Author Description

What are the relevant conceptualities and terminologies marking the coupling of religion and medical interpretations of illness in different religions such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity? How do religious orientations influence courses of a disease? How do experiences of illness change images of the divine in late modernity? This collection of essays from a symposium held at the International Research Institute of the University of Heidelberg examines connections between religious and medical interpretations of illness in different cultures in order to suggest criteria for coupling religion and medicine in ways that enhance rather than diminish life. By discerning which relationships between religion and medicine appear to be beneficial and which harmful, the book as a whole proposes criteria that are not limited to a single scientific approach, cultural tradition, or time period (such as the present). The book has four parts, which deal with Islamic medicine, Chinese medicine, and therelationship between religion and medicine in both Jewish and Christiantraditions. All chapters cover from antiquity to the present. ""Finally a cross-disciplinary scholarly compendium on religion and illness in a breathtakingly rich selection of texts, contexts, and topics. Invaluable as a resource for all interested in a more integrative approach towards medicine at the intersection of health and the holy, body and spirit, healing and theology."" --Brigitte Kahl, Professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary (New York) ""Illness is a pressing topic of today--and of the past, too. This book gives valuable insights into different religions and their ways of interpreting and coping with illness. The contributors write in a hermeneutic, reflecting, and transdisciplinary way, so they research understandings of illness transcending the limits of the scientific worldview."" --Christian Grethlein, Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Munster ""Weissenrieder a