Religious Studies

This volume presents a selection of studies by Jan N. Bremmer on the interplay between Judaism, Christianity, and paganism in the Roman Empire. The author covers a wide range of subjects, including pogroms, ghosts, sacrifice, miracles, mysteries, the decline of traditional ancient religion, Constantine's conversion, and the survival of paganism.

Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana (1693-1728) is colonial America's first commentary on the whole Bible. Perhaps best remembered for his writings on Salem witchcraft, the hugely prolific Mather was undeniably one of New England's leading Enlightenment thinkers.

Luther used and coined a rich arsenal of battle names and pejorative terms with which he labelled his 'radical' opponents and through which he marked 'deviation' from his own position. Thomas Hahn-Bruckart explores these and other strategies of linguistic inclusion and exclusion to trace how identity and alterity was marked and contoured in the early Wittenberg Reformation.

When and how do the disciples in the narrative development in the Gospel of John get into a relationship with and attain knowledge of Christ? Stefan Zorn develops a model of a multi-stage process of relationship and knowledge that includes crises and reaches its climax in encountering the Risen Christ.