John Bowker

John Bowker is a prize-winning author who was formerly Professor of religious Studies at the University of Lancaster, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor at Gresham College, London. He has been Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at North Carolina State University. He is the editor of The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, and author of What Muslims Believe, God — A Brief History, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Religions, The Sacred Neuron, Beliefs that Changed the World: The History and Ideas of the Great Religions and The Meanings of Death, which won the HarperCollins Book Prize. He lives with his wife in Cambridge.

Author of:

Also by John Bowker:

  • The Targums and Rabbinic Literature: an Introduction to Jewish Interpretations of Scripture, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 1969 (2nd edn. 1979).
  • Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 1970 (2nd edn., 1975; 3rd edn., 1990).
  • Jesus and the Pharisees, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 1973.
  • Uncle Bolpenny Tries Things Out, London (Faber and Faber), 1973.
  • The Sense of God: Sociological, Anthropological and Psychological Approaches to the Origin of the Sense of God, Oxford (Oxford University Press), 1973; 2nd edn., with new Introduction, Oxford (One World), 1995.
  • The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God, Oxford (Oxford University Press), 1978.
  • Worlds of Faith: Religious Belief and Practice in Britain Today, London (Ariel Press), 1983.
  • Ed. with Introduction, The Origins, Functions and Management of Aggression in Biocultural Evolution, Zygon, Florida (Winter Park), 1983.
  • Licensed Insanities? Religions and Belief in God in the Contemporary World, London (DLT), 1987; US edn. Is Anybody Out There?, Westminster (Christian Classics), 1988.
  • The Meanings of Death, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 1991 (awarded the biennial Harper-Collins Prize for the best book in the academic section).
  • A Year to Live, London (SPCK), 1991.
  • Hallowed Ground: Religions and the Poetry of Place, London (SPCK), 1993.
  • Joint editor (with Jean Holm), Themes in Religious Studies (10 volumes on different themes), London (Pinter), 1994.
  • Is God a Virus? Genes, Culture and Religion, London (SPCK), 1995.
  • Voices of Islam, Oxford (One World), 1995.
  • What Muslims Believe, Oxford (One World), 1998.
  • ‘A’ For Ethics: An Alphabet of Action, Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), 1996.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Oxford (Oxford University Press), 1997 (2nd revised edn., 1999).
  • World Religions, London (Dorling Kindersley), 1997 (2nd revised edn., 2003).
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Religions, Oxford (Oxford University Press), 2000.
  • The Complete Bible Handbook, London (Dorling Kindersley), 1998 (Benjamin Franklin Award, 1999).
  • The Cambridge Illustrated History of Religions, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 2002.
  • God: A Brief History, New York (Dorling Kindersley), 2002.
  • The Sacred Neuron, London (I.B. Tauris), 2005.
  • Beliefs That Changed the World, London (Quercus), 2007.
  • Aerial Atlas of The Holy Land: Discover the Great Sites of History from the Air, London (Mitchell Beazley), 2008.
  • Knowing the Unknowable: Science and Religions on God and the Universe, London (I.B. Tauris), 2008.