The Orthodox Church understands the Holy Scriptures to be the fountainhead of Tradition. The stories read in the Bible are commonly explored and elaborated in greater depth in liturgical hymns, homilies, and patristic writings. Such is the case with the account found in St Luke’s gospel of a sinful woman who anoints Christ with precious oil shortly before his Passion and Crucifixion. The woman’s story is taken up in the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church in Holy Week, where she is held up as an example of repentance and unconstrained love. In this in-depth but readable study the biblical accounts are elaborated through both the liturgical and oratorical tradition of the Church, as found primarily in Greek and Syriac manuscripts, with particular attention given to the former texts, too often overshadowed by the latter. Previously inaccessible texts of late antiquity, such as homilies by Amphilochius of Iconium and Ephrem Graecus, are found here in English for the first time, together with fresh English renderings of other sermons. This sharply honed and well-constructed work will engage all who encounter the story of the sinful woman in the living tradition of worship in the Orthodox Church, as well as those who are introduced to her through Scripture, liturgical poetry, or scholarly consideration. The present work unveils the intricate nature of the tradition of the Church, which gives greater scope and application to the biblical record through its hymnography and oratory.

The Scholastic Culture of the Babylonian Talmud studies how and in what cultural context the Talmud began to take shape in the scholastic centers of rabbinic Babylonia. Bickart tracks the use of the term tistayem ("let it be promulgated") and its analogs, in contexts ranging from Amoraic disciple circles to Geonic texts, and in comparison with literatures of Syriac-speaking Christians. The study demonstrates increasing academization during the talmudic period, and supports a gradual model of the Talmud's redaction.

Throughout the history of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the investigation of religious sacrifice has often been neglected. This book examines the views of sacrifice in the non-biblical sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, through exploration of the historical and ideological development of the movement related to the scrolls (the DSS movement), particularly from the vantagepoint of the movement's later offshoot group known as the Qumran community.

A study of the life and background of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, putative founder of the Qādiriyya order, investigating the sources for his life and attributed works. The book seeks to elucidate the ideas of al-Jīlānī, and to formulate a picture of the most prominent trends of pious and mystical thought in Baghdad during the twelfth century, providing a cultural and geographical angle to the study of Islamic mysticism and piety.

This volume uses lessons from the Hindu culture to teach the world methods of sustainability. The costs of industrial agriculture are astonishing in terms of damage to the environment, human health, animal suffering, and social equity, and the situation demands that we expand our ecological imagination to meet this crisis. This book uses the story of the deity Balaram and the Yamuna River as a foundation for discussing the global food crisis and illustrating the Hindu origins of agrarian thought, encouraging us to reconsider our relationship with the earth.

The death of a loved one is one of the most challenging events we have to face in our lifetime. This is an honest and raw recollection of the deep loss felt by a daughter who lost her father to cancer during the Covid-19 pandemic, isolated from her normal support networks and restricted in the ways she could celebrate the life of her father.

Biblical symbolism has still a powerful appeal even today to change lives, to give reasons for living and dying and a solid hope for a future worthy of human beings. A Little Less than Angels can serve as an introduction and guide through the complexity of the biblical narrative as readers endeavour to re-enact in their own lives

This directory is a complete address and telephone guide to all Catholic parishes, convents and religious houses in the thirty-two counties of Ireland. It includes: full details of the Irish Episcopate and its various commissions; details of Catholic societies: addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and websites; names and addresses of chaplains in universities, hospitals and prisons; information on retreat and pastoral centres; and national church statistics.

Illness is one of the most challenging and disturbing experiences for any person. It can shake us to the very core and make us question everything we hold dear. Prayer that might have flowed so easily when we were well can, in times of illness, become like a mountain impossible to scale.

The purpose of this book is to raise awareness, to add value, give guidance and offer clarity to a young readership. With the rise of teenage mental health issues and experience this book is a very useful tool for teenagers and pre-teens. It offers balance and clarity to the reader’s lives through awareness, mindfulness, and self-care.

