Otherworldly and eschatological priesthood in the Dead Sea scrolls /
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Departing from scholarship dedicated to the socio-historical realities of priesthood at Qumran, this book explores, in two parts, the most pervasive literary representations of priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls as a reflection of the religious worldview of the Qumran community and broader segments of Second Temple society. Part one compares depictions of otherworldly priesthood in non-sectarian and sectarian documents. Part two examines the historical and traditional roots of portrayals of messianic/eschatological priesthood. The study reveals a fresh understanding of the integral role of priestly imagery in the tension-filled eschatological identity of the Qumran community. It concludes with a consideration of the relationship of the evidence treated to the phenomenon of democratization of priestly holinesses in rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.
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Revised version of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 2008. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-350) and indexes. :
9789004181465 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion und arkane Hierarchie : der Orden der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer als geheime Kirche im 18. Jahrhundert /
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This volume examines the history of the 18th-Century secret order of the Golden Rosicrucians (Gold- und Rosenkreuzer), one of the most mysterious, exclusive and successful Masonic societies in the German speaking countries of that time. The order and its esoteric roots have so far never been examined on the basis of original documents. The formation and development, the hierarchical structure, leading figures such as princes and ministers, and the system of degrees and secret teachings are explored in-depth and interpreted applying recent and innovative concepts of the Study of Western Esotericism.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-356) and index. :
9789047419518 :
1871-1405 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jenseitshoffnung in Wort und Stein : Nefesch und pyramidales Grabmal als Phänomene antiken jüdischen Bestattungswesens im Kontext der Nachbarkulturen /
: 1 online resource. : Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-318) and index. : 9789047412939 : 0169-734X ; : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary : a Ancient Mesopotamian Commentaries on a Handbook of Medical Diagnosis (Sa-gig) /
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Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary is intended for historians of medicine and interpretation, and explores the dynamic between scholastic rhetoric and medical knowledge in ancient commentaries on a Mesopotamian Diagnostic Handbook. In line with commentators' self-fashioning as experts of diverse disciplines, commentaries display intertextuality involving a variety of lexical, astronomical, religious, magic, and literary compositions, while employing patterns of argumentation that resist categorization within any single branch of knowledge. Commentators' choices of topics and comments, however, sought to harmonize atypical language and ideas in the Handbook with conventional ways of perceiving and describing the sick body in therapeutic recipes. Scholastic rhetoric-supposedly unfettered to any discipline-served in fact as a pretext for affirming current forms of medical knowledge.
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1 online resource :
9789004417533
Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity /
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In Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity , Matthew V. Novenson brings together thirteen state-of-the-art essays by leading scholars on the various ways ancient Jewish, Christian, and classical writers conceive of God, Christ, Wisdom, the demiurge, angels, foreign gods, and other divine beings. In particular, the book revisits the "early high Christology" debates of the 1990s, identifying the lasting contributions thereof as well as the lingering difficulties and new, emerging questions from the last thirty years of research. The essays in this book probe the much-touted but under-theorized distinctions between monotheism and polytheism, Judaism and Hellenism, Christianity and paganism. They show how what we call monotheism and Christology fit within the Greco-Roman world of which they are part.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004438088
9789004437975
Claiming Knowledge, Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age.
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This volume deals with the transformation of religious creativity in the late modern West. Its point of departure is a set of esoteric beliefs, from Theosophy to the New Age. It shows how these traditions have adapted to the cultural givens of each successive epoch. The claims of each movement have been buttressed by drawing on various structural characteristics of late modernity. The advance of science has resulted in attempts to claim scientific status for religious beliefs. Globalization has given rise to massive loans from other cultures, but also to various strategies to radically reinterpret foreign elements. Individualism has led to an increasing reliance on experience as a source of legitimacy. The analytical tools applied to understanding religious modernization shed light on changes that are fundamentally reshaping many religious traditions. This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource. :
9789047403371
Psalm 91 and Demonic Menace /
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In Psalm 91 and Demonic Menace Gerrit Vreugdenhil offers a thorough analysis of the text, structure and genre of Psalm 91. Already in its earliest interpretations, Psalm 91 has been associated with the demonic realm. The use of this psalm on ancient amulets and in magic texts calls for an explanation. Examining the psalms images of threat from a cognitive science perspective, Vreugdenhil shows that many of these terms carry associations with sorcery and magic, incantations and curses, diseases and demonic threat. The psalm takes demonic threat seriously, but also draws attention to the protection offered by JHWH. Finally, the author proposes an outline of the situational context in which Psalm 91 might have functioned.
