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      • July 2017

        The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism

        Papers from the St Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus

        by Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila, Gladys S. Lewis

        Second Temple Judaism exerted a profound and shaping influence upon early Christianity.  The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism documents this influence by exploring the ways in which the Christian praxis of Christ-devotion in the first two centuries of the Common Era can be understood as a manifestation of Jewish monotheism. The volume approaches this phenomenon along four distinctive lines of inquiry: (1) reexamining (and problematizing) the theological force of monotheism during the Second Temple period; (2) retracing the historical steps of Christianity’s adaptation, mutation, and/or redefinition of Jewish monotheism; (3) exploring and debating the influence of non-Jewish traditions on this process; and (4) mapping how Christianity’s unique appropriation of Jewish monotheism helps explain the intriguing relationships among emerging Christian, Jewish, and gnostic communities. Eighteen chapters, each from an expert in the study of early Judaism and Christianity, comprise the volume. The chapters collectively demonstrate how the creation of new mythic narratives, the revelatory power of mystical experiences, and the sociology of community formation capitalized on Jewish mediator traditions to initiate the praxis of Christ-devotion.

      • Philosophy
        January 2015

        Saving Monotheism

        Why the most cruel despotic wars burst out in monotheistic societies

        by Prof. Mordechai Rotenberg

        In his new book Saving Monotheism, Prof. Rotenberg claims that the answer to the existential question` why the most cruel despotic wars burst out in monotheistic societies, may be found in the fatal distortion of this divine idea which was supposed to unite the believers in one god. Accordingly. Rotenberg divides the world into masculine “raping missionaries” who impose on others their definition of socio-religious norms because They” know what god wants”. However, according to the alternative feminine “conversive” definition of monotheism, people have to seek the invisible god via romantic creative inter human interactions. The feminine romantic model is derived from the biblical story of Ruth the Moabite mother of David’s Kingdom which may be used as a metaphorical pattern for nonviolent social relations. Hence the Ruthian feminine romantic model may disseminate such egalitarian ideas as “my god is your god” and “my people are your people”, because only “women who do not rape” may enhance friendly social relations. For applicable possibilities Rotenberg proposes the “couching” system according to which a potential virtuous in music, sports or a new religion, joins free willingly a romantic training program which is grounded on a dialogic contract between the coach and his novice. The outlined romantic model includes also a new expanded framework for intimacy by rereading the story of the maiden Avishag and the aging King David as an anti phallocentric system for erotic relations. Prof. Mordechai Rotenberg books in English: Author's books in English: Damnation and Deviance: the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Failure, New York: The Free Press, Macmillan 1978. Also published in Japanese, Tokyo: Heibon Sha 1986. New English Edition: New Brunswick, Transaction, 2003. Dialogue with Deviance: The Hasidic Ethic and the Theory of Social Contraction Philadelphia: ISHI Publications 1983. Second edition, University Press of America, 1993. Also published in Portuguese, Brazil, Imago Press, 1999. Hasidic Psychology: Making Space for Others, New Brunswick: Transaction, 2003. Re-Biographing and Deviance: Psychotherapeutic Narrativism and the Midrash New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987. Dia-Logo Therapy: Psychonarration and “PaRDeS” New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991. The “Yetzer”: A Kabbalistic Psychology of Eroticism and Human Sexuality, Northvale: Jason Aronson Inc., 1997. The Trance of Terror: Psycho-religious Funda-MENTALISM, Jerusalem: Rubin Mass Pub. 2006.

      • Den Islam ergrunden und begreifen

        by mohamad hoseyn beheshty

        Man has always wondered about the purpose and philosophy behind human life. He has always delved in this thought as to how he is supposed to live his life. This book tries to provide appropriate answers to these questions in a scientific manner and in the light of the Qur’anic and Islamic teachings. Efforts have also been made to introduce the real Islam to the readers; on the basis of authentic Islamic sources. The First part the book focuses on issues like “The Source of Creation”; “The Divine Signs”; “Monotheism from the Viewpoint of the Glorious Quran”; “The Names and Attributes of God Almighty”, and “The Monotheistic Worldview”. Similarly part two reviews the purpose behind the appointment of the Divine prophets (AS) and their role in human life. “Justice and its Concept in Islam”, “Man from the Quranic Point of View”; “The Importance of History in the Islamic Worldview”; “Self Purification”; “Family”; “Social Justice”; and “Islamic Economy” are the other topics discussed in this book.

