Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review: Joas, Hans. The Sacredness Of The Person: A New Genealogy Of Human Rights. Washington, Dc: Georgetown University Press, 2013. Xi+217 Pp. $29.00 (Paper), Bharat Ranganathan

Religion Faculty Publications

On what grounds should human rights rest? How should the universality of universal human rights be understood, especially given the putative incommensurability among rival views that obtain in the contemporary world? Do human rights emerge from a particular metaphysics, for example, the idea that human beings are created in the image of God? Or are human rights sufficiently basic that whatever grounds them, for example, respect for humans as ends-in-themselves, is in fact justifiable across any and all moral, political, and religious views? These queries continue to concern both human rights advocates and critics.

1914, Jul 06 - A Southern Hero, New York Times

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1913, Apr 24 - Mr. Dixon And History - Virginia Again, New York Times

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

How To Fly A Horse: The Secret History Of Creation, Invention, And Discovery (Book Review), Kevin Timmer

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Kevin Ashton. New York: Doubleday, 2015. 336 pages. ISBN: 9780385538596.

Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, And Across Borders (Book Review), Howard Schaap

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders by Chris Hoke. New York: Harper One, 2015. 360 pp. ISBN: 9780062321367.

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power Of Habits (Book Review), Shelbi Gesch

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habits by James K. A. Smith. Grand Rapids Press, 2016. 224 pp. ISBN: 9781587433801.

The Tapestry Of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society And Ideology [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

In this book Vernon Robbins, Professor of Religion at Emory University, provides the most in-depth and systematic discussion to date of the method of Biblical interpretation known as socio-rhetorical criticism, a method he has been developing through numerous articles and books since the publication of Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark in 1984. It should be noted that his Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation, a book similar to the one being reviewed, also appeared in 1996. Although both books contain a very similar outline, Exploring the Texture of Texts is intended to …

The Sex Lives Of Saints: An Erotics Of Ancient Hagiography [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

In the difficult yet rewarding book Burrus offers “countererotic” readings of fourth- and fifth-century CE hagiographies in which she challenges understandings that take ascetic lives of saints as sublimating sexual desire; rather, Burrus reads these texts as the site of an “exuberant eroticism” that constantly relocates and displaces erotic desire. After an introductory chapter, Burrus first focuses on Jerome’s “queer” Lives of Paul, Malchus, and Hilarion. A second chapter treats the eroticized lives of three women: Jerome’s friend Paula, Gregory of Nyssa’s sister Macrina, and Augustine’s mother, Monica. A third chapter focuses on several treatments of Martin of Tours in …

The Harpercollins Visual Guide To The New Testament: What Archaeology Reveals About The First Christians [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

Jonathan Reed begins the first chapter of The HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament with the assertion that "archaeology is imperative for the study of the New Testament." This much most students of the New Testament and early Christian literature would grant. But how and to what degree is archaeology important to biblical studies is less clear and can be at times a contentious issue. The expectation that archaeology should provide proof of the historical reliability of the New Testament has for decades sent many a would-be Indiana Jones off in search of this or that biblical site with …

The Reception Of Luke And Acts In The Period Before Irenaeus [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

In this book, a revision of the author's 2001 Oxford dissertation, Andrew Gregory has set for himself the daunting task of determining when we can definitively say that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are being used by later Christian authors. The greatest contribution of this book is that it treats in one study a broad range of texts and scholarly discussion on this question–according to the author, the first time this has been done.

Memory, Tradition And Text: Uses Of The Past In Early Christianity [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

The aim of this collection of essays is, at least in part, to remedy the lack of attention that studies of early Christianity have paid to recent developments, in the fields of sociology and anthropology, in the study of memory. An excellent introductory survey by Alan Kirk of recent developments in memory studies is followed by eleven essays applying some aspect of the approach to various texts or problems in the study of early Christianity, and then by responses by Werner Kelber and Barry Schwartz. While the various contributions interact in different ways with the relevant theories and models, all …

Paul The Reluctant Witness: Power And Weakness In Luke's Portrayal, Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

That the Acts of the Apostles includes three slightly different accounts of Paul's Damascus road encounter with Jesus has long presented a challenge to interpreters. In this book Blake Shipp seeks to understand the function of the three accounts in Acts 9, 22, and 26 within the larger narrative sweep of Acts by means of a rhetorical analysis. Critical of what he calls the chaotic state of current rhetorical criticism, Shipp also proposes guidelines for the application of rhetorical analysis of the New Testament, something he terms a "literary-rhetorical" method. The bulk of Shipp's analysis of Acts consists of the …

Lost Christianities: The Battles For Scripture And The Faiths We Never Knew [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

This book is an introduction to the basic content of non-canonical early Christian texts, exploring them both as evidence for the diversity of early Christianity and for what they can say about the formation of the New Testament canon. It is divided into three sections. The first uses the concept of forgery to introduce a number of important extra-canonical texts (including Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, and the Secret Gospel of Mark). The second section takes a closer look at some of the different forms of Christianity …

