The Fall of the Angels /
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The fall of the angels is one of the biblical narratives which, above all in the history of the bible's reception, have developed an extraordinary effect: In the biblical canon they appear just as hints (Gen. 6; Isaiah 14; Apocalypse 12). Little concern for the text as well as a tradition and reception not covered by the canon makes the narrative grow and change considerably, as well as freely negotiate in the popular media of iconography, liturgy and theatre. As a completed narrative the fall of the angels appears only in the literature of the apocalyptic movement. The so-called Henoch tradition provides revelations about the cosmos and the secrets of Heaven and Earth. Through this mystery our present world is coded as a battle between good and evil.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404330
9789004126688
Violence, scripture, and textual practice in early Judaism and Christianity /
: Proceedings of a conference held Oct. 6-8, 2007 at the University of Minnesota. : 1 online resource. : Includes bibliographical references and indexes. : 9789047444787 : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The quest for a common humanity human dignity and otherness in the religious traditions of the Mediterranean /
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The worldview that all human beings belong to one big family has, in the history of religions, never been taken for granted. Moreover, human rights are a modern notion that should not be projected back onto the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. However, from the Hellenistic period onwards one encounters the idea of human duties towards not only parents, neighbours and fellow citizens but to all human beings. This volume explores the development of this idea from Antiquity to the present time focussing on the \'other\' as \'neighbour, enemy, and infidel\', on the interpretation of the Biblical story of Abraham´s sacrifice and on ancient and modern ethical and legal implications of the concept of human dignity.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004211124
Sight and blindness in Luke-Acts : the use of physical features in characterization /
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The ancient world often thought in terms of physiognomics-the idea that character can be discerned by studying outward, physical features. That physical descriptions carry moral freight in characterization has been largely missed in modern biblical scholarship, and this study brings that to the forefront. Specifically, this is a study of one particular physical marker-blindness. When we look at Greco-Roman literature, a kind of literary topos begins to emerge, a set of assumptions that ancient audiences would typically make when encountering blind characters. Luke-Acts makes use of such a topos in a way that becomes programmatic, serving as a kind of interpretive key to Luke-Acts that is generally unnoticed in modern scholarship.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047432968 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The European image of God and man : a contribution to the debate on human rights /
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The present volumes unites papers which explore the European image of god and man as the unquestioned basis of the concept which determines what western society defines as human rights and puts it in an intercultural context by comparative essays on chinese, islamic and buddhist thinking. The volume covers issues which range from classical antiquity until contemporary philosophy and science.
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Proceedings of a conference held in July 2009 at the Accademia di studi italodeschi, Meran, Italy. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004193789 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Grace and the Will According to Augustine.
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The doctrine on grace, one of the most discussed themes in his later years, was regarded by Augustine as the very core of Christianity. This book traces the gradual crystallisation of this teaching, including its unacceptable consequences (such as double predestination, inherited guilt which deserves eternal punishment, and its transmission through libidinous procreation). How did the reader of Cicero and "the books of the Platonists" reach the ideas that appear in his polemic against Julian (and which remind one of Freud rather than the Stoics or Plotinus)? That is the point of departure of this book. It surely cannot be expected that there is a definite answer to the question; rather, the aim is to follow and understand the development.
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Part Three: Introduction. :
1 online resource (442 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-378) and indexes. :
9789004229211 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Evil--freedom--and the road to perfection in Clement of Alexandria /
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This study deals with Clement of Alexandria's interpretation of evil and free will in the context of the rising Christianity, the influence of Near Eastern and Greek thought on him, his differences from St. Augustine, and how his interpretation affected the rise of the Eastern Christian thought. The book also treats briefly the subject of man's personal aim in life perceived by Clement as the supersession of his nature. Failure to realize this personal aim in life leads to alienation from God, and death. The moral dilemma of Clement's interpretation of evil as failure of life's aim is not a conventional explanation of good and evil but something much more: the option between real life and death. Consequently, Clement's idea of evil refers to existential problems and ontological realities.
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1 online resource (xii, 192 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-186) and index. :
9789004313101 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Origen : cosmology and ontology of time /
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Origen's Cosmology and Ontology of Time constitute a major catalyst and a massive transformation in the development of Christian doctrine. The author challenges the widespread impression about this theology being bowled head over heels by its encounter with Platonism, Gnosticism, or Neoplatonism, and casts new light on Origen's grasp of the relation between Hellenism, Hebrew thought and Christianity. Against all ancient and modern accounts, the ingrained claim that Origen sustained the theory of a beginningless world is disconfirmed. He is argued to be the anticipator and forerunner of critical notions, with his innovations never having been superseded. While some of the accounts afforded by subsequent Christian writers were more extended, they were not fuller. Of them, Augustine just fell short of even accurately echoing this Theory of Time, since he introduced affinity with Platonism at points where Origen had instituted a radical dissimilarity. With his background fruitfully brought into the study of these questions, Origen's propositions are genuine innovations, not mere advances, however massive.
