{"title":"James Kugel","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"on-being-a-jew-book-james-kugel-9780801859434","title":"On Being a Jew","description":"What should a Jew consider before marrying a non-Jew? What should a Jew know about Hebrew? What does it mean to keep the Sabbath? In the Medieval period, young Jews found answers to their most pressing questions about Judaism in The Book of the Kuzari. That book, written in the form of a dialogue, addressed an array of questions that led from explanations of everyday practices to the depth and grandeur of the Torah. On Being a Jew brings The Book of the Kuzari up to date. In a conversational format, it answers basic questions about the purposes of ritual, the duties of study, work, and home life, the importance of prayer and history, and the subtleties of the Torah and its interpretations that are obscured or lost in translation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49582216282385,"sku":"GOR013731121","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50131622297873,"sku":"CIN0801859433VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50208716226833,"sku":"CIN0801859433G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007361614097,"sku":"NIN9780801859434","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52125520920849,"sku":"NLS9780801859434","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801859433.jpg?v=1750703102"},{"product_id":"idea-of-biblical-poetry-book-james-kugel-9780801859441","title":"The Idea of Biblical Poetry","description":"The story of how each age understood the nature biblical poetry, Kugel concludes, is a key to understanding the Bible's place in the history of Western thought.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49772605997329,"sku":"CIN0801859441G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007407882513,"sku":"NIN9780801859441","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52147083608337,"sku":"NLS9780801859441","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801859441.jpg?v=1750703103"},{"product_id":"great-shift-encountering-god-in-the-biblical-era-book-james-l-kugel-phd-9780544520554","title":"Great Shift: Encountering God in the Biblical Era","description":"\u003cb\u003eA world-renowned scholar brings a lifetime of study to reveal how a pivotal transformation in spiritual experience during the Biblical Era made us who we are today\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Why does the Bible depict a world in which humans, with surprising regularity, encounter the divine--wrestling an angel, addressing a burning bush, issuing forth prophecy without any choice in the matter? These stories spoke very differently to their original audience than they do to us, and they reflect a radically distinct understanding of reality and the human mind. Yet over the course of the thousand-year Biblical Era, encounters with God changed dramatically. As James L. Kugel argues, this transition allows us to glimpse a massive shift in human experience--the emergence of the modern, Western sense of self.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this landmark work, Kugel fuses revelatory close readings of ancient texts with modern scholarship from a range of fields, including neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, and archaeology, to explain the origins of belief, worship, and the sense of self, and the changing nature of God through history. In the tradition of books like \u003ci\u003eThe Swerve\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Better Angels of Our Nature, The Great Shift \u003c\/i\u003etells the story of a revolution in human consciousness and the enchantment of everyday life. This book will make believers and seekers think differently not just about the Bible, but about the entire history of the human imagination.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50035072729361,"sku":"CIN0544520556G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51388592062737,"sku":"CIN0544520556VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53155330195729,"sku":"GOR009013565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53355313660177,"sku":"GOR014872354","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0544520556.jpg?v=1750846597"},{"product_id":"in-the-valley-of-the-shadow-book-james-l-kugel-phd-9781439130100","title":"In the Valley of the Shadow","description":"Ten years ago, when Harvard professor James Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer, I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that . . . the background music had suddenly stopped. . . . the music of daily life that's constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities. Now suddenly it was gone, replaced by \u003ci\u003enothing, \u003c\/i\u003ejust silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late-summer sun, with only a few things left to do. Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind; it seemed to reveal something basic about the religions that he had been studying for years. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this wide-ranging exploration of religion throughout the ages, interspersed with personal reflection on the course of his illness, Kugel mines a rich store of sources in an attempt to understand mankind's unending series of encounters with God, from ancient accounts of human meetings with gods and angels, to first-person narratives of religious conversions and the findings of neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists about religious belief. A rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of religious faith, \u003ci\u003eIn the Valley of the Shadow \u003c\/i\u003eis a powerful meditation on humanity's place in the world and life's greatest mystery.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50044739551505,"sku":"GOR009554521","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51424086655249,"sku":"CIN1439130108G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52106110271761,"sku":"CIN1439130108VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1439130108.jpg?v=1751052745"},{"product_id":"in-the-valley-of-the-shadow-book-james-l-kugel-phd-9781439130094","title":"In the Valley of the Shadow","description":"Ten years ago, when Harvard professor James Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer, I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that . . . the background music had suddenly stopped. . . . the music of daily life that's constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities. Now suddenly it was gone, replaced by \u003ci\u003enothing, \u003c\/i\u003ejust silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late-summer sun, with only a few things left to do. Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind; it seemed to reveal something basic about the religions that he had been studying for years. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this wide-ranging exploration of religion throughout the ages, interspersed with personal reflection on the course of his illness, Kugel mines a rich store of sources in an attempt to understand mankind's unending series of encounters with God, from ancient accounts of human meetings with gods and angels, to first-person narratives of religious conversions and the findings of neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists about religious belief. A rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of religious faith, \u003ci\u003eIn the Valley of the Shadow \u003c\/i\u003eis a powerful meditation on humanity's place in the world and life's greatest mystery.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50096528621841,"sku":"CIN1439130094G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50330249986321,"sku":"CIN1439130094VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52816437575953,"sku":"CIN1439130094A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52842916610321,"sku":"GOR014637405","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52857504694545,"sku":"GOR009554564","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B00509COFU.jpg?v=1751305978"},{"product_id":"kingly-sanctuary-book-james-kugel-9781492802266","title":"The Kingly Sanctuary","description":"After learning the basics of Judaism, graduate student Judd Lewis wanted to learn more. He dropped out of graduate school and enrolled full-time in an Israeli yeshiva. Now four years have passed and Judd is disillusioned. He confronts his former teacher and mentor, a Syrian Jew knowledgeable in Judaism, with a barrage of questions: Why do so many things in the Talmud seem to be just clever arguments? Doesn't anyone care about what is really true? Did Moses really write the Torah? Why doesn't yeshiva study ever face up to the challenges of science, of biblical criticism, and other aspects of the modern world? Most of all, where is the reality of ha-Shem in all this-shouldn't that be the whole point of studying? Their dialogue, sometimes angry, sometimes humorous, ultimately touches on the most basic issues in Judaism, as Judd and his mentor each strive to convince the other of their very different views. This is a book for a wide audience: yeshiva students and yeshiva dropouts, the pious and the not-so-pious, and any reader eager to sit in on a seminar in Advanced Judaism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50377878602001,"sku":"CIN1492802263G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52607637225745,"sku":"CIN1492802263VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52749090914577,"sku":"NIN9781492802266","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1492802263.jpg?v=1751404977"},{"product_id":"assemblyman-book-james-kugel-9781516991914","title":"The Assemblyman","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51209519956241,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51209521398033,"sku":"NIN9781516991914","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1516991915.jpg?v=1750860750"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-james-kugel.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}