Jean-Marie Élie Setbon, the son of non-observant French Jews, was first attracted to Jesus when he saw a crucifix at a young age. He hid a crucifix in his room and contemplated it often, even though he knew his family would be hurt and angry if they ever caught him. Seeing the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur from his apartment window, he was drawn to the church, where he found himself powerfully pulled toward Jesus in the Eucharist. After several years of surreptitiously attending Mass, he resolved to convert to Catholicism in spite of the scandal it would cause, but God had other plans. Upon graduation from secondary school, Jean-Marie moved to Israel to delve deeper into the faith of his ancestors. He lived in kibbutzim, learned about the history and religion of his people, served in the Israeli Army, and attended two different rabbinical schools. Eight years later he returned to France as an ultra-Orthodox Jew. While teaching in a Jewish school, Jean-Marie married a woman who shared his faith, and together they began raising a family; yet his yearning for Jesus remained, becoming the source of a long and difficult internal struggle. Jean-Marieಙs moving and unusual conversion story is about his battle between loyalty to his identity and fidelity to the deepest desires of his heart. Above all, it is a love story between Christ, the Lover the relentless yet patient pursuer and man, his beloved.

Veils and veiling are controversial topics in social and political life, generating debates across the world. The veil is enmeshed within a complex web of relations encompassing politics, religion and gender, and conflicts over the nature of power, legitimacy, belief, freedom, agency and emancipation. In recent years, the veil has become both a potent and unsettling symbol and a rallying-point for discourse and rhetoric concerning women, Islam and the nature of politics. Early studies in gender, doctrine and politics of veiling appeared in the 1970s following the Islamic revival and ’re-veiling’ trends that were dramatically expressed by 1979’s Iranian Islamic revolution. In the 1990s, research focussed on the development of both an ’Islamic culture industry’ and greater urban middle class consumption of ’Islamic’ garments and dress styles across the Islamic world. In the last decade academics have studied Islamic fashion and marketing, the political role of the headscarf, the veiling of other religious groups such as Jews and Christians, and secular forms of modest dress. Using work from contributors across a range of disciplinary backgrounds and locations, this book brings together these research strands to form the most comprehensive book ever conceived on this topic. As such, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students of fashion, gender studies, religious studies, politics and sociology.

Silverman's new book is a comprehensive overview of Jewish circumcision throughout history. Beginning with Genesis, the author traces paradoxes and tensions in biblical-Jewish circumcision as seen both within Judaism and from the dominant, non-Jewish culture, and ends with the current debate over Jewish and routine medical circumcision in America. This book is essential reading in Jewish studies, medical sociology, and Judaic studies/theology.

***SEE BELOW FOR AN IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!*** While the dawn of the new millennium has brought an unprecedented interest to the field of New Testament studies and the search for the historical Jesus, a critical piece in early Christian development has been noticeably absent: Tertullus laid charges against Paul in the following address to the governor: "Your Excellency we have found him to be a troublemaker a ringleader of the sect known as the Nazarenes Paul said "I admit that I follow the Way, which they call a sect. I worship the God of our ancestors, and I firmly believe the Jewish law and everything written in the books of prophecy. I have hope in God, just as these men do, that he will raise both the righteous and the ungodly." Acts 24:2,5,11-15 (NLT) Put simply, the world has so embraced the story of how the apostle Paul took a small Jewish apocalyptic sect and transformed it into a global Gentile movement, that it has forgotten the very first followers of Jesus, otherwise known as "Nazarenes". What were they like, and how did their beliefs differ from the Roman based model that sprang up later? Even from the Catholic fathers, we are given some tantalizing clues: "But these sectarians did not call themselves Christians, but "Nazarenes," however they are simply complete Jews. They use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do They have no different ideas, but confess everything exactly as the Law proclaims it and in the Jewish fashion, except for their belief in the Messiah, if you please! For they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and the divine creation of all things, and declare that God is one, and that His Son is Y'shua the Messiah. They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew. For among them the entire Law, Prophets and the Writings are read in Hebrew, as they surely are by the Jews. They are different from the Jews, and different from Christians, only in the following. They disagree with the Jews for they have come to faith in Messiah; but since they are still fettered with the Law circumcision and the Sabbath, and the rest they are not in accord with Christians They have the Good News according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear they still preserve this, in the Hebrew alphabet, as it was originally written." Epiphanus; Panarion 29 (fourth century) Are these Nazarenes actually the unknown continuation of the Apostle Paul's ministry? What about the "Jerusalem Church" mentioned so frequently by Paul and headed up by Peter and James the Just? Why is it only now that we can tell the story of Christendom's most influential group throughout its first fifty years and above all what happened to them? Furthermore, even a casual glance at any New Testament will show the Gospel of Matthew given the honor of being the first book in the collection. Such an arrangement, directly derived from ancient belief of what was written when, is currently ignored because modern scholarship accords this honor to Mark. Similarly, while the scholarly world has all but forgotten the Nazarenes, they have proclaimed almost universally that the New Testament was originally written in Greek, despite strong early testimony and clear textual evidence to the contrary. However, since the fourth century, the Nazarenes at some time seem to have vanished off the face of the earth. As a result, their existence has now been rendered into little more than a footnote in history, and their connection to the original Christian movement and their Semitic scriptures, have been believed to be lost forever. That is, until now. Now, for the first time, a modern Nazarene breaks his silence and details the results of more than four years of research in his provocative new book "Signs of the Cross". As a work destined to turn upside down the current Greek compositional model of the New Testament, "Signs of the Cross" breaks new grou

