The closed book

A groundbreaking reinterpretation of early Judaism, during the millennium before the study of the Bible took center stageEarly Judaism is often described as the religion of the book par excellence—a movement built around the study of the Bible and steeped in a culture of sacred bookishness that e...

The curse of ham

How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Afric...

The dead sea scrolls

Unraveling the controversies surrounding the Dead Sea ScrollsSince they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination—and controversy—than perhaps any other archaeological find. They appear to have been hidden in the Judean desert by the ...

The destiny of modern societies

Elaborating on the Weberian method, Milan Zafirovski reveals that Calvinism's influence on America stretches far beyond free market capitalism

The emperor and the elephant

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 ʿAbbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rash...

The enlightenment bible

How did the Bible survive the Enlightenment? In this book, Jonathan Sheehan shows how Protestant translators and scholars in the eighteenth century transformed the Bible from a book justified by theology to one justified by culture. In doing so, the Bible was made into the cornerstone of Western ...

The formation of christendom

A groundbreaking history of how the Christian “West” emerged from the ancient Mediterranean worldIn this acclaimed history of Early Christendom, Judith Herrin shows how—from the sack of Rome in 410 to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800—the Christian “West” grew out of an ancient Mediterranean w...

The gnostics

Gnostics have always sought to “know” rather than to accept dogma and doctrine, often to their peril. This inquiry into Gnosticism examines the character, history, and beliefs of a brave and vigorous spiritual quest that originated in the ancient Near East and continues into the present day. Law...

The golden legend

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of factual and fictional stories, The Golden Legend was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and later archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose...

The gospel of john

The contentious life and times of the most widely cited book of the New TestamentWritten some two thousand years ago, the Gospel of John is the only Christian Gospel to place Jesus at the creation of the world, and the only one where we find the stories of the raising of Lazarus, the woman taken ...

The hebrew bible

A comprehensive and accessible guide to the Hebrew BibleThis book brings together some of the world's most exciting scholars from across a variety of disciplines to provide a concise and accessible guide to the Hebrew Bible. It covers every major genre of book in the Old Testament together with i...

The i ching

How the I Ching became one of the most widely read and influential books in the worldThe I Ching originated in China as a divination manual more than three thousand years ago. In 136 BCE the emperor declared it a Confucian classic, and in the centuries that followed, this work had a profound infl...

The imam of the christians

How Christian leaders adapted the governmental practices and political thought of their Muslim rulers in the Abbasid caliphateThe Imam of the Christians examines how Christian leaders adopted and adapted the political practices and ideas of their Muslim rulers between 750 and 850 in the Abbasid c...

The italian executioners

A gripping revisionist history that shows how ordinary Italians played a central role in the genocide of Italian Jews during the Second World WarIn this brief history of Italy's role in the Holocaust, Simon Levis Sullam presents an unforgettable account of how ordinary Italians actively participa...

The jefferson bible

The life and times of a uniquely American testamentIn his retirement, Thomas Jefferson edited the New Testament with a penknife and glue, removing all mention of miracles and other supernatural events. Inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, Jefferson hoped to reconcile Christian tradition w...

The jesuits

The most comprehensive and up-to-date exploration of one of the most important religious orders in the modern worldSince its founding by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, the Society of Jesus—more commonly known as the Jesuits—has played a critical role in the events of modern history. From the Counter...

The jewish jesus

How the rise of Christianity profoundly influenced the development of Judaism in late antiquityIn late antiquity, as Christianity emerged from Judaism, it was not only the new religion that was being influenced by the old. The rise and revolutionary challenge of Christianity also had a profound i...

The life of saint teresa of avila

The life and many afterlives of one of the most enduring mystical testaments ever writtenThe Life of Saint Teresa of Avila is among the most remarkable accounts ever written of the human encounter with the divine. The Life is not really an autobiography at all, but rather a confession written for...

The lotus sūtra

A concise and accessible introduction to the classic Buddhist textThe Lotus Sutra is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist scriptures. Composed in India in the first centuries of the Common Era, it is renowned for its inspiring message that all beings are destined for supreme enlightenment. He...

The making of the magdalen

Best known during the Middle Ages as the prostitute who became a faithful follower of Christ, Mary Magdalen was the most beloved female saint after the Virgin Mary. Why the Magdalen became so popular, what meanings she conveyed, and how her story evolved over the centuries are the focus of this c...

The making of the medieval middle east

A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the center of the storyIn the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in mot...

