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Resistance and the Sermon in American Literature: The Cultural Work of Literary Preaching from Emerson to Morrison (New Directions in Religion and Literature)
by Matthew SmalleyWith seemingly obsessive regularity, American authors, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, evoke the sermon at culturally loaded moments in their works, deploying the form to underscore the cultural work they imagine their novels or poetry to perform. Examining this longstanding tradition of “literary preaching,” this book draws on literary applications of design theory to provide a nuanced account of American literature's complex, anxious, and persistent engagement with the Protestant sermon. Analyzing literary preaching as a transhistorical form that simultaneously attracts and repels authors, Smalley demonstrates how major US writers–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison–have subverted the sermon's predominantly religious content in order to reimagine profound moments of reform in a political, cultural, and aesthetic mode. This study elucidates new lines of literary kinship, offers fresh readings of familiar works, and establishes literary preaching as an undertheorized but significant tradition in American literature.
Resistance and the Sermon in American Literature: The Cultural Work of Literary Preaching from Emerson to Morrison (New Directions in Religion and Literature)
by Matthew SmalleyWith seemingly obsessive regularity, American authors, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, evoke the sermon at culturally loaded moments in their works, deploying the form to underscore the cultural work they imagine their novels or poetry to perform. Examining this longstanding tradition of “literary preaching,” this book draws on literary applications of design theory to provide a nuanced account of American literature's complex, anxious, and persistent engagement with the Protestant sermon. Analyzing literary preaching as a transhistorical form that simultaneously attracts and repels authors, Smalley demonstrates how major US writers–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison–have subverted the sermon's predominantly religious content in order to reimagine profound moments of reform in a political, cultural, and aesthetic mode. This study elucidates new lines of literary kinship, offers fresh readings of familiar works, and establishes literary preaching as an undertheorized but significant tradition in American literature.
Resistance in Everyday Life: Constructing Cultural Experiences
by Nandita Chaudhary Pernille Hviid Giuseppina Marsico Jakob Waag VilladsenThis book is about resistance in everyday life, illustrated through empirical contexts from different parts of the world. Resistance is a widespread phenomenon in biological, social and psychological domains of human cultural development. Yet, it is not well articulated in the academic literature and, when it is, resistance is most often considered counter-productive. Simple evaluations of resistance as positive or negative are avoided in this volume; instead it is conceptualised as a vital process for human development and well-being. While resistance is usually treated as an extraordinary occurrence, the focus here is on everyday resistance as an intentional process where new meaning constructions emerge in thinking, feeling, acting or simply living with others. Resistance is thus conceived as a meaning-making activity that operates at the intersection of personal and collective systems. The contributors deal with strategies for handling dissent by individuals or groups, specifically dissent through resistance. Resistance can be a location of intense personal, interpersonal and cultural negotiation, and that is the primary reason for interest in this phenomenon. Ordinary life events contain innumerable instances of agency and resistance. This volume discusses their manifestations, and it is therefore of interest for academics and researchers of cultural psychology, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, and human development.
Resistance to Christianity: A Chronological Encyclopaedia of Heresy from the Beginning to the Eighteenth Century
by Raoul VaneigemResistance to Christianity: A Chronological Encyclopaedia of Heresy from the Beginning to the Eighteenth Century reveals the hidden story behind the modern-day edifice of Christianity. Raoul Vaneigem's landmark study provides a compelling account of the falsifications and political agendas that shaped what we now know as the canonical Bible and such pillars of Christian doctrine as the Resurrection and the Holy Trinity. It also traces alternative pathways that have been opened up the many individuals and groups that have departed from the Church's teachings: from the remarkably modern first-century thinker Simon the Magus, to the libertarian mystics of the Middle Ages, to the Jansenists of the seventeenth century. This is, in short, an exceptionally wide-ranging history of the forms of thought and belief that orthodox religion has mischaracterized and suppressed over the course of the centuries. Resistance to Christianity is far more, however, than a study of religious movements and ideas; indeed, Vaneigem is bracingly unapologetic in his ambition "to examine the resistance that the inclination to natural liberty has, for nearly twenty centuries, opposed to . . . Christian oppression". The story of how men and women have again and again resisted the authoritarian implications of religious orthodoxy is, above all, a crucial strand of the history of human freedom. Bill Brown's translation makes available in English a major text by one of the preeminent thinkers of our time. A brilliant work of historical scholarship that deserves to be widely read, Resistance to Christianity represents radical thought at its most exciting, incisive, and persuasive.
