The wisdom of Egypt : Jewish, early Christian, and gnostic essays in honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen /
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This collection of essays gives a vivid impression of Egypt as background and stage of Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic thought and life in antiquity. It demonstrates Egypt's important role in the history, literature and culture of these religions.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 537-547) and indexes. :
9789004331013 :
0169-734X = :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today.
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Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today is an occasion to critically analyze and reassess the work of this intellectual pioneer. It is also an effort to signal the continuing importance of Durkheim for today's graduate and advanced undergraduate classrooms. Reappraising Durkheim brings together ten new critical essays in which noted sociologists, psychologists, phenomenologists, philosophers, and historians of religion grapple with the questions Durkheim raised and the solutions he proposed. Taken together, the volume is a careful historical and multi-disciplinary study of Durkheim that will lead students to a better understanding of how to study religion. Reappraising Durkheim will be an excellent text for courses focusing on theory and method in the academic study of religion at both the graduate and advanced undergraduate level. It would therefore be appropriate for use in departments of religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.
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1 online resource. :
9789004379152
Cultural and theological reflections on the Japanese quest for divinity /
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In Cultural and Theological Reflections on the Japanese Quest for Divinity , John J. Keane offers an explanation of Japanese divinity ( kami 神) using sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literature and history. He presents an overview of how the Japanese have sought to love and serve their kami - a quest that rivals the interest that the West gives to God. The principles of interreligious dialogue are applied to the meaning of kami and a plea is made for a dialogue that respectfully accepts differences between the cultures and the theologies of Eastern and Western thought. Important cultural themes are discussed as a part of this quest, such as the emperors of Japan and the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The work also challenges the understanding of kami as highlighted by Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Endo Shusaku.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004322400 :
2452-2953 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion and society - on the present-day religious situation /
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Religion is today mainly present in the consciousness of people through keywords like fundamentalism, global conflict or violence. But as what is religion understood and how does it affect the society are questions that need to be examined separately. The contributions in this volume will examine the sub-questions that pose themselves in this light: 1) What influence does religion exercise on our social life forms? 2) What are the religious societal prerequisites? And how is visible religion affected by these? 3) How do these questions present themselves both externally and internally in the contemporary perception?
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1 online resource (269 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters. :
9789401212106 :
1879-6109 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Modern Societies and the Science of Religions: : Studies in Honour of Lammert Leertouwer /
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This book brings together studies by seventeen specialists in the science of religions in which they relate the changes in their discipline to the changes which have occurred in a select number of modern(ising) societies worldwide. It attempts to study these developments in their relation to and as conditioned and constrained by cultural change, changes in educational systems, technology, population (for example migration), economic patterns, politics, and, last but not least, religious systems. The essays focus on resp. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the USA, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, and China. Written in honour of Dr. Lammert Leertouwer, professor of History of Religions and the Comparative Study of Religions at Leiden University from 1979 until his retirement in 1997, the book is particularly important for all those who are interested in the religious, social and political contexts of the academic Study of Religions in general and in the various countries dealt with in particular.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004379183 :
0169-8834 ;
Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion and Myth : Contributions in Honor of Robert A. Segal /
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In Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion and Myth: Contributions in Honor of Robert A. Segal , nineteen renowned scholars offer a collection of essays addressing the persisting question of how to approach religion and myth as academic categories. Taking their cue from the work of Robert A. Segal, they discuss how to theorize about religion and myth from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. With cases from ancient Greece and Mesopotamia to East Asia and the modern world by and large, and engaging with diverse disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, anthropology, history, film, theology, and religious studies among others, the volume establishes a synthesis that demonstrates the pervasiveness as well as the pitfalls of the categories "religion" and "myth" in the world.
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1 online resource. :
9789004435025
9789004435018
Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions.
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This volume contains a collection of studies describing and analyzing stereotypes of women in the religions of Ancient Israel and Mesopotamia, and in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Medieval Christianity, Islam, Indian Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Tibetan religions, and modern Neopaganism. In all these traditions the stereotypes are based on generalizations, which are socially, culturally or religiously legitimized, and which seem to have a lasting influence on society's conceptions of women. They represent oversimplified opinions, which are, however, regularly challenged by the women who are affected by them. In all traditions the stereotypes are ambiguous, either because women have challenged their validity, or because historical developments in society have reshaped them. They influence public opinion by emphasizing dominant views, as a strategy to restrain women and to keep them controlled by the rules and morals of a male-dominated society.
