True to the original Professor Parinder manages to keep his translation in verse. This adds to the beauty of the text.

Even if you have another version of the bookI highly recommend this addition. Wonderful.

When I first picked up this purple book called "Sex in the World's Religions" for twenty-five cents at a used book sale, I anticipated four things:

1. A long, and vastly incorrect, discourse on how the People of the East are all sexual libertines and how the West, corrupted by Christianity, needs to catch up and return to its pre-Christian fornicating glory.

2. A lengthy description of Kabbalic mysticism as an incorrect representation of how most Jews view sexual behavior.

3. A petty chapter on Islam that goes into Rumi and little else.

4. Silly-looking prurient illustrations of Egyptian gods and goddesses engaged in various copulative acts.

What I found was just the opposite: a good, well-researched, complete, and far-from-prurient description of how every major world religion addresses the issue of sex. The descriptions of Hindu and Buddhist sexual ethos are (near as I can tell) completely on-target, there is virtually no Christianity-bashing, and the Kabbalah is relegated to the last four pages of a lengthy and enlightening chapter on Judaism.

On the other hand, this little book is far from dull -- not for the reasons you might expect, but because Parrinder writes with a breezy "I'm just writing this" style that makes this very solid work of scholarship into an equally solid example of cheery bedtime reading. Highly recommended.

As morality is widely understood as sexual practices in various religions, this work provides the reader with a successful insight into the views of different religions throughout the world.

The writer doesnot use a rival approach, he tries to make the reader understand the reason behind certain practices and therefore the reader can use this book to widen his scope of the world cultures and as a stepping stone to a more detailed reading in the subject.

As you read you come to understand that sexual practices incorporated in religious rules arise generally from the need to reproduce and to protect the child in a world full of hazards for the weak. You also understand that regarding the woman as inferior is a practice deeply rooted in the world's cultures through centuries, and that the enlightenment of today may only be an initial step for women in a struggle to be regarded as equals.

I highly recommend this book to people curious about what is going on in the world, and why.

Edward Geoffrey Parrinder studies the religious thought and practice of various West African peoples, especially of Ghana and Nigeria. Parrinder qualifies West African polytheism by noting the concept of a single principal deity. This spirit, however, is considered remote. This deity is not usually approached directly. Instead, prayers and offerings are directed to lesser though powerful spirits.

The ghosts of ancestors whose names are remembered are also venerated. Gifts of food, and other signs of respect, honor the place the recently-deceased continue to hold in the family and society.

The practices of fortunetellers and diviners are also discussed. The religious practices of various devotional centers, called houses of a god, feature the ritual death and rebirth of devotees. Throughout West Africa, spiritual vocation means becoming a new person. Scarification and learning a new language are often part of starting a new spiritual life.

The concepts and practices considered by Parrinder offer fascinating insights into West African theology. A good companion work would be Parrinder's excellent West African Psychology. Dominique Zahan's The Religion, Spirituality and Thought of Traditional Africa is also an excellent study. The perspectives are different; for example, Zahan mainly considers ethnic groups in French-speaking Africa, whereas Parrinder concentrates on English-speaking areas of West Africa.

It's commendable that Parrinder's approach is to reconcile the understanding of Jesus in the context of the Muslim and Christian community.

However, his book contains several errors, presumably as his opinions were based predominantly on the interpretation of the Qur'an by non-native Arabic speaking persons. Certain conclusions made, especially with regards to Muhammad, Jesus and the Christian doctrine of the holy trinity as set out in the Qur'an, were ill researched and factually incorrect.

I would recommend readers to practice caution in reading this book and making conclusions based purely on it.

This book is alot more valuable than I had first expected! He juxtaposes exegesis of the Qur'an and the Christian Injil, not to mention Christian apocryphal works. He reviews all aspects of 'Isa, such as his titles and their implications, the virgin birth (whether or not a Muslim and a Christian could deny it on scriptural grounds), and also rationalization of miracles. Theres no intention to argue his personal opinions however, he presents the insights of many Muslim and Christian scholars. Read his work before you assume that Islam denies the reality of the Crucifixion. He exposes this tradition and many others that are alien to the original writings, another one being that Christ was 'no more than a prophet.' The big doctrine he also inevitably discusses is the Christian Trinity and Islamic Oneness of God. However anyone who can study Christianity unbiasedly would already see that the "trinity", atleast as understood by believers today, was a later Church invention. But he leaves with the message of Muslims and Christians reading each other's holy books and comprehending one another. Jesus in the Qur'an is a step closer to reconciling them. The book is similar to the way in which alleged biblical contradictions are reconciled, though its done with two separate holy books. A process that is not very essential to the religion of most people, though personally to me a very necessary one.