Resistance Under Communist China: Religious Protesters, Advocates and Opportunists (Human Rights Interventions)
by Ray WangThis book examines religious activism—Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism—in China, a powerful atheist state that provides one of the hardest challenges to existing methods of transnational activism. The author focuses on mechanisms used by three kinds of actors: protesters, advocates and opportunists, and uses regional, inter-faith, and international comparisons to understand why some foreign advocates can enter China and engage in illegal aid and missions to empower local activists, while the same groups cannot conduct the same activities in another geographically, economically and politically similar location. The stories in this book demonstrate a more inclusive and bottom-up approach of transnational activism; they challenge the conventional spiral theory paradigm of human rights literature and the narrow views about GONGOs in civil society literature. This new knowledge helps to sustain a more optimistic view and offers an alternative way of promoting human rights in China and countries with similar authoritarian environments.
Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to "the Hebrews" (The Library of New Testament Studies #484)
by Jason A. WhitlarkThis book offers a fresh reading about the purpose for which Hebrews was written. In this book Whitlark argues that Hebrews engages both the negative pressures (persecution) and positive attractions (honor/prosperity) of its audience's Roman imperial context. Consequently, the audience of Hebrews appears to be in danger of defecting to the pagan imperial context. Due to the imperial nature of these pressures, Hebrews obliquely critiques the imperial script according to the rhetorical expectations in the first-century Mediterranean world-namely, through the use of figured speech. This critique is the primary focus of Whitlark's project. Whitlark examines Hebrews's figured response to the imperial hopes boasted by Rome along with Rome's claim to eternal rule, to the power of life and death, and to be led by the true, victorious ruler. Whitlark also makes a case for discerning Hebrews's response to the challenges of Flavian triumph. Whitlark concludes his study by suggesting that Hebrews functions much like Revelation, that is, to resist the draw of the Christians' Roman imperial context. This is done, in part, by providing a covert opposition to Roman imperial discourse. He also offers evaluation of relapse theories for Hebrews, of Hebrews's place among early Christian martyrdom, and of the nature of the resistance that Hebrews promotes.
Resisting the Place of Belonging: Uncanny Homecomings in Religion, Narrative and the Arts
by Daniel BoscaljonPeople often overlook the uncanny nature of homecomings, writing off the experience of finding oneself at home in a strange place or realizing that places from our past have grown strange. This book challenges our assumptions about the value of home, arguing for the ethical value of our feeling displaced and homeless in the 21st century. Home is explored in places ranging from digital keyboards to literary texts, and investigates how we mediate our homecomings aesthetically through cultural artifacts (art, movies, television shows) and conceptual structures (philosophy, theology, ethics, narratives). In questioning the place of home in human lives and the struggles involved with defining, defending, naming and returning to homes, the volume collects and extends ideas about home and homecomings that will inform traditional problems in novel ways.
Resisting the Place of Belonging: Uncanny Homecomings in Religion, Narrative and the Arts
by Daniel BoscaljonPeople often overlook the uncanny nature of homecomings, writing off the experience of finding oneself at home in a strange place or realizing that places from our past have grown strange. This book challenges our assumptions about the value of home, arguing for the ethical value of our feeling displaced and homeless in the 21st century. Home is explored in places ranging from digital keyboards to literary texts, and investigates how we mediate our homecomings aesthetically through cultural artifacts (art, movies, television shows) and conceptual structures (philosophy, theology, ethics, narratives). In questioning the place of home in human lives and the struggles involved with defining, defending, naming and returning to homes, the volume collects and extends ideas about home and homecomings that will inform traditional problems in novel ways.
