Baffled by Buddhism? Confused by Catholicism? Mystified by Mysticism? Discover everything you need to know about the world's major religious faiths.

A compelling and insightful guide for uncovering and understanding a variety of the world's major religions, this book is the perfect gift for thinkers, borrowers, religious studies and philosophy students.

Learn new and profound information about a variety of faiths. In this educational guide, you'll find:

- A chapter devoted to each of the major world religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
- Lesser-known religions and belief systems are covered, offering a comprehensive overview of faith.
- Detailed illustrations and annotated works of art, and a timeline of religious history.

Discover the world's major religions and other faiths from both the ancient and the modern world through this insightful guide. Explore over 450 classic works of religious and devotional art. With sacred texts, epic imagery, key beliefs and religious artifacts, this educational guide is perfect for libraries, classrooms and the bookshelves of those who simply love learning.

La historia y doctrina de las principales religiones del mundo explicada de forma sencilla y clara.

Descubre los principios y fundamentos de las religiones universales y otros cultos minoritarios, sus tradiciones, rituales, símbolos y credos. Conoce sus figuras más importantes, sus textos sagrados, sus enseñanzas y los valores sobre los que se sustentan.

Escrito con un lenguaje sencillo y desde una perspectiva neutra, este libro explica las diferencias y similitudes que existen entre las distintas confesiones religiosas y ofrece una visión general de los muchos aspectos de la religión y su influencia en la sociedad, desde el islamismo y el cristianismo hasta el zoroastrismo y las antiguas religiones del mundo clásico.

- Un capítulo dedicado a cada una de las principales religione
- Información sobre religiones tribales y de la antigüedad
- Ilustraciones, fotografías y líneas del tiempo

Una guía imprescindible para todo aquel que quiera comprender el contexto histórico de las religiones practicadas en occidente y oriente y profundizar en las raíces de las culturas y las sociedades.

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Baffled by Buddhism? Confused by Catholicism? Mystified by Mysticism? Discover everything you need to know about the world's major religious faiths.

A compelling and insightful guide for uncovering and understanding a variety of the world's major religions, this book is the perfect gift for thinkers, borrowers, religious studies and philosophy students.

Learn new and profound information about a variety of faiths. In this educational guide, you'll find:

- A chapter devoted to each of the major world religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
- Lesser-known religions and belief systems are covered, offering a comprehensive overview of faith.
- Detailed illustrations and annotated works of art, and a timeline of religious history.

Discover the world's major religions and other faiths from both the ancient and the modern world through this insightful guide. Explore over 450 classic works of religious and devotional art. With sacred texts, epic imagery, key beliefs and religious artifacts, this educational guide is perfect for libraries, classrooms and the bookshelves of those who simply love learning.

Who or what is God? How do different religions interpret God's existence? How can we know God?

Many people believe in God; not just throughout history but also in the present day. But who or what is it they believe in? Many different and sometimes conflicting answers have been suggested to this question. This Very Short Introduction explores some of the answers provided by philosophers, poets, and theologians, and considers why some people believe in God and others do not.

John Bowker explores how the major religions established their own distinctive beliefs about God and how they interpret God's existence, and concludes by looking at how our understanding of God continues to evolve.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A study of the Pharisees, in particular as they appear in the New Testament and in relation to Jesus. The main part of the book brings together the most important Greek and Semitic source material in translation. This facilitates reference, and it makes possible group and seminar discussion of documents which have hitherto been difficult to study in English. As in his book The Targums and Rabbinic Literature Mr Bowker makes available and accessible to students material which tends to be removed from them by language and technicality. In his introduction he explains the many problems and uncertainties which surround this apparently well-known but actually little-understood group. He shows that they were far from constituting a static, uniform sect, and that they had an important history of their own. He finally suggests an approach to understanding Jesus' relations with them, which in turn suggests an understanding of Jesus' conception of his own relation to God, and also of his 'trial'.

Religious beliefs have shaped the history of the world. Their effect can be seen in culture, philosophy and politics, and they have inspired people to serve others and to create great works of art, architecture and music. Yet differences in belief can cause bloodshed and war. Never before has it been more urgent to understand the great religions if we are to make sense of our 21st century world, its achievements and its conflicts.

This new, revised edition of Beliefs That Changed the World tells the story of the major faiths from their earliest beginnings to their present day impact.

What are religions? Why is it important to understand them? One answer is that religions and religious believers are extremely bad news: they are deeply involved in conflicts around the globe; they harm people of whom they disapprove; and they often seem irrational. Another answer claims that they are in fact extremely good news: religious beliefs and practices are universal and so fundamental in human nature that they have led us to great discoveries in our explorations of the cosmos and of who we are. The sciences began as part of that religious exploration. John Bowker demonstrates that there is truth in both answers and that we need both to understand what religion is and why it matters. He draws on many disciplines - from physics, genetics and the neurosciences to art, anthropology and the history of religions - to show how they shed entirely new light on religion in the modern world.

Religions are involved in many long-running conflicts around the world from the Balkans and the Middle East to Kashmir and Sri Lanka. All that is well-known. Not so well-known are the resources that religions can bring, specifically and uniquely, to the process of peace and reconciliation after conflict. This book looks in detail at the ways in which the search for reconciliation is an obligation, even a command, in particular religions. Religions understand reconciliation very differently, and those differences are made clear in this book. But the quest for reconciliation, however differently it is understood, is an obligation in religions that should be much better understood and employed by those who seek peace in the world.

