Christianity and the roots of morality : philosophical, early Christian and empirical perspectives /
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What is the role of religion, especially Christianity, in morality, pro-social behavior and altruism? Are there innate human moral capacities in the human mind? When and how did they appear in the history of evolution? What is the real significance of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount - does it set up unique moral standards or only crystallize humans' innate moral intuitions? What is the role of religious teachings and religious communities in pro-social behavior? Christianity and the Roots of Morality: Philosophical, Early Christian, and Empirical Perspectives casts light on these questions through interdisciplinary articles by scholars from social sciences, cognitive science, social psychology, sociology of religion, philosophy, systematic theology, comparative religion and biblical studies. Contributors include: Nancy T. Ammerman, István Czachesz, Grace Davie, Jutta Jokiranta, Simo Knuuttila, Kristen Monroe, Mika Ojakangas, Sami Pihlström, Antti Raunio, Heikki Räisänen (✝), Risto Saarinen, Kari Syreeni, Lauri Thurén, Petri Ylikoski.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004343535 :
1877-8542 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
"Go out and study the land" (Judges 18:2) : archaeological, historical and textual studies in honor of Hanan Eshel /
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Hanan Eshel (z\'l) was a prolific scholar in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls, Classical Archaeology of the Near East and many other topics. During his terminal illness, friends and colleagues got together to present him with a collection of studies on topics that were close to his fields of interest, as an expression of deep friendship and admiration. The volume contains the 22 papers presented to Hanan before his death, covering topics in archaeology, history, and textual studies, with a particular emphasis on aspects relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls, spanning the late Iron Age through late Antiquity.
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1 online resource (xxxv, 455 pages) : illustrations (some color), map, color portrait. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004214132 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Carlo Passaglia on Church and Virgin : New Perspectives in Systematic Theology in Light of Nineteenth Century Catholic Renewal /
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In Carlo Passaglia on Church and Virgin, Valfredo Maria Rossi traces the significant contribution that Carlo Passaglia (1812-1887) has made to Catholic theology, paying particular attention to his Trinitarian ecclesiology and Mariology. Though highly neglected due to his troubled life, Passaglia is one of the most brilliant theologians of the nineteenth century. Commonly - and yet erroneously - ascribed to the Neo-Scholastic movement, he anticipates and so emerges as a forerunner of several themes which will be developed during the Second Vatican Council. In light of Passaglia's two most relevant theological works ( De Ecclesia Christi and De Immaculato Deiparae semper Virginis Conceptu ), Rossi convincingly shows the originality of Passaglia's theology, based on a patristic ressourcement highlighting its historical salvific and sacramental dimension.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004432512
9789004426849
Regimes of comparatism : frameworks of comparison in history, religion and anthropology /
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Historically, all societies have used comparison to analyze cultural difference through the interaction of religion, power, and translation. When comparison is a self-reflective practice, it can be seen as a form of comparatism. Many scholars are concerned in one way or another with the practice and methods of comparison, and the need for a cognitively robust relativism is an integral part of a mature historical self-placement. This volume looks at how different theories and practices of writing and interpretation have developed at different times in different cultures and reconsiders the specificities of modern comparative approaches within a variety of comparative moments. The idea is to reconsider the specificities, the obstacles, and the possibilities of modern comparative approaches in history and anthropology through a variety of earlier and parallel comparative horizons. Particular attention is given to the exceptional role of Athens and Jerusalem in shaping the Western understanding of cultural difference.