Resisting Theology, Furious Hope: Secular Political Theology and Social Movements (Radical Theologies and Philosophies)
by Jordan E. MillerThis book puts radical theology and political theology into an interdisciplinary conversation with sustained and serious readings of resistance. Using an anthropology of ritual as a common thread, Jordan E. Miller explores the reality of the relationship between political theology, radical theology, and political theory, action, and power without cynicism in a creative, forward-moving way. The first half of the book develops a radical political theology and the second half applies that theory to a series of social movements, including The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Occupy Wall Street, and #BlackLivesMatter, and includes reflections on the events at Standing Rock, ND.
Resisting Violence and Victimisation: Christian Faith and Solidarity in East Timor
by Joel HodgeThe reality and nature of religious faith raises difficult questions for the modern world; questions that re-present themselves when faith has grown under the most challenging circumstances. In East Timor widespread Christian faith emerged when suffering and violence were inflicted on the people by the state. This book seeks a deeper understanding of faith and violence, exploring how Christian faith and solidarity affected the hope and resistance of the East Timorese under Indonesian occupation in their response to state-sanctioned violence. Joel Hodge argues for an understanding of Christian faith as a relational phenomenon that provides personal and collective tools to resist violence. Grounded in the work of mimetic theorist René Girard, Hodge contends that the experience of victimisation in East Timor led to an important identification with Jesus Christ as self-giving victim and formed a distinctive communal and ecclesial solidarity. The Catholic Church opened spaces of resistance and communion that allowed the Timorese to imagine and live beyond the violence and death perpetrated by the Indonesian regime. Presenting the East Timorese stories under occupation and Girard's insights in dialogue, this book offers fresh perspectives on the Christian Church's ecclesiology and mission.
Resisting Violence and Victimisation: Christian Faith and Solidarity in East Timor
by Joel HodgeThe reality and nature of religious faith raises difficult questions for the modern world; questions that re-present themselves when faith has grown under the most challenging circumstances. In East Timor widespread Christian faith emerged when suffering and violence were inflicted on the people by the state. This book seeks a deeper understanding of faith and violence, exploring how Christian faith and solidarity affected the hope and resistance of the East Timorese under Indonesian occupation in their response to state-sanctioned violence. Joel Hodge argues for an understanding of Christian faith as a relational phenomenon that provides personal and collective tools to resist violence. Grounded in the work of mimetic theorist René Girard, Hodge contends that the experience of victimisation in East Timor led to an important identification with Jesus Christ as self-giving victim and formed a distinctive communal and ecclesial solidarity. The Catholic Church opened spaces of resistance and communion that allowed the Timorese to imagine and live beyond the violence and death perpetrated by the Indonesian regime. Presenting the East Timorese stories under occupation and Girard's insights in dialogue, this book offers fresh perspectives on the Christian Church's ecclesiology and mission.
Resolving Disagreements: A Semantic and Epistemological Inquiry (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion)
by Åke WahlbergThis book examines how the semantics and metaphysics of disagreement affect the epistemology of disagreement. It thus broadens the philosophical discourse by relating the epistemological discussion of (peer) disagreement to inquiries into the nature of disagreement and disagreeing. By doing this, it paints a new picture of the epistemological situation evoked by disagreement: To the same extent that an interpersonal dispute undermines the justification of the disputing persons’ beliefs, it also presents an obstacle to interpersonal understanding. This follows from the nature of meaning, belief and communication, rightly understood. In demonstrating the relevance of this to philosophical reflections on peer disagreement and resolution of disagreement, the book addresses arguably the most contentious kind of disagreement, namely, religious disagreement. It shows that apparent disagreement in religion suggests that the dialog partners might not have reached sufficient mutual understanding. This has important ramifications for the rationally right conduct in the face of religious disagreement, and for the possibility of rational resolution of religious disputes.