The monotheists: jews, christians, and muslims in conflict and competition, volume ii

The world's three great monotheistic religions have spent most of their historical careers in conflict or competition with each other. And yet in fact they sprung from the same spiritual roots and have been nurtured in the same historical soil. This book--an extraordinarily comprehensive and appr...

The myth of the eternal return

First published in English in 1954, this founding work of the history of religions secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade. Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no fewer than half a dozen European ...

The origin of the jews

The scholarly quest to answer the question of Jewish originsThe Jews have one of the longest continuously recorded histories of any people in the world, but what do we actually know about their origins? While many think the answer to this question can be found in the Bible, others look to archaeo...

The pastoral care of women in late medieval england

A close examination of religious texts illuminates the way in which parish priests dealt with their female parishioners in the Middle Ages.The question of how priests were taught to think about and care for female parishioners is the topic of this book. As neither misogynist villains nor saintly ...

The politics of ritual

An illuminating look at the transformative role that rituals play in our political livesThe Politics of Ritual is a major new account of the political power of rituals. In this incisive and wide-ranging book, Molly Farneth argues that rituals are social practices in which people create, maintain,...

The portable bunyan

How does a book become an international bestseller? What happens to it as it is translated into different languages, contexts, and societies? How is it changed by the intellectual environments it encounters? What does the transnational circulation mean for its reception back home? Exploring the i...

The qur’an, surahs 1–2

A detailed commentary with a new translation that integrates intertextual, theological, literary, and historical perspectivesThis historical and literary commentary on the Qur’an’s first two surahs provides a structural analysis of the two texts, advances a novel theory of Surah 2’s intricate red...

The rebellion of the daughters

An in-depth exploration of the flight of young Jewish women from their Orthodox homes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesThe Rebellion of the Daughters investigates the flight of young Jewish women from their Orthodox, mostly Hasidic, homes in Western Galicia (now Poland) in ...

The rise of christianity

A landmark reinterpretation of why Christianity became the dominant faith of the WestThe idea that Christianity started as a clandestine movement among the poor is a widely accepted notion. Yet it is one of many myths that must be discarded if we are to understand just how a tiny messianic moveme...

The rule of the templars

Both monastic rule and military manual, the Rule is a unique document and an important historical source.The Order of the Knights Templar, whose original purpose was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, was first given its own Rule in 1129, formalising the exceptional combination of soldier and ...

The sacred isle

The talmud

The life and times of an enduring work of Jewish spiritualityThe Babylonian Talmud, a postbiblical Jewish text that is part scripture and part commentary, is an unlikely bestseller. Written in a hybrid of Hebrew and Aramaic, it is often ambiguous to the point of incomprehension, and its subject m...

The underground church

In response to the conservative backlash against Vatican II liberal american catholics have rallied to defend its content.

The voice of the poor in the middle ages

They are voices that have been silent for centuries: those of captives and refugees, widows and orphans, the blind and infirm, and the underclass of the "working poor." Now, for the first time, the voices of the poor in the Middle Ages come to life in this moving book by historian Mark Cohen. A c...

The yoga sutra of patanjali

The rise, fall, and modern resurgence of an enigmatic book revered by yoga enthusiasts around the worldConsisting of fewer than two hundred verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and ...

They came to the holy land

A multifaceted cultural history of pilgrimage and travel to the Holy Land from the Middle Ages to the dawn of the twentieth centuryFor countless pilgrims throughout history, the Holy Land was a destination unlike any other. Traveling there could free you of your sins, get you knighted or offer ho...

Through the eye of a needle

A sweeping intellectual history of the role of wealth in the church in the last days of the Roman EmpireJesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond meas...

Time and difference in rabbinic judaism

How the rabbis of late antiquity used time to define the boundaries of Jewish identityThe rabbinic corpus begins with a question–“when?”—and is brimming with discussions about time and the relationship between people, God, and the hour. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism explores the rhythms...

Trustworthy men

The medieval church was founded on and governed by concepts of faith and trust--but not in the way that is popularly assumed. Offering a radical new interpretation of the institutional church and its social consequences in England, Ian Forrest argues that between 1200 and 1500 the ability of bish...

Two buddhas seated side by side

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classicThe Lotus Sūtra is among the most venerated scriptures of Buddhism. Composed in India some two millennia ago, it asserts the potential for all beings to attain supreme enlightenment. Donald Lopez and Jacqueline Stone provide an essential readi...

Vatican ii

On an otherwise ordinary Sunday morning in 1964, millions of Roman Catholics around the world experienced history. For the first time in centuries, they attended masses that were conducted mostly in their native tongues. This occasion marked only the first of many profound changes to emanate from...