In the conventional historical narrative, the medieval Middle East was composed of autonomous religious traditions, each with distinct doctrines, rituals, and institutions. Outside the world of theolo
As they were entering Egypt, Abram glimpsed Sarai's reflection in the Nile River. Though he had been married to her for years, this moment is positioned in a rabbinic narrative as a revelation. "Now I
In the second century, Platonist and Judeo-Christian thought were sufficiently friendly that a Greek philosopher could declare, "What is Plato but Moses speaking Greek?" Four hundred years later, a Ch
Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been implicated in the c
Although Mu?ammad had no natural sons who reached the age of maturity, Islamic sources report that he adopted a man named Zayd shortly before receiving his first revelation. This "son of Mu?ammad" was
Focusing on the shared vocabulary of images and ideas with which late ancient Christians and Muslims imagined the past, present, and future, this book seeks to understand why violent expressions of re
Why did early Christians claim their "otherness" as resident aliens, strangers, and sojourners so vocally? Aliens and Sojourners explores the markedly different ways that Christians used the rhetoric
In Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Jeremy M. Schott examines the ways in which conflicts between Christian and pagan intellectuals over religious, ethnic, and cultu
The historical separation between Judaism and Christianity is often figured as a clearly defined break of a single entity into two separate religions. Following this model, there would have been one r
With few exceptions, the scholarship on religion in late antiquity has emphasized its tendencies toward transcendence, abstraction, and spirit at the expense of matter. InThe Corporeal Imagination, Pa
When Jesus was five he killed a boy, or so reports the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. A little boy had run into Jesus by accident, bumping him on the shoulder, and Jesus took offense: "Jesus was angry and
In the early twentieth century, a new generation of liberal professors sought to prove Christianity's compatibility with contemporary currents in philosophy, scientific discovery, historical study, an
In our age of ecological crisis, what insights—if any—can we expect to find by looking to our past? Perhaps, suggests Virginia Burrus, early Christianity might yield usable ecological thought. Turning
In Demonic Desires, Ishay Rosen-Zvi examines the concept of yetzer hara, or evil inclination, and its evolution in biblical and rabbinic literature. Contrary to existing scholarship, which reads the t
The Islamic claim to supersede Judaism and Christianity is embodied in the theological assertion that the office of prophecy is hereditary but that the line of descent ends with Muhammad, who is the s
Through their teaching of early Christian history and theology, Elizabeth A. Clark contends, Princeton Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, and Union Theological Semina
The first Christians operated with a hierarchical model of sexual difference common to the ancient Mediterranean, with women considered to be lesser versions of men. Yet sexual difference was not comp
According to legend, the Virgin appeared one Christmas Eve to an artless young man standing in one of Constantinople's most famous Marian shrines. She offered him a scroll of papyrus with the injuncti
In Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals, Mira Beth Wasserman undertakes a close reading of Avoda Zara, arguably the Talmud's most scandalous tractate, to uncover the hidden architecture of this classic w
