History of religion Books

David Vishanoff's thorough and original unpacking of the Sunn jurist al-Juwayn's (10281085) Kitb al-Waraqt f ul al-fiqh introduces English-speaking readers to the main concepts, terms, principles, and functions of the classical Islamic discipline of...

Based on hundreds of archival documents, Christina Petterson offers an in-depth analysis of the community building process and individual and collective subjectification practices of the Moravian Brethren in eighteenth-century Herrnhut, Eastern Germany,...

This ground-breaking history of the General Jewish Labour Bund in migration investigates how the organisation transformed itself from a revolutionary protagonist in early twentieth-century Russia to a socialist institution of secular Jewish life and...

Ever since Plato'sRepublicewish scholars, thinkers, and popularizers have contributed notably to this genre, strikingly few have turned their attention to the history of Jewish leaders-that is, leaders specifically of the Jewish people-in particular.And...

What if we have been missing a whole stage of how the canonical gospels came to be? What if there were a whole raft of prior Jesus narratives, the fragmentary vestiges of which now appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This would explain why these...

Was Jesus a mainstream or sectarian Jew, as the scholarly consensus tells us? This view-that we must automatically adopt Second Temple Judaism as the paradigm in which to interpret or reconstruct the historical Jesus-is often presented as self-evident,...

The earliest Christians believed Jesus was an ancient celestial being who put on a bodysuit of flesh, died at the hands of dark forces, and then rose from the dead and ascended back into the heavens. But the writing we have today from that first...

April 7, 1944 - This date marks the successful escape of two Slovak prisoners from one of the most heavily-guarded and notorious concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, fled over one hundred miles to be the...

In early Christianity it was established that every church should have a light burning on the altar at all times. In this unique study, Eternal light and earthly concerns, looks at the material and social consequences of maintaining these 'eternal'...

Secret Drugs of Buddhism is the first book to explore the historical evidence for the use of entheogenic plants within the Buddhist tradition. Drawing on scriptural sources, botany, pharmacology, and religious iconography, this book calls attention to...

Why does Hebrew matter?In answering this question, HebrewRoots, Jewish Routes addresses the many ways engagement with Hebrew enriches Jewishness-culturally, religiously, ethnically.Whether you know Hebrew or not, linguist and cultural anthropologist...

Over the fourteen centuries of its existence, Islamic scholarship has produced numerous individuals who have acquired broad knowledge and deep insight. This work summarizes the thought of ten key personalities whose influence encompasses the vast...

An accessible text looking at the character of the Prophet Presents the Prophet in many different ways, including as a father, husband, leader and negotiator Thematically organised so readers can refer to the different noble traits he had Unique in that...

The Prophet Muhammad initiated one of the most significant religious and cultural developments in human history, bringing the religion of Islam to the world. Adil Salahi's compelling biography traces the life of the Prophet Muhammad from his birth and...

To Be a European Muslim addresses some of the fundamental issues born of the several million strong Muslim presence in Europe in our times. Based on a thorough study of Islamic sources, it seeks to answer basic questions about European Muslims' social,...

Zen Masters of Japan is the second book in a series that traces Zen's profoundly historic journey as it spread eastward from China and Japan, toward the United States. Following Zen Masters of China, this book concentrates on Zen's significant passage...

Newly available in paperback, this book offers an authoritative overview of the broad and complex terrain of feminist theorising concerning the relationship between literature and theology as it has developed over the past several decades. It provides...

Though conditioned by the specific circumstances of eleventh-century Europe, the launching of the crusdaes presupposed a long historical evolution of the idea of Christian knighthood and holy war. Carl Erdmann developed this argument first in 1935 in a...

An essential history of Wahhbism from its founding to the Islamic StateIn the mid-eighteenth century, a controversial Islamic movement arose in the central Arabian region of Najd that forever changed the political landscape of the Arabian Peninsula and...

A panoramic history of the antiquarians whose discoveries transformed Renaissance culture and gave rise to new forms of art and knowledgeIn the early fifteenth century, a casket containing the remains of the Roman historian Livy was unearthed at a...

Enduring lessons from the desert soundscapes that shaped the Christian monastic tradition.For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God...

A comprehensive and accessible guide to the Hebrew BibleThis book brings together some of the world's most exciting scholars from across a variety of disciplines to provide a concise and accessible guide to the Hebrew Bible. It covers every...

The forgotten story of the nineteenth-century freethinkers and twentieth-century humanists who tried to build their own secular religion.In The Church of Saint Thomas Paine, Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in...

Few direct clues exist to the everyday lives and beliefs of ordinary Jews in antiquity. Prevailing perspectives on ancient Jewish life have been shaped largely by the voices of intellectual and social elites, preserved in the writings of Philo and...

A compelling interpretation of a foundational concept of Jewish religious lifeThe love of God is arguably the most essential element in Judaism-but also one of the most confounding. In biblical and rabbinic literature, the obligation to love God appears...

An illuminating look at the transformative role that rituals play in our political livesThe Politics of Ritual is a major new account of the political power of rituals. In this incisive and wide-ranging book, Molly Farneth argues that rituals are social...

During its 2,500-year life, the book of Genesis has been the keystone to important claims about God and humanity in Judaism and Christianity, and it plays a central role in contemporary debates about science, politics, and human rights. The authors...

The life and times of the most important theological work of medieval ChristendomThomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, it was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional...

The scholarly quest to answer the question of Jewish originsThe Jews have one of the longest continuously recorded histories of any people in the world, but what do we actually know about their origins? While many think the answer to this question can be...

A wide-ranging look at the history of Western thinking since the seventeenth century on the purpose of the Jewish people in the past, present, and futureWhat is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God's "chosen people,"...

First published in English in 1954, this founding work of the history of religions secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade. Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship...

A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheismContrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. Two Gods in Heaven reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism,...

The shocking untold story of how the FBI partnered with white evangelicals to champion a vision of America as a white Christian nation.On a Sunday morning in 1966, a group of white evangelicals dedicated a stained glass window to J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI...

The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the MuqaddimaIbn Khaldun (1332-1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world--a genius who ranks as one of the world's...

How religious ritual united a growing and diversifying Roman RepublicMany narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social...

Heretic and impostor or reformer and statesman? The contradictory Western visions of MuhammadIn European culture, Muhammad has been vilified as a heretic, an impostor, and a pagan idol. But these aren't the only images of the Prophet of Islam that emerge...

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable...

The life and many afterlives of one of the most enduring mystical testaments ever writtenThe Life of Saint Teresa of Avila is among the most remarkable accounts ever written of the human encounter with the divine. The Life is not really an autobiography...

When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published - "godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell ...by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw...

A history of unparalleled scope that charts the global transformation of Christianity during an age of profound political and cultural changeChristianity in the Twentieth Century charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an...

This is a sweeping and powerful narrative history of the Jewish people from biblical times to today. Based on the latest scholarship and richly illustrated, it is the most authoritative and accessible chronicle of the Jewish experience available. Michael...

This exploration of cultural resilience examines the complex fate of classical Egyptian religion during the centuries from the period when Christianity first made its appearance in Egypt to when it became the region's dominant religion (roughly 100 to...

The Muslim world is tremendously rich and diverse, yet few Westerners are familiar with the writings and teachings of a culture that is at the forefront of world events. In their insightful anthology The Middle East and Islamic World Reader, historians...

Film, television and popular fiction have long exploited the image of the serene Buddhist monk who is master of the deadly craft of hand-to-hand combat. While these media overly romanticize the relationship between a philosophy of non-violence and the...