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1 online resource. :
9789004378889
Secrecy and Concealment : Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions /
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This volume deals with secrecy and concealment in the history of mediterranean religions as pattern of social interaction. Secrecy is a powerful means in establishing identity and interaction as G. Simmel has demonstrated. Using his approach the scholars of this volume describe and explain the practical meaning of concealment in two different religious systems: in Egyptian and Greek polytheism and in Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Shi'i monotheisms. This point of view reveals that all these religions shaped social norms concerning public and private aspects of the human self.
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Proceedings of a meeting held June 1-4, 1993, at the Werner Reimers-Stiftung, Bad Homburg, Germany. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004378872 :
0169-8834 ;
The science of religion : a defence : essays by Donald Wiebe /
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Donald Wiebe, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Trinity College, University of Toronto, has spent much of his academic career arguing for a clear demarcation between Theology and Religious Studies. The Science of Religion: A Defence offers a brilliant overview of Professor Wiebe's contributions on methodology in the academic study of religion, of the development of his thinking over time, and of his intellectual commitment to 'a science of religion'. The work is divided into three parts. The first part identifies pertinent connections between 'religion', 'religious studies', and 'science' and why 'reductionism' in the academic study of religion, when properly applied, can bridge the explanatory gap between the sceptic and the devotee. The second part treats conceptual debates in the academic study of religion, with particular reference to the place of 'belief', 'understanding', and 'meaning' in the modern study of religion. The third part addresses the theological resistance to the scientific study of religion and how that resistance can be overcome. Finally, two new essays are included: a critique on 'The Preconceptions of a Science of Religion' by Anthony J. Palma, and an accompanying reply by Donald Wiebe. The Science of Religion: A Defence is an essential resource for both scholarly and non-scholarly audiences alike, and will be of particular interest to both defenders and critics of a scientific study of religion.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004385061 :
2214-3270 ;
Religion and the Body : modern science and the construction of religious meaning /
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This book reflects on the implications of neurobiology and the scientific worldview on aspects of religious experience, belief, and practice. Just as interest in the neurosciences and related fields has burgeoned in contemporary society, interest in the fields of neuroscience and cognitive studies is also growing within the religious studies academy, and reflection on these shifts is well overdue. How do religious practitioners negotiate the interconnection of science and religion? What can the neurosciences add to scholars' understanding of religion and to how humans construct religious meaning? Chapters address these questions by investigating religious experience and authority, the cultural construction and deconstruction of the body, and cross-cultural appropriations of the body.
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1 online resource (285 pages) :
9789004225343 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Constructing irregular theology : bamboo and Minjung in East Asian perspective /
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The project of constructing Asian irregular theology in East Asian perspective, based on life-word of Bamboo and social political reality of minjung, embraces Dr. Chung's cross-cultural existence as he develops his long-standing interest and expertise in Christian minjung theology in new ways with the image of bamboo as a symbol for the theological perspective of grass roots marginality. Using the ancient Chinese story "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove," Dr. Chung engages with Christian eschatological discourse to support an aesthetical-utopian theological ethics that is opposed to an ethics concerned with legitimation of a socio-economic status quo. In addition, Dr. Chung's develops his deep commitment to the Lutheran theology of the cross and the suffering Christ through the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering) to create, in the end, a genuinely East Asian contextual theology
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [217]-223) and index. :
9789047444497 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Forced conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam : coercion and faith in premodern Iberia and beyond /
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Focusing on the Iberian Peninsula but examining related European and Mediterranean contexts as well, Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam traces how Christians, Jews, and Muslims grappled with the contradictory phenomenon of faith brought about by constraint and compulsion. Forced conversion brought into sharp relief the tensions among the accepted notion of faith as a voluntary act, the desire to maintain "pure" communities, and the universal truth claims of radical monotheism. Offering a comparative view of an important yet insufficiently studied phenomenon in the history of religions, this collection of essays explores the ways in which religion and violence reshaped these three religions and the ways we understand them today.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004416826
Religious categories and the construction of the indigenous /
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This volume significantly advances the academic debate surrounding the taxonomy and the categorisation of 'indigenous religion'. Developing approaches from leading scholars in the field, this edited volume provides the space for established and rising voices to discuss the highly problematic topic of how indigenous 'religion' can be defined and conceptualised. Constructing the Indigenous highlights the central issues in the debate between those supporting and refining current academic frameworks and those who would argue that present thinking remains too dependant on misunderstandings that arise from definitions of religion that are too inflexible, and from problems caused by the World Religion paradigm. This book will prove essential reading for those that wish to engage with contemporary discussions regarding the definitions of religion and their relations to the indigenous category.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004328983 :
2214-3270 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Role of Divine Grace in the Soteriology of Śaṃkarācārya.