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1 online resource. :
9789004427891
9789004427884
The wisdom of Egypt : Jewish, early Christian, and gnostic essays in honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen /
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This collection of essays gives a vivid impression of Egypt as background and stage of Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic thought and life in antiquity. It demonstrates Egypt's important role in the history, literature and culture of these religions.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 537-547) and indexes. :
9789004331013 :
0169-734X = :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tracing Sapiential traditions in ancient Judaism /
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This volume is intended to problematize and challenge current conceptions of the category of "Wisdom" and to reconsider the scope, breadth and Nachleben of ancient Jewish sapiential traditions. It considers the formal features and conceptual underpinnings of wisdom throughout the corpus of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hellenistic Jewish texts, Rabbinic texts, and the Cairo Geniza. It also situates ancient Jewish Wisdom in its Near Eastern context, as well as in the context of Hellenistic conceptions of the Sage.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004324688 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The high church revival in the Church of England : arguments and identities /
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In The High Church Revival in the Church of England , new insights are opened up into one of the most significant movements of devotional and liturgical revival in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Attending closely to the social history of the movement, as well as to its continental connections and its theological complexity, this research re-evaluates its historiographical legacy in the light of recent research and controversy. Traditional interpretations of High Churchmanship have presented it either as a heroic rediscovery of the real essence of Anglicanism, or as an eccentric distortion of it. This volume asserts instead its theological creativity and its popular roots as a permanent enrichment of the Anglican tradition, whilst also analysing and describing the nature and limits of its growth.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004326804 :
2405-7576 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today.
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Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today is an occasion to critically analyze and reassess the work of this intellectual pioneer. It is also an effort to signal the continuing importance of Durkheim for today's graduate and advanced undergraduate classrooms. Reappraising Durkheim brings together ten new critical essays in which noted sociologists, psychologists, phenomenologists, philosophers, and historians of religion grapple with the questions Durkheim raised and the solutions he proposed. Taken together, the volume is a careful historical and multi-disciplinary study of Durkheim that will lead students to a better understanding of how to study religion. Reappraising Durkheim will be an excellent text for courses focusing on theory and method in the academic study of religion at both the graduate and advanced undergraduate level. It would therefore be appropriate for use in departments of religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.
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1 online resource. :
9789004379152
From Jesus to his first followers : continuity and discontinuity : anthropological and historical perspectives /
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From Jesus to His First Followers examines to what extent early Christian groups were in continuity or discontinuity with respect to Jesus. Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce concentrate on the transformation of religious practices. Their anthropological-historical analysis focuses on the relations between discipleship and households, on the models of contact with the supernatural world, and on cohabitation among distinct religious groups. The book highlights how Matthew uses non-Jewish instruments of legitimation, John reformulates religious experiences through symbolized domestic slavery, Paul adopts a religious practice diffused in Roman-Hellenistic environments. The book reconstructs the map of early Christian groups in the Land of Israel and explains their divergences on the basis of an original theory of the local origin of Gospels' information.
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Compilation of essays originally published by the authors in English, German, or Italian, most previously published at conferences, in journals, or as chapters of other publications. :
1 online resource (vi, 335 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-324) and indexes. :
9789004337664 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Medieval Midrash : the house for inspired innovation /
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Medieval Midrash: The House for Inspired Innovation is the first book-length study of this under-examined genre of Jewish Literature. Mehlman and Limmer cover the history of scholarship of these curious texts and evaluate the origins, dating, and authors of Medieval Midrash. In addition to addressing such scholarly questions, Medieval Midrash illustrates its themes and judgments through the annotated translation of the six extant texts that revolve around the key figure of King Solomon. This book, whose underlying tropes speak to the continuing need for creative religious expression, will be of interest to scholars and non-academics alike.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004331334 :
1571-5000 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mana : a history of a western category /
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In Mana: A History of a Western Category Nicolas Meylan proposes a critical account of Western imaginations of mana, a word belonging originally to Oceanic languages but borrowed by European languages in which it acquired the meaning 'supernatural power.' While mana is best known for its tenure in the disciplines studying religion, Nicolas Meylan situates such academic uses in a wider context, analyzing the ways Westerners conceptualized mana in the earlier colonial context as well as its mobilizations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries by (video)game designers and Neo-Pagan witches. This focus on various Western uses of mana allows for the critical investigation of the ways power has been mystified in conjunction with religion.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004349247 :
2214-3270 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Hebrew poetry from late antiquity : liturgical poems of Yehudah : critical edition with introduction and commentary /
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The discovery of the Genizah manuscipt collection is nothing less than a revolution for the knowledge of Hebrew literature and Jewish culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. One of the main results of one hundred years of Genizah research is the rediscovery of Hebrew liturgical poetry which shed much light on various aspects of Jewish studies. For the last half century it has been almost comonplace to discover new poems, unknown poets, novel uses of poetry and unfamiliar poetic versions of familiar prose texts within liturgical settings being revealed among the manuscripts and manuscript fragments. The products of the composers and reciters of synagogue poetry convincingly demonstrate the importance of poetry in Jewish worship and communal life. The major corpora of Palestinian liturgical poetry bear evidence to the prolific literary activity of a number of famous poets who laid the foundations for the development of Hebrew poetry in later periods: Yossi ben Yossi, Yannai, Simon bar Megas, Elazar birabbi Kilir and Yohanan ha-Kohen. One of these mostly Byzantine-Jewish 'melodists' was Yehudah who composed a cycle of poems in accordance with the reading tradition of the Pentateuch and Prophets on the sabbath. This study presents Yehudah's oeuvre with commentaries and deals with its historical and literary context in four introductory chapters. The edition is complemented by indices and a bibliography.