      • On Consolation

        Finding Solace in Hard Times

        by Michael Ignatieff

        To console someone to be a source of meaning and understanding amidst the pain and loss of life is one of the hardest things a person can do. More and more it's being sought after, not in religious institutions, but through individuals and personal networks. Less and less it's being associated with political traditions, particularly those on the left that tell us to fight, to resist the status quo rather than to accept.   Michael Ignatieff explores how those of us who live in a secular world, without the comforting thought of an afterlife free from suffering, have found a modern form of consolation through the religious structures of the past. Using the history of the psalms from the Jewish and Christian traditions, Ignatieff revives these masterpieces to understand the power of their words, and their limits.   On Consolation is tragically relevant to our current age, but that is what makes it all the more necessary. Through this book, we learn what it means to find consolation to balance struggle with submission, acceptance of defeat with the lasting light of hope.

      • July 2017

        The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord

        Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism

        by Jarl E. Fossum

        The relationship among Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity perpetually eludes easy description. While it is clear that by the second and third centuries of the Common Era these three religious groups worked hard to distinguish themselves from each other, it is also true that the three religious traditions share common religious perspectives. Jarl Fossum, in  The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, examines this common heritage by proposing that the emergence of an anticosmic gnostic demiurge was not simply Gnosticism’s critique of the Jewish God or a metaphysical antisemitism. The figure of the gnostic demiurge arose from Judaism itself. Fossum demonstrates that the first gnostic versions of the demiurge constituted a subordinated dualism. Fossum then turns to Judaism, in particular Samaritanism’s portrayal of a principal angel. In distinction from non-Samaritan Jewish examples—where the Angel of the Lord bears the Divine Name but is not a demiurge, or examples where the Divine Name is said to be the instrument of creation but is not an angel or personal being—Fossum discovers a figure who bore God’s name, was distinct from God, and was God’s instrument for creation. Only in Samaritan texts is God’s vice-regent personalized, angelic, demiurgic, and the bearer of God’s name. In the end,  The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord reveals that not all gnostic speculation was anti-Jewish and, indeed, emerging gnostic and Christian traditions borrowed as much from Judaism as they criticized and rejected.

      • July 2017

        Angelomorphic Christology

        Antecedents and Early Evidence

        by Charles A. Gieschen

        In Angelomorphic Christology author Charles Gieschen demonstrates that angel and angel-related traditions, especially those built upon the so-called "Angel of the Lord" figure in the Hebrew Bible, had a profound impact upon the origin, development, and shape of early Christian claims about Jesus.Gieschen’s book falls neatly into two halves. The first catalogues the various antecedents for Angelomorphic Christology—Jewish speculation about principal angels, mediator figures, and related phenomena—with chapters on "An Angelomorphic God," "Angelomorphic Divine Hypostases" (including the Divine Name, the Divine Glory, Wisdom, the Word, the Spirit and Power), Principal Named Angels, and Angelomorphic Humans. The book’s second half examines the evidence for Angelomorphic Christology in early Christian literature. This portion begins with a brief overview of the principal Angel and Angelomorphic Christology from Justin to Nicea and then examines in turn the Pseudo-Clementines, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Revelation of John, the Fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Pauline Corpus.Gieschen argues that Christian use of the angelomorphic tradition did not spawn a new and variant kind of Christology, one that competed with accepted belief about Jesus for early Christians’ favor, but instead shows how Christians adapted an already variegated Jewish tradition to weave a single story about a common Lord.