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This volume examines the role of divine grace in the non-dualist soteriology of Śaṃkara. The author argues that grace is an essential but generally overlooked feature in Śaṃkara's enlightenment spirituality. Introductory chapters summarize recent developments in Śaṃkara research, Śaṃkara's epistemology and ontology, ancient Vedāntic teachings on grace, and modern scholarly disagreement about grace in Śaṃkara's Advaita system. The heart of the book consists of two lengthy exegetical chapters examining Śaṃkara's key passages on grace from his dozen genuine works. The final chapter presents for the first time a systematic summary of Śaṃkara's understanding of the operation and necessity of divine grace. This book provides a useful summary of Śaṃkara's system as a whole besides offering a radical revision of the standard understanding of Śaṃkara's soteriology. It also reveals that Śaṃkara was much more indebted in his thinking to his Vedantic predecessors than had hitherto been thought.
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1 online resource. :
9789004379138
Sins and sinners : perspectives from Asian religions /
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Asian religious traditions have always been deeply concerned with \'sins\' and what to do about them. As the essays in this volume illustrate, what Buddhists in Tibet, India, China or Japan, what Jains, Daoists, Hindus or Sikhs considered to be a \'sin\' was neither one thing, nor exactly what the Abrahamic traditions meant by the term. \'Sins\'could be both undesireable behavior and unacceptable thoughts. In different contexts, at different times and places, a sin might be a ritual infraction or a violation of a rule of law; it could be a moral failing or a wrong belief. However defined, sins were considered so grave a hindrance to spiritual perfection, so profound a threat to the social order, that the search for their remedies through rituals of expiation, pilgrimage, confession, recitation of spells, or philosophical reflection, was one of the central quests of the religions studied here.
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Proceedings of a conference held in the fall of 2010 at Yale University. :
1 online resource (vi, 387 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004232006 :
0169-8834 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Pentecostalism, globalisation, and Islam in northern Cameroon : megachurches in the making? /
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Pentecostalism is among the fastest growing social movements in the 21th century. This volume discusses global aspects of Pentecostal churches in northern Cameroon, by describing how the local congregations interact with civil society, traditional religion, and Islam. Extensive fieldwork and descriptions of the complex historical context within which the churches emerge, makes the author draw attention to Pentecostal leaders as social entrepreneurs inspired both by local traditions and by a global flow of images and ideas. This indicates that Pentecostalism can be interpreted both as a social and as a religious movement which manages to encounter mainline churches and Islam with flexibility and spiritual authority.
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1 online resource (x, 260 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004244979 :
0169-9814 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Religionswissenschaft und das Christentum, Eine historische Untersuchung über das Verhältnis von Religionswissenschaft und Theologie.
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What are religious studies? What is theology? And what is their relationship to each other? In the light of such theoretical and methodological questions this historical inquiry asks what characterizes the study of Christianity within comparative religion-as distinguished from that of Christian theology? In the three main sections of the book representative texts from the history of comparative religion-including Schleiermacher and some other theological forerunners in the 19th century-are analyzed from a methodological and a material point of view. On this basis an answer is sought to the following questions: What has been the place of the study of Christianity within this discipline? On which methodological principles has it been based? And what kind of picture of Christianity has it presented?
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1 online resource. :
9789004378834