How do people understand the Quran to be divine revelation? What is it about the text that inspires such devotion and commitment in the reader/believer? Todd Lawson explores how the timeless literary genres of epic and apocalypse bear religious meaning in the Quran, communicating the sense of divine presence, urgency and truth. Grounding his approach in the universal power of story and myth, he embarks upon a fascinating inquiry into the unique power of one of the most loved, widely read and recited books in the world.

Rival ‘communities of the faithful’ are not in the habit of reading each other’s books, and when they do so, it is often to find fault and disparage. This attitude, so common a generation ago, is today giving way to mutual tolerance and an interest in ‘dialogue’. However, we are still at the stage of being content with a superficial reading of each other’s scriptures. First published in 1978, Qur’an and Bible attempts to delve deeper, to solve some persistent puzzles, and to explore the common culture from which the Holy Books spring. Hebrew and Arabic, the original languages of the Bible and Qur'an are of the same linguistic family. Hence Arabic is a useful instrument with which to probe for the meaning of ancient Hebrew expressions and ideas as found in the Old Testament, and which continue to pose problems for translators and commentators. It is not merely a matter of one language elucidating another, but, more profoundly, of the light a language with a long unbroken tradition can throw on the desert culture shared by both the ancient Hebrews and the ancient Arabians.

Nine essays by scholars who research the intersections of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literary traditions explore various aspects of the textual and behavioral connections among these three major Near Eastern religious communities. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

When the crack era jumped off in the 1980s, many street legends were born in a hail of gunfire. Business minded and ruthless dudes seized the opportunities afforded them, and certain individuals out of the city's five boroughs became synonymous with the definition of the new era black gangster. Drugs, murder, kidnappings, shootings, more drugs, and more murder were the rule of the day. They called it "The Game," but it was a vicious attempt to come up by any means necessary. In the late 1980s, the mindset was "get mine or be mine," and nobody embodied this attitude more than the Supreme Team.The Supreme Team has gone down in street legend and the lyrical lore of hip-hop and gangsta rap as one of the most vicious crews to ever emerge on the streets of New York. Their mythical and iconic status inspired hip-hop culture and rap superstars like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Biggie, Nas and Ja Rule. Born at the same time as crack, hip-hop was heavily influenced by the drug crews that controlled New York's streets. And the cliché of art imitating life and vice versa came full circle in the saga of the Supreme Team's infamous leaders- Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and Gerald "Prince" Miller. In the maelstrom of the mid-80s crack storm and burgeoning hip-hop scene, their influence and relevance left a lasting impression.Going from drug baron to federal prisoner to hip-hop maestro to life in prison, Supreme was involved in hip-hop and the crack trade from day one. His run stretched decades, but in the end he fell victim to the pitfalls of the game like all before him had. His nephew, the enigmatic Prince, who had a rapid, violent, and furious rise in the streets also fell hard and fast to the tune of seven life sentences. The Supreme Team has been romanticized and glorified in hip-hop, but the truth of the matter is that most of their members are currently in prison for life or have spent decades of their prime years behind bars. This book looks at the team's climatic rise from its inception to its inevitable fall. It looks at Supreme's redemption with Murder Inc. and his relapse back into crime. This book is the Supreme Team story in all its glory, infamy, and tragedy. It's a tale of turns, twists, and fate. Meet the gangsters from Queens where the drug game influenced the style and swagger of street culture, hip-hop and gangsta rap and made the infamous cast of characters from the Supreme Team icons in the annals of urban lore.

This volume studies how the literary elements in the Qur'an function in conveying its religious message effectively. It is divided into three parts. Part one includes studies of the whole Qur'an or large segments of it belonging to one historical period of its revelation; these studies concentrate on the analysis of its language, its style, its structural composition, its aesthetic characteristics, its rhetorical devices, its imagery, and the impact of these elements and their significance. Part two includes studies on individual suras of the Qur'an, each of which focuses on the sura's literary elements and how they produce meaning; each also explores the structure of this meaning and the coherence of its effect. Part three includes studies on Muslim appreciations of the literary aspects of the Qur'an in past generations and shows how modern linguistic, semantic, semiotic, and literary scholarship can add to their contributions.

There are two constants in academic and theological discourse throughout history, they are the debate around secularization and the dialogue concerning the intersection of religion and education. Each age has had its debate about modernizing forces that drive concerns of impending secularization. In this publication this theme is approached from perspectives of teachers, of students, of policy makers and situated in a politico-historical context. Aware of the fact that in today’s plural societies one sacred canopy is non-existent anymore, cracks of the sacred canopy/canopies are described, as well as ‘the light that gets in’, the possible and challenging ways out are roughly sketched.

Provides test-taking strategies, a subject review, and practice tests.

Nostradamus (1503-1566), a Jewish-French physician and astrologer, wrote a book of over 900 predictions. A lot of these predictions came true. How could he get to this precision in his predictions? So, could Nostradamus make these predictions? And what books did he use? For someone to predict the future with this precision, he must be a man who knew the secret methods of predicting the future, as we will explain. The author will show you how these predictions came about, and how we can make our own predictions, and events about to happen. It's been said that the CIA uses the Bible and the Book of Revelation and other holy books as the backbone of all their plans and plots.