With the growing popularity of Zen Buddhism in the West, virtually everyone knows, or thinks they know, what a koan is: a brief and baffling question or statement that cannot be solved by the logical mind and which, after sustained concentration, can lead to sudden enlightenment.
The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism presents a panoramic and comprehensive overview of the major aspects of Jewish life and culture, from the biblical period through to contemporary times.
Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of Conversion takes a close look at Shakespeare's engagement with the flurry of controversy and activity surrounding the concept of conversion in post-Reformation England.
In this creative approach to the doctrine of the Trinity, author Veli- Matti Krkkinen focuses on keeping a dynamic balance between the intellectual-doctrinal and spiritual-charismatic approaches as parallel avenues towards theological understanding.
Originally published in 1948, The Medieval Foundations of England is a chronological framework of the history of ideas and action during the medieval period.
Addressing the relationship between religion and ideology, and drawing on a range of literary, ritual, and visual sources, this book reconstructs the cultural discourse of Assyria from the third through the first millennium BCE.
Drawing on contemporary sources, the text unfolds Hildegard's life from the time of her entrance into an anchoress's cell--where a woman would remain in pious isolation--to her death as a famed visionary and writer, abbess and confidante of popes and kings, more than seventy years later.
This volume examines the sub-topics on the use of the metaphor of hunger to describe the condition of women as well as to a sub-topic on invisible poverty and hunger after Chartism failed.
This collection brings together fifteen studies on the survival and adaptation of the Orthodox religious and cultural tradition in the societies of Southeastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople, a world so often misunderstood and misinterpreted.
'Nature' and the 'city' have most often functioned as opposites within Western culture, a dichotomy that has been reinforced (and sometimes challenged) by religious images.
The manner in which Kathryn Johnston died so tragically at the hands of Atlanta narcotics police on the evening of November 21, 2006, anticipates and informs a number of very contemporary--and extremely volatile--issues that have become closely associated with the name of Ferguson, Missouri.
Eusebius's groundbreaking History of the Church, remains the single most important source for the history of the first three centuries of Christianity and stands among the classics of Western literature.
The author argues that mysticism is not confined to Christianity, but the relation between the soul and Christ is a distinctive mystical experience; and it is specific in this sense, that this relation works out in a certain practice of life and certain development of character.
In the first of four volumes on A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Lester Grabbe presents a comprehensive history of Yehud - the Aramaic name for Judah - during the Persian Period.
In the early seventeenth century, as the vehement aggression of the early Reformation faded, the Church of England was able to draw upon scholars of remarkable ability to present a more thoughtful defence of its position.
This collection of essays celebrates the contribution of John Tudno Williams to the church, to biblical scholarship and teaching, and to the culture of Wales.
In Ancient Cosmologies (1975) nine eminent scholars seek to answer the question, what was the shape of the universe imagined by those ancient peoples to whom all modern knowledge of geography and astronomy was inaccessible?
The Age of Reformation charts how religion, politics and social change were always intimately interlinked in the sixteenth century, from the murderous politics of the Tudor court to the building and fragmentation of new religious and social identities in the parishes.
The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the 'peace of the Church' (c.
