Books in the Princeton Readings in Religions series

Placing the gospel narratives in their full literary, social, and archaeological context, this collection includes translations and descriptions of texts that shed light on the Jesus of history. It demonstrates that only by knowing the world in which Jesus lived and taught can we fully understand him, his message, and the spread of the Gospel.

A collection of nearly seventy Late Antique primary religious texts. It includes discussions of asceticism, religious organization, ritual, martyrdom, religion's social implications, law, and theology.

Presents documents that illuminate the mosaic of Japanese religions in practice. This book is a compendium of relationships between great minds and ordinary people, abstruse theories and mundane acts, natural and supernatural powers, altruism and self-interest, disappointment and hope, quiescence and war.

An anthology of sources with accompanying essays that examines religious behavior in America. From praying in an early American synagogue to performing Mormon healing rituals to debating cremation, this work explores faith through action in the 19th- and 20th-centuries. The documents and essays consider the religious practices of average people.

An anthology of sources with accompanying essays that examines religious behavior in America, this work explores faith through action from Colonial times through the 19th-century. It offers a sampling of religious perspectives in order to approximate the living texture of popular religious thought and practice in the United States.

Provides a view of medieval and early modern Jewish ritual and religious practice. Including such diverse texts as ritual manuals, legal codes, mystical books, autobiographical writings, folk literature, and liturgical poetry, this book testifies to the enormous variety of practices that characterized Judaism between 600 and 1800 CE.

An anthology of primary texts drawn from the diverse yoga traditions of India, greater Asia, and the West. It features elegant translations of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and even Islamic yogic writings, emphasizing the lived experiences to be found in the many worlds of yoga.

Provides readers with a sweeping look at the religious practices of the European Middle Ages. This volume assembles sources reflecting different genres, regions, and styles, including prayer books, chronicles, diaries, liturgical books, sermons, hagiography, and handbooks for the laity and clergy.

Offers the coverage of Korean religious practice, especially the various Christian denominations and new indigenous religions. It features chapters that include translations of the sources on Korean religious practice, accompanied by an introduction that frames the significance of the selections.

Demonstrates that the "three religions" of China - Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism are not mutually exclusive: they overlap and interact with each other in a rich variety of ways. This volume also illustrates some of the many interactions between Han culture and the cultures designated by the government as "minorities."

Brings together the important selections from the volumes on Buddhism, India, China, Tibet, and Japan to give an overview of how religions have been lived by both ordinary and extraordinary people throughout the continent of Asia. This work offers a look at the spectrum of religious practices in Asia over almost three millennia.

Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy in creative and liberating ways. This book looks at the wide geographical scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, since the seventh century and representing Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Islamic experiences.

Offers overviews of the religions of Asia, providing both historical context and insightful analysis of Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, and Bon, as well as many local traditions.

Brings together the work of thirty scholars of the religions of India in an anthology designed to reshape the ways in which the religious traditions of India are understood. This book contains translations of forty-five works which highlight types of discourse (especially ritual manuals, folktales, and oral narratives).

Brings together the work of more than thirty scholars of Islam and Muslim societies in South Asia that highlight a wide variety of genres, many rarely found in standard accounts of Islamic practice, from oral narratives to elite guidance manuals, from devotional songs to secular judicial decisions arbitrating Islamic law.

Presents an array of works that together offer a view of the Tibetan religious landscape over the centuries. Organized thematically, the twenty-eight chapters in this work are testimony to the vast scope of religious practice in the Tibetan world. It is intended for scholars, students, and general readers.

Illustrates the vast scope of Buddhist practice in Asia. This work presents a selection of thirty-five translated texts - each preceded by a substantial introduction by its translator. It demonstrates the many continuities among the practices of Buddhist cultures widely separated by both history and geography.