The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192139657 ISBN 13: 9780192139658

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

IThe Oxford Dictionary of World Religions is an exceptionally wide-ranging A-Z reference guide to the history, beliefs, dogmas, practices, individuals, customs, and artifacts of the worlds religions past and present. As well as detailed information on individual religious traditions, there are fascinating general entries on common topics such as prayer, ethics, asceticism, confession, cosmology, art and architecture, and music.

About this title

About the Author:

John Bowker is Gresham Professor of Divinity at the University of London and Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a highly regarded authority on religious studies and a well-known broadcaster on the BBC.

From Booklist:

Learning about the world's many spiritual traditions can be a challenge. This title, designed "to provide initial bearings," is an excellent place to start. With an introductory essay on the meaning of religion by editor Bowker, a professor of religion, and more than 8,200 alphabetical entries on a wide range of subjects, it offers an overview of concepts from world religions as well as movements, sects, and cults. There are no illustrations, but Bowker recently completed World Religions (DK, 1997), a profusely illustrated volume that is a good companion to this work.

The entries include broad topics such as prayer and cosmology; specific religions; historical events such as the Reformation and the Crusades; sacred texts; individuals; doctrines; sacred sites; customs; and ethics. Asterisks designate cross-references to terms with their own entries. See and see also references refer users to related material. Many entries have bibliographic citations to books on the subject for further research. Terms in language with non-Roman alphabets are transliterated. There is a special index of Chinese headwords with a Wade-Giles/Pinyin conversion table. A topic index directs readers to entry headings on broad subject areas so that someone interested in dietary laws and customs could look under Food and find entries for Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikh, Taoist, and Zen regimens.

A comparable source is The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion [RBB Ap 15 96], which has 3,200 articles. This is far fewer than the Oxford work, but HarperCollins devotes significant space to comprehensive feature articles on major religions--32 pages on Buddhism, for example. It also covers extinct religions, such as those of ancient Greece and Rome, which are not included in the Oxford dictionary. In general, the HarperCollins dictionary has more coverage of religions, while the Oxford dictionary provides more coverage of concepts, people, events, and so on. For example, HarperCollins has several pages on Afro-Brazilian religions, while Oxford has a single paragraph. HarperCollins has six pages on Native American religions, which is not an entry in the Oxford dictionary. On the other hand, Oxford has nearly four pages on the Reformation, compared to one page in HarperCollins; over a column on John Calvin, compared to six lines in HarperCollins; a column on evil, compared to three lines in HarperCollins. The HarperCollins dictionary has no bibliographies, although sources are cited within the text. It does, however, have some illustrations, as well as maps, tables, and timelines.

Whether one is searching for the text of the Shema (the Jewish confession of faith) or information about Rastafarians, Oxford Dictionary of World Religions is a useful source. Although naturally less complete than Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion [RBB O 1 87], it does provide a reasonably priced, very good introduction to a diverse subject area. Recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries, especially those that do not already own the HarperCollins dictionary.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0192139657
• ISBN 13: 9780192139658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1136
• Editor: Bowker John