This new book by Daniel Boyarin confirms, from a Jewish scholar, that differentiation within the oneness of God was a thoroughly Jewish idea, and that a messiah who suffered and was somehow also divine was a rabbinic idea in Second Temple Judaism. Fascinating, friends! http://www.tnr.com/article/103373/books-and-arts/magazine/jewish-gospels-christ-boyarin?page=0,0 Read more

The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.” The comments by Brotherhood General Guide Mohammed Badie came in a written statement issued May 17 to commemorate Nakba Day, when Palestinians and other Arabs mourn Israel’s creation in 1948. The statement – the existence of which was revealed Wednesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism blog – reminds... Read more

“They need to know that conquest is coming, that Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate,” Morsi reportedly said. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3083/egypt-christians-convert-pay-tribute-leave Read more

To judge from what we are reading and hearing almost every day at the moment, it would seem Britain is in the throes of a war of religion. A war, that is, between religion and atheism. Professor Richard Dawkins, the Savonarola of atheism, regularly hurls his thunderbolts at believers. Christianity, says the church, is under siege. Christians are being prevented from wearing the crucifix at work, being barred from adoption panels. Even Delia Smith has now brought her rolling pin... Read more

While Islam opposes same-sex marriage, its opposition to it and to President Obama’s stance is not a matter of hate or bigotry but a matter of principle. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/05/5464?utm_source=RTA+Fozi+Marriage&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email Read more

Recent empirical research suggests that, in virtually every respect, polygamy is socially detrimental—to society in general, to men, to women, and to children. These problems arise because of the nature of human reproduction. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/05/5338?utm_source=RTA+Kaczor+Polygamy&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email Read more

The year 1880 saw the publication of a book that ranks as the single most important study of Islam ever. Written in German by a young Jewish Hungarian scholar, Ignaz Goldziher, and bearing the nondescript title Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien), it argued that the hadith, the vast body of sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, lacked historical validity. Rather than provide reliable details about Mohammed’s life, the hadith, Goldziher established, emerged from debates two or three centuries... Read more

China needs to learn to become a laboratory if it is to survive the environmental pollution, financial mismanagement, and social inequity that derive from being the world’s sweatshop. So how can our Chinese students become the creative talent that China needs? And what makes Israel so innovative? Israel’s answer is, as always, short and simple: Ask questions. These two words in fact represent the cultural chasm that divides Israel and China. As Start-Up Nation mentions, Israel lacks hierarchy and formality... Read more

It is all too tempting to describe Bernard Lewis, the distinguished historian of the Islamic world, as venerable. Mr. Lewis, who turns 96 on May 31, seems to possess the aura of the sage. Even his harshest critics have sometimes seen him in this light. After Mr. Lewis published a devastating critique of Edward Said’s “Orientalism” in 1982 in the New York Review of Books, the injured author responded with a long, angry letter to the editor that mocked Mr.... Read more

Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0003.html Read more