Resounding Transcendence: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual
by Jeffers Engelhardt Philip BohlmanResounding Transcendence is a pathbreaking set of ethnographic and historical essays by leading scholars exploring the ways sacred music effects cultural, political, and religious transitions in the contemporary world. With chapters covering Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist practices in East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and Europe, the volume establishes the theoretical and methodological foundations for music scholarship to engage in current debates about modern religion and secular epistemologies. It also transforms those debates through sophisticated, nuanced treatments of sound and music - ubiquitous elements of ritual and religion often glossed over in other disciplines. Resounding Transcendence confronts the relationship of sound, divinity, and religious practice in diverse post-secular contexts. By examining the immanence of transcendence in specific social and historical contexts and rethinking the reified nature of "religion" and "world religions," these authors examine the dynamics of difference and transition within and between sacred musical practices. The work in this volume transitions between traditional spaces of sacred musical practice and emerging public spaces for popular religious performance; between the transformative experience of ritual and the sacred musical affordances of media technologies; between the charisma of individual performers and the power of the marketplace; and between the making of authenticity and hybridity in religious repertoires and practices. Broad in scope, rich in ethnographic and historical detail, and theoretically ambitious, Resounding Transcendence is an essential contribution to the study of music and religion.
RESOUNDING TRANSCENDENCE C: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual
by Jeffers Engelhardt and Philip V. BohlmanResounding Transcendence is a pathbreaking set of ethnographic and historical essays by leading scholars exploring the ways sacred music effects cultural, political, and religious transitions in the contemporary world. With chapters covering Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist practices in East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and Europe, the volume establishes the theoretical and methodological foundations for music scholarship to engage in current debates about modern religion and secular epistemologies. It also transforms those debates through sophisticated, nuanced treatments of sound and music - ubiquitous elements of ritual and religion often glossed over in other disciplines. Resounding Transcendence confronts the relationship of sound, divinity, and religious practice in diverse post-secular contexts. By examining the immanence of transcendence in specific social and historical contexts and rethinking the reified nature of "religion" and "world religions," these authors examine the dynamics of difference and transition within and between sacred musical practices. The work in this volume transitions between traditional spaces of sacred musical practice and emerging public spaces for popular religious performance; between the transformative experience of ritual and the sacred musical affordances of media technologies; between the charisma of individual performers and the power of the marketplace; and between the making of authenticity and hybridity in religious repertoires and practices. Broad in scope, rich in ethnographic and historical detail, and theoretically ambitious, Resounding Transcendence is an essential contribution to the study of music and religion.
Resourcing New Testament Studies: Literary, Historical, and Theological Essays in Honor of David L. Dungan
by J. Samuel Subramanian Allan J. McNicol David B. PeabodyResourcing New Testament Studies includes fifteen essays, contributed by twenty, internationally known scholars, including representatives from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. These colleagues joined together to honor David Laird Dungan, Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, whose impressive teaching, research, and publishing career has now spanned over four decades.Opening 'Part I. In Honor of David L. Dungan,' is a lively and revealing 'Cooperative Essay on a Collaborative Scholar,' composed by five of Dungan's colleagues; three, from the University of Tennessee; a fourth, from the editorial team with Dungan for The International Bible Commentary; and the fifth, Dungan's friend from childhood and co-author of their popular Sourcebook for the Study of the Gospels. Part I concludes with a full bibliography of Dungan's published work. Subsequent Parts of the volume focus on three themes, each reflecting some aspect of Dungan's own work, 'Part II. The Synoptic Problem;' 'Part III. Jesus, the Gospels and Acts' and 'Part IV. Canon, Theology and Ethics.'Contributors to this Festschrift include David R. Cartlidge, Robert A. Derrenbacker, Jr., William R. Farmer, David Noel Freedman with Henry Innes MacAdam, Albert Fuchs, Birger Gerhardsson, Jan Lambrecht, Adrian Leske, David E. Linge, Sean McEvenue, Ralph V. Norman, Samuel Oyin Obogunrin, Charles H. Reynolds, Hans-Hartmut Schroeder, Joseph B. Tyson, William O. Walker, Jr., and the three co-editors, Allan J. McNicol, David B. Peabody and J. Samuel Subramanian.
