Rached Ghannouchi has long been known as a reformist or moderate Islamist thinker. In "Public Freedoms in the Islamic State", he argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – in its broad outlines – meets with wide acceptance among Muslims...

In this long-awaited follow-up to his 2003 book on Genesis, biblical scholar Leon Kass explores how Exodus raises and then answers the central political questions of what defines a nation and how a nation should govern itself. Considered by some th...

Many people today claim that their positions on various issues are grounded in biblical values, and they use scriptural passages to support their claims. But the Bible was written over the course of several hundred years and contains contradictory po...

The thirteenth-century mystic Christina of Hane led an extraordinary life, but her recently unearthed case remains to be discovered in the English-speaking world. Her disturbing account of vaginal mutilation, her competition with the Virgin Mary, and...

"Migrants in the Profane" takes its title from an intriguing remark by Theodor W. Adorno, in which he summarized the meaning of Walter Benjamin's image of a celebrated mechanical chess-playing Turk and its hidden religious animus: "Nothing of theolog...

In 1957, renowned Indian historian Romila Thapar visited China, where, together with Sri Lankan art historian Anil de Silva, she worked at two cave sites that were the locations of Buddhist monasteries and shrines from the first millennium CE. The fi...

This entry in the popular Little Bit of series introduces the ancient practice of Zen Buddhism. What is Zen? It's an ancient spiritual system rooted in Buddhism that began in China and spread throughout Asia, finally reaching the West. It encompasses...

Rabbi Moses b. Nahman (1194-1270), known in English as Nahmanides, was the greatest Talmudic scholar of the thirteenth century and one of the deepest and most original biblical interpreters. Beyond his monumental scholastic achievements, Nahmanides w...

Evangelicalism is arguably America's most controversial religious movement. Nonevangelical people who follow the news may have a variety of impressions about what "evangelical" means. But one certain association they make with evangelicals is white R...

This definitive introduction to the gnostic scriptures provides a crucial look at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. It provides authoritative translations of ancient texts fro...