The letter of Mara bar Sarapion in context : proceedings of the symposium held at Utrecht University, 10-12 December 2009 /
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The Letter of Mara bar Sarapion to his son - preserved in a single Syriac manuscript (7th. century CE) - still speaks to its readers, evocatively depicting the dramatic situation of a nobleman imprisoned after the Roman capture of Samosata, capital of Commagene. The letter is best known today for a passage on the "wise king of the Jews," which may be one of the earliest pagan testimonies concerning Jesus Christ. Ongoing controversy over the letter's date, nature, and purpose has, however, led to the widespread neglect of this intriguing document. In the present volume, Merz and Tieleman have brought together cutting-edge research from an interdisciplinary team of leading experts that significantly advances our appreciation of the letter and its historical context.
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1 online resource (xiv, 245 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004233010 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Contesting religious identities : transformations, disseminations, and mediations /
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Religion is a hot topic on the public stages of 'secular' societies, not in its individualized liberal or orthodox form, but rather as a public statement, challenging the divide between the secular neutral space and the religious. In this new challenging modus, religion raises questions about identity, power, rationality, subjectivity, law and safety, but above all: religion questions, contests and even blurs the borders between the public and the private. These phenomena urge to rethink what are often considered to be clear differences between religions, between the public and the private and between the religious and the secular. In this volume scholars from a range of different disciplines map the different aspects of the dynamics of changing, contesting and contested religious identities.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004337459 :
0169-8834 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Iconoclasm and iconoclash : struggle for religious identity /
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This book focuses on iconoclastic controversies and, in particular, their impact on the creation of religious identities. In the history of Jewish, Christian and Muslim culture, religious identity was not only formed through historical claims, but also through the use of certain images: 'images of God', 'images of the others', and 'images of the self.' Moreover, in the struggle for religious identity these 'images' were time and again employed for the purpose of establishing distinct groups, both ortho- dox and deviant. At the same time, they supplied weapons in the theological debate and found explicit expression in certain rituals or liturgical traditions. These conference proceedings include a discussion of the role of images in society, politics, theology and liturgy, in particular addressing the 'iconoclash' of physical, mental and verbal images on the construction of religious identity.
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"Second conference of church historians Utrecht; University of Tilburg, faculty of Catholic Theology, Theology Department of Utrecht University." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047422495 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in early Jewish epigraphy /
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This volume contains the papers of a workshop on Jewish epigraphy in antiquity organized at Utrecht University in 1992. Among the participants were collaborators of the Cambridge Jewish Inscriptions Project and of the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients project. Important aspects of ancient Jewish inscriptions are highlighted in the papers, like the connection between documentary and literary texts. Several papers focus on aspects of the history of Jewish communities in the diaspora. Specialists in Jewish epigraphy will find surveys of parts of the corpus of Jewish inscriptions (curse inscriptions, metrical epitaphs, alphabet-inscriptions) and discussions of some fixed opinions, and Jewish inscriptions are discussed in a wider literary and historical contexts as well.
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1 online resource (290 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004332744 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Alternative Evangelicals : Challenging Nationalism in Interwar Romania's Multi-ethnic Borderlands /
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Evangelicals in interwar Romania were a vibrant mix of ethnicities, languages, and social statuses. Jews, Roma, Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Russians sang, prayed, and preached in their native languages. Romanian statesmen perceived them as a danger for the construction of a strong post-WWI national identity. The lived religion of interwar Romanian evangelicals and their struggle through music for legitimacy demonstrates the close ties between national self-understanding and religion. The diverse groups of Romanian evangelicals reveal how minorities in 20th century Europe challenged established religious concepts and constructed their new identities. "Finally a book on Romanian history that unpacks the day to day experiences of ordinary people and how they built churches and communities. Ploscariu tells her stories through the voices and experiences of individuals from ethnic and religious minorities, showing us how they saw their world, not just what the authorities thought about them. This book complicates Romanian religious history in wonderful and surprising ways. It will be the definitive work on the subject for many years to come." Roland Clark, University of Liverpool Author of Sectarianism and Renewal in 1920s Romania "Drawing on a diverse range of often untapped sources, Iemima Ploscariu's exploration of the history of evangelicals in interwar Romania brings vividly to life the experiences of a multiethnic community defined by their faith. She explores how, through their everyday practices - most notably their active musical life - these groups both contested the homogenizing nationalization policies of the Romanian state and carved out a place for themselves in Romanian society. This book contributes significantly to our understanding of the social and religious history of interwar Romania and to the transnational evangelical expansion of the era." Heather Coleman, University of Alberta Author of Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929 "Here is a masterful reconstruction of the everyday life of evangelical communities in interwar Romania and their members' intricate personal relationships. This excellent study is a must-read for any scholar of nationalism who wants to understand how diverse religious and ethnic minorities struggled and thrived in a nationalising European state." Maria Falina, Utrecht University Author of Religion and Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia See Less
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1 online resource (224 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9783657796687
Scholasticism reformed : essays in honour of Willem J. van Asselt /
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This Festschrift celebrates Professor Willem J. van Asselt's many contributions to the study of Reformed scholasticism on the occasion of his retirement from Utrecht University. The authors argue that the resurgence of interest in scholasticism, especially in Reformed scholasticism, has in turn reformed our views of scholasticism. While most of the volume's essays contribute to the reassessment of scholasticism through relevant historical case studies or new systematic analyses of the value and validity of scholasticism for contemporary theology, some authors endeavour a critical confrontation with various aspects of this reassessment. Thus, this volume not only mirrors Van Asselt's interest in the sound historical evaluation of Reformed scholasticism and its application to contemporary philosophical theology, but also provides cutting-edge scholarship on a major development in historical theology.
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1 online resource. :
"Bibliography of Willem J. van Asselt": pages [378]-383.
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004193772 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica : collected essays of Gilles Quispel /
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This volume brings together a rich and varied collection of essays by Gilles Quispel (1916-2006), Professor of the History of the Early Church at Utrecht University from 1951 until his retirement in 1983. During his illustrious career, Professor Quispel was also visiting Professor at Harvard University in 1964/65, and visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven from 1969 until 1974. The fifty essays collected in this volume testify to most of the prominent themes from Professor Quispel's scholarly career: the writings of the Nag Hammadi library in general and the Gospel of Thomas in particular; Tatian's Diatessaron and its influences; the Hermetica ; Mani and Manichaeism; the Jewish origins of Gnosticism; and Gnosis and the future of Christianity. This volume also makes a number of his less known earlier publications (mainly presented under the heading 'Catholica') available to the international community. Until shortly before he died, Professor Quispel remained active in his study of the Gospel of Thomas . He had been one of the first to acquire the Coptic text of the Gospel of Thomas , of which he published the first translation in 1959 and his final translation in 2005. He was also active in researching the Diatessaron , and Valentinus 'the Gnostic'. One of his most recent essays - published for the first time in this volume - is on 'the Muslim Jesus.'
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047441823 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.