Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity

Published by Cornell University Press 2014

Faithful Narratives

Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity

Edited by: Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo

https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801471056

Overview
Contents

About this book

This volume brings together twelve eminent scholars whose research has exemplified compelling strategies for negotiating the difficulties inherent in the history of religion.

Author / Editor information

Andrea Sterk is Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida. She is the author most recently of Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity. Nina Caputo is Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida. She is the author of Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: Community, History, and Messianism.

Reviews

Kim Haines-Eitzen, Cornell University, author of The Gendered Palimpsest:

Traversing the boundaries of the religious and the secular, the premodern and modern, and the disciplines of history and religious studies, this collection of illuminating and compelling essays offers new insights into the significance of religion in the study of history. It is an important and interdisciplinary intervention in modern historiography, for the contributors remind us that religion belongs alongside politics, economics, and culture as an integral dimension of individual and communal identity.

David Kling, University of Miami, author of The Bible in History:

Faithful Narratives features an all-star lineup of historians, the best of the best, and all deliver. They contend that religion cannot be explained away, ignored as a factor in human agency, reduced to a by-product of other factors, or treated as a category separate from society.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Challenge of Religion in History Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part One. Late Antique and Medieval Religious Debates and Their Modern Implications
1. Pagan Challenge, Christian Response: Emperor Julian and Gregory of Nazianzus as Paradigms of Interreligious Discourse Susanna Elm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
2. Between Syria and Egypt: Alms, Work, and the “Holy Poor” Peter Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
3. Medieval Monks on Labor and Leisure John Van Engen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
4. Sibling Rivalries, Scriptural Communities: What Medieval History Can and Cannot Teach Us about Relations between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam David Nirenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Part Two. Early Modern Perspectives on Spirituality, Culture, and Religious Boundaries
5. The People and the Book: Print and the Transformation of Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe David B. Ruderman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
6. The Jewish Book in Christian Europe: Material Texts and Religious Encounters Anthony Grafton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
7. Mission and Narrative in the Early Modern Spanish World: Diego de Ocaña’s Desert in Passing Kenneth Mills Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
8. Incombustible Weber: How the Protestant Reformation Really Disenchanted the World Carlos Eire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Part Three. From the Premodern to the Modern World: Sacred Texts, Individual Agency, and Religious Identity
9. Religion and Gender in Enlightenment England: The Problem of Agency Phyllis Mack Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
10. Constructions of Jewish Identity through Reflections on Islam Susannah Heschel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
11. Bible, Translation, and Culture: From the KJV to the Christian Resurgence in Africa Lamin Sanneh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
12. Reflections on the Bible and American Political Life Mark A. Noll Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 288
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 3
- Tables: 3
- Other: 3 tables
Keywords: historical religious studies; religion and secularism; religion and identity; eastern monks; Judaism; Christianity; Islam; religion in ancient times; women in religious history; religious boundaries; theological analysis

eBook

Published: January 24, 2014
ISBN: 9780801471056