Liquid ecclesiology : the gospel and the church /
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In Liquid Ecclesiology Pete Ward explores the theological contours of the turn to ethnography in the study of the Christian Church. His approach rests on a theology of culture that holds in tension and paradox the expression of the Church and divine presence. This theological framework is then developed through an extended qualitative empirical case study examining the communicative practices of the contemporary evangelical Church. The case study examines how the evangelical Gospel through expression has become marginalised in the everyday life of communities being replaced by a new more individual and personalised theology seen in worship songs. The final section of the book returns to the debates around ethnographic forms of theology and the question of normativity. This book will be of interest to all those engaged in empirical and theological work, as well as those researching the contemporary Church and evangelicalism
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004347359 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th centuries) /
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"The book was drafted by Jesuits and their students of the Flemish province to commemorate the Society of Jesus's hundred years of existence. It was as much a homage to the Society's founders as a celebration of the spiritual and material achievements of its members over the century, with a particular emphasis on the order's missionary vocation. From the moment of its publication, the Imago was attacked by the Jesuits' enemies: both Protestants and Jansenists denounced the Society's arrogance as well as its casuistical methods. Here is not the place to relate the history of the work or its reception, but it seemed essential to us to highlight the significance of the emblems illustrating the book's"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004444195
9789004444171
Theology in Intercultural Design /
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Among the consequences of the all engulfing process of globalisation is the experience that not only it promotes interdependence among peoples, folks, cultures and religions, but it also creates problems and tensions. The assignment of a thoughtful and practice-oriented accompanying of this development poses itself subsequently. From this background different lectures are being conducted in different places; research initiatives as well as projects are started and executed while several publications are featuring. Visible here is the fact that although there abound rich reservoirs of knowledge, there is still no clarity as to the contents and the theoretical and methodical contrasts that are yet to be examined. Zu den Folgen des um sich greifenden Globalisierungsprozesses, zählt die Erfahrung, dass er nicht nur die Interpendenz unter Menschen, Völkern, Kulturen und Religionen vorantreibt, sondern auch Probleme und Spannungen auslöst. Diese Situation ist denkerisch und praxisorientiert aufzuschließen. Es wurden an verschiedenen Standorten Lehrveranstaltungen durchgeführt, Forschungsprojekte in Angriff genommen und Publikationen vorgelegt. Auffällig hierbei ist: Obwohl der erreichte Wissensstand bereits reichhaltig ist, besteht keine Klarheit hinsichtlich der zu untersuchenden Inhalte und der theoretischen und methodischen Gegensätze.
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1 online resource (x, 258 pages) : illustrations. :
9789042029705 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Revelation, truth, canon, and interpretation : studies in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho /
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This volume treats the concepts of revelation, truth, canon, and interpretation as four pillars of early Christian theology. Using Justin Martyr as a case-study, his \'Dialogue with Trypho\' is examined with a view toward discerning how a second century Christian father understands and develops these concepts. Justin's intellectual background is discussed within the nuanced context of Middle Platonism. Particular attention is paid to his use of biblical sources which is grounded in the foundational chapter on revelation in Justin. Justin is placed within the wider context of theological developments in pre-Nicene Christianity, and includes a warning against judging Justin by anachronistic post-Nicene developments.
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1 online resource (xv, 311 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004313293 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion and internet /
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While the churches are emptying, other virtual religious places - as the religious websites - seem to be filling up. The researcher focusing on religion and internet or digital religion as an object of study must seek answers to a number of questions. Is computer-mediated religious communication a particular communication process whose object is what we conventionally call religion? Or is it a modern, independent form of religious expressiveness that finds its new-born status in the web and its particular language? To examine the questions above, and others, the book collects more empirical data, claiming that the Internet will have a specific or novel impact on how religious traditions are interpreted. The blurring of previous boundaries (offline/online, virtual/local, illegitimate/legitimate religion) is another theme common to all the contributions in this volume.
