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Understanding Poets and Prophets: Essays in Honour of George Wishart Anderson (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by A. Graeme AuldA rich collection of essays by twenty-eight of Professor G W Anderson's students, colleagues and successors in Edinburgh, and associates at home and abroad in the worl of Hebrew and Biblical Studies presented in the year of his 80th birthday
The Victim and its Masks: An Essay on Sacrifice and Masquerade in the Maghreb
by Abdellah HammoudiEach year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mizane of southern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual sacrifice, a symbolic observance of their submission to the divine. After this sober ceremony comes a bacchanalian masquerade which seems to violate every principle the sacrifice affirmed. Because of the apparent contradiction between sacrifice and masquerade, observers have described the two as entirely separate events. This book reunites them as a single ritual process within Islamic tradition.
The Virago Book Of Witches
by Shahrukh HusainA collection of more than fifty stories about witches from around the world. There are tales of banshees, crones and beauties in disguise from China, Siberia, the Caribbean, Armenia, Portugal and Australia. The characters featured include Italy's Witch Bea-Witch, Lilith, Kali, and Twitti Glyn Hec. Alluring women, enchantresses, wise old ladies and bewitching women: they are all here and ready to haunt, entice, possess, transform, challenge - and sometimes even to help.
Warrant: The Current Debate
by Alvin PlantingaKnown for distinguished work in the fields of metaphysics and philosophy of religion, Alvin Plantinga ventures further into epistemology in this book and its companion volume, Warrant and Proper Function. Plantinga examines the nature of epistemic warrant; whatever it is that when added to true belief yields knowledge. This present volume surveys current contributions to the debate and paves the way for his own positive proposal in Warrant and Proper Function. This first volume serves as a good introduction to the central issues in contemporary epistemology.
Warrant and Proper Function
by Alvin PlantingaIn this companion volume to Warrant: The Current Debate, Alvin Plantinga develops an original approach to the question of epistemic warrant; that is what turns true belief into knowledge. He argues that what is crucial to warrant is the proper functioning of one's cognitive faculties in the right kind of cognitive environment. Although this book is in some sense a sequel to its companion volume, the arguments do not presuppose those of the first book and it stands alone as a stimulating contribution to epistemology.
Ways of Escape: Modern Transformations in Leisure and Travel
by C. RojekModern life is often described as an iron cage from which there is no escape. But popular culture venerates leisure and travel as authentic escape routes from routine and monotony. However what kind of escape is tolerated in modern society? How is it shaped by historical expectations of leisure and travel? And what do we actually experience when we engage in leisure or travel activity? This fascinating and accomplished book tries to supply answers to these questions. A major scholarly contribution to the sociological analysis of leisure, pleasure and travel, Dr Rojek's study is a radical challenge to the existing paradigmatic orthodoxy. Bryan S. Turner, University of Essex.
A Wife Worth Waiting For (Mills And Boon Vintage Love Inspired Ser.)
by Arlene JamesEVERYDAY MIRACLES THE WIFE WAIT
Wisdom in Israel
by Gerhard von RadThis classic text, the last major work by the great Hebrew Bible scholar Gerhard von Rad, has long been unavailable in North America. It is now being reissued in paperback from to satisfy the continuing demand for copies of the book.In brief, the subject of von Rad's study of Hebrew wisdom is Israel's willingness to ground faith in encounter with the world as the creation of God.Those familiar with the author's Old Testament Theology will recall how he identified two great watersheds in the history of Israel's thought. The first was the rise of the prophetic movement, which occasioned a radical reinterpretation of Israel's religious traditions as expressed in the earliest creedal formulations found in the Pentateuch. The second watershed, which preceded the prophetic movement and was a basically different assessment of Israel's relation to Yahweh, was achieved by wisdom teachers at the start of the monarchy. This book studies this first and somewhat novel break with Israel's older sacral traditions. Von Rad bases the study on a wide range of literary materials principally concerned with the books of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Ben Sirach."No finer introduction to the fundamental theological questions raised by the wisdom literature of Israel is available." Theology TodayGerhard von Rad was for many years Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg.
Wittgenstein and Religion (Swansea Studies in Philosophy)
by D. PhillipsA collection of essays which explores the significance of Wittgenstein for the Philosophy of Religion. Explorations of central notions in Wittgenstein's later philosophy are brought to bear on the clash between belief and atheism; understanding religious experience; language and ritual; evil and theodicies; miracles; and the possibility of a Christian philosophy.
Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Veritas Paperbacks)
by Leila AhmedA classic, pioneering account of the lives of women in Islamic history, republished for a new generation This pioneering study of the social and political lives of Muslim women has shaped a whole generation of scholarship. In it, Leila Ahmed explores the historical roots of contemporary debates, ambitiously surveying Islamic discourse on women from Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded to Iraq during the classical age to Egypt during the modern era. The book is now reissued as a Veritas paperback, with a new foreword by Kecia Ali situating the text in its scholarly context and explaining its enduring influence. “Ahmed’s book is a serious and independent-minded analysis of its subject, the best-informed, most sympathetic and reliable one that exists today.”—Edward W. Said “Destined to become a classic. . . . It gives [Muslim women] back our rightful place, at the center of our histories.”—Rana Kabbani, The Guardian
Women’s Studies of the Christian and Islamic Traditions: Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Foremothers
by Kari Elisabeth Børresen K. Vogt
Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John's Prologue (The Library of New Testament Studies #89)
by Craig A. EvansWord and Glory challenges recent claims that Gnosticism, especially as expressed in the Nag Hammadi tractate Trimorphic Protennoia, is the most natural and illuminating background for understanding the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel. Scriptural allusions and interpretive traditions suggest that Jewish wisdom tradition, mediated by the synagogue of the diaspora, lies behind the Prologue and the Fourth Gospel as a whole, not some form of late first-century Gnosticism. Several features of the Fourth Gospel reflect the synagogue and nascent Christianity's struggle to advance and defend its beliefs about Jesus who, as God's son and Agent, was understood as the embodiment of the Divine Word. All of the ingredients that make up Johannine christology derive from dominical tradition, refracted through the lens of Jewish interpretive traditions. There is no compelling evidence that this christology derived from or was influenced by gnostic mythology. Word and Glory also develops and tests criteria for assessing the relative value of post-New Testament sources for the interpretation of New Testament documents.
Worlds of Sense: Exploring the senses in history and across cultures (Routledge Revivals)
by Constance ClassenFirst published in 1993, Worlds of Sense is an exploration of the historical and cultural formation of the senses. As the author demonstrates, different cultures have strikingly different ways of ‘making sense’ of the world. In the modern urban West, we are accustomed to thinking in terms of visual models such as ‘world view,’ whereas the Ongee of the Andaman Islands, for example, live in a world ordered by smell and the Tzotzil of Mexico hold that temperature is the basic force of the cosmos. In a fascinating examination of the role of the senses in diverse societies and eras, Constance Classen shows the extent to which perception is shaped by and expressive of cultural values. This book will be of interest to students of cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy.
Worlds of Sense: Exploring the senses in history and across cultures (Routledge Revivals)
by Constance ClassenFirst published in 1993, Worlds of Sense is an exploration of the historical and cultural formation of the senses. As the author demonstrates, different cultures have strikingly different ways of ‘making sense’ of the world. In the modern urban West, we are accustomed to thinking in terms of visual models such as ‘world view,’ whereas the Ongee of the Andaman Islands, for example, live in a world ordered by smell and the Tzotzil of Mexico hold that temperature is the basic force of the cosmos. In a fascinating examination of the role of the senses in diverse societies and eras, Constance Classen shows the extent to which perception is shaped by and expressive of cultural values. This book will be of interest to students of cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy.
Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by J. Glen TaylorThis challenging provocative book argues that there was in ancient Israel a considerable degree of overlap between the worship of the sun and of Yahweh-even that Yahweh was worshipped as the sun in some contexts. As an object created not by humankind but by God himself, the sun as an object of veneration lay outside the bounds of the second commandment and was considered by many to be an appropriate 'icon' of Yahweh of Hosts. Through its ivestigation of 'solar Yahwism', this book offers fresh insight into several passages (e.g.Genesis 1;32.23-33; Joshua 10.12-14; 1 Kings 8.12; Ezekiel 8.16-18; Psalms 19;104) and archaeological data regarding the orientations of Yawistic temples, the "lmlk" jar handles ,horse figurines, and the Taanach cult stand. The book argues that the struggle between Yahweh and other deities in ancint Israel took place within the context of the development of Yahwism itself.
Music for the Mass 2: Choir Edition
by Geoffrey Boulton Smith Christopher McCurryContains music for Holy Week, Easter, weddings and funerals. The music selected has been used in parish churches, and is suitable for those with guitars and keyboards, as well as those who rely on the organ. This choir edition contains cantor, celebrant and choir parts for full accompaniments.
Music for the Mass 2: Choir Edition
by Geoffrey Boulton Smith Christopher McCurryContains music for Holy Week, Easter, weddings and funerals. The music selected has been used in parish churches, and is suitable for those with guitars and keyboards, as well as those who rely on the organ. This choir edition contains cantor, celebrant and choir parts for full accompaniments.
Submitting to Freedom: The Religious Vision of William James (Religion in America)
by Bennett RamseyRamsey presents a new analysis and interpretation of the religious views of the nineteenth-century American philosopher William James. He argues that James was primarily motivated by religious concerns in his writings and that this fact has been obscured by the artificial scholarly division of his "philosophy," "psychology," and "religion"--a symptom of the professionalization which James himself strenuously resisted in his own time. Ramsey believes that James is best understood in his historical context, as a representative of a society and culture struggling to come to terms with modernity. Much of James's religious work is a direct reflection of what has been called "the spiritual crisis of the Gilded Age," a crisis which Ramsey examines in illuminating detail. James's religious vision, in Ramsey's view, hinges on the recognition and acceptance of "contingency"--the knowledge that we are at the mercy of change and chance. With so little else to rely on, James believed, people must learn to submit freely and responsibly into one another's care. Ramsey reintroduces James's thought into the contemporary discussion, and puts forward the kind of religious alternative that James was pointing to in his work: not worship, but acquiescence in a world of mutual relations; not obedience to authority, but conversion to the freedom of responsibility.