Resourcing New Testament Studies: Literary, Historical, and Theological Essays in Honor of David L. Dungan
by J. Samuel Subramanian Allan J. McNicol David B. PeabodyResourcing New Testament Studies includes fifteen essays, contributed by twenty, internationally known scholars, including representatives from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. These colleagues joined together to honor David Laird Dungan, Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, whose impressive teaching, research, and publishing career has now spanned over four decades.Opening 'Part I. In Honor of David L. Dungan,' is a lively and revealing 'Cooperative Essay on a Collaborative Scholar,' composed by five of Dungan's colleagues; three, from the University of Tennessee; a fourth, from the editorial team with Dungan for The International Bible Commentary; and the fifth, Dungan's friend from childhood and co-author of their popular Sourcebook for the Study of the Gospels. Part I concludes with a full bibliography of Dungan's published work. Subsequent Parts of the volume focus on three themes, each reflecting some aspect of Dungan's own work, 'Part II. The Synoptic Problem;' 'Part III. Jesus, the Gospels and Acts' and 'Part IV. Canon, Theology and Ethics.'Contributors to this Festschrift include David R. Cartlidge, Robert A. Derrenbacker, Jr., William R. Farmer, David Noel Freedman with Henry Innes MacAdam, Albert Fuchs, Birger Gerhardsson, Jan Lambrecht, Adrian Leske, David E. Linge, Sean McEvenue, Ralph V. Norman, Samuel Oyin Obogunrin, Charles H. Reynolds, Hans-Hartmut Schroeder, Joseph B. Tyson, William O. Walker, Jr., and the three co-editors, Allan J. McNicol, David B. Peabody and J. Samuel Subramanian.
Responde a Mi Clamo: Aprenda a comunicarse con un Dios que se preocupa por usted
by Charles R. SwindollCharles R. Swindoll is the award-winning author of more than ninety books that together have sold more than 20 million copies. Chuck serves as the senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas. He was named by Christianity Today as one of the twenty-five influential pastors of the past twenty-five years. His radio program, Insight for Living, which was named Program of the Year by National Religious Broadcasters, airs daily on more than 2,000 radio stations around the world. He and his wife, Cynthia, live in Frisco, Texas. They have four grown children, ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Responding to a Puzzled Scribe: The Barberini Version of Habakkuk 3 Analysed in the Light of the Other Greek Versions (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies #608)
by Joshua L. HarperIn part one of this book Joshua L. Harper is able to demonstrate the following aspects of the Barberini version: when compared with the other Greek versions, it appears that the Barberini version was originally independent of the Septuagint but has been influenced by it in transmission. The Barberini version was probably translated no earlier than the later books of the Septuagint (that is, around the first century BC), and no later than the mid-third century AD. The style, methods of translation, and exegetical affinities suggest that the translator was primarily concerned with producing stylistic, understandable Greek rather than with conforming closely to the Hebrew source text. The translator was probably Jewish, particularly since some readings resonate with Jewish exegetical traditions. The relatively polished Greek suggests that the translator had received some formal Greek education, perhaps in a Hellenistic Jewish community. In the second part of this work Harper provides text, translation, and notes for the major Greek versions. The Barberini version has been analysed in particular detail, with regard to lexical and syntactical translation technique, as well as matters of style.
