New Religions titles received in June

Go to the Library's "New and notable" acquisitions blog to see titles on the Study of Religions received in June.

The link is http://blogs.soas.ac.uk/libraryacquisitions/2012/06/06/religions-june-2012/

"So, what did the Muslims do for the Jews?"

Professor David Wasserman argues that "in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity - also in Christendom - through the medieval period into the modern world."

David Wasserman is the Eugene Greener Jr Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. This article from the Jewish Chronicle is adapted from last week's Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Stone-carving in Bamiyan

An article from the Guardian about the Afghan students who are learning the stone-working traditions that made the Bamiyan Valley famous

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Digitized Coptic publications by Oscar von Lemm

The Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow has made available a range of publications by the distinguished Russian Coptologist and Egyptologist, Oscar von Lemm (1856-1918)
The collection includes 35 documents (Koptische Miscellen and other Coptic studies) appearing in the Bulletin de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St.-Pétersbourg between 1898 and 1915

CLICK  HERE TO ACCESS THE COLLECTIONS

or alternatively visit Alin Suciu's blog Coptica Online for the links and more on Coptic Studies

New web resource: Theological Commons from Princeton Theological Seminary

To celebrate its 200th Anniversary, Princeton Theological Seminary has launched an open-access collection of digital and non-digital material held in the Seminary's Library.
Material in the collection dates from circa 975 to the 20th century and as well as covering Christianity, mission studies and theology, there are also substantial holdings on the Eastern Church, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism.
The collection is in a database format, so searches for particular topics can be refined by date, language and keyword etc.

CLICK HERE TO TRY OUT THIS NEW RESOURCE

A link will shortly be appearing on the Library web subject guide for Religions, under Electronic Publications

What is "Islamic Art"?

Souren Melikan's New York Times article looks at the myriad artistic traditions and cultures that tend to be classified as "Islamic" in Western museums and galleries

Martyrs, apostles and relics

This article from the National Geographic magazine looks at the early evangelizing phase of Christianity.
The first part focuses on the Thomas Christians of Kerala, while the following sections focus on the psychology of relics and the cult of martyrs by examining Saint Mark's significance to Venice and the shrine to Mary Magdalene at Sainte-Baume in southern France

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

A Jewish kingdom in Arabia

Professor Glen Bowersock of the School of Historical Studies (Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton) writes on the rise and fall of the little known Jewish kingdom of Himyar which flourished in what is now Yemen between the 5th and 6th centuries C.E.

CLICK HERE TO READ PROFESSOR BOWERSOCK'S ARTICLE

His book on the subject, entitled The Adulis throne, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press

Minority Christian communities

Two features examine the culture of minority Christian communities in the Near and Middle East, past and present

•  The InterPress Service News Agency looks at the problems facing the Mandaean community in contemporary Iraq 

•  Today's Zaman looks at the historic Syriac heritage of Tur Abdin in Turkey

Ethiopian Jews in Israel: news report

Many Falash (Ethiopian Jews) were settled in Israel after being airlifted away from the wars and famines that beset their homeland in the 1980s and 1990s

This ARTICLE FROM THE BOSTON NEWS looks at the experience of the Falash (whom some believe to be descended from the "lost tribe" of Dan) in Israeli society and the cultural clash between the Orthodox rabbinate and the Ethiopian clergy (the kaddosh) who have retained "the traditions of Biblical-era priests"

Concordance of the Sahidic New Testament

Published in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium series, this is "an invaluable resource for the study of Coptic literature" (linked from Alin Suciu's blog for "Research on Patristics, Apocrypha, Coptic literature and manuscripts) 

Click on the link below to go directly to the Concordances

Concordance of the Sahidic New Testament 

Jewish communities in North Africa & the Arab world: new web resource

'Diarna' is Judeo-Arabic for 'our homes' and this new web project gathers multimedia resources such as videos, digital images and oral histories of the Jewish communities of the Arab world, from North Africa to Iran.

Archive material is drawn in part from the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Beit Hatfusot (Museum of the Jewish People)

Click on the link below :

Diarna : mapping Mizrahi heritage

The Bible and mythology

An article from the online LaCross Tribune examines how the ancient Israelites may have expressed their own theology through an adaptation of the Mesopotamian creation story in their own Book of Genesis