Mircea Eliade's Vision for a New Humanism
by David CaveThe influential scholar of religion Mircea Eliade envisioned a spiritually destitute modern culture coming into renewed meaning through the recovery of archetypal myths and symbols. Eliade defined this restoration of meaning as a "new humanism" of existential meaning and cultural-religious unity. Through a biographical exegesis of Eliade's life and writings from his earliest years in Romania to his final ones as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, Cave sets forward a structural description of what this "new humanism" might have meant for Eliade, and what it signifies for modern culture. Cave concludes by endorsing Eliade's radically pluralistic vision which, he argues, offers a key to the revitalization of our demythologized and material culture. This study repositions previous Eliadean studies and places the "new humanism" as the paradigm in relation to which future readings of Eliade should be evaluated.
Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by Walter J. HoustonThe distinction between clean and unclean animals, probably originating in tensions between shepherds and farmers, is in the biblical laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 transformed into an important theological principle. In this wide-ranging and elegantly written study, Houston argues that the avoidance of 'unclean' foods is a mark of the exclusive devotion of Israel to one god. In a concluding chapter, it is suggested that the abolition of the distinction in early Christianity corresponds to the universal horizon of the new faith.
The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism
by Douglas Burton-ChristieThe growing scholarly attention in recent years to the religious world of late antiquity has focused new attention on the quest for holiness by the strange, compelling, often obscure early Christian monks known as the desert fathers. Yet until now, little attention has been given to one of the most vital dimensions of their spirituality: their astute, penetrating interpretation of Scripture. Rooted in solitude, cultivated in an atmosphere of silence, oriented toward the practical appropriation of the sacred texts, the desert fathers' hermeneutic profoundly shaped every aspect of their lives and became a significant part of their legacy. This book explores the setting within which the early monastic movement emerged, the interpretive process at the center of the desert fathers' quest for holiness, and the intricate patterns of meaning woven into their words and their lives.
Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence
by Paul Rorem"Dionysius the Areopagite" is the biblical name chosen by the pseudonymous author of an influential body of Christian theological texts, dating from around 500 C.E. The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, The Divine Names, and The Mystical Theology offer a synthesis of biblical interpretation, liturgical spirituality, and Neoplatonic philosophy. Their central motif, which has made them the charter of Christian mysticism, is the upward progress of the soul toward God through the spiritual interpretation of the Bible and the liturgy. Dionysius continually reminds his readers, however, that all human concepts fall short of the transcendence of God and must therefore be abandoned in negotiations and silence. In this book, Rorem provides a commentary on all of the Dionysian writings, chapter by chapter, and examines especially their complex inner coherence. The Dionysian influence on medieval theology is introduced in essays on specific topics: hierarchy, biblical symbolism, angels, Gothic architecture, liturgical allegory, the scholastic doctrine of God, and the mystical theology of the western Middle Ages. Rorem's book makes these texts more accessible to both scholars and students and includes a comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources.
Among the Prophets: Language, Image and Structure in the Prophetic Writings (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by Philip R. Davies David J. ClinesProphetic symbolism is one of the key topics of this volume. On Isaiah, John F.A. Sawyer finds radical images of Yahweh, Kenneth T. Aitken looks at the metamorphosis of the key motif of hearing, seeing and understanding, Michael L. Barre examines lions and birds in 31.4-5, and Marvin A. Sweeney re-examines vmes(tm)s in 8.6. The imagery of Ezekiel is explored by Leslie C. Allen (the 'Death Valley' vision) and M.G. Swanepoel (Ezekiel 16 and female images of Israel), and Alan Cooper and Athalya Brenner write on the book of Jonah. Two essays of more general scope deal with the search for unity in Isaiah (David Carr) and the redactional shape of Nahum 1 (James Nogalski). An attractive and stimulating volume which reflects the liveliness of current research on the prophetic literature.
The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by J. Clinton McCann Jr.The nine essays in this volume originated in the discussions of the Psalms programme unit of the Society of Biblical Literature and a number were first presented as papers at the SBL meetings in 1989 and 1990. The volume documents the growing interest among scholars in understanding the book of Psalms not only as a collection of liturgical materials from ancient Israel and Judah but also as a coherent literary whole. Part I considers the nature and significance of this new approach; it contains essays by J.L. Mays, Roland E. Murphy, Walter Brueggemann, Gerald H. Wilson and David M. Howard, Jr. Part II illustrates the application of this approach and offers preliminary conclusions concerning the shape of the Psalter and its component books; it contains essays by Gerald H. Wilson, Patrick D. Miller, Jr, J. Clinton McCann, Jr. and David M. Howard, Jr.