by Laura Suzanne Lieber, this anthology presents annotated English translations of fifty-five Classical Samaritan poems. Lieber introduces each piece, placing it in context with Samaritan religious tradition, the geopolitical turmoil of Palestine in the fourth century CE, and the literary, liturgical, and performative conventions of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, shared by Jews, Christians, and polytheists. These hymns, composed by three generations of poets—the priest Amram Dara; his son, Marqah; and Marqah’s son, Ninna, the last poet to write in Samaritan Aramaic in the period prior to the Muslim conquest—for recitation during the Samaritan Sabbath and festival liturgies remain a core element of Samaritan religious ritual to the present day.Shedding important new light on the Samaritans’ history and on the complicated connections between early Judaism, Christianity, the Samaritan community, and nascent Islam, this volume makes an important contribution to the reception of the history of the Hebrew Bible. It will appeal to a wide audience of students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, early Judaism and early Christianity, and other religions of late antiquity.While topics such as death, funerary cult, and the netherworld have received considerable scholarly attention in the context of the…
Ugaritic textual corpus, the related concept of life has been relatively neglected. Life and Mortality in Ugaritic takes as its premise that one cannot grasp the significance of mwt (“to die”) without first having wrestled with the concept of ḥyy (“to live”). In this book, Matthew McAffee takes a lexical approach to the study of life and death in the Ugaritic textual corpus. He identifies and analyzes the Ugaritic terms most commonly used to talk about life and mortality in order to construct a more representative framework of the ancient perspective on these topics, and he concludes by synthesizing the results of this lexical study into a broader literary discussion that considers, among other things, the implications for our understanding of the first-millennium Katumuwa stele from Zincirli.McAffee’s study complements previous scholarly work in this area, which has tended to rely on conceptual and theoretical treatment of mortality, and advances the discussion by providing a more focused lexical analysis of the Ugaritic terms in question. It will be of interest to Semitic scholars and those who study Ugaritic in particular, in addition to students of the culture of the ancient Levant.Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A Mythical-Ritual Genealogy (Magic in History)
By Marla Segol. 2021
In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on…
Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice.Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizing a mythos of divine creation by means of sexual reproduction. She situates in cultural and historical context the emergence of Jewish cosmological models for conceptualizing both human and divine bodies and the interactions between them, arguing that all these sources position the body and its senses as the locus of culture and the means of reproducing it. Segol explores the rituals acting on these models, attending especially to their inherent erotic power, and ties these to contemporary Western sex magic, showing that such rituals have a continuing life. Asking questions about its cosmology, myths, and rituals, Segol poses even larger questions about the history of kabbalah, the changing conceptions of the human relation to the divine, and even the nature of religious innovation itself. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, sexuality, and magic.Sorcery or Science?: Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts (Magic in History)
By Ariela Marcus-Sells. 2022
Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the…
late eighteenth century, Sīdi al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sīdi Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa.Known as the Kunta scholars, Mukhtār al-Kuntī and Muḥammad al-Kuntī were influential teachers who developed a pedagogical network of students across the Sahara. In exploring their understanding of “the realm of the unseen”—a vast, invisible world that is both surrounded and interpenetrated by the visible world—Ariela Marcus-Sells reveals how these theologians developed a set of practices that depended on knowledge of this unseen world and that allowed practitioners to manipulate the visible and invisible realms. They called these practices “the sciences of the unseen.” While they acknowledged that some Muslims—particularly self-identified “white” Muslim elites—might consider these practices to be “sorcery,” the Kunta scholars argued that these were legitimate Islamic practices. Marcus-Sells situates their ideas and beliefs within the historical and cultural context of the Sahara Desert, surveying the cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen and the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds. Erudite and innovative, this volume connects the Islamic sciences of the unseen with the reception of Hellenistic discourses of magic and proposes a new methodology for reading written devotional aids in historical context. It will be welcomed by scholars of magic and specialists in Africana religious studies, Islamic occultism, and Islamic manuscript culture.Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830 (The New History of Quakerism)
By Robynne Rogers Healey. 2021
This third installment in the New History of Quakerism series is a comprehensive assessment of transatlantic Quakerism across the long…
