What is it for there to be a God, and what reason is there for supposing him to conform to the claims of Christian doctrine? In this pivotal volume of his tetralogy, Richard Swinburne builds a rigorous metaphysical system for describing the world, and applies this to assessing the worth of the Christian tenets of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Part I is dedicated to analysing the categories needed to address accounts of the divine nature - these are substance, cause, time, and necessity. Part II begins by setting out, in terms of these categories, the fundamental doctrine of Western religions - that there is a God. After pointing out some of the different ways in which this doctrine can be developed, Swinburne spells out the simplest possible account of divine nature. He then goes on to clarify the implications of this account for the specifically Christian doctrines of the Trinity (that God is 'three persons in one substance') and of the Incarnation (that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ). Swinburne finds that there are good reasons to believe the Christian additions to the core Western idea of God. The Christian God builds upon Swinburne's acclaimed previous work to form a self-contained text which will no doubt become a classic in the philosophy of religion.

Could the story of mankind be far older than we have previously believed? Using tools as varied as archaeo-astronomy, geology, and computer analysis of ancient myths, Graham Hancock presents a compelling ease to suggest that it is. In the Fingerprints of the Gods, Hancock embarks on a worldwide quest to put together all the pieces of the vast and fascinating jigsaw of mankind's hidden past. in ancient monument as far apart as Egypt's Great Sphinx, the strange Andean ruins of Tiahuanaco, and Mexico's awe-inspiring Temples of the Sun and Moon, he reveals not only the clear fingerprints of an as-yet-unidentified civilization of remote antiquity, but also startling evidence of its vast sofistication, technological advancement, and evolved scientific knowledge.

As vagrant beggars, spiritual teachers, or charismatic “enthusiasts,” wandering monks raised the basic question of what it meant to be a monk wherever they appeared. When the Council of Chalcedon in 451issued the first church canons that addressed the movements of monks and placed their activities under episcopal control, monasticism was still an evolving phenomenon. One purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the sequestered form of monastic life that the Council favored, as well as the selfsufficient, work-based ideal that authorities like Augustine promoted, were in fact novel developments in monastic history, supplanting an earlier, widely practiced ideal in which an ascetic elite, observing apostolic principles, provided spiritual edification to Christian communities in return for their material support. But this book is also a study in cultural history that explores why certain Christian holy men became recognized as legitimate, while others, who embraced Jesus’ most demanding precepts for Christian perfection, became marginalized and repudiated in this most crucial period for the establishment, spread, and acceptance of monastic institutions.

Артур Уэйт (1857-1942) - один из крупнейших знатоков оккультных наук своего времени, автор десятков печатных трудов, видный член нескольких эзотерических сообществ. В историю он, однако, вошел главным образом как создатель самой популярной в мире колоды карт Таро. В этой книге символизм и прорицательные значения карт Таро `Райдер-Уэйт` (названных так в честь издателя и разработчика) разъясняются самим Уэйтом.

Alchemy has been with us since the beginning of recorded history. It has been present in almost every culture, from Old Kingdom Egypt and the China of Lao Tzu; from the Greece of Alexander the Great to the era of Islamic conquest; from the islands of the Indonesian archipelago to the twilight world of Victorian occultism. It has been called ‘the mightiest secret that a man [or woman] can possess’, yet it has also been derided as ‘the history of an error’. It has often been portrayed as a fraudulent, delusional quest for wealth and worldly power through the attempt to transmute base metals into gold, but has also been regarded as a Divine art, the highest gift of God, one that should only be practiced by the sincere seeker and the pure of heart.

The relationship between science and religion is generally depicted in one of two ways. In one view, they are locked in an inevitable, eternal conflict in which one must choose a side. In the other, they are separate spheres, in which the truth claims of one have little bearing on the other.This collection of provocative essays by leading thinkers offers a new way of looking at this problematic relationship. The authors begin from the premise that both science and religion operate in, yet seek to reach beyond, specific historical, political, ideological, and psychological contexts. How may we understand science and religion as arising from, yet somehow transcending, human experience? The volume is divided into four sections. The first takes a fresh look at the relationship between science and religion in broad terms: as spheres of knowledge or belief, realms of experience, and sources of authority. The other three sections take on topics that have been focal points of conflict between science and religion: the nature of the cosmos, the origin of life, and the workings of the mind. Ultimately, the authors argue, by seeing science and religion as irrevocably tied to human experience we can move beyond simple either/or definitions of reality and arrive at a more rich and complex view of both science and religion.

Have evolution, science and the trappings of the modern world killed off God irrevocably? And what do we lose if we choose not to believe in him? From Newton and Descartes to Darwin and the discovery of the genome, religion has been pushed back further and further while science has gained ground. But what fills the void that religion leaves behind? This book is an attempt to look at these questions and to suggest a third way between the easy consolations of religion and the persuasive force of science that the everyday modern reader can engage with.

This landmark work presents the most illuminating portrait we have to date of goddesses and sacred female imagery in Western culture--from prehistory to contemporary goddess movements. Beautifully written, lucidly conceived, and far-ranging in its implications, this work will help readers gain a better appreciation of the complexity of the social forces-- mostly androcentric--that have shaped the symbolism of the sacred feminine. At the same time, it charts a new direction for finding a truly egalitarian vision of God and human relations through a feminist-ecological spirituality.

