Introduction: The Challenge of Religion in History

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments vii
4. Introduction: The Challenge of Religion in History 1
5. Part One. Late Antique and Medieval Religious Debates and Their Modern Implications
6. 1. Pagan Challenge, Christian Response: Emperor Julian and Gregory of Nazianzus as Paradigms of Interreligious Discourse 15
7. 2. Between Syria and Egypt: Alms, Work, and the “Holy Poor” 32
8. 3. Medieval Monks on Labor and Leisure 47
9. 4. Sibling Rivalries, Scriptural Communities: What Medieval History Can and Cannot Teach Us about Relations between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam 63
10. Part Two. Early Modern Perspectives on Spirituality, Culture, and Religious Boundaries
11. 5. The People and the Book: Print and the Transformation of Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe 83
12. 6. The Jewish Book in Christian Europe: Material Texts and Religious Encounters 96
13. 7. Mission and Narrative in the Early Modern Spanish World: Diego de Ocaña’s Desert in Passing 115
14. 8. Incombustible Weber: How the Protestant Reformation Really Disenchanted the World 132
15. Part Three. From the Premodern to the Modern World: Sacred Texts, Individual Agency, and Religious Identity
16. 9. Religion and Gender in Enlightenment England: The Problem of Agency 151
17. 10. Constructions of Jewish Identity through Reflections on Islam 169
18. 11. Bible, Translation, and Culture: From the KJV to the Christian Resurgence in Africa 185
19. 12. Reflections on the Bible and American Political Life 203
20. Notes 221
21. Contributors 267
22. Index 271