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Why do Christianity and Islam approach their relationship to politics in distinct ways? Because they each have their own "grammar." Their canonical scriptures have different contents their early experiences of politics were fundamentally dissimilar. The consequences influence political practice and theory to this day. It is highly likely that cultures shaped by Christianity develop a different form of democracy than those shaped by Islam.

This volume maps the international academic debate on secularity. It places contributions from within ‘Western’ academia alongside lesser-known texts from various parts of the world, in several cases translated into English for the first time. This demonstrates that the academic debate on secularity was and is a global one, with contributions from many regions. It provides the reader with materials to trace various forms of exchange and reference.

This book is dedicated to the study of the touchpoints between Yahwistic communities throughout the Achaemenid empire and the Iranian attributes of the empire that ruled over them for about two centuries. Its approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary. It brings together scholars of Achaemenid history, literature and religion, Iranian linguistics, historians of the Ancient Near East, archeologists, biblical scholars and Semiticists.

This volume gathers reflections on secularity from the Ottoman Empire, modern Arab states, the Turkish Republic, Iran, and Jewish perspectives from Europe and Israel, many translated into English for the first time. While the emphasis is on the colonial period and after, the collection includes earlier compositions to highlight interconnections across temporal divides, as well as resonances with debates around the globe.

This open access book focuses on the potential for conflict between high and low culture during the transformations of the popular in the field of religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Specifically, the contributors to this edited collection consider the so-called 'Revival Movements' that came up as a symptom of differentiation and pluralisation of Protestantism in reaction to the Enlightenment, rationalism, and criticism of religion, and explore the attempts at theological self-empowerment of Christian laymen and laywomen.

Focusing on England, the German-speaking territories and the Italian peninsula, this book examines how Saint George’s image crossed boundaries and was disseminated. Alison Barker attempts to "dissolve" the boundary of the Alps through examination of images of Saint George, the "travelling" saint. She argues that George’s status as chivalric hero and Christian martyr made him uniquely qualified to cross boundaries in this way, especially through the networks of courts and court culture. Her research demonstrates how the highly recognisable iconography of Saint George’s image meant something different, depending on where he was represented and who was looking at him. Through four case studies that examine how he was depicted and viewed across boundaries of space and media, this book charts a multi-layered cultural network, linking different artists and audiences from three regions. Each case study makes a claim about Saint George and how he acts and is used by four sections of society: rulers, artists, corporate groups and the broad masses. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, religious history and Renaissance studies.

This multidisciplinary volume examines the ongoing effects of James G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in modern Humanities and its wide-ranging influence across studies of ancient religions, literature, historiography, and reception studies. The book begins by exploring the life and times of Frazer himself and the writing of The Golden Bough in its cultural milieu. It then goes on to cover a wide range of topics, including: ancient Near Eastern religion and culture; Minoan religion and in particular the origins of notions of Minoan matriarchy; Frazer’s influence on the study of Graeco-Roman religion and magic; Frazer’s influence on modern Pagan religions; and the effects of Frazer’s works in modern culture and scholarship generally. Chapters examine how modern academia and beyond continues to be influenced by the otherwise discredited theories in The Golden Bough, ideas such as Sacred Marriage and the incessant Fertility of Everything. The book demonstrates how scholarship within the Humanities as well as practitioners of alternative religions and the common public remain under the thrall of Frazer over one hundred years since the publication of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, and what we must do to shake off that influence. A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is of interest to scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines, including Ancient History, History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Classical Studies, Archaeology, Historiography, Anthropology, Folklore, and Reception Studies.

This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature and place of experience in premodern Islamic science. It seeks to answer two questions: What kind of experience constituted premodern Islamic science? And in what ways did that experience constitute science? Answering these questions, the authors critique the trajectory of most existing histories of the period, which tend to reduce “experience” to empirical method or practice. This view reflects the emphasis that histories of modern science, especially of the Scientific Revolution, have placed on empiricism—the standard against which Islamic actors were then measured. This book offers a new historiography, arguing that experience had a far wider scope in the world of Islamic science. Combining an innovative theoretical framework with three case studies and a reflective epilogue by renowned experts in the field, this work offers the history of science a solid foundation on which to build its analyses of premodern science and the modality, scope, and role of experience therein. As a result, it speaks to specialists in the history of premodern Islamic science and historians of science in general to reconsider their historiographical assumptions.

