Michael Allen Williams is Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington, and is currently chair of the Department of Near East Languages and Civilization. He is also the author of The Immovable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity and co-editor, with Collett Cox and Martin Jaffee, of Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change. Most anyone interested...

A fascinating look at the myriad religious beliefs from the long history of the Indian subcontinent. Written by eminent American Sanskrit scholar Edward Washburn Hopkins.

Joseph M. Kitagawa is Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago Divinity School and of the Department of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations there: he is also a former Dean of the Divinity School. Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book Religion in Japanese History in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential...

Anthony Ossa-Richardson is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. The Devil's Tabernacle is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. Anthony Ossa-Richardson shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery...

In this ambitious and authoritative book, Jörg Rüpke provides a comprehensive and strikingly original narrative history of ancient Roman and Mediterranean religion over more than a millennium--from the late Bronze Age through the Roman imperial period and up to late antiquity. While focused primarily on the city of Rome, Pantheon fully integrates the many religious traditions found in the Mediterranean world, including Judaism and Christianity....

The author compares Celtic mythology and religion with the beliefs of early Scandinavian society. Vikings and Norsemen who raided British shores ruled parts of Britain for centuries. The religion of the Scandinavians was the same as the religious beliefs and practices of their fellow Teutonic and Germanic tribes, and their chief deities and religious rituals were like those of Teutonic people anywhere.

Scientology is known for its celebrity believers and its team of "volunteer ministers" at disaster sites such as the World Trade Center; its notably aggressive response to criticism or its attacks on psychiatry; its requirement that believers pay as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the highest levels of salvation. The author offers a full, journalistic history of the Church of Scientology, in an even-handed account that establishes...

Buddhism and Taoism remain vibrant and prominent in Singapore's religious landscape. Yet, little is known of why Chinese Singaporeans chose and remain in these ancient religions. Analyzing over thirty face-to-face interviews with Buddhists and Taoists in Singapore, this book provides a glimpse into their fascinating narratives consisting of encounters and experiences with the presence and power of spiritual realities. A renewed understanding of Buddhism...

Can religious beliefs survive in the scientific age? Are they resoundingly outdated? Or, is there something in them of great importance, even if the way they are expressed will have to change given new scientific context? These questions are among those at the core of the science-religion dialogue. In The Big Questions in Science and Religion, Keith Ward, an Anglican priest who was once an atheist, offers compelling insights into the often contentious...

From the publisher. Connelly gives us the first comprehensive cultural history of priestesses in the ancient Greek world. She presents the fullest and most vivid picture yet of how priestesses lived and worked, from the most famous and sacred of them--the Delphic Oracle and the priestess of Athena Polias--to basket bearers and handmaidens. Along the way, she challenges long-held beliefs to show that priestesses played far more significant public roles...