Divination, the use of special talents and techniques to gain divine knowledge, was practiced in many different forms in ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world. The Hebrew Bible reveals a variety of traditions of women associated with divina...

Differences among religious communities have motivated – and continue to motivate – many of the deadliest conflicts in human history. But how did political power and organized religion become so thoroughly intertwined? And how have religion and relig...

If you told a woman her sex had a shared, long-lived history with weasels, she might deck you. But those familiar with mythology know better: that the connection between women and weasels is an ancient and favorable one, based in the Greek myth of a...

The Garden of Eden story, one of the most famous narratives in Western history, is typically read as an ancient account of original sin and humanity's fall from divine grace. In this highly innovative study, Ziony Zevit argues that this is not how an...

In Dante's "Inferno", the lowest circle of Hell is reserved for traitors, those who betrayed their closest companions. In a wide range of literatures and mythologies such intimate aggression is a source of ultimate terror, and in "Witchcraft, Intimac...

For sale in CIS only! Widespread confusion over the use of the terms Islamism or Political Islam often obscures the fact that these are not new phenomena and can be traced back more than a century. But like all utopian beliefs, such as Communism, Is...

Some of the Bible's most memorable characters are the women in the book of "Judges". From Deborah and Jael to Delilah and Samson's mother, these women led the Israelites in battle, used their wits to defeat the enemy, their wiles to seduce mighty men...

"The Wisdom of Ben Sira" ("Ecclesiasticus") contains the sayings of Ben Sira, arguably the last of Israel's wise men and its first scribe, whose world was defined and dominated by Greek ideas and ideals. This Hellenistic worldview challenged the adeq...

"The Anchor Bible" offers new, book-by-book translations of the Old and New Testaments and Apocrypha, with commentary. This volume on "The Wisdom of Solomon" as been prepared by David Winston, Professor of Hellenistic and Judaic Studies and Director...