Dawn Eden, internationally known speaker and author, presents a completely revised Catholic edition of her bestselling work, The Thrill of the Chaste. In this version, Eden shares her story of conversion to Catholicism and invites readers into a Catholic understanding of chastity and its spiritual benefits. When Dawn Eden released The Thrill of the Chaste in 2006, she was a Jewish convert to Protestant Christianity, preparing to make the final leap into Catholicism. Now, nine years later, Eden has extensively updated The Thrill of the Chaste, sharing how her Catholic faith, the lives and intercession of the saints, and the healing power of the sacraments have led her to find her true identity in Christ. This revised, Catholic version offers spiritual and practical advice for both men and women seeking to live chastely in a world that glorifies sex. Eden offers tips to help readers avoid temptation and live faithfully—including dressing modestly, but not being afraid to feel good about the way they look; trusting that God has a plan for their life and relationships; and making sure their “yes” comes from the heart.

In a relatively short time, many European governments have been purposefully dropping the notion ‘multicultural’ or other references to cultural diversity in their policy vocabularies. More and more politicians and public intellectuals have criticized a perceived shift towards ‘too much diversity’. This volume goes beyond the conventional approaches to the topic offering a careful examination of not only the social conditions and political questions surrounding multiculturalism but also the recent emergence of a ‘backlash’ against multicultural initiatives, programmes and infrastructures. Featuring case-study based contributions from leading experts throughout Europe and North America, this multidisciplinary work seeks to assess some of these key questions with reference to recent and current trends concerning multiculturalism, cultural diversity and integration in their respective countries, evaluating questions such as Is there is a common ‘sceptical turn’ against cultural diversity or a ‘backlash against difference’ sweeping Europe? How have public discourses impacted upon national and local diversity management and migration policies? Are the discourses and policy shifts actually reflected in everyday practices within culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse settings? The Multiculturalism Backlash provides new insights, informed reflections and comparative analyses concerning these significant processes surrounding politics, policy, public debates and the place of migrants and ethnic minorities within European societies today. Focusing on the practice and policy of multiculturalism from a comparative perspective this work will be of interest to scholars from a wide range of disciplines including migration, anthropology and sociology.

This edited collection gathers together the principal findings of the three-year RELIGARE project, which dealt with the question of religious and philosophical diversity in European law. Specifically, it covers four spheres of public policy and legislation where the pressure to accommodate religious diversity has been most strongly felt in Europe: employment, family life, use of public space and state support mechanisms. Embracing a forward-looking approach, the final RELIGARE report provides recommendations to governance units at the local, national and European levels regarding issues of religious pluralism and secularism. This volume adds context and critique to those recommendations and more generally opens an intellectual discussion on the topic of religion in the European Union. The book consists of two main parts: the first includes the principal findings of the RELIGARE research project, while the second is a compilation of 28 short contributions from influential scholars, legal practitioners, policy makers and activists who respond to the report and offer their views on the sensitive issue of religious diversity and the law in Europe.