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1 online resource (xiii, 417 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 377-392) and indexes. :
9789047417637 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Intellectus gratiae : die erkenntnistheoretische und hermeneutische Dimension der Gnadenlehre Augustins von Hippo /
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This is the first large scale study on the link between the concepts of intellect and grace in the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo. Its five chapters deal with Augustine's writings on grace as they focus on questions concerning epistemology and hermeneutics. Already non-Christian ancient philosophers identified intellectual perfection with salvation as caused by divine grace. Under their influence (I) Augustine developed also his biblical thought (II). The culmination of his concept of intellectus gratiae , however, came in the later works on sacraments (III), hermeneutics (IV) and against Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum (V). This study highlights that development and recommends the concept of intellectus gratiae as a possible key to Augustine's theological thought as a whole.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis--Regensburg, 1996. :
1 online resource (xii, 501 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 427-466) and indexes. :
9789004313057 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Revelation, truth, canon, and interpretation : studies in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho /
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This volume treats the concepts of revelation, truth, canon, and interpretation as four pillars of early Christian theology. Using Justin Martyr as a case-study, his \'Dialogue with Trypho\' is examined with a view toward discerning how a second century Christian father understands and develops these concepts. Justin's intellectual background is discussed within the nuanced context of Middle Platonism. Particular attention is paid to his use of biblical sources which is grounded in the foundational chapter on revelation in Justin. Justin is placed within the wider context of theological developments in pre-Nicene Christianity, and includes a warning against judging Justin by anachronistic post-Nicene developments.
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1 online resource (xv, 311 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004313293 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Russian-Orthodox Tradition and Modernity /
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The book attempts to identify the uniqueness of the Russian-Orthodox religious tradition and to contrast it with two of the characteristics of modern Western society: its particular economic ethics and individualism. Max Weber and Louis Dumont provide the theoretical framework. The first part of the analysis is concerned with the economic ethics among Orthodox Russians, Old Believers and the adherents of various sects in the historical context of Russian society. The second part centres on the place and the kind of individualism in the Orthodox tradition since its beginnings in early monasticism and up to the twentieth century. The comparative perspective does not only shed new light on Russia but also on the development of Western individualism and on the Janus-like features of a traditional culture exposed to modernization.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [208]-218) and index. :
9789047402725 :
0169-8834 ;
Nuptial symbolism in Second Temple writings, the New Testament, and Rabbinic literature : divine marriage at key moments of salvation history /
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In Nuptial Symbolism in Second Temple Writings, the New Testament and Rabbinic Literature , André Villeneuve examines the ancient Jewish concept of the covenant between God and Israel, portrayed as a marriage dynamically moving through salvation history. This nuptial covenant was established in Eden but damaged by sin; it was restored at the Sinai theophany, perpetuated in the Temple liturgy, and expected to reach its final consummation at the end of days. The authors of the New Testament adopted the same key moments of salvation history to describe the spousal relationship between Christ and the Church. In their typological treatment of these motifs, they established an exegetical framework that would anticipate the four senses of Scripture later adopted by patristic and medieval commentators.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004316263 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Salvation for the righteous revealed : Jesus amid covenantal and messianic expectations in Second Temple Judaism /
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Why is there such an ethical emphasis in Jesus' gospel proclamation? This work finds the answer in Jesus meeting his audience within their own conceptual realms and then expanding those realms to point to the nature of his salvation. The bulk of this work investigates the soteriology of Second Temple Judaism, especially of the Qumran Scrolls. The apocalyptic lesson was the demand of a greater covenantal obedience, held in tension with God's grace, a demand met through sectarian revelation and involving a somewhat diverse messianism. Within these conceptions, Jesus affirms that salvation is indeed for the "righteous," but as defined through himself as the unique Messiah. This work is particularly useful regarding the Jesus-Paul debate, for it provides a diachronic solution grounded in the cultural-historical milieu of the times.
