Coping with the gods : wayward readings in Greek theology /
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Inspired by a critical reconsideration of current monolithic approaches to the study of Greek religion, this book argues that ancient Greeks displayed a disquieting capacity to validate two (or more) dissonant, if not contradictory, representations of the divine world in a complementary rather than mutually exclusive manner. From this perspective the six chapters explore problems inherent in: order vs. variety/chaos in polytheism, arbitrariness vs. justice in theodicy, the peaceful co-existence of mono- and polytheistic theologies, human traits in divine imagery, divine omnipotence vs. limitation of power, and ruler cult. Based on an intimate knowledge of ancient realia and literary testimonia the book stands out for its extensive application of relevant perceptions drawn from cultural anthropology, theology, cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics.
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1 online resource (xiii, 593 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 561-576) and indexes. :
9789004210905 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
God's kingdom and God's son : the background in Mark's christology from concepts of kingship in the Psalms /
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How is the kingdom of God related to Messianic kingship (or divine sonship)? Starting from what he terms a 'two-tier' kingship in the Psalms, Robert Rowe explores the linkage of these terms in Mark's gospel. The linked concepts - God's kingship and Davidic (Messianic) kingship - are traced from the Psalms and Isaiah 40-66, through the Dead Sea Scrolls and other inter-testamental documents, into Mark's gospel. Mark's characterization of Jesus as Messiah is shown to centre around four royal Psalms (2; 22; 110; 118). Contributing to the continuing study of the Old Testament in the New, Rowe argues that the concepts of God's kingdom and the Messiah are inherently closely related. This has importance both for the study of the historical Jesus, and for Mark's presentation of God and Jesus in his gospel.
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1 online resource (xvii, 435 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-367) and indexes. :
9789004331136 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
God and the world of signs Trinity, evolution, and the metaphysical semiotics of C.S. Peirce /
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Christianity has been described as "a religion seeking a metaphysic". Drawing on the philosophy of C. S. Peirce, Robinson develops a metaphysical framework centred around a 'semiotic model' of the Trinity. The model invites a fresh approach to the claim that Jesus was the incarnate Word of God and suggests a new way of understanding how nature may bear the imprint of the Triune Creator in the form of 'vestiges of the Trinity in creation'. Scientific spin-offs include a new perspective on the problem of the origin of life and a novel hypothesis about the evolution of human distinctiveness. The result is an original contribution to Trinitarian theology and a bold new way of integrating philosophy, science and religion.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-367) and indexes. :
9789004195899 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Romanising oriental Gods : myth, salvation, and ethics in the cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras /
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The traditional grand narrative correlating the decline of Graeco-Roman religion with the rise of Christianity has been under pressure for three decades. This book argues that the alternative accounts now emerging significantly underestimate the role of three major cults, of Cybele and Attis, Isis and Serapis, and Mithras. Although their differences are plain, these cults present sufficient common features to justify their being taken typologically as a group. All were selective adaptations of much older cults of the Fertile Crescent. It was their relative sophistication, their combination of the imaginative power of unfamiliar myth with distinctive ritual performance and ethical seriousness, that enabled them both to focus and to articulate a sense of the autonomy of religion from the socio-political order, a sense they shared with Early Christianity. The notion of 'mystery' was central to their ability to navigate the Weberian shift from ritualist to ethical salvation.