A comparative general study of the problems of suffering as treated by Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

The Targums are interpretative translations of the Hebrew text of the Bible which originated in Synagogue teaching, where an interpretation of the Hebrew text had to be given orally for the benefit of non-Hebrew speaking congregations. Over the centuries, a loose 'Targum Tradition' began to form and the written Aramaic Targums can best be understood as crystallisations of the Targum tradition at different points of time. In the first part of this book Professor Bowker examines the emergence and development of Jewish exegesis and the importance of the Targums. Bearing in mind that Jewish and rabbinic material is being increasingly applied to problems of Christian origins, he provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject (referring to the texts and translations most readily available) with emphasis on recent work and discoveries. The second part of the book gives actual material in translation, showing how Jewish exegesis arrived at its interpretations of Scripture.

In The Meanings of Death, John Bowker offers a major contribution to debates about the value of death and its place in both Western and Eastern religions. Examining the themes of friendship and sacrifice in the world's major religions, Bowker argues that there are points of vital contact with secular understandings of death, and that religious and secular attitudes can support and reinforce one another. An affirmative recovery of the value of death is important in our response to bereavement, and in the treatment of the terminally ill. By indicating how value can be maintained at the limit of life, without a search for illusory compensation in an afterlife beyond it, Bowker enriches our experience and understanding of the 'final question' in a way which is always sensitive and often moving.

Why do we think that things happen in the way that they do? Why do we think that some things are true, and other things false? Why do we maintain that some things are good, and other things evil? These are questions that have puzzled thinkers for millennia. In the past, they have been answered by separating our emotional from our rational responses. But recent research in the neurosciences suggests that the questions now deserve very different answers. In this fascinating and highly praised book, John Bowker shows that reason and emotion work much more closely together in forming opinions and judgements than has previously been supposed. If faith and belief are rooted in rationality, not separate from it (as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might propose), this discovery has stunning implications for our understanding of human identity, mind and consciousness. Illuminating some of the biggest issues that there are - issues of ethics, religion, aesthetics and truth - The Sacred Neuron makes a consistently original and stimulating contribution to key themes in 'science and religion'.

Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

The world contains a bewildering variety of religions, each containing an equally bewildering variety of practices and beliefs.

How have religions developed and become so widespread? Why do they matter so much to so many people? Why do some believe that their faith requires them to terrorize and kill others? Why do religions do harm as well as good?

This is a book for those who ask such questions. Some of the answers we hear today seem entirely uncritical of religion, while others dismiss it as inherently toxic and destructive.

John Bowker, one of the world's most distinguished scholars of religion, delivers a timely analysis of the issues. He shows how recent research, particularly in the neurosciences, genetics and evolution, throws new light on what religions are and on the part they have played in human life and history.

His explanation of why religions are a force for both good and evil offers hope as well as insight for all who want to understand the many complex interactions between religion and politics today.

John Bowker aporta nuevas y sustanciales propuestas a los debates en torno al valor de la muerte. Tras examinar la tematica de la amistad y del sacrificio dentro de cada una de las principales religiones, Bowker sostiene que existen numerosos puntos de contacto vital entre ellas respecto a la experiencia de la muerte, y que las actitudes religiosas y laicas pueden respaldarse y reforzarse mutuamente. En nuestra respuesta a la privacion y el dolor por la perdida de los seres queridos tiene notable importancia una recuperacion afirmativa del valor de la muerte, igualmente aplicable al tratamiento de los enfermos en fase terminal. Al indicar como puede mantenerse el valor de la vida en el limite de la misma, sin buscar una compensacion ilusoria en el mas alla, Bowker enriquece nuestra comprension de la 'cuestion definitiva' y lo hace de una manera que es en todo momento sensata y frecuentemente conmovedora.

A massive collection of pornography inspires a brilliant MIT student to explore the limits of the human mind in A Question of Storage by John Bowker, the featured story in the Spring 2013 issue of Big Pulp (cover art by Phil Good). This issue also features more than 25 more great stories and poems from Steven Axelrod, K.C. Ball, Robert Bagnall, Michael Bracken, Alison Downs, Malon Edwards, Milo James Fowler, Lee Hammerschmidt, Tom Larsen, Tim Lieder, Luke Lloyd, Court Merrigan, James A. Newman, Thomas Pluck, Erin Pringle-Toungate, Terrie Leigh Relf, Jason Reynolds, Shane D. Rhinewald, Wayne Scheer, K.C. Shaw, Catherine Batac Walder, Dustin Walker, Changming Yuan, and Lee Zumpe

What are religions? Why is it important to understand them? One answer is that religions and religious believers are extremely bad news: they are deeply involved in conflicts around the globe; they harm people of whom they disapprove; and they often seem irrational. Another answer claims that they are in fact extremely good news: religious beliefs and practices are universal and so fundamental in human nature that they have led us to great discoveries in our explorations of the cosmos and of who we are. The sciences began as part of that religious exploration. John Bowker demonstrates that there is truth in both answers and that we need both to understand what religion is and why it matters. He draws on many disciplines - from physics, genetics and the neurosciences to art, anthropology and the history of religions - to show how they shed entirely new light on religion in the modern world.