Das Handbuch bietet eine anhand von 6 Paradigmen entfaltete Darstellung deutschsprachig-jüdischer Literatur seit der Aufklärung. Ausgangspunkt ist die These, dass jüdisches Denken und deutschsprachig-jüdische Literatur nicht primär assimilatorisch an literarischen und wissenschaftlichen Entwicklungen im deutschsprachigen Raum partizipierten, sondern diese in dialogischer Weise und Impulse gebend maßgeblich mitkonstituiert haben. Der Band Sprachkulturen befasst sich mit den politischen und kulturellen Bedingungen, unter denen die deutsche Sprache in jüdischen Lebenswelten geteilt wurde und ihre Literatur sowie die Praxis jüdischer Mehrsprachigkeit prägte. Er analysiert exemplarisch diese Sprachkulturen im jeweiligen historischen Gegenüber zur Deutschsprachigkeit der Mehrheitsgesellschaft und als produktiven literarischen Ausdruck jüdischer Selbstbehauptung und jüdischen Selbstverständnisses. Dies ist ein Open-Access-Buch.

Was haben Geld und Tod miteinander zu tun? In frühneuzeitlichen Diskursen werden beide auf bisher unbeachtete und oft überraschende Weise zusammengebracht. Anhand wenig beachteter Schriften berühmter Figuren der europäischen Geistesgeschichte – John Lydgate, Nicolaus Copernicus und Paracelsus von Hohenheim – geht Peter Löffelbein der kulturgeschichtlichen Bedeutung des Phänomens nach. Dabei deckt er historische Verflechtungen u.a. von Geldtheorie, Theologie und Naturphilosophie auf und macht deutlich, wie sehr die Epistemologien der Neuzeit dem angeblich so anderen Denken der Vormoderne verpflichtet sind.

Die deutschsprachigen und internationalen pfingstlich-charismatischen Bewegungen stehen für eine Transformation von Christentum und Gesellschaft. Maria Hinsenkamp deckt die expandierenden transkonfessionellen Vernetzungen auf, die über das Politische und Kulturelle bis in die Unterhaltungsindustrie hineinreichen. Den Strukturen der »Kingdom-minded Network Christianity« ist ein profiliertes theologisch-weltanschauliches Konzept gemein: Es wird ein bestimmtes Reich-Gottes-Verständnis postuliert, dessen Ziel die Herrschaft Gottes in allen individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Lebensbereichen ist. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den neuen Entwicklungen ist nicht nur aus klassisch ökumenischer, sondern auch aus gesamtgesellschaftlicher Perspektive hoch relevant.

Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy brings together important scholars of Byzantine religion, art, and architecture, to honour the work of renowned art historian Alexei Lidov. As well as his numerous publications, Lidov is well known for developing the concept of hierotopy, an innovative approach for studying the creation of sacred spaces. Hierotopy and the related concepts of ‘spatial icons’ and ‘image-paradigms’ emphasize fundamental questions about icons, including what defines them as structures, spaces, and experiences. Chapters in this volume engage with the overarching theme of icons of space by employing, contrasting, and complementing methods of hierotopy with more traditional approaches such as iconography. Examinations of icons have traditionally been positioned within strictly historical, theological, socio-economic, political, and art history domains, but this volume poses epistemological questions about the creation of sacred spaces that are instead inclusive of multi-layered iconic ideas and the lived experiences of the creators and beholders of such spaces. This book contributes to image theory and theories of architecture and sacred space. Simultaneously, it moves beyond colonial studies that predominantly focus on questions of religion and politics as expressions of privileged knowledge and power. This book will appeal to scholars and students of Byzantine history, as well as those interested in hierotopy and art history.

”All I have strived for during this school day – that an earthly life amounts to – has been to do my utmost to promote the realization of human brotherhood on our little Earth.” This is how Nelly Thüring (1875–1972), at the age of 94, summarized her philosophy of life in an interview with Morgonbris, a journal published by the Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation. During the 1920s, she had helped organizing local chapters of the recently founded Women’s Federation as a touring speaker. In 1922, she became one of the first female members of the Swedish Parliament (Riksdagen). By tracing Thüring’s path to Parliament, this biography contributes new knowledge about how Social Democratic women campaigned for female suffrage and better living conditions. Nelly Thüring was also active in the Theosophical movement, an esoteric movement whose members were guided by a utopian vision: to realize the Universal Brotherhood. When she ran for municipal council in Gothenburg in the 1910s, she described the movements for socialism, peace, feminism, temperance and vegetarianism as branches of the same tree. The early 20th century esoteric movements are probably best known for having inspired cultural figures such as Hilma af Klint. However, this book shows that Thüring – among many others – applied her theosophical worldview to social and political issues.