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1 online resource (xx, 486 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-444) and indexes. :
9789047441847 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
God, beyond me : from the I's absolute ground in Hölderlin and Schelling to a contemporary model of a personal God /
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German idealism has attempted to think an absolute ground to self-conscious I-hood. As a result it has been theologically disqualified as pantheistic or even atheistic since many maintain that such a ground cannot be reconciled with a personal God. In the early writings of Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), it is clear that he and his contemporaries were aware of this difficulty. His Tübinger fellow student, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), was convinced of the ultimate inadequacy of any philosophical system to grasp the unitary ground of all that is and turned to poetry. The metaphysical insights expressed in his poetry have been largely neglected in both philosophical and theological scholarship. Drawing on the 20th century metaphysics of Dieter Henrich and Karl Rahner, this book elaborates on Hölderlin's poetry. This results in a novel concept of God as both unitary and personal ground of I-hood.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004182172 :
1878-9986 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Life after God: An Encounter with Postmodernism /
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In this volume, Mark Bevir argues that postfoundationalism is compatible with humanism and historicism. He shows how postmodernists, especially Derrida and Foucault, drew on structuralism and the avant-garde in ways that led them to downplay human agency and historical context. He then explores how we today might recover and rethink humanism and historicism. And, finally, he discusses the critical and ethical practices that such ideas might inspire.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004513556
9789004513549
Saints, sinners, and the God of the world the Hartford sermon notebook transcribed, 1679-1680 /
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Saints, Sinners, and The God of the World: The Hartford Sermon Notebook Transcribed, 1679-1680 , is a complete transcription of The Hartford Sermon Notebook, a compact, bound series of notes taken from sermons delivered by the ministers Isaac Foster, Ben Woodbridge, John Whiting, Caleb Watson, and Thomas Cheever, in Hartford, Connecticut during the years 1679 and 1680. The original notebook's authorship is unknown, but whoever took the notes did a meticulous job, and the 62 sermons contained in the notebook are nearly all complete. These sermons span a two year period of colonial Connecticut history where few extant sources exist, and represent important new primary source material for scholars of colonial New England's earliest religious history
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [313]-317) and indexes. :
9789004216402 :
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.
God's acting, man's acting : tradition and philosophy in Philo of Alexandria /
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The topic tackled in this book is Philo's account of the complex, double-sided nature of God's acting - the two-sided coin of God as transcendent yet immanent, unknowable yet revealed, immobile yet creating - and also the two sides of acting in humans - who, in an attempt to imitate God, both contemplate and produce. In both contexts, divine and human, Philo considers that it would not be proper to give precedence to either side - the result would be barren. God's acting and man's acting are at the same time both speculative and practical, and it is precisely out of this co-presence that the order of the world unfolds. Philo considers this two-sided condition as a source of complexity and fertility. Francesca Calabi argues that, far from being an irresolvable contradiction, Philo's two-fold vision is the key to understanding his works. It constitutes a richness that rejects reduction to apparently incompatible forms and aspects.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-246) and indexes. :
9789047431602 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Roman gods : a conceptual approach /
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The book is concerned with the question of how the concept of \'god\' in urban Rome can be analyzed along the lines of six constituent concepts, id est space, time, personnel, function, iconography and ritual. While older publications tended to focus on the conceptual nature of Roman gods only in those (comparatively rare) instances in which different concepts patently overlapped (as in the case of the deified emperor or hero-worship), this book develops general criteria for an analysis of pagan, Jewish and Christian concepts of gods in ancient Rome (and by extension elsewhere). While the argument of the book is exclusively based on the evidence from the capital up to the age of Constantine, in the concluding section the results are compared to other religious belief systems, thus demonstrating the general applicability of this conceptual approach.
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1 online resource (219 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-209) and index. :
9789047428480 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
What is good, and what God demands : normative structures in Tannaitic literature /
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The normative rhetoric of tannaitic literature (the earliest extant corpus of rabbinic Judaism) is predominantly deontological. Prior scholarship on rabbinic supererogation, and on points of contact with Greco-Roman virtue discourse, has identified non-deontological aspects of tannaitic normativity. However, these two frameworks overlook precisely the productive intersection of deontological with non-deontological, the first because supererogation defines itself against obligation, and the second because the Greco-Roman comparate discourages serious treatment of law-like elements. This book addresses ways in which alternative normative forms entwine with the core deontological rhetoric of tannaitic literature. This perspective exposes, inter alia, echoes of the post-biblical wisdom tradition in tannaitic law, the rich polyvalence of the category mitzvah, and telling differences between the schools of Akiva and Ishmael.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and an indexes. :
9789004188297 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The doctrine of God in African Christian thought : the Holy Trinity, theological hermeneutics, and the African intellectual culture /