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1 online resource. :
9789004387638
Second Corinthians in the perspective of late second temple Judaism /
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In the framework of a larger research project into 'New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews', eight scholars from Europe, Israel, and North America join forces in querying Paul's relationship to Jews and Judaism. The sample text selected for this inquiry is the Second Letter to the Corinthians, a document particularly suited for this purpose as it reflects violent clashes between Paul and rivalling Jews and Jewish Christians. While the first three articles address more general literary and historical questions, the following five present in-depth case studies of much-studied passages from the letter and the underlying issues. An introductory essay queries how in the case at hand we can gain an adequate understanding of Paul's theology while fully respecting his particular place in Judaism.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004271661 :
1877-4970 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Prayer in Josephus /
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This book is an analysis of prayer in the works of Flavius Josephus. The author discusses both Josephus' views on prayer and his use of prayers within the narrative context. The first part of the book therefore deals with the two passages that Josephus himself wrote on prayer. The second part represents a detailed analysis of 32 prayers selected (mainly) from Antiquitates Judaicae , as to content, context and relation to their source text (if any), revealing the variety of narrative and theological functions that they fulfil. The study also indicates the significance of Josephus' use of terminology derived from the Graeco-Roman world. New light is thus shed on Josephus' historiographic method as well as on his view of God.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [291]-296) and indexes. :
9789047419617 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Esoteric teaching in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria /
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The Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215 CE) has received much scholarly debate over whether it can be accorded the role of the third and highest phase of his pedagogy. This was a treatise that promised an account of the true philosophy of Christ set down for Christians seeking higher knowledge of doctrine. This book takes a new approach to deciphering the nature and purpose of these enigmatic books concentrating on the close relationship between method and doctrine, and the number and sequence of the texts as they have come down to us. The outcome is a concise summary of current scholarship on Clement's method and a fresh picture of how he applies it to the transmission of esoteric doctrines.
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1 online resource (xviii, 233 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-228) and index. :
9789047428282 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
'Incidental' ethnographers : French Catholic missions on the Tonkin-Yunnan frontier, 1880-1930 /
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This book, connecting the fields of social anthropology and missiology, presents a body of colonial ethnographic writing applied to highland societies in the southern portion of the Mainland Southeast Asian massif. The writers under scrutiny are Catholic priests from the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris. Their texts from the Upper-Tonkin vicariate, in today's northern Vietnam, are paid special attention, notably through its major contributor, F.M. Savina. The author locates this ethnographic heritage against its historical, political and intellectual background. A comparison is conducted with French missionaries-cum-ethnographers who worked among the 'natives' in New France (Canada) in the 17th century, yielding the unexpected conclusion that practically nothing from this early period of experimentation was remembered.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-246) and index. :
9789047420217 :
0924-9389 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Arabic life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis : cultural memory reinterpreted /
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In The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis , Elizabeth Agaiby demonstrates how the redacted Life of Antony , the "Father of all monks and star of the wilderness", gained widespread acceptance within Egypt shortly after its composition in the 13th century and dominated Coptic liturgical texts on Antony for over 600 years - the influence of which is still felt up to the present day. By providing a first edition and translation, Agaiby demonstrates how the Arabic Life bears witness to the reinterpretation of the religious memory of Antony in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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"This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis, 'Whoever Writes Your Life-story I will Write His Name in the Book of Life.' The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis in Manuscripts of the Red Sea Monasteries"-- Author's acknowledgments. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004383272 :
2213-0039 ;
The Catechumenate in Late Antique Africa (4th -6th centuries) : Augustine of Hippo, his Contemporaries and Early Reception /
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In The Catechumenate in Late Antique Africa (4th-6th centuries) Matthieu Pignot explores how individuals became Christian in ancient North Africa. Before baptism, converts first became catechumens and spent a significant time of gradual integration into the community through rituals and teaching. This book provides the first historical study of this process in African sources, from Augustine of Hippo, to canon of councils, anonymous sermons and 6th-century letters. Pignot shows that practices varied more than is generally assumed and that catechumens, because of their liminal position, were a disputed and essential group in the development of Christian communities until the 6th century at least. This book demonstrates that the catechumenate is key to understanding the processes of Christianisation and conversion in the West.
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Revised and expanded version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Oxford, 2016. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004431904
9789004431898
Hidden intercourse : eros and sexuality in the history of Western esotericism /
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From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047443582 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reading and re-reading Scripture at Qumran /
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In Reading and Re-reading Scripture at Qumran , Moshe J. Bernstein gathers more than three decades of his work on diverse aspects of biblical interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The essays range from broad surveys of the genres of biblical interpretation in these texts to more narrowly focused studies and close readings of specific documents. Volume I focuses on the book of Genesis, with a substantial portion being dedicated to studies of the Genesis Apocryphon and Commentary on Genesis A. Volume II contains several historical and programmatic essays, with specific studies focusing on legal material in the DSS and the pesharim. Under the former rubric, the documents known as 4QReworked Pentateuch, 4QOrdinancesa, 4QMMT, and the Temple Scroll are discussed.