      • July 2017

        Angel Veneration and Christology

        A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John

        by Loren T. Stuckenbruck

        The public worship of the risen Christ as depicted in John’s Apocalypse directly contradicts the guiding angel’s emphasis that only God should be worshiped (Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9). In Angel Veneration and Christology, Loren Stuckenbruck explores this contradiction in light of angel veneration in Early Judaism. Stuckenbruck surveys a wide variety of Jewish traditions related to angelic worship and discovers proscriptions against sacrificing to angels; prohibitions against making images of angels; rejections of the "two powers"; second-century Christian apologetic accusations specifically directed against Jews; and, most importantly, the refusal tradition, widespread in Jewish and Jewish-Christian writings, wherein angelic messengers refuse the veneration of the seer and exhort the worship of God alone. While evidence for the practice of angel veneration among Jews of antiquity (Qumran, pseudepigraphal literature, and inscriptions from Asia Minor) does not furnish the immediate background for the worship of Christ, Stuckenbruck demonstrates that the very fact that safeguards to a monotheistic framework were issued at all throws light on the Christian practice of worshiping Jesus. The way the Apocalypse adapts the refusal tradition illuminates Revelation’s declarations about and depictions of Jesus. Though the refusal tradition itself only safeguards the worship of God, Stuckenbruck traces how the tradition has been split so that the angelophanic elements were absorbed into the christophany. As Stuckenbruck shows, an angelomorphic Christology, shared by the author of Revelation and its readers, functions to preserve the author’s monotheistic emphasis as well as to emphasize Christ’s superiority over the angels—setting the stage for the worship of the Lamb in a monotheistic framework that does not contradict the angelic directive to worship God alone.

      • July 2017

        Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology

        by David B. Capes

        The earliest Christian communities engaged in bold and imaginative rereadings of their Scriptures—none more astounding and potentially inflammatory than of the passages that focus upon the name and nature of Israel’s God. In this volume, David B. Capes tracks the Apostle Paul’s use of Old Testament texts that directly invoke God’s name, Yahweh, for what they can disclose about the earliest Christian beliefs and practices. Since Paul writes to his churches in Greek and quotes the Old Testament extensively from the Septuagint, Capes focuses upon Old Testament quotations and allusions in which kyrios translates the divine name. He discovers that Paul applies a majority of his quotations of and allusions to Yahweh texts to the Lord Jesus Christ, thus offering to him designations originally reserved for Israel’s God.  Given the high regard that Judaism placed upon both Scripture and the divine name in the first century, the application of Yahweh texts to Jesus bears significant christological weight. These texts reveal that Paul considered Jesus to be more than a man or a divine agent—Paul believed that Christ was in some sense Yahweh Himself. Capes thus unveils Paul’s strategy for the reading of Scripture, which provides a basis for properly interpreting early Christianity’s veneration of Jesus, including prayers and hymns to Christ, the authoritative status attributed to Jesus’ words, and the notions of Christ’s pre-existence, role in creation, and authority as coming eschatological Savior and Judge. How Paul reread his Bible goes hand-in-glove with the differences that developed between Christianity and Judaism.

      • July 2017

        Paul’s Glory-Christology

        Tradition and Rhetoric

        by Carey C. Newman

        Glory formed an essential part of early Christianity’s christological vocabulary. Along with "word," "image," and "wisdom," Glory ( doxa) language worked to define the identity, status, and even uniqueness of Christian belief in Jesus. In  Paul’s Glory-Christology author Carey C. Newman, using methodology developed in semantics, semiotics, and literary theory, examines the origin and rhetoric of Paul’s Glory-language. Newman divides the investigation into three distinct tasks: (1) to plot the tradition-history of Glory that formed part of Paul’s linguistic world, (2) to examine Paul’s letters, in light of the reconstructed tradition-history of Glory, in order to discern the rationale of Paul’s identification of Christ as Glory, and (3) to map out the implications of such an identification for Paul’s theological and rhetorical strategy.  Newman reaches four conclusions for understanding Paul. First, Paul inherited a symbolic universe with signs already full of signification. Second, awareness of the connotative range of a surface symbol aids in discerning Paul’s precise contingent strategy. Third, knowing a symbol’s referential power defines and contributes to the deeper structure of Paul’s theological grammar. Finally, the heuristic power within the construals of the Glory tradition coalesce in Paul’s Christophany and thus provide coherence at the deepest level of Paul’s Christology. Taken together, these conclusions reveal that nothing less than Paul’s declaration of Jesus as God is expressed in his designation of Jesus as Glory.