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1 online resource (xvii, 391 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-362) and indexes. :
9789004331129 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Marriage in the Western Church : the Christianization of marriage during the patristic and early medieval periods /
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Marriage in the Western Church examines how marriage acquired a specifically Christian identity in the Western Church from the patristic through Carolingian periods. It shows how theologians came to regard marriage as an ecclesiastical institution and how they developed a Christian theology of marriage. The first part of the book deals with marriage and divorce in Roman and Germanic law. Other parts deal with marriage and divorce in ecclesiastical law, with the Latin Fathers' distinction between the divine and human laws of marriage, and with the customary stages by which persons became married. Several chapters are devoted to Augustine's views on marriage and sexuality. The author shows how the doctrine of indissolubility became the West's chief means of christianizing marriage, and how theologians found here their preferred arguments for affirming the holiness and the 'sacramentality' of marriage. The author argues that the Western regime of indissolubility was the product of a fourth century reform movement. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource (xxx, 436 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 420-427) and index. :
9789004312913 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy of perpetual optimism /
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The Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) is famous for polemic against Islamic philosophy, theology and rationalizing mysticism, but his positive theological contribution has not been well understood. This comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy helps to rectify this lack. Exposition and analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's writings on God's justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine show that he articulates a theodicy of optimism in which God in His essence perpetually wills the best possible world from eternity. This sets Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy apart from Ashʿarī divine voluntarism, the free-will theodicy of the Muʿtazilīs, and the essentially timeless God of other optimists like Ibn Sīnā and Ibn ʿArabī.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Birmingham, 2002) under the title: An Islamic theodicy : Ibn Taymiyya on the wise purpose of God, human agency, and problems of evil and justice. :
1 online resource (xii, 270 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047420194 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Portraits of spiritual authority : religious power in early Christianity, Byzantium, and the Christian Orient /
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This volume deals with several figures of spiritual authority in Christianity during late antiquity and the early middle ages, and seeks to illuminate the way in which the struggle for religious influence evolved with changes in church and society. A number of literary portraits are examined, portraits which, in various literary genres, are themselves designed to establish and propagate the authority of the people whose lives and activities they describe. The sequence begins with visionary and prophetic figures of the second and third centuries, proceeds through several testimonies from the fourth century to the power of holy persons, moves on to Syriac portraits of the fifth to seventh centuries, and ends with the demise of the authority of the holy man in the eighth.
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1 online resource (xiii, 227 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004295919 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Origen : philosophy of history and eschatology /
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A common accusation made against Origen is that he dissolves history into intellectual abstraction and that his eschatology (if this is recognized at all) is notoriously obscure. In this new work, the author draws on an impressive range of bibliography to consider Origen's Philosophy of History and Eschatology in the widest context of facts, documents and streams of thought, including Classical and Late Antiquity Greek Philosophy, Gnosticism, Hebraism and Patristic Thought, both before Origen and well after his death. Against claims that he causes history to evaporate into barren idealism, his thought is shown to be firmly grounded on his particular vision of historical occurences. Confronting assertions that Origen has no eschatological ideas, his eschatology is shown rather to have made a distinctive mark throughout his works, both explicitly and tacitly. In Origen's view, history was the foundation of scriptural interpretation, a teleological process determined by factors and functions such as providence - prophecy - promise - expectation - realization - anticipation - faith - anticipation - hope - awaiting for - fulfilment - end . Since 1986, the author has argued for the unpopular thesis that Origen is, in many respects, an anti-Platonist. Nevertheless, the author casts light upon the Aristotelian rationale of Origen's doctrine of apokatastasis , arguing that its validity is bolstered by ontological rather than historical premises. The extent of Origen's influence upon what is currently regarded as 'orthodoxy' turns out to be far wider and more profound than has hitherto been acknowledged.
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1 online resource (xvii, 498 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 439-460) and indexes. :
9789047428695 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sanctity of time and space in tradition and modernity /
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Time and space can take on a sacred nature in both Judaism and Christianity accompanied by a permanent critical attitude towards the sacred. Conceptions of sacredness imply a conception of community and of society at large. This study investigates the different attitudes toward sacred time and space from an interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from the Biblical period through Qumran, Patristics, Rabbinics, archaeology and theology to modern and even to post-modern rituals. This approach offers a fascinating insight into both the common heritage of Judaism and Christianity and their mutual differences.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004421387
9789004112339
Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence.
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Augustine's ideas of sinful desire, including its sexual manifestations, have fueled controversies for centuries. In Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence , Timo Nisula analyses Augustine's own theological and philosophical concerns in his extensive writings about evil desire ( concupiscentia, cupiditas, libido ). Beginning with a terminological survey of the vocabulary of desire, the book demonstrates how the concept of evil desire was tightly linked with Augustine's fundamental theological views of divine justice, the origin of evil, Christian virtues and grace. This book offers a comprehensive account of Augustine's developing views of concupiscence and provides an innovative, in-depth picture of the theological imagination behind disputed ideas of sex, temptation and moral responsibility.
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1 online resource (433 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004233447 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.