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1 online resource (xi, 217 pages) : illustrations (some color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004302549 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Geheimnisse der oberen und der unteren Welt : Magie im Islam zwischen Glaube und Wissenschaft /
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Die Geheimnisse der oberen und der unteren Welt ( The Secrets of the Upper and the Lower World ) is a substantial new collection of essays on magic in Islamic cultural history. Both comprehensive and innovative in its approach, this book offers fresh insights into an important yet still understudied area of Islamic intellectual history. The seventeen chapters deal with key aspects of Islamic magic, including its historical developments, geographical variants, and modern-day practices. The general introduction identifies and problematizes numerous sub-topics and key practitioners/theoreticians in the Arabo-Islamic context. This, along with terminological and bibliographical appendices, makes the volume an unparalleled reference work for both specialists and a broader readership. Contributors: Ursula Bsees, Johann Christoph Bürgel, Susanne Enderwitz, Hans Daiber; Sebastian Günther, Mahmoud Haggag, Maher Jarrar, Anke Joisten-Pruschke, Fabian Käs, Ulrich Marzolph, Christian Mauder, Tobias Nünlist, Khanna Omarkhali, Eva Orthmann, Bernd-Christian Otto, Dorothee Pielow, Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Johanna Schott andamp; Johannes Thomann.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004387577
Speaking for Islam : religious authorities in Muslim societies /
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Who speaks for Islam? To whom do Muslims turn when they look for guidance? To what extent do individual scholars and preachers exert religious authority, and how can it be assessed? The upsurge of Islamism has lent new urgency to these questions, but they have deeper roots and a much longer history, and they certainly should not be considered in the light of present concerns only. The present volume - grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 - is not so much concerned with religious authority , but with religious authorities , men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. It addresses issues such as the relationship of knowledge, conduct and charisma, the social functions of the schools of law and theology, and the efforts on the part of governments and rulers to organize religious scholars and to implement state-centred hierarchies. The volume focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the individual papers offer case studies elucidating important aspects of the wider phenomenon. Individually and collectively, they highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in past and present Muslim societies. This book is also available in paperback .
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047408864 :
1385-3376 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Economics of an Islamic economy /
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This book challenges the interventionist stance of Islamic economics as well as its presumption that riba equals interest. An Islamic economy, it argues, is essentially a market economy, but it differs from capitalist economies because both its institutions and the structure of, for example, property rights are specifically Islamic, deriving from Qurʾān and other sources of Islamic law. The book also focuses on the similarities and differences between riba and interest, establishes the often neglected connection between the two, and explores the ramifications of this connection for Islamic financial systems.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047441724 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Freedom through Submission: Muslim-talk in Contemporary Denmark /
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"In Freedom through Submission Johannes Renders explores Danish-Muslim statements on human freedom. Within a context where public talk of Islam is largely mediated by an incessant succession of controversies, the notion of freedom is weaponized both by and against a growing Muslim community. Danish Muslims take issue with liberal associations of the notion with autonomy and choice, and seek to reconfigure the public debate that pits freedom against Islam. This book brings out a sophisticated and reflective Muslim discourse, in which freedom is something individuals must simultaneously exercise, surrender, and achieve in a cultivated relinquishing of the will to Allah"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004448957
9789004448940
Virtues of the Flesh - Passion and Purity in Early Islamic Jurisprudence /
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Robust sexuality, profound spirituality and elaborate legalism are, at first glance, strange bedfellows. The conventional Western wisdom has long conceived of these several modes as comprising an antagonistic trichotomy, in which each component is opposed to the others. Classical Islam, on the other hand, envisioned a unique system of cooperation between the sensual, the ethereal and the forensic. This study employs the vast and hitherto neglected literature of Islamic purity law as a looking glass through which to examine early Muslim attitudes to the romantic and erotic. Probing Qur'ān, Ḥadīth, Tafsīr and Fiqh, it opens a window on a world of unexpectedly explicit and unrestrainedly joyful sexual expression -- a world located squarely within the confines of God's sacred law and its elucidation.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047406235
9789004140707
Beyond death : the mystical teachings of ʻAyn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadhānī /