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"These volumes contain thirty essays, written over the last thirty-three years (with the very large majority over the last two decades), focusing on or touching upon a variety of the ways that Scripture (what became what we have come to call the Hebrew Bible or TeNaKh) was read, interpreted, and employed at Qumran. All have been published before, including one essay that appeared in Hebrew originally and makes its first appearance here in English ... They have been edited only lightly"--Volume 1, page xii. :
1 online resource (2 volumes (xx, 744 pages)) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004248076 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The stolen Bible : from tool of imperialism to African icon /
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The Stolen Bible tells the story of how Southern Africans have interacted with the Bible from its arrival in Dutch imperial ships in the mid-1600s through to contemporary post-apartheid South Africa. The Stolen Bible emphasises African agency and distinguishes between African receptions of the Bible and African receptions of missionary-colonial Christianity. Through a series of detailed historical, geographical, and hermeneutical case-studies the book analyses Southern African receptions of the Bible, including the earliest African encounters with the Bible, the translation of the Bible into an African language, the appropriation of the Bible by African Independent Churches, the use of the Bible in the Black liberation struggle, and the ways in which the Bible is embodied in the lives of ordinary Africans.
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1 online resource (x, 626 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 563-594) and index. :
9789004322783 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Preaching after Easter : mid-Pentecost, Ascension, and Pentecost in late antiquity /
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The studies collected in Preaching after Easter examine the festal history and homiletics of Mid-Pentecost, Ascension, and Pentecost in the late antique Mediterranean world. Articles on individual sermons or the work of individual preachers such as John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Chrysologus, Leo the Great, and Severus of Antioch exhibit the richness of late antique festal preaching. Questions of authenticity, heresiology, and theological, exegetical, or liturgical history are addressed with methodological rigor. Complementary contributions that deal with ancient Jewish-Christian dialogue, art-historical reception, and contemporary liturgical theology illustrate the wide ramifications of ancient Christian festal practice. Students and scholars of these feasts and the interpretive traditions devoted to them will find this volume to be an indispensable source of information and analysis.
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"Papers delivered at a conference with the same title held in Leuven in March 2013." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004315549 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The descent of Christ : Ephesians 4:7-11 and traditional Hebrew imagery /
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This volume examines early Jewish and Christian imagery to demonstrate that the most probable interpretation of Christ's descent in Ephesians 4:9-10 refers to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost subsequent to the ascent mentioned in Ephesians 4:8. The central portion of the book deals with the ascent-descent imagery associating Ps. 68:19 with Moses as found in Targum Psalms, the rabbinic literature, and other early sources. The section dealing with rabbinic interpretations of Ps. 68:19 is of particular importance, demonstrating an approach for dating elements found in the later rabbinic tradition. The theological innovation of the author of Ephesians in identifying the ascended Christ as the Spirit who descended at Pentecost is highlighted as the best explanation of this difficult passage.
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1 online resource (xvii, 221 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-215) and indexes. :
9789004332867 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Creation, covenant, and the beginnings of Judaism : reconceiving historical time in the Second Temple period /
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This study examines the relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature. Numerous sources from that period express a belief that Jewish history began with an act of covenant formation and proceeded in linear fashion until the exile, an unprecedented event which severed the present from the past. The authors of Ben Sira, Jubilees , the Animal Apocalypse , and 4 Ezra responded to this theological challenge by claiming instead that Jewish history began at creation. Between creation and redemption, history unfolds as a series of static, repeating patterns that simultaneously account for the disappointments of the Second Temple period and confirm the eternal nature of the covenant. As iterations of timeless, cyclical patterns, the difficult post-exilic present and the glorious redemption of the future emerge as familiar, unremarkable, and inevitable historical developments.
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1 online resource (xii, 216 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-208) and index. :
9789004281653 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Manières de penser dans l'antiquité mediterranéenne et orientale : mélanges offerts à Francis Schmidt par ses élèves, ses collègues et ses amis /
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Francis Schmidt's works in various fields of religious studies (mainly ancient Judaism), can be characterized by three words: historiography, anthropological history, and comparatism. In that respect he placed himself in the continuation of previous French scholars, such as Maurice Halbwachs or Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Francis Schmidt also played an essential role in transmitting to a new generation of scholars the complex issues and debates concerning the Dead Sea scrolls and Qumranic research. The papers offered in this volume share all the same interest in ancient religions and the methodological devices previously mentioned. They offer a rare example of a large comparatism between Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian approaches of some essential social or intellectual issues, by some of the most competent specialists in each field.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047428633 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.