This book offers an in-depth, archive-based analysis of “scientific atheism”, focused on the development of the field in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Scientific atheism was established as a Soviet import in 1963 at Jena University, with a presence in East German universities, propaganda and politics for nearly 30 years. The chapters explore the sociological work done by scientific atheists such as Olof Klohr, how they defined religion and atheism, and their role as actors of atheisation in various fields. As well as reflecting on the specific religious and political context in East Germany, the author makes comparison with other communist-ruled countries. Drawing on extensive and unique documentation, this book will be of interest to scholars of atheism and secularism, religion and politics, religious history, German history and East European studies.

This book investigates the recent renewed theological focus on ecclesiology and the practices of the church. In light of the diminishing role of the church in Western society over the last century, it considers how theologians have come to view church life as essential to faith and theological thinking. The chapters analyze key works by John Milbank, Stanley Hauerwas and Nicholas Healy, and bring them into conversation with an earlier phase in church history. The historical comparison focuses on the renewal of ecclesiology in Roman Catholic theology in the early twentieth century, represented by Romano Guardini, Odo Casel, and Henri de Lubac. Outlining how the present ‘turn to the church’ can be seen as promising, the volume provides readers with a sketch of how a church-centred theology might assist the church in inhabiting an increasingly ‘post-Christian’ world.

The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton explores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral realm play a vital role in early modern England’s religious and cultural systems that in turn informs the period’s poetic and visual imagination. The twin buttresses of a human lifespan and the gyre-like turns of England’s long Reformation provide a broad dome under which to locate the many textual and visual archives this book studies. These texts and images participate in specifically English histories (literary, artistic, political, religious), although Continental influences are frequently in dialogue. The religious orbit tracks the rivalries firstly between Jewish and Christian culture, touches on Christianity’s tension with Islam, but most intently follows the antagonisms of Catholic and variants of Reformed or Protestant belief. The bibliography features canonical names such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Wroth, Herbert, Milton, and Pulter, but puts them in company with lesser-known religious polemicists, alchemists, anatomists, painters, mothers, and stonemasons. The visual archive attends to biblical illustration, tapestries, church furniture, and paintings, anatomical drawings, as well as statues to form a multimedia archive. Similarly, the lithic embraces a wide continuum of mineral forms from bodily encrustations like the kidney and bezoar stone, to salt, iron, limestone, marble, flint, and silicon. The assemblage of materials speaks to aspirational imperial fantasies, looming colonial conquests, syncretism, and supersession, as well as issues of gender and the race-making category of hue, alongside elitist ideologies of an elect, chosen people. All connect via the storied pathways of stone as densely material and a foundation for the abstract imaginary along the scala naturae. Across these human–stone encounters, stone fascinates and betrays and is equal parts damnation and salvation.

Klöster, Stifte und Kommenden prägten als christliche Lebensräume die brandenburgische Kulturlandschaft des Mittelalters. Ihre Zeugnisse im städtischen und ländlichen Gebiet machen sie für die Gegenwart zu besonderen Erinnerungsorten. Mit dem Brandenburgischen Klosterbuch liegt dazu erstmals ein verlässliches Werk hoher fachlicher Qualität mit zahlreichen Karten und Abbildungen vor, das umfassend Auskunft gibt über Bedeutung und Selbstverständnis der mehr als 100 ehemaligen geistlichen Gemeinschaften in den historischen Landschaften der Mark Brandenburg und der heutigen Länder Brandenburg und Berlin. Die alphabetisch und systematisch gegliederten Beiträge sowie übergreifende Aufsätze beschreiben die brandenburgische Klosterlandschaft, sie zeigen in mannigfaltigen europäischen Bezügen deren Gesicht. Das Brandenburgische Klosterbuch ist ein Handbuch für ein breites Lesepublikum und die Fachwissenschaft. Opulentes Nachschlagewerk zur Landesgeschichte. Über 100 Klosterstandorte mit zahlreichen, durchgängig vierfarbigen Abbildungen und detaillierten Karten.

In einer einzigartigen Interpretation entwickelt der französische Denker Georges Bataille eine Theorie der Religion, in der das Dasein des Menschen von der Suche nach einer verlorenen Intimität geprägt ist. Diese Suche weitet er auf eine sozio-ökonomische Dimension aus und richtet seinen Fokus dabei auf die Funktionen von rituellen Opferpraktiken. Gül Nigar Dükan erweckt die Gedanken Batailles zum Leben und zeigt, dass dieser neben den Praktiken auch die Bedeutung des Opfers in der Religionsgeschichte verfolgt - angefangen bei den archaischen Formen der Religion bis hin zu den modernen religiösen Bewegungen, die sich für ihn vornehmlich in den ökonomischen Systemen von Gesellschaften offenbaren.