This is a very perceptive and penetrating re-look at the man Jesus, his role, titles and special place not just in the Bible but also in the Quran. The writer is no mean scholar but one whose credentials span the production of many scholarly works published by well-respected and established publishing houses and studied,accepted and endorsed both by campuses across the Globe as well as post-graduate researchers doing critical religious studies. Just because he may be a Christian does not disqualify him from re-appraising the deformed image and role of Jesus Christ painted of him in the Quran. Incidentally the Quran itself is not free from some serious factual errors linguistically as well as historically, and has borrowed a number of non-native Arabic words and terminology from several other foreign languages and has tried to utilise those words for itself.eg.Injil, jahannam, al-Masih,Iblis to name just a few(borrowed from Greek and Hebrew). The previous commenter claims so-called 'serious errors' but provides no proof or evidence to support such accusations towards this well researched piece of work (among Parrinder's many others). I would dare say that some of Parrinder's conclusions here does expose the shallow interpretation-or rather mis-interpretation that traditional Islam has regularly made upon the person of Jesus Christ and so challenges his stand by calling the previous commenter's views into question and has thus evoked his/her defensive reaction. This book deserves more than five stars for both the author's effort in addressing this subject as well as the scholarly contents it contains!

The African continent of course is huge, and therefore it is not surprising that the number of ideas, works of art, and customs is overwhelming and would take any one person many decades to sort through. This book gives a brief sampling of these, with particular attention paid to the lands south of the Sahara desert. The author concentrates his attention on this part of Africa, for he reasons that it is this part that was shielded from European and Middle Eastern influence, due to the difficulty of crossing the Sahara. The reader learns of the Bushman, who were at the Cape of Good Hope when the first Europeans arrived, the Pygmies, and the Hamites, the latter being the group most strongly influenced by Islamic and Arabic traditions. It is primarily the Negro population of this geographical region though that the author concentrates on in the book.

As the author points out, one troubling feature of African mythology is that they did not usually write anything down, but instead passed on their stories orally. The author blames this lack of written word on the geographical isolation that discouraged its spread. But he also points out that the absence of writing was also a characteristic of ancient American civilizations and the ancient Britons and Teutons. The author therefore relies on the research and recordings of modern African scholars who painstakingly wrote down the stories told them by the various peoples.

A culture of course needs more than just verbalization to express its ideas and moods. To capture and sustain an idea in time without writing, one can use art, particularly in paintings and sculpture. The author argues that African art is deliberately expressive and was employed to symbolize the life in every aspect. Interestingly, the author holds that African proverbs and myths expressed joy in life and human activity. Calling it a 'world-affirming' philosophy, in which life on earth is thought of as good, despite human suffering. The Africans were surely correct about this. Absolutely for sure.

The reader will also learn that nearly all African peoples believe in a supreme being, who created all things. Some of the names of this being include Mulungu in East Africa, Leza in central Africa, and Nyambe in the west. And the author points out, interestingly, that very few temples were built to the "supreme" god, while places of worship were built for the lesser deities and ancestors. "God is too great to be contained in a house" say the Africans. Also interesting is that the Africans did not have a god of Sun, for such a god was not needed: there is plenty of sun in Africa. In some African myths, god created the earth in four days, a fifth day being reserved for worship. God also created a mountain with the power of speech, so as to allow the people to hear the divine voice and laws. Dreaming was considered a gift from God, and it functioned as a sequence of messages from God. But witchcraft was believed in also, with women again being the chief practioners.

Man was not the first to create fire, say some Pygmy legends. Rather, it was chimpanzees who first possessed it, and a Pygmy stumbled across their fire accidently and wearing a long bark-cloth, caught it on fire and ran for home. Thus the origin of fire for man.

The god of some African myths used to live on Earth, but left due to some human fault. Others speak of a Golden Age, in which god left willingly. God leaves paradise, and not the humans, for some of the African legends. Also, death was not considered natural in some African myths. It got its start from a dog or a chameleon. The author gives several other fascinating accounts of the African conception of death, including a story very similar to Pandora's Box. Curiosity in many cultures is considered the origin of all evil and suffering, unfortunately.

The authoritative, G. Parrinder has done his homework - yet again. In this book he explores the divinity that underlies all spiritual teachings. His leanings are clearly to the East as is exemplified by his observations of Christianity. Very succinct but lacks the emotional realism of the recent "The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years" by Richard G. Patton. Where Patton vividly depicts the sacred through the eyes of one of the world's greatest spiritual leaders, Parrinder merely shows the Avatars against their religious background. If you delight in history, Parrinder has delivered an exemplary book. If you want to feel that you are actually in the presence of the Divine, I would suggest looking at Patton's book. Every book by Parrinder is worth reading, since he does unearth nuggets of information that standard academics seem to miss.