Legions of Faiths, Girded for Battle

Norton’s Latest Anthology Explores World Religion



By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
NOV. 2, 2014

Jack Miles has undertaken no less ambitious a project than writing a “biography” of God, winning a Pulitzer Prize in the bargain.

But when the publisher W. W. Norton & Company approached him nine years ago about serving as general editor of its inaugural edition of “The Norton Anthology of World Religions,” Mr. Miles, a former Jesuit seminarian, balked. While the timing seemed right, given the continuing post-Sept. 11 hunger for interreligious understanding, the task was dauntingly huge.

“I didn’t think I knew enough,” Mr. Miles, a professor of English and religious studies at the University of California, Irvine, recalled recently.

Still, he was persuaded, and now the anthology — featuring some 4,200 pages of texts spanning roughly 3,500 years — is here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/arts/nortons-latest-anthology-explores-world-religion.html