eighteenth century, a period during which Quakers became increasingly sectarian even as they expanded their engagement with politics, trade, industry, and science. The contributors to this volume interrogate and deconstruct this paradox, complicating traditional interpretations of what has been termed “Quietist Quakerism.”Examining the period following the Toleration Act in England of 1689 through the Hicksite-Orthodox Separation in North America, this work situates Quakers in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. Three thematic sections—exploring unique Quaker testimonies and practices; tensions between Quakerism in community and Quakerism in the world; and expressions of Quakerism around the Atlantic world—broaden geographic understandings of the Quaker Atlantic experience to determine how local events shaped expressions of Quakerism. The authors challenge oversimplified interpretations of Quaker practices and reveal a complex Quaker world, one in which prescription and practice were more often negotiated than dictated, even after the mid-eighteenth-century “reformation” and tightening of the Discipline on both sides of the Atlantic. Accessible and well-researched, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830, provides fresh insights and raises new questions about an understudied period of Quaker history.In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Richard C. Allen, Erin Bell, Erica Canela, Elizabeth Cazden, Andrew Fincham, Sydney Harker, Rosalind Johnson, Emma Lapsansky-Werner, Jon Mitchell, and Geoffrey Plank.Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Africana Religions)
By Oludamini Ogunnaike. 2020
This book is an in-depth, comparative study of two of the most popular and influential intellectual and spiritual traditions of…
West Africa: Tijani Sufism and Ifa. Employing a unique methodological approach that thinks with and from—rather than merely about—these traditions, Oludamini Ogunnaike argues that they contain sophisticated epistemologies that provide practitioners with a comprehensive worldview and a way of crafting a meaningful life.Using theories belonging to the traditions themselves as well as contemporary oral and textual sources, Ogunnaike examines how both Sufism and Ifa answer the questions of what knowledge is, how it is acquired, and how it is verified. Or, more simply: What do you know? How did you come to know it? How do you know that you know? After analyzing Ifa and Sufism separately and on their own terms, the book compares them to each other and to certain features of academic theories of knowledge. By analyzing Sufism from the perspective of Ifa, Ifa from the perspective of Sufism, and the contemporary academy from the perspective of both, this book invites scholars to inhabit these seemingly “foreign” intellectual traditions as valid and viable perspectives on knowledge, metaphysics, psychology, and ritual practice.Unprecedented and innovative, Deep Knowledge makes a significant contribution to cross-cultural philosophy, African philosophy, religious studies, and Islamic studies. Its singular approach advances our understanding of the philosophical bases underlying these two African traditions and lays the groundwork for future study.Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora (Africana Religions)
By Danielle N. Boaz. 2021
Banning Black Gods is a global examination of the legal challenges faced by adherents of the most widely practiced African-derived…
religions in the twenty-first century, including Santeria/Lucumi, Haitian Vodou, Candomblé, Palo Mayombe, Umbanda, Islam, Rastafari, Obeah, and Voodoo. Examining court cases, laws, human rights reports, and related materials, Danielle N. Boaz argues that restrictions on African diaspora religious freedom constitute a unique and pervasive form of anti-Black discrimination.Emphasizing that these twenty-first-century cases and controversies are not a new phenomenon but rather a reemergence of colonial-era ideologies and patterns of racially motivated persecution, Boaz focuses each chapter on a particular challenge to Black religious freedom. She examines issues such as violence against devotees, restrictions on the ritual slaughter of animals, limitations on the custodial rights of parents, and judicial refusals to recognize these faiths as protected religions. Boaz introduces new issues that have never been considered as a question of religious freedom before—such as the right of Palo Mayombe devotees to possess remains of the dead—and she brings together controversies that have not been previously regarded as analogous, such as the right to wear headscarves and the right to wear dreadlocks in schools. Framing these issues in comparative perspective and focusing on transnational and transregional issues, Boaz advances our understanding of the larger human rights disputes that country-specific studies can overlook.Original and compelling, this important new book will be welcomed by students and scholars of African diaspora religions and discerning readers interested in learning more about the history of racial discriminationIvan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (Ivan Illich #2)
By David Cayley. 2021
In the eighteen years since Ivan Illich’s death, David Cayley has been reflecting on the meaning of his friend and…
teacher’s life and work. Now, in Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, he presents Illich’s body of thought, locating it in its own time and retrieving its relevance for ours.Ivan Illich (1926–2002) was a revolutionary figure in the Roman Catholic Church and in the wider field of cultural criticism that began to take shape in the 1960s. His advocacy of a new, de-clericalized church and his opposition to American missionary programs in Latin America, which he saw as reactionary and imperialist, brought him into conflict with the Vatican and led him to withdraw from direct service to the church in 1969. His institutional critiques of the 1970s, from Deschooling Society to Medical Nemesis, promoted what he called institutional or cultural revolution. The last twenty years of his life were occupied with developing his theory of modernity as an extension of church history. Ranging over every phase of Illich’s career and meditating on each of his books, Cayley finds Illich to be as relevant today as ever and more likely to be understood, now that the many convergent crises he foresaw are in full public view and the church that rejected him is paralyzed in its “folkloric” shell.Not a conventional biography, though attentive to how Illich lived, Cayley’s book is “continuing a conversation” with Illich that will engage anyone who is interested in theology, philosophy, history, and the Catholic Church.Koran für Dummies (Für Dummies)