      • July 2017

        Seek to See Him

        Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas

        by April D. DeConick

        In  Seek to See Him April DeConick argues that the Gospel of Thomas, contrary to the way Thomas is normally understood, does not originate from gnostic traditions. Instead, she proposes that Thomas is best explained by Hermetic and Second Temple Jewish mystical traditions. DeConick substantiates her proposal by first examining the developmental stages of the Gospel of Thomas, questioning the classification of Thomas as gnostic on the basis of Thomas’ dualism and his speculation about original sin. DeConick carefully delineates the difference between Thomas’ and gnostic views of the world and of salvation before going on to demonstrate the crucial role of purification, heavenly ascent, and  visio dei—final transformation through an experience of seeing God—in this Gospel. In the end, DeConick shows that Thomas is best explained as arising from the fusion of Jewish Mysticism and Hermetic praxis and not as being shaped by gnostic traditions.

      • July 2017

        Messianic Exegesis

        Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity

        by Donald H. Juel

        While the relationship between Second Temple Jewish exegesis and early Christian exegesis as demonstrated in the New Testament is universally recognized, the reasons for their similarities and differences are often elusive. Donald H. Juel in  Messianic Exegesis seeks to unknot this tangled web of interpretation. Juel’s thesis is simple: Christianity’s origins are rooted in the earliest Christian interpretations of Israel’s Scriptures. The difficulty resides in showing how these distinctive interpretations arose. Juel argues that the events of Jesus’ life form the fulcrum for the Christian re-reading of Jewish Scripture. In particular, Juel shows how Christian belief in a crucified and risen Messiah guided both the selection and appropriation of Old Testament texts—texts like 2 Samuel 7, Daniel 7, and Psalms 2 and 110. With the confession "Jesus is the Messiah" as the central claim of Christianity, Juel is able to show the fluidity of contemporary Jewish exegesis while also making the anomalous uses of Scripture within the early Christian community understandable. Christians proclaimed Jesus as Messiah throughout their exegesis and thereby defined their emerging community through the way they read Scripture.

      • History

        Akhenaten

        The Lost Prophet

        by Dr. Sherif Shaban

        When we look at the kings of ancient Egypt, we find them always represented as Holy King and the warrior hero. This stereotype never changed for millenniums. But Akhenaten came to change all the rules of the game and shock the Egyptian society in all respects; this man did not gain fame like his ancestors as a great conqueror with decisive battles, such as Thutmose III. Or influential administrative reformer, such as Horemheb. Or is remarkable for his immortal installations like: Ramses II, or Khufu, but he changed the royal and societal traditions of his time; he began to change his name and royal ceremonies based on rigidity and rigor and set out towards realism in his embodiment and the depiction of his diary and became "the living in fact." However, the most dangerous thing he came up with was his overthrow of the worship of his ancestors, and he brought about a religious-intellectual revolution that resonated in the history of religions, and a philosophical view that preceded Pericillus and Socrates, namely: the idea of monotheism, an idea that was directly and fundamentally linked to heavenly monotheism. We find that many scholars have linked Akhenaten to the prophets of the Old Testament and attributed to him the precursors of the idea of monotheism and considered him to be the preacher of oneness before the prophets (Moses, David, Solomon); basing their theories on work of a literary nature, namely: (Anthems of Aton).

      • Religion & beliefs

        Clerical Errors

        by Bob Rees

        The Christian credo fails to stand up to objective scrutiny, but we soon discover why two billion thoughtful and intelligent people nevertheless affirm their religious faith and why they continue to cling so tenaciously to it. Clerical Errors reviews the improbable history of Christianity and the diabolical harm that it has done, and continues to do, in God's name. We soon discover, however, that God is innocent! The finger of suspicion turns instead to the Clerics who originally formulated Christian dogma, and on to their successors who have subsequently promoted various competing brands of monotheism. They have capitalised on the necessarily-abstract concept of God and used it to manufacture man-made religions of 'revealed' morals, truths and instructions by which they have set themselves above ordinary men, motivated more by the love of money, power and privilege than by the love of God. Today, younger Clerics are promoting the dumbed-down religions which are blossoming throughout the undeveloped world, while older Clerics continue to promote the declining but powerful traditional religions. Together they remain a very real threat to peace and progress around the world.

      • March 2022

        The Trinity

        On the Nature and Mystery of the One God

        by Thomas Joseph White, OP

        The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith. What can we say about the divine nature, and what does it mean to say that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons who are one in being? In this book, best selling author Thomas Joseph White, OP, examines the development of early Christian reflection on the Trinity, arguing that essential contributions of Patristic theology are preserved and expanded in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. By focusing on Aquinas’ theology of the divine nature as well as his treatment of divine personhood, White explores in depth the mystery of Trinitarian monotheism. The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God also engages with influential proposals of modern theologians on major topics such as Trinitarian creation, Incarnation and crucifixion, and presents creative engagements with these topics. Ultimately any theology of the cross is also a theology of the Trinity, and this book seeks to illustrate how the human life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reveal the inner life of God as Trinity.