Current scientific advances are reshaping our understanding of prehistory, offering unprecedented insights into the movements and kinship patterns of prehistoric populations. These new advances provide us with detailed information on several aspects of the early speakers of Indo-European and their lives. However, the prehistoric humans that we know through bones and potsherds were once real people speaking real languages and having specific beliefs, mythological tales and poetic expressions. With this book, we want to apply a multidisciplinary approach that combines historical linguistics, archaeology, and comparative religion in order to improve our understanding of the early speakers of Indo-European. The book is a collection of papers by specialists in historical linguistics, archaeology and comparative religion, each examining different facets of the early Indo-European speakers, including their language, culture, and religious practices.

The volume provides the text of the Erfurt Popular Bible (an expanded bible translation with commentary) in a parallel presentation of two Erfurt manuscripts from the 1420s. The text reprint indicates the connections to the vulgate and other sources, and the introduction covers relevant biblical historical, codicological, and language historical issues, thereby presenting an important textual example of late Medieval bible history.

Religious traditions, symbols, and practices are shaped by gender gender roles, stereotypes, and ideals have religious underpinnings. Studying gender in religious studies means taking the category of gender into account when collecting, describing, and analyzing data pertaining to religion. It also means uncovering the normativity of entanglements between religion and gender as well as making opposing trends visible.

The stimulating polarity of religion and law has determined the history of Christianity from the very beginning. In the Middle Ages, it is associated with the struggle between spiritual and secular power and, since the Reformation, with the dispute between the emerging denominations. Not least because of this, there is a constant interplay between secularizing tendencies and efforts to intensify religion. Both have an effect on the development of the law, often catalytically reinforcing or accelerating it, in some situations even providing a stimulus, but sometimes also inhibiting it. In the coexistence of these polarities, the peculiarity of Western Christianity becomes visible., Die stimulierende Polarität von Religion und Recht bestimmt von Anfang an die Geschichte des Christentums. Sie verbindet sich im Mittelalter mit dem Ringen von geistlicher und weltlicher Gewalt und seit der Reformationszeit mit dem Streit der sich herausbildenden Konfessionen. Nicht zuletzt dadurch kommt es zu einem dauernden Wechselspiel von säkularisierenden Tendenzen und Bestrebungen einer religiösen Intensivierung. Beides wirkt sich auf die Rechtsentwicklung aus, vielfach katalytisch-verstärkend oder beschleunigend, in einzelnen Situationen sogar impulsgebend, mitunter aber auch hemmend. Im Miteinander dieser Polaritäten wird das Eigentümliche des westlichen Christentums sichtbar.

Leviticus 17–26, an ancient law text known as the Holiness Code, prescribes how particular persons are to behave in concrete, everyday situations. The addressees of the law text must revere their parents, respect the elderly, fear God, take care of their fellow, provide for the sojourner, and so on. The sojourner has his own obligations, as do the priests. Even God is said to behave in various ways towards various persons. Thus, the law text forms an intricate web of persons and interactions. There is a growing awareness that ancient law texts were not arbitrary collections of legal paragraphs but articulations of certain world views. The laws were rational in their own respect and were based on the lawgiver’s ethos. However, since the ethical values of the lawgiver rarely—if ever—surface in the text itself, it has proven difficult to grasp with traditional, exegetical methods. This study offers a novel approach to mapping out the ethos of an ancient law text like Leviticus 17–26. By employing social network analysis, the participants and their interactions are mapped to scrutinize the ethical roles embodied by the persons of the law. To accomplish this, the study undertakes meticulous research into both the participants and the interactions of Leviticus 17–26. The book investigates a semi-automatic approach to extracting participant information from a text and offers new methods for analysing Hebrew interactions (realised as verbal predicates) in terms of dynamicity, causation, and agency.

This multidisciplinary volume examines the ongoing effects of James G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in modern Humanities and its wide-ranging influence across studies of ancient religions, literature, historiography, and reception studies. The book begins by exploring the life and times of Frazer himself and the writing of The Golden Bough in its cultural milieu. It then goes on to cover a wide range of topics, including: ancient Near Eastern religion and culture; Minoan religion and in particular the origins of notions of Minoan matriarchy; Frazer’s influence on the study of Graeco-Roman religion and magic; Frazer’s influence on modern Pagan religions; and the effects of Frazer’s works in modern culture and scholarship generally. Chapters examine how modern academia and beyond continues to be influenced by the otherwise discredited theories in The Golden Bough, ideas such as Sacred Marriage and the incessant Fertility of Everything. The book demonstrates how scholarship within the Humanities as well as practitioners of alternative religions and the common public remain under the thrall of Frazer over one hundred years since the publication of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, and what we must do to shake off that influence. A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is of interest to scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines, including Ancient History, History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Classical Studies, Archaeology, Historiography, Anthropology, Folklore, and Reception Studies.