An Ecstasy Of Folly: Prophecy And Authority In Early Christianity [Review], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

Nasrallah’s book is a valuable contribution to the study of prophecy and ecstatic manifestations in early Christianity, for its reading of representative Christian texts within the larger context of debates about such phenomena in the Greco-Roman world, and for viewing the materials through the lens of rhetorical criticism. Nasrallah focuses on three texts or authors: Paul’s discussion of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians, Tertullian’s defense of prophecy in De anima and related texts, and the Anti-Phrygian source, Nasrallah’s name for the late second—early-third-century source probably embedded in Epiphanius’ Panarion. Nasrallah argues that taxonomies of forms of …

Review: Langer, Lorenz. Religious Offence And Human Rights: The Implications Of Defamation Of Religions. Cambridge Studies In International And Comparative Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Lxii+419 Pp. $115.00 (Cloth), Bharat Ranganathan

Religion Faculty Publications

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, including one in which a bomb was hidden under his turban. According to the paper’s cultural editor, Flemming Rose, the cartoons were an exercise in free speech, a value prized in liberal democracies. For him, fear of retaliation from Muslims was leading to self-censorship among Danish authors and artists. Muslim groups protested the cartoons not only within Denmark but also around the world, some of which turned violent. To their minds, the prophet (and members of their faith) had been defamed. Cases like this …

Mathematics In Ancient Egypt: A Contextual History (Book Review), Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: Mathematics in Ancient Egypt: A Contextual History by Annette Imhausen. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. 234 pp. ISBN: 9780691117133.

Review: Political Agape Christian Love And Liberal Democracy, Bharat Ranganathan

Religion Faculty Publications

Timothy Jackson’s Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy is expansive. Across the book’s twelve chapters, which are themselves bookended by a substantive introduction and conclusion, he covers an impressive range of moral, political, and religious thinkers, including Ronald Dworkin, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, John Rawls, Richard Rorty, Peter Singer, and Jeffrey Stout. He also discusses an array of disparate topics, including adoption, euthanasia, capital punishment, gay marriage, and human rights. His book is also ambitious: he examines these thinkers and topics while aiming to think together commitments to both neighbor-love and liberal democracy, simultaneously navigating between sectarianism …

Philosophical Introduction To Set Theory (Book Review), Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: Philosophical Introduction to Set Theory by Stephen Pollard. Dover Publications, 2015, 180 pp. ISBN: 9780486797144.

Justice In Love (Book Review), Ben Gibson

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: Justice in Love. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 2015. 306 pp. ISBN: 978-0802872944.

Lost World Of Adam And Eve: Genesis 2-3 And The Human Origins Debate (Book Review), Joel Duff

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate. Walton, John H. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015. 256 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8308-2461-8.

Exploring The Explanatory Power Of Semitic And Egyptian In Uto-Aztecan, Dirk Elzinga

BYU Studies Quarterly

Brian D. Stubbs. Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan.

Provo, Utah: Grover Publications, 2015.

Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, And Keeping The Faith, Jorge Iber

BYU Studies Quarterly

Ignacio M. Garcia. Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, and Keeping the Faith.

Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015.

Sublime Physick, Darlene Young

BYU Studies Quarterly

Patrick Madden. Sublime Physick.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward A Better Understanding, M. Scott Bradshaw

BYU Studies Quarterly

Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales. Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding.

Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

Religion Of A Different Color: Race And The Mormon Struggle For Whiteness; For The Cause Of Righteousness: A Global History Of Blacks And Mormonism, 1830-2013, Patrick Q. Mason

BYU Studies Quarterly

W. Paul Reeve. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Russell W. Stevenson. For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013.

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014.

Edward Hunter Snow: Pioneer-Educator-Statesman, Benjamin A. Johnson

BYU Studies Quarterly

Thomas G. Alexander. Edward Hunter Snow: Pioneer-Educator-Statesman.

Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2012.

Building Zion: The Material World Of Mormon Settlement, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Thomas Carter. Building Zion: The Material World of Mormon Settlement.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography, George L. Mitton

BYU Studies Quarterly

Michael Hicks. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation And Publication Of The Book Of Mormon, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat. From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon.

Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015.

Documents, Volume 1: July 1828-June 1831; Documents, Volume 2: July 1831-January 1833; Documents, Volume 3: February 1833-March 1834, James B. Allen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, editors. Documents, Volume 1: July 1828-June 1831.

Vol. 1 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richaard Lyman Bushman, and Matthew J. Grow. Salt Lake City: The Church Historian's Press, 2013.

Matthew C. Godfrey, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, editors. Documents, Volume 2: July 1831-January 1833.

Vol. 2 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richard Lyman …