Catholic Education: A Lifelong Journey is an exciting investigation of Catholic education in the parish, home and school, exploring the various ways Catholic education is present not only in Catholic schooling but throughout the whole of a Catholic person’s life. This extensive volume brings together leading and emerging scholars in Catholic education, from both Ireland and Britain, who offer important insights into the lifelong nature of the Catholic education journey, and seek to stimulate a deep sense of enquiry, exploration, reflection and action. The book comprises two parts. The first begins with an analysis of theological education and adult learning, before examining the state of adult religious education in Ireland and exploring how Catholic education is interrelated with the life of faith, breathing in and out the Spirit of God's love. As a whole, this volume encourages an integrated, faith-community focused, intergenerational, open, creative, and generous approach to what Catholic education – broadly conceived of – can be.

One of the themes that echoes most frequently through Laudato Si', Pope Francis' landmark publication on the environment, is the central role of biodiversity in creation spirituality, because the 'diing of the rainbow of life's diversity' has a significance that goes way beyond our concern for its impact upon our human welfare. This is the result of a deepening awareness of the role of every living species in God’s unfolding plan. Every Bush Aflame is an extended reflection on this profoundly central theme. It explores the origins of biodiversity in Christian theology, its roots in our growing scientific understanding of the true nature and scale of life’s complexity and diversity, and the implications of all this for the kind of Christian response called for in Laudato Si'. Particular emphasis is laid on the importance of the personal encounter with the natural world through which we read the 'other book' of revelation in which God reveals himself to us: that ‘magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness' (Laudato Si', 12). Every Bush Aflame argues that those whose lives are directed by the spiritual perspective this profoundly deeper understanding offers should be the most deeply motivated to respond to the challenge presented by the current environmental crisis.

This monograph examines the principle of dispensation in the Qur'an, which seems to be, if not unique, articulated in a new manner compared to previous religions (cf. Deut 12,32). The Qur'anic dispensations have never been systematically studied and this monograph aims to fill this vacuum in the fields of Qur'anic studies and the Study of Religion.

Amnon Weinstein, an Israeli master luthier (violin maker), began a project more than years ago that may be one of the most creative, effective, and magnificent approaches to education on the topic of the Holocaust. Trained by three of the most revered Cremona, Italian luthiers of the twentieth century, Weinstein’s vision was to restore violins that survived the concentration camps and the ghettos, even when their owners often did not. To date, more than seventy violins have been restored to their highest playable condition. Following restoration, these hauntingly beautiful instruments have been used in performances by symphonies in Berlin, Cleveland, Istanbul, London, Quebec, Paris, San Francisco, and many other cities across the world. Purposefully, Weinstein makes certain that young musicians as well as members of some of the world’s most famed orchestras perform on them to packed concert halls. In doing so, it’s as if the past owners of the instruments return to fill the listener-observer’s mind and body. In Violins and Hope, Daniel Levin has made the most compelling and beautiful series of photographs documenting Weinstein’s collection of violins, his workshop in Tel Aviv, and his processes for restoration. This book is not a document of place, as much as it is a document of the ethereal. For what Weinstein has done with these lost violins has been to transform tragic loss into triumph in the most inciteful and powerful way imaginable. The care that Levin has taken to hone in on the idiosyncrasies of Amnon’s workshop, and his uncanny ability to celebrate the beauty of light, is nothing short of remarkable. The book’s foreword is written by arguably the most well-suited individual anywhere. Born in Austria, Franz Welser-Möst is one of the most acclaimed conductors of the twenty-first century. He has been Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra since 2002, and, under his direction, The Cleveland, as it has been fondly named by The New York Times, has had twenty international tours, with shimmering reviews. All too aware of his ancestry, Welser-Möst takes on our mutual history as no one else could. And the book concludes with Levin’s interview with Assi Weinstein, Amnon’s wife, who talks about the Violins of Hope project and its enduring legacy.

A complete address and telephone guide to all Catholic parishes, convents and religious houses in the thirty-two counties of Ireland.

Why are Jews so attracted to India, to Hinduism, and to Buddhism in the United States as well as Israel? They travel there by the thousands, attracted by the exoticism of course, but, Adelman believes, also drawn by an atavistic connection, dating back to the great Persian empires that extended from the land of Israel to the Indian subcontinent, linking the religions, myths, legends, literature, customs, even languages over the centuries. Influenced by her own profoundly mystical experiences, Adelman provides the history, explains the religions, shows the common origins, and gives astonishing examples of parallel symbolism.