      • February 2024

        Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 2

        On the Rational Credibility of Christianity

        by Thomas Joseph White, OP

        Can a philosopher defend the rational warrant for belief in Christianity? Is it reasonable to be religious? Is it philosophically responsible to be a Christian who believes in the mystery of the Trinity? Principles of Catholic Theology explores these questions in a systematic way by considering questions of ultimate explanation. Why not hold that modern atheistic naturalism provides the best explanation of reality? Or, if there is a transcendent first principle that explains all of reality, is it impersonal rather than personal? Contrastingly, if monotheism constitutes the best explanation for created being, how can we reasonably believe in any particular revelation concerning God? What are the criteria for rational belief in revelation? Thomas Joseph White, OP, considers these questions by exploring a series of topics: the transcendentals (existence, oneness, truth, goodness, beauty); rational argument for the existence of God; the immateriality and subsistence after death of the personal soul of the human being; the historical and conceptual coherence of Trinitarian doctrine; and the reasonableness of the natural desire to see God. The aim of Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 2 is to place contemporary natural reason in profound dialogue with the Catholic faith and to think about ways that we can consent to the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity that are in robust concord with the knowledge obtained from philosophical, scientific, and historical sources.

      • Humanities & Social Sciences

        Moses, the man

        by Freud (Thomas Gindele, Michel Fagard)

        Freud was known for destroying the manuscripts of all his published books. For unindentified reasons, he preserved L’Homme Moïse, a novel retracing the birth of judaism, which is the first version of his testamentary work, written in 1934 and published in 1939, under the title Moïse et le monothéisme.  In October 1934, in a letter addressed to Max Eitingon, he wrote: “Part of this text inflicts serious offenses on Jewish sentiment, another on Christian sentiment, two things which are better to avoid in our time.” He confided later on to Lou Andreas-Salome, on the same topic : “This problem has haunted me all my life. »  By preserving this manuscript, which has never been published, Freud had probably in mind to leave traces of the complex construction of this text, of which he was so fond of and which he published at a time when Nazism was spreading throughout Europe. Thomas Gindele and Michel Fagard, teachers of German at Henri IV High School, found this manuscript at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., transcribed and translated it. Their translation is followed by a commentary by Thomas Gindele on the development of the work.

      • The Guidance Of The Prophet's Biography

        In Social Change

        by Hanan Al Lahham

        The biography of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, is an inexhaustible source for every student and contemplator. In this new account of the biography, the author begins by reviewing the environment in which the Great Prophet grew up, the social situation that prevailed at that time and how families, tribes, and clans sometimes struggled and coexisted in this region, despite their religious differences. Then how did the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, suffer from orphanhood and a difficult life after? His grandfather passed away and then his uncle took care of him, to begin with her a second, different journey in her mission and responsibility, which is the journey of calling to the One and Only God. What did the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, give his family, his wife, uncles, and his clan? What are their positions on his call, which was new to them in its approach and ideas? What kind of conflict took place between the new vocation, and the patriarchal society, which refuses to change what the fathers and grandfathers raised on it. Then how did the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, establish the faithful, sympathetic and compassionate community in Medina? To become an example and a dream for every individual and Muslim community, despite the scarcity of resources and the narrowness of hands. But this situation did not satisfy the pre-Islamic Meccans, so armed conflict began to take its course with the Muslims in the form of successive invasions and battles.  But God has willed that victory for the call to monotheism, peace, justice and benevolence will be over the prevailing forces of evil. The biography of the Prophet is a guiding light for every Muslim in his life. And the book The Guide of the Prophet’s Biography came from this section to provide the Muslim with lessons and lessons learned and to act upon them.