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The twelfth-century Iranian mystic 'Ayn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadhānī (d. 1131) wrote vividly of his explorations of death as a state of consciousness which he experienced while alive. This state and his visions of Doomsday and the innumerable non-corporeal worlds that lie past the world of matter confront him with paradoxical realities that upset the notional understanding of faith. The present book concerns itself with a discussion on the subject of death as it is viewed by one of the defining mystic scholars of medieval Iran. Based on medieval manuscripts and primary sources in classical Persian and Arabic, this book explores the significance of this important Iranian mystic and his insights on the nature of reality in light of death.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047427599 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Le pouvoir de guérir : mythe, mystique et politique au Maroc /
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Au Maroc, les mythes fondateurs des cultes et rituels de guérison illustrent de manière probante les processus d'élaboration des significations et des dynamiques du pouvoir dans le passé proche et leurs articulations actuelles. Des dynamiques qui se déploient en termes généalogiques, initiatiques et en des capacités socialement reconnues de susciter une communication avec le monde surnaturel. L'analyse centrée sur la confrontation entre saints et rois permet, par ailleurs, d'élargir à la dimension nationale, et au-delà, le rapport, hiérarchique, de conflit et d'articulation entre charisme personnel et charisme sharifien. Le mythe et ses expressions rituelles ouvrent, ainsi, les possibilités du renouvellement sociopolitique par les marges, voire même, dans l'actualité, sous couleur d'une révolution à l'horizon d'un millénarisme du califat. In Morocco, the founding myths of healing cults and rituals illustrate conclusively the elaboration of the symbolism and dynamics of power, both in local and national contexts. These dynamics unfold specifically in terms of genealogical representations and mystical initiations, as well as in socially-recognized capacities to communicate with the supernatural. The analysis centered on the confrontation of saints and kings permits the expansion, to the national level and beyond, of the hierarchical tensions between personal charisma and sharifian charisma. Thus, the myth and its ritual expressions open up possibilities for socio-political renewal by the margins, or even more a renewal, taking place presently, in the form of a revolutionary millenarianism.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004261433
Evil--freedom--and the road to perfection in Clement of Alexandria /
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This study deals with Clement of Alexandria's interpretation of evil and free will in the context of the rising Christianity, the influence of Near Eastern and Greek thought on him, his differences from St. Augustine, and how his interpretation affected the rise of the Eastern Christian thought. The book also treats briefly the subject of man's personal aim in life perceived by Clement as the supersession of his nature. Failure to realize this personal aim in life leads to alienation from God, and death. The moral dilemma of Clement's interpretation of evil as failure of life's aim is not a conventional explanation of good and evil but something much more: the option between real life and death. Consequently, Clement's idea of evil refers to existential problems and ontological realities.
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1 online resource (xii, 192 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-186) and index. :
9789004313101 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sanctity of time and space in tradition and modernity /
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Time and space can take on a sacred nature in both Judaism and Christianity accompanied by a permanent critical attitude towards the sacred. Conceptions of sacredness imply a conception of community and of society at large. This study investigates the different attitudes toward sacred time and space from an interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from the Biblical period through Qumran, Patristics, Rabbinics, archaeology and theology to modern and even to post-modern rituals. This approach offers a fascinating insight into both the common heritage of Judaism and Christianity and their mutual differences.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004421387
9789004112339
Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy of perpetual optimism /
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The Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) is famous for polemic against Islamic philosophy, theology and rationalizing mysticism, but his positive theological contribution has not been well understood. This comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy helps to rectify this lack. Exposition and analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's writings on God's justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine show that he articulates a theodicy of optimism in which God in His essence perpetually wills the best possible world from eternity. This sets Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy apart from Ashʿarī divine voluntarism, the free-will theodicy of the Muʿtazilīs, and the essentially timeless God of other optimists like Ibn Sīnā and Ibn ʿArabī.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Birmingham, 2002) under the title: An Islamic theodicy : Ibn Taymiyya on the wise purpose of God, human agency, and problems of evil and justice. :
1 online resource (xii, 270 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047420194 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice /
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Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice brings together the latest research on Islamic occultism from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies and material culture. Its aim is not only to showcase the range of pioneering work that is currently being done in these areas, but also to provide a model for closer interaction amongst the disciplines constituting this burgeoning field of study. Furthermore, the book provides the rare opportunity to bridge the gap on an institutional level by bringing the academic and curatorial spheres into dialogue.
