This volume asks to which extent ancient practices and traditions of human sacrifice are reflected in medieval and modern Judeo-Christian times. The first part of the volume, on antiquity, focuses on rituals of human sacrifice and polemics against it, as well as on transformations of human sacrifice in the Israelite-Jewish and Christian cultures, while the Ancient Near East and ancient Greece are not excluded. The second part of the volume, on medieval and modern times, discusses human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian traditions as well as the debates about euthanasia and death penalty in the Western world.

Did I not promise, that all knowledge would be restored to its original truth? Christ's prophecy has been fulfilled. The following words have become absolute reality: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16, 12-13). This book of my teachings has been formed from the lessons of love and charity and dictated to you through human understanding. Since ancient times I have entrusted to you my teachings, through my envoys, my emissaries, my interpreters, and you have used it to create myths and traditions. But you will not fulfill your purpose unless you meditate and study this lesson with respect and love. Truly I say to you that he who meditates and analyzes the teachings of my Book, with a true desire to elevate his knowledge, will acquire the light for his spirit and he will feel Me nearer to him.

The worldview that all human beings belong to one big family has, in the history of religions, never been taken for granted. Moreover, human rights are a modern notion that should not be projected back onto the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. However, from the Hellenistic period onwards one encounters the idea of human duties towards not only parents, neighbours and fellow citizens but to all human beings. This volume explores the development of this idea from Antiquity to the present time focussing on the "other" as "neighbour, enemy, and infidel", on the interpretation of the Biblical story of Abraham ́s sacrifice and on ancient and modern ethical and legal implications of the concept of human dignity.

A young Vietnamese-Australian named Nam, in his final year at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, is trying to find his voice on the page. When his father, a man with a painful past, comes to visit, Nam's writing and sense of self are both deeply changed. Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice is a deeply moving story of identity, family and the wellsprings of creativity, from Nam Le's multi-award-winning collection The Boat. 'A tight and densely emotional journey that sucked me in and contained as much power as the lengthy title.' Killings, the Kill Your Darlings blog

This is the first memoir to be published by a long-time devotee of the great Spiritual Master, Adi Da, who died in November of 2008.In 1975 Dennis Leroy saw the film "A Difficult Man." On the spot he knew he had found his Spiritual Master. His next thirty years were filled with lessons--rarely told--in spirituality, humanity, and love."Love's Sacrifice and the Ordeal to Become Human" is the extraordinary story of the relationship between Master and devotee; of the Master's instruction in the highest Spiritual Teaching of non-dualism and the devotee's struggle to bring that instruction into life. It is a story about the breaking down of religious idealism and the rise of the spiritual reality; and about human loss and human growth."Love's Sacrifice" is a powerful recounting of heartbreak, mystery, miracles, and truth.

In contemporary public discourse, the supposedly comprehensive explanatory power of reason is used to justify a thoroughgoing suspicion of religion. In recent decades, the critiques of postmodernism have generated a different kind of suspicion by construing history as a process that is too arbitrary to be narrated--either by modern reason or by religion. In light of these developments, a question arises regarding the appropriate theological response to such forms of suspicion, both of which threaten not just religion but our sense of human agency as such. Does the retrieval of a meaningful religious subjectivity in a climate of suspicion demand a renewed emphasis upon theology's rhetorical persuasiveness, as Radical Orthodoxy has recently proposed? Or does identifying the believing subject with theology's "grammar" fail to attend to some of the challenges posed by such suspicion? The Paradox of Hope answers these questions in an original and provocative way by clarifying the complex relationship between post-secular theology and the work of Soren Kierkegaard. Ultimately, Klassen argues that Kierkegaard's influence is crucial, albeit obscured, in current post-secular theological imperatives, and that the Dane's eschewal of persuasion in favor of hope's inexplicable resolve provides a more adequate response to the nihilism of contemporary suspicion than do the rhetorical proposals currently on offer. In light of this argument, The Paradox of Hope also rehabilitates some of the voices typically excluded by contemporary theology's rhetoric, including those of Heidegger, Derrida, and Levinas.