Searching For The String Of God

Searching for the String of God

Searching for God

The authors of Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts introduce “self-directed hevruta,” a novel twist on the traditional Jewish path of in-depth learning with a study partner. Together, they choose the most challenging topic of all, searching for God, and explore five contemporary Jewish texts that present several approaches: mysticism, rationalism, nontraditional Judaism, metaphors from science, and character development. These spiritual seekers are lay-people. Joan Burstyn is an historian and poet; Gershon Vincow is a scientist and community leader. They study, discuss, teach each other, and draw conclusions. The result of this study partnership is a transformative learning experience about Judaism and the search for God. “This touching and inspiring account of the commitment of two friends to study texts and share their insights with each other on behalf of their own, and each other’s connection to holiness could well be titled Thinking as a Spiritual Path. Celebrating intellect as an instrument of prayer, this book will serve as a template for seekers across religious traditions who long for a spiritual practice that satisfies their minds as it gladdens their hearts.” —Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life. “This book successfully probes the most basic questions anyone should ask: What do I mean when I use the word ‘God’? And how does the answer affect the way I live?” —Edward D. Zinbarg, board member, Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical School; author of Faith, Morals and Money: What the World’s Religions Tell Us about Ethics in the Marketplace.

The Search for God in Ancient Egypt

"What, for the ancient Egyptians, was the nature of the world's governing spirits'... With the evidence of ancient texts, Assmann considers Egyptian theology,... and cults and rites.... This deep, analytic book is of the greatest interest not only for specialists in matters Egyptian but also for comparative studies."?Antiquity First English-language edition, with revisions and additions by the author. This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt offers a distillation of Jan Assmann's views on ancient Egyptian religion, with special emphasis on theology and piety. Deeply rooted in the texts of ancient Egypt and thoroughly informed by comparative religion, theology, anthropology, and semiotic analysis, Assmann's interpretations reveal the complexity of Egyptian thought in a new way. Assmann takes special care to distinguish between the "implicit" theology of Egyptian polytheism and the "explicit" theology that is concerned with exploring the problem of the divine. His discussion of polytheism and mythology addresses aspects of ritual, the universe, and myth; his consideration of explicit theology deals with theodicy and the specifics of Amarna religion.