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"The present volume, which gathers some of the papers presented at a three-day international conference, 'Islamic Occultism in Theory and Practice,' held at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford on January 6-8, 2017"--Introduction. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004426979
9789004426962
L'autorite religieuse et ses limites en terres d'islam : approches historiques et anthropologiques /
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Reprenant à nouveaux frais la question de l'autorité religieuse, ce livre présente différents cas d'étude en Asie centrale, à travers l'Empire ottoman, dans les Balkans et en Turquie. Sont examinés les rapports complexes qu'entretiennent, avec le pouvoir politique, cheikhs soufis, oulémas, sheikh ul-islâm , hégoumènes, ou encore clergé latin à l'époque prémoderne. Les XXe et XXIe siècles sont analysés du point de vue des transformations de l'autorité religieuse, certes fragmentée mais vigoureuse, en particulier chez les réformistes musulmans bosniaques et les Bektashis albanais, également parmi les Alévis d'Anatolie ou bien dans le soufisme féminin à Istanbul. Il apparaît que l'autorité religieuse dépasse le seul cadre des autorités traditionnelles et se heurte sans cesse à des limites théologiques, politiques, sociales ou institutionnelles. Ont contribué/contributors include: Elisabetta Borromeo, Xavier Bougarel, Rachida Chih, Nathalie Clayer, Jérôme Cler, Benoît Fliche, Anna Neubauer, Alexandre Papas, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein. Reconsidering the question of religious authority, L'autorité religieuse et ses limites en terres d'islam offers various case studies located in Central Asia, throughout the Ottoman Empire, in the Balkans and in Turkey. The present volume discusses the complex relationships between political power and religious authorities, such as Sufi shaykhs, ulamas, sheikh ul-islâm , hegumens, and the latin clergy in the premodern period. The 20th and 21th centuries are analysed from the perspective of the transformation of religious authority - certainly fragmented but vigorous - among the Bosnian Muslim Reformists, the Albanian Bektashis, the Alevis of Anatolia, and in female Sufism in Istanbul. It appears that religious authority is not limited to traditional authorities and is continuously confronted with limits, whether theological, political, social or institutional.
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1 online resource (ix, 277 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004244566 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Mishnah : social perspectives /
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The Mishnah - the second-century law code that lays the foundation, after Scripture, of normative Judaism - encompasses all subjects that pertain to the life of the Jewish nation and as such provides a systematic basis for Israel's social order and world view. Any social program has its own politics, economics, and philosophy which together define a given social entity rather than any other. And any system defining the structure of a society strives to establish a set of harmonised and coherent fundamental principles, viewpoints and attitudes in treating the components of its theory of the community. It has been long shown that the Mishnah is such a well-composed theory of world-construction. It is demonstrated here how its specific message concerning the politics and economics that define the social order recapitulate those of Aristotle. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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" ... reprise of established research ..."--Preface. :
1 online resource (xviii, 267 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004294127 :
0169-9423 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The self as symbolic space : constructing identity and community at Qumran /
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This volume investigates critical practices by which the Qumran community constituted itself as a sectarian society. Key to the formation of the community was the reconstruction of the identity of individual members. In this way the "self" became an important symbolic space for the development of the ideology of the sect. Persons who came to experience themselves in light of the narratives and symbolic structures embedded in the community practices would have developed the dispositions of affinity and estrangement necessary for the constitution of a sectarian society. Drawing on various theories of discourse and practice in rhetoric, philosophy, and anthropology, the book examines the construction of the self in two central documents: the Serek ha-Yahad and the Hodayot.
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1 online resource (x, 376 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-364) and indexes. :
9789047405153 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The worldly and heavenly wisdom of 4QInstruction /
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This volume is devoted to 4QInstruction, the last lengthy text of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be officially published. It is also the largest wisdom text of this corpus. The central concern of this study is how this composition should be understood in relation to the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions. Features of 4QInstruction that are examined include its appeal to revelation, its presentation of poverty, and its eschatology. The document's relationship to both 1 Enoch and the Dead Sea sect is also discussed. This study will prove useful to anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the reception of the Jewish wisdom tradition in the Second Temple period, and apocalypticism.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.). :
1 online resource (x, 276 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-249) and indexes. :
9789004350489 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.