Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Searching for Oneness

Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam traces the sweep of mysticism-the search for oneness with God-throughout the three Abrahamic traditions. Beginning with a definition of mysticism and a discussion of its place within religion as a whole, Ori Z. Soltes explores the history of mysticism from the Biblical times through the present day.

History

Soltes, Ori

World

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

The art of the three Abrahamic religions-Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-has a tangled, interwoven history. Symbols cross back and forth among the three faiths, adapted to reflect that faith's specific spiritual needs. And much of this symbolic language predates any of the Abrahamic faiths entirely. In Our Sacred Signs, Ori Soltes traces the interconnectedness of religious symbols such as the Star of David, which isn't, it turns out, exclusive to Judaism at all. He shows that the various ways that Jesus is portrayed on the cross recall an artistic tradition that is in no way unique to Christianity. And he shows that religious architectural conventions as simple as the dome represent early "pagan" traditions. The narrative-essentially a series of overlapping stories-moves through the halls of museums and off to the holy sites of the three religions, tracing the millennia-long artistic trail that has endured even as the West moved toward secularization in the last three hundred years. Soltes shows us how art has long been used as an instrument to take us where words cannot follow. Our Sacred Signs is a breathtaking and revelatory journey through human history, its gods, and its art.

Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Basic Books

The Ashen Rainbow plays on the paradox of the Holocaust: that the darkest hour of human depravity influenced an unprecedented array of human creativity's rainbow tinged with ash. The juxtaposition of the terms "arts" and "Holocaust" seems illogical: one pertaining to creation and the other to destruction. Yet Soltes's insightful interpretations embrace this disconnect, as he interweaves multiple disciplines ranging from literature, music, and theater, to visual art and film. The Ashen Rainbow focuses on the diversity of Holocaust art, claiming that the most successful pieces recognize "the essential inaccessible ineffability of such an event." Each of Professor Soltes's essays stand on its own. However, together they offer a comprehensive, multifaceted examination of an event that captures humanity in its brightest and darkest moments

The Ashen Rainbow: Essays on the Arts and the Holocaust

Eshel Books

Ori Soltes delivers a concise and extensive review of the history of Christian-Jewish relations that examines that relationship from a legal and quasi-legal perspective.

Jews on Trial: Judges, Juries, Prosecutors and Defendants from the Era of Jesus to Our Own Time

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Bartleby Press

Crossing the goal line, with the football tucked safely in his arms, the NFL star falls on one knee, bows his head, crosses himself and utters a prayer of thanksgiving to God, giving one more example of the ever expanding connection between sports and religion.At least it seems to be expanding. The question is: was there truly a notable surge in that relationship between sports and religion? And if there has been a surge, is it unique in history, or merely part of an ongoing ebb and flow?This book, now in a revised edition, offers a concise yet detailed account of this multifaceted association --and its implications for the ongoing game (the ultimate sport!) of trying to understand what we humans are as a species. Sports is one among many areas where religion and its concerns have played a role, and the interweave between sports and religion is as old as sports and as continuous as religion.Contemporary instances are different from what one finds in Greek and Latin literature where gods are actively on the "playing field," and directly leads to the first athletic competitions. The discussion of biblical "athletes" offers a different religious connotation: the stories of Samson are religious in part simply because they are biblical.The question of Islam and sports, or of Jewish success in the Olympics, or of how both Jews and Muslims manage to maintain aspects of their faiths when the athletic competitions in which they engage don't leave space for that--or of the attitude of Judaism or Islam or Christianity to sports and physical accomplishment in general--is diverse. The discussion of Native American sports with origins in religious ritual is different still.Moreover, "sports and religion" keeps intersecting--from different angles--sports and warfare, sports and politics, religion and politics, religion and warfare; and all these combinations intertwine aspects of art. Reading God and the Goalposts, it becomes clear that sport, in combination with religion is a major theme throughout the history of mankind.

God and the Goalposts: A Brief History of Sports, Religion, Politics, War and Art

Ancient Civilizations