Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) caught the popular imagination with his vast and enterprising comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind, which in its third edition numbered 12 volumes.
A new investigation that shows how conversionary preaching to Jews was essential to the early modern Catholic Church and the Roman religious landscapeStarting in the sixteenth century, Jews in Rome were forced, every Saturday, to attend a hostile sermon aimed at their conversion.
A new history of Christian-Muslim relations in the Carolingian period that provides a fresh account of events by drawing on Arabic as well as western sourcesIn the year 802, an elephant arrived at the court of the Emperor Charlemagne in Aachen, sent as a gift by the ?
*Note: Lead Like It Matters is a completely revised and updated version of the book previously published as It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It.
Enduring lessons from the desert soundscapes that shaped the Christian monastic traditionFor 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.
An exploration of early modern accounts of sickness and disability-and what they tell us about our own approach to bodily differenceIn our age of biomedicine, society often treats sickness and disability as problems in need of solution.
The untold story of how the Arabic Qur'an became the English KoranFor millions of Muslims, the Qur'an is sacred only in Arabic, the original Arabic in which it was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century; to many Arab and non-Arab believers alike, the book literally defies translation.
How interwar Poland and its Jewish youth were instrumental in shaping the ideology of right-wing ZionismBy the late 1930s, as many as fifty thousand Polish Jews belonged to Betar, a youth movement known for its support of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of right-wing Zionism.
A unique history of the Hebrew language from biblical times to the modern Jewish stateThis book explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on Jews and Christians, who have invested it with a symbolic power far beyond that of any other language in history.
They sought to transform the world, and ended up transforming twentieth-century AmericaBetween the 1890s and the Vietnam era, many thousands of American Protestant missionaries were sent to live throughout the non-European world.
How the Jewish culture war over Kabbalah beganThe Scandal of Kabbalah is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition.
Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "e;Christian-Muslim divide"e;--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule.
From the author of the acclaimed biography Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, new perspectives on how Luther and others crafted his larger-than-life imageMartin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today.
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?
A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheismContrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic.
A bold new interpretation of Nat Turner and the slave rebellion that stunned the American SouthIn 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children.
From Steve and Jackie Green, founders and curators of the Museum of the Bible--a fascinating exploration of the history, authenticity, and power of the Bible, the book that has changed people and nations throughout the centuries.
Discover new dimensions of insight with a behind-the-scenes tour of the ancient worldYou've heard many Bible stories hundreds of times, but how many details are you missing?
A "e;powerful text"e; (Tavis Smiley) about how religion drove the fight for social justice in modern AmericaAmerican Prophets sheds critical new light on the lives and thought of seven major prophetic figures in twentieth-century America whose social activism was motivated by a deeply felt compassion for those suffering injustice.
This book demonstrates the originality and coherence of Jonathan Edwards' philosophical theology using his dynamic reconception of reality as the interpretive key.
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 change.
From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.
Muslim intellectuals who sought to establish the boundaries of modern Muslim identityMuslim modernism was a political and intellectual movement that sought to redefine the relationship between Islam and the colonial West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Wahrheit, Lüge & Vernunft - Über die Macht der ManipulationWir alle sind Fakten und Emotionen ausgesetzt und nicht immer sind die Grenze zwischen Wahrheit und Täuschung klartrennbar.
New perspectives on early globalisms from objects and imagesTales Things Tell offers new perspectives on histories of connectivity between Africa, Asia, and Europe in the period before the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century.
