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

New resource for Coptic studies

The website Coptica gives access to over 100 digitized texts of European studies on Coptic language and literature dating from the 19th century onward. Some of the texts are hosted by different collections such as the Internet Archive.
There are over 30 texts on ancient and Oriental Christianity, including Manichaeism
The website has been created by Pierre Cherix of the University of Geneva

Places left on Library resources session

There are places left on the last Information Skills session for the Study of Religions, which is taking place this Thursday (17th November) between 3 and 4 p.m. in Room E17 (Library)

If you would like to attend, please email ms28@soas.ac.uk and also let me know if there are any topics you particularly want to discuss

If you cannot  make the 17th November and have any queries relating to Library resources, please do not hesitate to contact me

Hajj and Eid al-Adha 2011

An excellent photo essay from Atlantic Magazine online looks at this year's Hajj pilgrimage and celebrations of Eid al-Adha across the globe

Islamic art in New York

The new galleries of Islamic art at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art have just re-opened following a renovation which began in 2003.
This article in the New York Times reviews the new galleries

"The art itself, some 1,200 works spanning more than 1,000 years, is beyond fabulous. An immense cultural vista — necessary, liberating, intoxicatingly pleasurable — has been restored to the city."

Piecing together the Cairo Genizah: new technology aims to reunite fragments

The American Friends of Tel Aviv University report on a project currently underway at Tel Aviv University to piece together digitally the fragments from the Cairo Genizah that are currently scattered among 70 institutions worldwide, including Cambridge, Jerusalem and New York
Visit their website to find out more about this project, that involves using technology based on facial recognition software to identity digitized fragments belonging to the same text 

Jesuits in China : book review

Read the review of Mary Laven's Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit encounter with China (published this year by Faber) in the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History


The reviewer is our own Dr Lars Laaman
Dr Laven is a lecturer in history at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Jesus College
The click HERE to read her response.

If you want to read the book yourself, SOAS has a copy at CC266.2 / 734467.
Click HERE to check the catalogue

Welcome to SOAS

Follow the Study of Religions blog for updates on SOAS Library resources, book reviews, websites, news-stories and much more

You can go to the Information skills pages on the BLE for general research guides, guides to the various databases and subject specific research guides

You can also use the Subject Guide for Religions on the main Library website for internet resources selected by Library staff : http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/subjects/religions/

If you have any queries about the religions collections in SOAS Library, finding books and journals, or using any of the online resources, you can contact me:

Mary Seeley (Subject Librarian for History and Religions; Ancient Near East, Semitics and Judaica)
Room C3 (Library)
Email: ms28@soas.ac.uk
Tel.: 020-7898-4195