God at War
God at War

Author: Gregory A. Boyd

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 1997-09-12

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780830818853

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Modern Christians are often baffled by the problem of evil, frequently attributing pain and suffering to some mysterious "good" purposes of God. Gregory Boyd instead declares that biblical writers did not try to intellectually understand evil but rather grappled to overcome it.

Pious Citizens
Pious Citizens

Author: Monica M. Ringer

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2011-12-13

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0815650604

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In Pious Citizens, Ringer tells the story of a major intellectual revolution in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India and Iran, one that radically transformed the role of religion in society. At this time, key theological debates revolved around Zoroastrianism’s capacity to generate “progress” and “civilization.” Armed with both the destructive and creative capacities of historicism, reformers reevaluated their own religious tradition, molding Zoroastrian belief and practice according to contemporary ideas of rational religion and its potential to create pious citizens. Ringer demonstrates how rational and enlightened religion, characterized by social responsibility and the interiorization of piety, was understood as essential for the development of modern individuals, citizens, new public space, national identity, and secularism. She argues persuasively that reformers believed not only that social reform must be accompanied by religious reform but that it was in fact a product of religious reform. Pious Citizens offers new insights into the theological premises behind the promotion of secularism, the privatization of religion, and the development of new national identities. Ringer’s work also explores growing connections between the Iranian and Indian Zoroastrian communities and the revival of the ancient Persian past.

Zoroastrian Faith
Zoroastrian Faith

Author: S. Nigosian

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 1993-09-24

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0773564381

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The Zoroastrian Faith is organized around five themes: an account of Zoroaster's life and work; discussion of the development and spread of Zoroastrianism from its beginnings to the present; description of the sacred writings and religious documents of the faith; an analysis of the basic Zoroastrian beliefs and their influence on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and a description of the prescribed observances. In this historical and analytical study, S.A. Nigosian cuts through these problems to present a concise, systematic survey of Zoroastrianism. This book will intrigue scholars and general readers alike. A glossary and bibliography are provided as aids for further study.

Geneses
Geneses

Author: John Tolan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-11

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 1351113291

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What is a religion? How do we discern the boundaries between religions, or religious communities? When does Judaism become Judaism, Christianity become Christianity, Islam become Islam? Scholars have increasingly called into question the standard narratives created by the various orthodoxies, narratives of steadfastness and consistency, of long and courageous maintenance of true doctrine and right practice over the centuries, in the face of opposition (and at times persecution) at the hands of infidels or heretics. The 11 chapters in this book, Geneses: A Comparative Study of the Historiographies of the Rise of Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism and Islam, written by an international group of specialists the languages, religions, laws and cultures of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam, tackle these questions through a comparative study of these narratives: their formation over time, and their use today. They explore three key aspects of the field: (1) the construction (and scholarly deconstruction) of the narratives of triumph (and defeat) of religions, (2) how legal imperatives are constructed from religious narratives and sacred texts, and (3) contemporary ramifications of these issues. In doing so, they tap into the significant body of research over the last 30 years, which has shown the fluidity and malleability of these religious traditions in relation to each other and to more traditional "pagan" and Zoroastrian religions and philosophical traditions. This book represents an important contribution to, and a valuable resource for, the burgeoning field of comparative history of the Abrahamic religions.