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1 online resource (xxix, 183 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 180) and index. :
9789004332430 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Pseudo-Basilius, Adversus Eunomium IV-V : Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar /
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This book treats a decisive phase in the theological history of the fourth century AD. When in 360 the 'Arians' Aetius and Eunomius maintained the difference in essences between the Father and the Son and the created nature of the Holy Spirit, the theologians of Nicaean orthodoxy were challenged to develop a theory of the Homousia of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost which paved the way to the Trinitarian doctrinal decisions of the Council of Constantinople in 381. The two books Adversus Eunomium IV-V probably form the first literary reaction to the 'Neo-Arians' and set the tone for the further development of the debate. In the MSS in which they are transmitted they follow on from the three books by Basil of Caesarea against Eunomius, but have been seen since at least the 18th century as pseudepigraphical and were probably composed by Apolinarius of Laodicea. The introduction to the present work discusses questions of authorship, identifies opponents (not only Aetius and Eunomius but also Marcellus of Ankyra), demonstrates the hitherto often questioned integrity of the tract and establishes the date of composition of Book IV as 360 and of Book V as 362/3. It also makes particularly clear the influence of contemporary philosophy. The translation follows the improved Migne text of 1886, while the commentary elucidates the often difficult content and prepares the way for further research on the interweaving of the threads of theological debate in the second half of the fourth century.
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Variously attributed to Basil of Caesarea, Didymus of Alexandria, or Apollinaris of Laodicea. :
1 online resource (234 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-215) and index. :
9789004312821 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The praised and the virgin /
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In The Praised and the Virgin , Rusmir Mahmutćehajić provides an extended theologically and philosophically informed meditation on relations between the Muslim and Christian traditions, through the persons of Muhammad (the Praised) and Mary (the Virgin), as complementary bearers of God's Word. He traces their presence in the extended encounter of the Abrahamic traditions that is Bosnia's past and present, demonstrating how these traditions inform each other, while simultaneously preserving their difference and uniqueness. He lays fundamental groundwork for a more authentic dialogue, based on identity and difference in history under God, that is also a critique of inhumane ideologies and a modernity that has forsaken God and Man, again as reflected in the historical experiences of the Bosnian people.
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1 online resource (xxxix, 848 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004279407 :
2210-481X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mission station Christianity : Norwegian missionaries in colonial Natal and Zululand, Southern Africa 1850-1890 /
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In Mission Station Christianity , Ingie Hovland presents an anthropological history of the ideas and practices that evolved among Norwegian missionaries in nineteenth-century colonial Natal and Zululand (Southern Africa). She examines how their mission station spaces influenced their daily Christianity, and vice versa, drawing on the anthropology of Christianity. Words and objects, missionary bodies, problematic converts, and the utopian imagination are discussed, as well as how the Zulus made use of (and ignored) the stations. The majority of the Norwegian missionaries had become theological cheerleaders of British colonialism by the 1880s, and Ingie Hovland argues that this was made possible by the everyday patterns of Christianity they had set up and become familiar with on the mission stations since the 1850s.
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1 online resource (xii, 263 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004257405 :
0924-9389 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Living under the sun : examination of Proverbs and Qoheleth /
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The difficulties that biblical wisdom literature poses to the theologian are caused not only by its distinctiveness from other biblical traditions, but also by the internal tensions within it. The present book seeks to explore the nature and causes of these tensions. The study carries out comprehensive comparison of the worldviews represented by Proverbs and Qoheleth, and the worlds that these reflect, looking at the aims and methods of their quest, their epistemologies, theological and cosmological perspectives, and their anthropological and social views. The conclusion of the enquiry throws new light on the dynamics of the tension between thewe two books, questioning whether standard methods of Old Testament theology can do justice to the wisdom tradition, and at the same time, opening the door for new theological approaches to be devised.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-246) and indexes. :
9789004276161 :
0083-5889 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.