      • Fiction
        September 2020

        Into the Unbounded Night

        by Mitchell James Kaplan

        "Truly a major novel" -- Stephanie Cowell, American Book Award recipient, author of Claude And Camille: A Novel Of Monet INTO THE UNBOUNDED NIGHT, the epic-yet-intimate literary historical thriller from award-winning author Mitchell James Kaplan, follows the lives of five troubled individuals as they struggle for survival and purpose in the first century Roman empire: Aislin, a refugee in Rome, seeks revenge for the destruction of her village in Britannia. Other important characters, who affect her destiny, include the ambitious general Vespasian, Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), the rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, and Azazel, a doomed angel.  Throughout INTO THE UNBOUNDED NIGHT, these characters' lives intertwine in unexpected ways that shed light on colonization and its discontents, the relative values of dominant and tyrannized cultures, the sense of imminent apocalypse, and the holiness of life.If you love "Circe" and "All the Light We Cannot See," don't miss INTO THE UNBOUNDED NIGHT.youtube.com/watch?v=46vAsihWK60

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2016

        Reading Backwards

        Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness

        by Richard B. Hays

        In Reading Backwards Richard B. Hays maps the shocking ways the four Gospel writers interpreted Israel's Scripture to craft their literary witnesses to the Church's one Christ. The Gospels' scriptural imagination discovered inside the long tradition of a resilient Jewish monotheism a novel and revolutionary Christology.Modernity's incredulity toward the Christian faith partly rests upon the characterization of early Christian preaching as a tendentious misreading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Christianity, modernity claims, twisted the Bible they inherited to fit its message about a mythological divine Savior. The Gospels, for many modern critics, are thus more about Christian doctrine in the second and third century than they are about Jesus in the first.Such Christian "misreadings" are not late or politically motivated developments within Christian thought. As Hays demonstrates, the claim that the events of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection took place "according to the Scriptures" stands at the very heart of the New Testament's earliest message. All four canonical Gospels declare that the Torah and the Prophets and the Psalms mysteriously prefigure Jesus. The author of the Fourth Gospel puts the claim succinctly: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me" (John 5:46).Hays thus traces the reading strategies the Gospel writers employ to "read backwards" and to discover how the Old Testament figuratively discloses the astonishing paradoxical truth about Jesus' identity. Attention to Jewish and Old Testament roots of the Gospel narratives reveals that each of the four Evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identify Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel. Hays also explores the hermeneutical challenges posed by attempting to follow the Evangelists as readers of Israel's Scripture—can the Evangelists teach us to read backwards along with them and to discern the same mystery they discovered in Israel's story?In Reading Backwards Hays demonstrates that it was Israel's Scripture itself that taught the Gospel writers how to understand Jesus as the embodied presence of God, that this conversion of imagination occurred early in the development of Christian theology, and that the Gospel writers' revisionary figural readings of their Bible stand at the very center of Christianity. ; Introduction1. "The Manger in Which Christ Lies": Figural Readings of Israel’s ScriptureThe Fourfold Witness2. Figuring the Mystery: Reading Scripture with Mark3. Torah Transfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew4. The One Who Redeems Israel: Reading Scripture with Luke5. The Temple Transfigured: Reading Scripture with JohnConclusion6. Retrospective Reading: The Challenges of Gospel-Shaped Hermeneutics

      • Praying to the West

        The Story of Muslims in the Americas, in Thirteen Mosques

        by Omar Mouallem

        Muslims have lived in the New World for over 500 years, before Protestantism even existed, but their contributions were erased by revisionists and ignorance. In this colorful alternative history o f the Americas, we meet the enslaved and indentured Muslims who changed the course of history, the immigrants who advanced the Space Race and automotive revolution, the visionaries who spearheaded civil rights movements, and the 21st-century Americans shifting the political landscape while struggling for acceptance both within and outside their mosques.   In search of these forgotten stories, Mouallem traveled 7,000 miles, from the northwest tip of Brazil to the southeast edge of the Arctic, to visit thirteen pivotal mosques. What he discovers is a population as diverse and conflicted as you’d find in any other house of worship, and deeply misunderstood. Parallel to the author’s geographical journey is a personal one. A child of immigrants, Mouallem discovers that, just as the greater legacy of Western Islam was lost on him, so were the stories of prior generations in his family. An atheist since the 9/11 attacks, Mouallem reconsiders Islam and his place within it.   Meanwhile, as the rise of hate groups threaten the liberties of Muslims in the West, ideologues from the East try to suppress their liberalism. With pressures to assimilate coming from all sides, will Muslims of the Americas ever be free to worship on their own terms?

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