By Sohaib Sultan. 2024
Alles Wissenswerte über die heilige Schrift des Islam Der Koran ist die heilige Schrift von über 1,8 Milliarden Muslimen auf…
allen Kontinenten. Er ist die Offenbarung Allahs an den Religionsstifter Mohammed, hohe Literatur und zugleich Leitfaden für das tägliche Leben der Gläubigen. Was sagt der Koran über den Glauben, über Frauen, über die Familie, über Andersgläubige, über Verbrechen und ihre Bestrafung? Sohaib Sultan berichtet über die Entstehung der heiligen Schrift und erläutert die Sprache des Koran. Er räumt Missverständnisse über den Koran aus dem Weg und eröffnet damit Möglichkeiten zu einem besseren Verständnis des Islam. Sie erfahren Wie der Koran entstanden und wie er aufgebaut ist Wie vielfältig sich der Koran interpretieren lässt Wie ein Leben nach dem Koran heute aussieht Was der Koran zu gesellschaftlichen Fragen sagtHouses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States (Public Express Religion America)
By Peter W. Williams. 1997
Houses of God is the first broad survey of American religious architecture, a cultural cross-country expedition that will benefit travelers…
as much as scholars. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 photographs — some by well-known photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange — this handsome book provides a highly accessible look at how Americans shape their places of worship into multifaceted reflections of their culture, beliefs, and times.El Mapa del cielo: Cómo la ciencia, la religión y la gente común están demostrando el más allá
By Eben Alexander. 2014
El autor de La prueba del cielo, el bestseller #1 del New York Times, recurre a los sabios de tiempos…
pasados, a los científicos modernos y a historias de gente común para mostrar que el cielo es real.Cuando el Dr. Eben Alexander conto la historia de su experiencia cercana a la muerte y su vivido viaje al otro lado, muchos lectores escribieron para decir que eso resonaba profundamente con ellos. Gracias a estos lectores, el Dr. Alexander comprendió que compartir su historia ha permitido a la gente a redescubrir lo que muchos ya sabían en la antigüedad: que la vida consiste en algo mas que en la vida terrenal. En El mapa del cielo, el Dr. Alexander y su coautor, Ptolemy Tompkins, comparten visiones sobre la vida del mas allá vividas por sus lectores y muestran la manera en que estas se sincronizan frecuentemente con las de los lideres espirituales del mundo, así como con las de filósofos y científicos. Hay un gran acuerdo, a lo largo del tiempo y de las experiencias, sobre la travesía del alma y su supervivencia mas allá de la muerte. En este libro, el Dr. Alexander sostiene que el cielo es un lugar genuino, mostrando como hemos olvidado y como por fin estamos recordando, lo que en realidad somos y cual es nuestro verdadero destino.The Yijing (I Ching), or Scripture of Change, is traditionally considered the first and most profound of the Chinese classics.…
Originally a divination manual based on trigrams and hexagrams, by the beginning of the first millennium it had acquired written explanations and a series of appendices attributed to Confucius, which transformed it into a work of wisdom literature as well as divination. Over the centuries, hundreds of commentaries were written on it, but for the past thousand years, one of the most influential has been that of Zhu Xi (1130–1200), who synthesized the major interpretive approaches to the text and integrated it into his system of moral self-cultivation.Joseph A. Adler’s translation of the Yijing includes for the first time in English Zhu Xi’s commentary in full. Adler explores Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the text and situates it in the context of his overall theoretical system. Zhu Xi held that the Yijing was originally composed for the purpose of divination by the mythic sage Fuxi, who intended to create a system to aid decision making. The text’s meaning, therefore, could not be captured by a single commentator; it would emerge for each person through the process of divination. This translation makes available to the English-language audience a crucial text in the history of Chinese religion and philosophy, with an introduction and translator’s notes that explain its intellectual and historical context.The Theology of the Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Old Testament Theology)
By null Daniel C. Timmer. 2024
The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah address problems in and around ancient Judah in ways that are as incisive…
and critical as they are optimistic and constructive. Daniel C. Timmer's The Theology of the Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah situates these books in their social and political contexts, examining the unique theology of each as it engages thorny problems in Judah and beyond. In dialogue with recent scholarship, this study focuses on these books' analysis and evaluation of the world as it is, focusing on both human beings and their actions, and God's commitment to purify, restore, and perfect the world. Timmer also surveys these books' later theological use and cultural reception. His study brings their theology into dialogue with concerns as varied as ecology, nationalism, and widespread injustice. It highlights the enduring significance of divine justice and grace for solid hope and effective service in our world.Monotheism and Pluralism (Elements in Religion and Monotheism)