What might it mean, at this particular moment, to theologize eros, to eroticize theology? The ascetic, the mystical, the seductive, the ecstatic-such are the places where the divine and the erotic may be seen to converge and love and desire to commingle. Such too are the shared interests that bring philosophers, historians, biblical scholars, and theologians into spirited conversation in a multi-vocal volume that traverses the limits of conventional orthodoxies, both disciplinary and theological. The eighteen chapters move fluidly across and between premodern and postmodern textual traditions-from Plato to Emerson, Augustine to Kristeva, Mechthild to Mattoso, the Shulammite to Molly Bloom, the Zohar to the Da Vinci Code. In so doing, they also link the sublime reaches of theory with the gritty realities of politics, the boundless transcendence of God with the poignant transience of materiality.

What duty do we have to stop others from doing wrong? The question is intelligible in almost any culture, but few seek to answer it in a rigorous fashion. The most striking exception is found in the Islamic tradition where "commanding right and forbidding wrong" is a central moral tenet. Michael Cook's comprehensive and compelling analysis represents the first sustained attempt to chart the history of Islamic reflection on this obligation and to explain its relevance for politics and ideology in the contemporary Islamic world.

Scrolls of Love is a book of unions. Edited by a Jew and a Christian who are united by a shared passion for the Bible and a common literary hermeneutic, it joins two biblical scrolls and gathers around them a diverse community of interpreters. It brings together Ruth and the Song of Songs, two seemingly disparate texts of the Hebrew Bible, and reads them through a number of the methodological and theological perspectives. Respectful of traditional biblical scholarship, the collection of essays moves beyond it; alert to contemporary trends, the volume returns venerable interpretive tradition to center stage. Most significantly, it is interfaith. Despite the fact that Jews and Christians share a common text in the Hebrew Scripture, the two communities have read their Bibles in isolation from one another, in ignorance of the richness of the other's traditions of reading. Scrolls of Love brings the two traditions into dialogue, enriching established modes of interpretation with unconventional ones. The result is a volume that sets rabbinic, patristic, and medieval readings alongside feminist, psychoanalytic, and autobiographical ones, combining historical, literary, and textual criticism with a variety of artistic reinterpretations—wood cuts and paper cuts, poetry and fiction. Some of the works are scholarly, with the requisite footnotes to draw readers to further inquiry: others are more reflective than analytic, allowing readers to see what it means to live intimately with Scripture. As a unity, the collection presents Ruth and Song of Songs not only as ancient texts that deserve to be treasured but as old worlds capable of begetting the new.

The Mosque is an extended meditation on a dimension of Islam unfamiliar to most Western readers. The mosque, Rusmir Mahmut´cehaji´c argues, is not an analogue of the Christian church, not least because in Islam there is no priesthood and no institutionalized hierarchy. Rather, every Muslim is his or her own priest, andmost religious obligations are performed in the home. The function of the mosque is thus dispersed throughout society and, indeed, throughout the natural world as well. The Arabic word from which English mosque derives means literally “place of prostration”—the place one performs the daily ritual prayer of submission to God, so as to become a guest at the table God has sent down to manifest himself. That table is also the world's mosque, the world as mosque. Among the many tragic victims of the Bosnian genocide are its mosques; more than a thousand were destroyed. A part of the essential fabric of Bosnian life was changed. With this book, Rusmir Mahmut´cehaji´c seeks to rebuild the spirit and majesty of each mosque that was destroyed, the spiritual grace it lent the Bosnian landscape.“Beautifully composed, elegantly written and constructed, this is a primary text of Islamic spirituality, by one of the most significant Muslim European voices of our age . . . . A book to be returned to again and again.”—Adam B. Seligman, Boston University“This work by one of the leading intellectual figures of Bosnia is one of the finest written in the English language on the spiritual significance of the mosque. It speaks the language of universal spirituality and is able to open a door for Western readers to the relationship between the mosque, as understood outwardly, and the inner mosque, which is the heart. The book also reflects in most elegant language the reality of a land where mosques, churches, and synagogues have stood side by side over the centuries, each bearing witness in its own way to the Presence of the One.”—Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University

Fifteen years ago while researching Jewish imagery, award-winning book designer Scott-Martin Kosofsky happened upon a 1645 edition of the Minhogimbukh -- the "Customs Book" -- a beautifully designed and illustrated guide to the Jewish year written in Yiddish, the people's vernacular. Captivated, he investigated further and learned that from 1590 to 1890, this cross between a prayer book and a farmer's almanac was immensely popular in households all across Europe. Published in dozens of editions and revised over the centuries in Venice, Prague, Amsterdam, and throughout Germany before moving eastward in the nineteenth century to Poland and Russia, these books detail the evolution of Jewish custom over three hundred years. But by the 1890s, as Jewish practice became polarized between the secularist and traditionalist views, the Minhogimbukh disappeared.
There are no works quite like the historical customs books available today and none so thorough and concise, intuitive in organization, and beautiful. Inspired by the originals, Kosofsky set out to make his own, adapting the books for modern use, adding historical perspective and contemporary application. The result is the reappearance of the Minhogimbukh after more than a hundred-year absence, and the first complete showing of all the original woodcuts -- a visual vocabulary of Jewish life -- since the 1760s. Faithfully based on the earlier editions, The Book of Customs is an updated guide to the rituals, liturgies, and texts of the entire Jewish year -- from the days of the week and the Sabbath to all the months with their festivals, as well as the major life-cycle events of wedding, birth, bar and bat mitzvah, and death. With the revival of this lost cultural legacy, The Book of Customs can once again become every family's guide to Jewish tradition and practice.