Responses to 7 October: Antisemitic Discourse (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
by David Hirsh Rosa Freedman Odeliya Lanir ZafirOne of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Antisemitic Discourse focuses on the ideology that motivated it and the antisemitism that shaped many responses to it.It examines the provenance of the Jew-hatred, from English history to Palestinian Islamism; from toxic 19th century ‘Jewish Question’ rhetoric to the perversion of the Trotskyist tradition that allowed parts of the left to embrace antisemitism. It includes Howard Jacobson’s lecture of 22 October on antisemitism and it focuses on what was significant about this attack. There is discussion from Britain, Germany, Poland, and Norway, and a linguistic account of responses.This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Responses to 7 October: Antisemitic Discourse (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
One of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Antisemitic Discourse focuses on the ideology that motivated it and the antisemitism that shaped many responses to it.It examines the provenance of the Jew-hatred, from English history to Palestinian Islamism; from toxic 19th century ‘Jewish Question’ rhetoric to the perversion of the Trotskyist tradition that allowed parts of the left to embrace antisemitism. It includes Howard Jacobson’s lecture of 22 October on antisemitism and it focuses on what was significant about this attack. There is discussion from Britain, Germany, Poland, and Norway, and a linguistic account of responses.This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Responses to 7 October: Law and Society (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
by David Hirsh Rosa Freedman Odeliya Lanir ZafirOne of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Law and Society begins with a legal and a genocide studies critique of the claim that Israel is genocidal; another reflects on the absence of an understanding of antisemitism in international legal discourse.There are reflections on experiences in the Palestine solidarity movement and on the twists that discourse there takes. Contributions draw on Judaism, feminism, and sociology to face what happened and to trace how Israelis were transported back to a quintessentially pre-Israel Jewish experience. Others survey reports of antisemitism around the globe in the wake of 7 October, including pieces about Britain and Germany.This work will appeal to scholars, students, and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies, and the politics of Israel.
Responses to 7 October: Law and Society (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
One of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Law and Society begins with a legal and a genocide studies critique of the claim that Israel is genocidal; another reflects on the absence of an understanding of antisemitism in international legal discourse.There are reflections on experiences in the Palestine solidarity movement and on the twists that discourse there takes. Contributions draw on Judaism, feminism, and sociology to face what happened and to trace how Israelis were transported back to a quintessentially pre-Israel Jewish experience. Others survey reports of antisemitism around the globe in the wake of 7 October, including pieces about Britain and Germany.This work will appeal to scholars, students, and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies, and the politics of Israel.
Responses to 7 October: Universities (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
by David Hirsh Rosa Freedman Odeliya Lanir ZafirOne of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Universities focuses on the heartland of contemporary antisemitic thinking, which is scholarship; and its reflection in student discourse on campus.Contributions go back to Sartre and to debates of Marx’s time; another looks at the New Left forged in the civil rights movement, and shows how antisemitic responses to the 2023 violence were anticipated by some of the responses to the 1967 Arab League aggression. The feminist movement and ‘progressives’ more generally come under scrutiny, and there is analysis of antisemitism on campus after 7 October, showing how it is tolerated and protected there; including in archaeological attempts to deny that there is an ancient Jewish history in Israel.This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Responses to 7 October: Universities (Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism)
One of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Universities focuses on the heartland of contemporary antisemitic thinking, which is scholarship; and its reflection in student discourse on campus.Contributions go back to Sartre and to debates of Marx’s time; another looks at the New Left forged in the civil rights movement, and shows how antisemitic responses to the 2023 violence were anticipated by some of the responses to the 1967 Arab League aggression. The feminist movement and ‘progressives’ more generally come under scrutiny, and there is analysis of antisemitism on campus after 7 October, showing how it is tolerated and protected there; including in archaeological attempts to deny that there is an ancient Jewish history in Israel.This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature
by David KraemerThe existence of suffering poses an obvious problem for the monotheistic religions. Why does an all-powerful, benevolent God allow humans to suffer? And given that God does, what is the appropriate human response? In modern times Jewish theologians in particular, faced with the enormity of the Holocaust, have struggled to come to grips with these issues. In Responses to Suffering, David Kraemer offers the first comprehensive history of teachings related to suffering in classical rabbinic literature. Beginning with the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), Kraemer examines traditions on suffering, divine justice, national catastrophe, and the like, in all major rabbinic works of late antiquity. Bringing to bear recent methods in the history of religions, literary criticism, canonical criticism, and the sociology of religion, Kraemer offers a rich analysis of the development of attitudes that are central to and remain contemporary concerns of any religious society.