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The Christian faith knows and worships one God, who is revealed in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. This is the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity in Christian thought. Although Christian orthodoxy defines the doctrine of the Trinity, the intellectual tools used to capture it significantly vary. At different times and in different places, Western Christianity has, for instance, used neo-Platonism, German Idealism, and the conceptual tools of the second-century Greeks. Taking elements from the known African intellectual framework, this book argues that for African Christians, the respective pre-Christian African understanding of God and the Ntu -metaphysics, in particular, function as conceptual gates for an attempt towards articulating the Trinity for African Christian audiences.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (D. Th.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-292) and indexes. :
9789047420224 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Stewardship and the kingdom of God : an historical, exegetical, and contextual study of the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-13 /
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The parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-13 is a unity which teaches faithful stewardship of material possession against an eschatological backdrop. This interpretation is confirmed by examination of the pericope itself and progressively wider levels of context within Luke's Gospel. Chapter one provides a history of recent interpretations of the parable (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) as background for the ensuing study. Detailed exegesis of Luke 16:1-13 itself is found in chapter two. The investigation is broadened in chapter three to include the immediate and broader literary contexts (Luke 15-16 and 9:51-19:44, respectively). Chapter four examines the theological context, in particular the themes of riches and poverty and the kingdom of God. Chapter five summarizes the major conclusions of the book. The book is a thorough summary of the literature on the parable, the central section, and the themes of riches and poverty and eschatology in the third Gospel.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa., 1989. :
1 online resource (x, 233 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-227) and indexes. :
9789004267046 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Aelius Aristides between Greece, Rome, and the gods /
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Wealthy, conceited, hypochondriac (or perhaps just an invalid), obsessively religious, the orator Aelius Aristides (117 to about 180) is not the most attractive figure of his age, but because he is one of the best-known -- and he is intimately known, thanks to his Sacred Tales -- his works are a vital source for the cultural and religious and political history of Greece under the Roman Empire. The papers gathered here, the fruit of a conference held at Columbia in 2007, form the most intense study of Aristides and his context to have been published since the classic work of Charles Behr forty years ago.
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"Papers given at a conference organized ... by the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University on April 13th and 14th, 2007"--Pref. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-317) and index. :
9789047425366 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Feats of the Knowers of God : (Manāqeb al-'ārefīn) /
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This is a 14th-century biography of the famous Persian mystic poet and 'Knower of God', Jalāl al-Dīn-e Rūmī, in the form of a large compendium of Sufi-style teaching stories. It was commissioned by a grandson about fifty years after Rūmī's death. The author-compiler, Aflākī, includes chapters on Bahā'-e Valad (Rūmī's father), Shams al-Dīn-e Tabrīzī (Rūmī's great love), Solṭān Valad and Amīr 'Āref (Rūmī's son and grandson), and other transmitters of the spiritual Heritage of the Mowlavī dervish order. The protagonists are portrayed as performing miracles and confronting critics and rivals. Circumstantial detail abounds, thus providing one of our few windows onto social and political life during the Saljūq and Mongol period in Asia Minor. The translation has an extensive index of persons and concepts to assist readers and students.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491458
9789004121324
The ceremonial sculptures of the Roman gods /
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The well-known formats of Roman sculpture are the ones best preserved, but inevitably limited to those designed to be permanent and immobile. A significant component of the Roman visual world missing from this record are those images which depict or stand in for the Roman gods during ceremonies. Statuary of this type is in some measure mobile, designed specifically to be carried about in processions, brought out for public viewing at throne ceremonies, or participate in divine banquets. In addition to defining the characteristics of these ceremonial sculptures, this study also addresses their performative qualities: where and how they appeared, who was responsible for handling them, with what conventions of decorum, and with what response from the audience.
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Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 3, 2012). :
1 online resource (xxviii, 120 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004242265 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
"Convinced that God had called us" : dreams, visions, and the perception of God's will in Luke-Acts /
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Dream and vision scenes figure prominently in Luke-Acts. Following a discussion of methodology, historical background, and critical scholarship, this study provides a comprehensive examination of the dreams and visions in the Lukan narrative. Special attention is given to those scenes that feature significant interpretation by characters in the story (e.g., Zechariah and Mary [Luke 1-2], Saul's/Paul's conversion [Acts 9, 22, and 26], the Cornelius-Peter episode [Acts 10:1-11:18], and Paul's dream at Troas [Acts 16:9-10]). While a number of studies have highlighted the importance of dreams and visions for Luke's portrayal of God, the present study suggests that the human side of these visionary encounters is equally important. Just as Lukan dreams and visions depict God's active involvement in the events of human history, they also depict God's people attempting to perceive God's will through these visionary encounters.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Princeton Theological Seminary. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-257) and indexes. :
9789047411420 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.