"An indispensible companion text, Texts and Traditions includes the essential documents of the various religious trends of the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods as well as Josephus, Greek and Aramaic inscriptions, classical historians and talmudic sources." --Book Jacket.

Professor Menahem Haran is honored in this volume by a chorus of colleagues, disciples, and friends from Israel, Europe, North America, and the Far East. The diversity of Haran's expertise is reflected in the table of contents of this collection, organized around the topics: "Priests and Their Sphere," "The Torah," "The Prophets," "The Writings," and "Language and Writing.

'Texts and Traditions: The Gospel according to Luke' is a historical and literary discussion of the Gospel according to Luke. It begins with a discussion of the Jewish scriptures that preceded the text as well as a history of the nation of Israel. In order to understand the content of the Lukan gospel there is a detailed history of life in the first century as well as significant people and groups. There is a discussion of the author of the Lukan gospel and their possible audience before there is a discussion of literary structure, forms and techniques used within the gospel. Finally there is an analysis of key Lukan themes looking at concepts such as universal salvation, discipleship and women.This serves as a background for studying the Lukan gospel, giving an in-depth understanding of the historical and literary context that surrounds the gospel itself. It is only through understanding the context that we are able to truly approach the meaning of the gospel itself.

There can be little dispute that culture influences philosophy: we see this in the way that classical Greek culture influenced Greek philosophy, that Christianity influenced mediaeval western philosophy, that French culture influenced a range of philosophies in France from Cartesianism to post-modernism, and so on. Yet many philosophical texts and traditions have also been introduced into very different cultures and philosophical traditions than their cultures of origin – through war and colonialization, but also through religion and art, and through commercial relations and globalization. And this raises questions such as: What is it to do French philosophy in Africa, or Analytic philosophy in India, or Buddhist philosophy in North America? This volume examines the phenomenon of the ‘migration’ of philosophical texts and traditions into other cultures, identifies places where it may have succeeded, but also where it has not, and discusses what is presupposed in introducing a text or a tradition into another intellectual culture.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

Canonical Texts: Selections from Religious Wisdom Traditions is the first anthology of its kind that serves as an entry point for students into some of the most profound ideas of the ages. This collection of readings of sacred texts is drawn from the central canons of religious traditions from around the world. Selections from Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Native Traditions are compiled for their readability. They are carefully edited by Professor Thomas Jerome Burns, who situates each tradition and its canonical work, so that the student has a blueprint to engage the text. Key features of Canonical Texts include: - Delivers a rare combination of both primary sources and meaningful commentary upon them, integrated into one volume. - Designed for the student with no academic background in the respective traditions, while providing a rigorous yet accessible introduction. - Encourages students to consider many of the central ideas of the world's major wisdom traditions. Thomas Jerome Burns, editor, received his PhD in Sociology in 1990 from the University of Maryland, and currently is Professor of Sociology and a faculty member in Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was formerly on the faculty at the University of Utah, where he won the College of Social and Behavioral Science's Superior Teaching Award. In his research, Professor Burns examines how cultural and organizational systems, such as religion, education and politics develop in relation to one another in light of their comparative and historical contexts, and how those systems have social outcomes in terms of human well being and long-term sustainability.

Describing an era of exploration during the Renaissance that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield. What Anthony Grafton recounts is a war of ideas fought by mariners, scientists, publishers, and rulers over a period of 150 years. In colorful vignettes, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional notions of the world beyond Europe.