The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems– both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretic…
Contrary to a common conviction, original sin is one of the fundamental Patristic issues, because it is the starting point of Patristic anthropology and sets the stage for the need for salvation.The Church Fathers before Augustine did not used the term original sin, but described its reality, having the greatest possible feeling for the mystical unity of mankind with its first ancestor. As rega…
Throughout history, the study of sacred texts has focused almost exclusively on the content and meaning of these writings. Such a focus obscures the fact that sacred texts are always embodied in particular material forms—from ancient scrolls to contemporary electronic devices. Using the digital turn as a starting point, this volume highlights material dimensions of the sacred texts of Judaism…
This book is a pioneering attempt to understand the prehistory of Hinduism in South Asia. Exploring religious processes in the Deccan region between the eleventh and the nineteenth century with class relations as its point of focus, it throws new light on the making of religious communities, monastic institutions, legends, lineages, and the ethics that governed them. In the light of this prehis…
This volume is the first in-depth study of a recently discovered Sanskrit dharani spell text from around the 5th century CE surviving in two palm-leaf and three paper manuscript compendia from Nepal. This rare Buddhist scripture focuses on the ritual practice of thaumaturgic weather control for successful agriculture through overpowering mythical Nagas. Traditionally, these serpentine beings ar…
The purpose of this book is to combine perspectives of scholars from Africa on Child Theology from a variety of theological sub-disciplines to provide some theological and ministerial perspectives on this topic. The book disseminates original research and new developments in this study field, especially as relevant to the African context. In the process it addresses also the global need to hear…
Popularly Hinduism is believed to be the world’s oldest living religion. This claim is based on a continuous reverence to the oldest strata of religious authority within the Hindu traditions, the Vedic corpus, which began to be composed more than three thousand years ago, around 1750–1200 BCE. The Vedas have been considered by many as the philosophical cornerstone of the Brahmanical traditi…
Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship contains various cases of migration movements in the Muslim world from ethical and legal perspectives to argue that Muslim migration experiences can offer a new paradigm of how the religious and the moral can play a significant role in addressing forced migration and displacement Readership: All interested in migr…
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language. Translating Wisdom reconstructs the intellectual processes and exchanges that underlay these translations. Using as a case …
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language. Translating Wisdom reconstructs the intellectual processes and exchanges that underlay these translations. Using as a case …
This volume brings together key findings of the research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies. Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in Asia, the Mediterrane…
This volume brings together key findings of the research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies. Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in Asia, the Mediterrane…
This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s specia…
This new volume of essays marks eighty years since the death of Marmaduke Pickthall. His various roles as translator of the Qurʾan, traveller to the Near East, political journalist writing on behalf of Muslim Turkey, and creator of the Muslim novel are discussed. In later life Pickthall became a prominent member of the British Muslim community in London and Woking, co-worker with Muslims in …
This open access volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview of different charting practices and expe…
Abstract The volume presents a selection of research projects in Digital Humanities applied to the “Biblical Studies” in the widest sense and context. Taken as a whole, the volume restitutes the merging Digital Culture at the beginning of the 21st century.
This book focuses on seven of the most important formal methods used to interpret the New Testament today. Several of the chapters also touch on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible interpretation. In line with the multiplicity of methods for interpretation of texts in the humanities in general, New Testament study has never before seen so many different methods. This situation poses both opportunities a…
"Open Access in Theory and Practice investigates the theory-practice relationship in the domain of open access publication and dissemination of research outputs. Drawing on detailed analysis of the literature and current practice in OA, as well as data collected in detailed interviews with practitioners, policymakers, and researchers, the book discusses what constitutes “theory”, and how th…
The study of the New Testament text is far broader than the reconstruction of its earliest attainable wording. As historical artefacts, manuscripts preserve information about the context in which they were produced and their use in subsequent generations, as well as pointing back towards an earlier stage in the transmission process. References made by Christian authors to the textual culture of…
In the African context, shrines are cultural signposts that help one understand and read the ethnic, territorial, and social lay of the land. The contributions gathered here by Allan Charles Dawson demonstrate how African shrines help to define ethnic boundaries, shape group identity, and symbolically articulate a society's connection with the land it occupies. Shrines are physical manifestatio…