By null Rachel S. Mikva. 2024
Can monotheistic traditions affirm the comparable value of diverse religions? Can they celebrate our world's multiple spiritual paths? This Element…
explores historical foundations and contemporary paradigms for pluralism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Recognizing that there are other ways to interpret the traditions, it excavates the space for theological parity.This book introduces the history of cultural exchanges between East Asia and the West through comparative biographical sketches of sixty…
personalities from China and Japan. These sketches illustrate how both countries, starting from a shared cultural heritage in script and Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist worldviews, took rather different approaches in their encounters with the European world since the 16th to 17th centuries. In particular in the 19th century under external and internal pressure, both nations strove to modernize their societies by introducing technology and new ideas from the Western world, turning them into political rivals and even enemies. Thus, these biographical sketches also shed some light on the general dynamics of cross-cultural interactions between China, Japan, and the West up to the early 20th century.The Chinese and Japanese men and women presented in this book are outstanding personalities who tried to open up the road to international relationships, pioneers in their respective domains who introduced Western culture to their nations, precursors who strove for modernization, e.g., in the fields of translation, education, medicine, media, and social welfare. They testify to individual agency in these cross-cultural exchanges. Many of those who tried to be “cultural bridge-builders” since the 16th century were Christians, simply because the missionaries, who worked hard to learn the native languages of China and Japan, were the first to introduce new cultural elements to these countries. The universal scope and vision of the Christian faith enabled both missionaries and native believers to overcome narrow nationalism or xenophobia and turned them into cross-cultural mediators.From brain science to language development and social skills, we've never known more about how children's minds develop in the…
first five years of life. Yet with all the information available, Christian parents may find themselves confused about how to apply these learnings to daily life with their children. In Little Steps, Big Faith, early childhood expert Dr. Dawn Rundman navigates the research to arrive at surprising insights about how very young children experience God, and how parents can use science to teach faith.The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith
By Jim Stump. 1989
A thought-provoking and eye-opening work by Jim Stump, Vice President at BioLogos and host of the Language of God podcast, offering…
a compelling argument about how evolution does not have to be at odds with faith, but can actually enrich and deepen it.In this moving and deeply thoughtful book, Jim Stump takes readers with him on his journey to understanding evolution and reconciling it with his faith. The Sacred Chain draws on philosophy, theology, and the latest scientific research to tackle some of the biggest questions facing humanity and people of faith today, such as:How can we hold the Bible as a sacred text and yet reconcile modern science with it?By condensing noteworthy events in the history of our universe into one calendar week, what can we learn about God’s creative process and priorities, and where humans fit in?If humans are created in the image of God, what does evolution have to teach us about our species and our place in creation?What about the soul? How can we understand our transcendent qualities if the human body is the product of evolution?How does evolutionary science help us understand how God might use pain and suffering for important and good purposes?Does it have to be one or the other—science or religion—or is there a third way, one that not only preserves faith in the face of modern science, but leads to a stronger, more relevant, and more authentic faith?Deeply researched and a delight to read, The Sacred Chain provides clarity in our uncertain times, revealing a bigger picture of our world and our place within it. It is a panorama consistent with the scientific findings about who we are and where we come from that can actually bolster our faith as it engages our curiosity about ourselves, our universe, and the nature of existence itself.Big churches didn&’t create the problems facing today&’s congregations. But our obsession with size has come at a great cost.We&’re…
obsessed with bigness. Supersized meals and TV screens. Square footage. And big churches. &“What&’s the size of your church?&” That question has stirred insecurities or stroked the ego of too many pastors.For a long time, we thought bigger was better. &“Church growth&” and &“numbers&” dominated our thoughts and conversations. But more than ever, people are feeling disconnected. Trust in the church is dwindling.In De-sizing the Church, pastor Karl Vaters takes us on a multi-faceted journey through our centuries-long obsession with size, both in and outside the church, and how it has negatively affected those who serve and worship in big and small congregations alike. He also dispels some prevailing myths and affirms what was good and true about the Church Growth Movement. And he invites us to consider how removing church size from the equation can be an essential element in rebuilding trust, restoring relationships, and renewing our spiritual lives. This book reframes the way we see the size of our churches and helps us see health and fruitfulness through de-sized lenses. The result? Renewed congregations that reach surrounding communities and faithfully engage culture.