How could the Law of Retribution function properly when one party in a dispute was so wealthy and so powerful as to be virtually untouchable?
Despite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism.
Consider, for example, how the following verse (4:34) regarding the obligations of men toward women has been rendered into English by two different but widely read contemporary translators of the Qura...
But in the end, he is the only Jesus that we can access by historical means. Everything else is a matter of faith.
Both gospels employ the term Son of God exactly as it is used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures: as a royal title, not a description.
Belief in a divine messiah would have been anathema to everything Judaism represents, which is why, without exception, every text in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the messiah presents him as performin...
As noted, naming a book after someone significant was a common way of honoring that person and reflecting his views.
As a believer and a pantheist, I worship God not through fear and trembling but through awe and wonder at the workings of the universe—for the universe is God. I pray to God not to ask for things but...
All religions are inextricably bound to the social, spiritual, and cultural milieux from which they arose and in which they developed. It is not prophets who create religions. Prophets are, above all,...
A prophet, claim the Shi‘ah, is someone who has, by the divine will, become conscious of God’s eternal message, which forever envelops creation like a numinous ether we cannot escape, while the Imam i...
A king with no place to lay his head. A king who came to serve, not to be served.
Must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter people’s perceptions of Muslims. Minds are not changed merely through acquiring data or information (if that were the case it w...
Whereas a religion of many gods posits many myths to describe the human condition, a religion of one god tends to be monomythic; it not only rejects all other gods, it rejects all other explanations f...
There is no evidence that Jesus himself openly advocated violent actions. But he was certainly no pacifist. Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but t...
The principal task of the messiah, who was popularly believed to be the descendant of King David, was to rebuild David’s kingdom and reestablish the nation of Israel. Thus, to call oneself the messiah...
The passage proves not only that Jesus, the one they call messiah probably existed, but that by the year 94 C.E., when the Antiquities was written, he was widely recognized as the founder of a new and...
The overwhelming consensus is that the traditions contained within the epistle can confidently be traced to James the Just. That would make James’s epistle arguably one of the most important books in...
The hadith, insofar as they addressed issues not dealt with in the Quran, would become an indispensable tool in the formation of Islamic law. However, in their earliest stages, the hadith were muddled...
The bandits tapped into the widespread apocalyptic expectation that had gripped the Jews of Palestine in the wake of the Roman invasion.
Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond company and at one time the virtual dictator of modern-day South Africa, famously declared, We Britons are the first race in the world, and the more of the worl...