What we today call Shinto has been at the heart of Japanese culture for almost as long as there has been a political entity distinguishing itself as Japan.
A historical interpretation of the diary of an eighteenth-century Jewish woman who resisted the efforts of the papal authorities to force her religious conversion After being seized by the papal police in Rome in May 1749, Anna del Monte, a Jew, kept a diary detailing her captors’ efforts over the next thirteen days to force her conversion to Catholicism.
A groundbreaking study of the role of Muslims in eighteenth'century France From the beginning, French revolutionaries imagined their transformation as a universal one that must include Muslims, Europe’s most immediate neighbors.
Be inspired to pray boldly, pray powerfully, pray with passion, and trade ineffective prayers and lukewarm faith for raw, daring prayers that will transform your daily life.
The Jesuit Relations, a series of annual reports produced between 1632 and 1673 detailing the experiences of Society of Jesus missionaries in what is now Eastern Canada, have long been an influential source on the history of New France and encounters between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples.
The first major study to draw upon unknown or neglected sources, as well as original interviews with figures like Billy Graham, Awakening the Evangelical Mind uniquely tells the engaging story of how evangelicalism developed as an intellectual movement in the middle of the 20th century.
The history of a single book sheds light on the beginnings of modern Jewish thoughtIn 1797, in what is now the Czech Republic, Pinas Hurwitz published Book of the Covenant.
Between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banaras, the iconic Hindu center in northern India that is often described as the oldest living city in the world, was reconstructed materially as well as imaginatively, and embellished with temples, monasteries, mansions, and ghats (riverfront fortress-palaces).
A broad, systematic account of one of the most original and creative kabbalists, biblical interpreters, and Talmudic scholars the Jewish tradition has ever produced Rabbi Moses b.
Rich in detail and broad in scope, this majestic book is the first to reveal the interaction of politics and religion in France during the crucial years of the long seventeenth century.
Winner of the 2016 Goldstein-Goren Award for the best book in Jewish Thought At once a study of biblical theology and modern Jewish thought, this volume describes a “participatory theory of revelation” as it addresses the ways biblical authors and contemporary theologians alike understand the process of revelation and hence the authority of the law.
In this first serious study of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Paul Rouzer discusses some seventy poems of the iconic Chinese poet who lived sometime during the Tang dynasty (618907).
A groundbreaking new portrait of the apostle Paul, from one of today’s leading historians of antiquity Often seen as the author of timeless Christian theology, Paul himself heatedly maintained that he lived and worked in history’s closing hours.
Based on a previously unexplored source, this book transforms the way we think about the formation of Jewish identity This book tells the story of the earliest Jewish diaspora in Egypt in a way it has never been told before.
An intimate account of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a Quaker pacifist couple living in Philadelphia Historian Richard Godbeer presents a richly layered and intimate account of the American Revolution as experienced by a Philadelphia Quaker couple, Elizabeth Drinker and the merchant Henry Drinker, who barely survived the unique perils that Quakers faced during that conflict.
A scholar’s experiences inside a contemplative working community in Israel’s Negev desert In this thoughtful and enlightening work, world renowned religion scholar Ariel Glucklich recounts his experiences at Neot Smadar, an ecological and spiritual oasis that has been thriving in the arid Southern Israeli desert for a quarter century.
A provocative essay challenging the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism, from one of the world's most widely respected philosophers and writers on Buddhism and scienceBuddhism has become a uniquely favored religion in our modern age.
No period of history was more formative for the development of Christianity than the patristic age, when church leaders, monks, and laity established the standard features of Christianity as we know it today.
The first comprehensive account of Protestant and Catholic attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in the European Reformation In this rich, wide-ranging, and meticulously researched account, Kenneth Austin examines the attitudes of various Christian groups in the Protestant and Catholic Reformations towards Jews, the Hebrew language, and Jewish learning.
This major new study examines the history of Chinese theologies as they have navigated dynastic change, anti-imperialism, and the heights of Maoist propaganda In this groundbreaking and authoritative study, Chloë Starr explores key writings of Chinese Christian intellectuals, from philosophical dialogues of the late imperial era to sermons and micro blogs of theological educators and pastors in the twenty-first century.
The first English translation of The Life of Christina of Hane, a gripping account of a largely unknown medieval female mystic The thirteenth-century mystic Christina of Hane led an extraordinary life, but her recently unearthed case remains to be discovered in the English-speaking world.
This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya the place of Buddhas enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.
An engaging introduction to Zen Buddhism, featuring a new English translation of one of the earliest Zen texts Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and essence of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters.
Philo was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who left behind one of the richest bodies of work from antiquity, yet his personality and intellectual development have remained a riddle.
A leading voice of progressive Christianity makes a powerful case for faith as a radical way of being in the world During his thirty-year career as a parish minister and professor, Robin Meyers has focused on renewing the church as an instrument of social change and personal transformation.
The Political Spirituality of Cesar Chavez: Crossing Religious Borders maps and challenges many of the mythologies that surround the late iconic labor leader.
This enlightening book examines the physical objects found in elite Virginia households of the eighteenth century to discover what they can tell us about their owners’ lives and religious practices.
A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God’s promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church?
A compelling book that casts the Qur'anic encounter with Jews in an entirely new lightIn this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia.