Our Judaism section welcomes a new article by Rabbi Mark L. Solomon. In a candid attempt to formulate a Jewish theological understanding of the significance of Jesus Christ for Christians, the author traces the illuminating parallelisms between some of the roles played by the Torah and Jesus Christ in their respective traditions.

Additionally, in our Audio Library you will find a new talk by Sebastian Brock on the Syrian Orthodox Church and its Diaspora, considering its modern history and contemporary challenges. With thanks to Heythrop College, University of London, for permission to record and publish this talk.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our most recent title by the late Lithuanian scholar Algis Uždavinys: Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism. Orpheus is both a mythical hero and an important figure in the development of Greek religion and philosophy. Uždavinys provides us in this book with a dense survey of ancient and contemporary sources on Orpheus and Orphic lore and scholarship. As usual, this Matheson Monograph is available from both high street and internet book sellers, and a sizeable PDF excerpt is available through our Publications page. This book presents fascinating insights into the usually downplaid relations between Egyptian initiation, Greek mysteries and Plato’s philosophy and followers, right into Hellenistic Neoplatonic and Hermetic developments.

Last week our Buddhism section welcomed the addition of two contributions from the Thai Theravada tradition: a collection of aphorisms by Venerable Ajahn Chah (1918-1992), and the Autobiography of a Forest Monk by Venerable Ajahn Thate, with thanks to Dhamma Talks and Amaravati Monastery.

In our Christianity section we gratefully acknowledge a new contribution on The Inner Dimension of Pilgrimage to Mount Athos by Dr Marco Toti.

Finally, in our Comparative Religion page, we have two new articles by Dr Rowan Williams, one on atheism and another one on Christian theology in its relations to other faiths. As usual, our gratitude goes to the
Archbishop’s Press office.

With a major redesign of our website under way, we continue to build our online library. Over the last few weeks we have added two new audio lectures and some articles.

In our Audio section we have first, a double talk by Sebastian Brock and Ahmad Achtar on the Prayer of the Heart, as viewed from the Syriac Christian and Islamic perspectives, and second, a recent lecture by Reza Shah-Kazemi on Tawhid and Love in Islam, as part of a recent conference at Heythrop College.

Our Islam section can now count with an article by Imam Zaid Shakir (Zaytuna College), “Jihad is not Perpetual Warfare“, and also with a new article By Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: “Generous Tolerance in Islam and its Effects on the Life of a Muslim“. These two articles, firmly grounded as they are in the traditional exegetic methods of Islamic sciences, could safely be considered required reading for any serious treatment of the concepts of jihad and Islamic tolerance in English scholarly literature. Our thanks to the authors, Sandala.org and Zaytuna College for making this possible.

With thanks to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and the friends at Sandala, we have two new articles in our Islam page: “Climbing Mount Purgatorio” and “Foundations of the Spiritual Path”, a translation from Qawa’id al-Tasawwuf by Sidi Ahmad Zarruq (1442–1493), one of the masters of the Shadhili lineage.

In our audio library we have an insightful new talk by Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad (T.J. Winter) on “The Presence of the Qur’an”, shedding light on the phenomenon of Islamic civilisation by conveying the believers’ experience of the presence of their sacred book, with its ability to reach into the mysterious depths of the soul.

Finally, thanks to the Archbishop of Canterbury and The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University, we have in our Video page new direct links to the lectures recorded this year in Qatar at the Building Bridges Seminar. The speakers include Michael Plekon, Reza Shah-Kazemi, Philip Sheldrake, Dheen Mohamed, Caner Dagli and Daniel Madigan.

This week we have completed uploading our S.H. Nasr audio lectures, with renewed thanks to The Foundation for Traditional Studies. The last two lectures are: “The Prophet of Islam, the Chain of Prophecy, and the Relationship between Religions Today” (2010) and “Islam and Ecology” (2011).

We are happy to include for the first time five new articles from our friends at the journal Religions (Adyan), based in Qatar. These articles include a “Conversation on Love with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz” and “The Oneness of God’s Community” by Archbishop George Khodr, as also original articles by David Burrell, Ibrahim Kalin and Reza Shah-Kazemi. All these articles are freely available as PDF documents.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the latest title in our Matheson Monographs: Ascent to Heaven in Islamic and Jewish Mysticism, by the late Lithuanian scholar Algis Uždavinys. A downloadable excerpt and more details are available as usual from our Publications page.

Thanks to the kindness of the Chief Rabbi office, we have recently uploaded our first two lectures by Dr Jonathan Sacks, one dealing with the relation between religion and science in our times, and another with the religious roots of tolerance. As usual with Dr Sacks, his lectures deliver their rich message through a gripping combination of humour and grace with an erudite, philosophic and deeply pious discourse. These lectures, and hopefully more to come, can be accessed through our Audio Library.

Finally, this week we have two new recordings with Seyyed Hossein Nasr: a dialogue on “Religion, Modernity and the Future” with Harvey Cox, and a “Confucian-Islamic Dialogue” with Tu Weiming. Free to listen to or download from our Audio Library.

With thanks to the Archbishop’s Press office, we have a new audio lecture by Rowan Williams: Growing in Prayer: what the saints tell us about the spiritual journey. Dr Williams delivered this series through Holy Week (2009) in three parts: “The Early Church”, “Reformers, Catholic & Protestant”, and “The Quest for God in the Modern Age”. This lecture aims to address the question: “There must be a bit more to it than just asking God for things. What is that something more?”

Additionally, we continue to enrich our collection of S.H. Nasr lectures with the following three recordings: “Dialog between Islam and Confucianism” (with Tu Weiming), “Forgiveness and Mercy, Judgment and Justice”, and “Harmony of Heaven, Earth and Man: Harmony of Civilizations”.

Throughout this month we will be uploading ten new lectures by Seyyed Hossein Nasr to our Audio Library, with much gratitude to our friends at the Foundation for Traditional Studies and the journal Sophia for making this possible. The first three lectures are now online: “Reading the Cosmic Qur’an” (2008), “The State of Religious Dialogue: 40 years after Nostra Aetate” (2008), and “Theoria and Praxis” (2009).

In addition to this, we have just posted a recent lecture by Reza Shah-Kazemi on “The Prophet of Islam and the Spirit of Tolerance”, also available to download or listen online.

Our Matheson Monographs series is honoured to include now Sacred Royalty: From The Pharaoh to The Most Christian King, one of the few previously untranslated works by Jean Hani, the well known French classicist and metaphysician. This work is a vast and profound account of monarchies worldwide, explaining their exalted intrinsic character and shedding a new light on many related historical events and practices, thus allowing us to see modern history, sociology and politics in a truly cosmic context.

As our other publications, this book should now be available from major retail and wholesalers, but do contact us if you have any problem getting hold of it.

Additionally, we have a new book excerpt in our Judaism section. Thanks to the generosity of our friends at Fons Vitae, we have made available a chapter on “Prayer, Preaching and Reproof” by Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the famous Baal Shem Tov, affording unusual access to the deepest contemplative aspects of Jewish life in prayer.