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Hidden Wisdom, Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism. Second, Revised and Enlarged paperback edition.
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This book investigates the problem of esoteric traditions in early Christianity, their origin and their transformation in Patristic hermeneutics, in the West as well as in the East. It argues that these traditions eventually formed the basis of nascent Christian mysticism in Late Antiquity. These esoteric traditions do not reflect the influence of Greek Mystery religions, as has often been claimed, but rather seem to stem from the Jewish background of Christianity. They were adopted by various Gnostic teachings, a fact which helps explaining their eventual disappearance from Patristic literature. The eleven chapters study each a different aspect of the problem, including the questions of Gnostic and Manichaean esotericism. This book will be of interest to all students of religious history in Late Antiquity. Revised and extended paperback edition. Originally published in 1996. Please click here for details.
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1 online resource. :
9789047404774
Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. Volume 16 (2025) : From Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church /
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The volume "From Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church" contributes to the sociology of religion by examining how individual cases of clerical sexual abuse escalate (or not) into scandals that challenge religious authority and reshape institutional life. It explores how the strategies of public mobilisation and media responses encourage collective reflection and action to ensure accountability and societal change. Through case studies from Argentina, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and the U.S., this volume explores Church responses, believers' reactions, and the shifting dynamics of trust and legitimacy. It highlights how these developments affect religious affiliation, moral credibility, and the public role of the Church, offering new perspectives on the evolving relationship between religion, society, and scandal in contemporary contexts.
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1 online resource (319 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004746695
Fair play : diversity and conflicts in early Christianity : essays in honour of Heikki Räisänen /
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This collection of essays in honour of Heikki Räisänen, New Testament professor at the University of Helsinki, consists of 22 essays written by his colleagues and students on Jesus, the gospels, Paul, early Christianity, and biblical interpretation. Räisänen's own research has been characterized by methodological awareness combined with a keen interest in ethical issues. Both these aspects come to expression in his insistence on \'fair play\' as a correct scholarly attitude involving an honest dialogue, a real encounter, and a recognition of diverging opinions. In this spirit, most of the essays in this book lay emphasis on issues related to early Christian diversity and conflicts, and to their challenge in modern society. The book is useful for scholars, academic teachers and students interested in various aspects of the New Testament, early Christianity, and hermeneutics.
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1 online resource (xii, 592 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004268210 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Handbook of Scientology /
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The Handbook of Scientology brings together a collection of fresh studies of the most persistently controversial of all contemporary New Religions. In recent years, increasing scholarly attention has been directed at the Church of Scientology, resulting in a small tsunami of new scholarship. We have finally reached a point in time where a book on Scientology need not restrict itself to basics. Thus, for example, the historical chapters in the present volume are not really aimed at providing elementary facts on Scientology's background, but, rather, focus on understanding how the Church of Scientology developed over the years. In short, the Handbook of Scientology will provide a wealth of new information on a topic that one might otherwise have thought exhausted.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004330542 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mystery and secrecy in the Nag Hammadi collection and other ancient literature : ideas and practices : studies for Einar Thomassen at sixty /
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Mystery and secrecy were central concepts in the ritual, rhetoric, and sociological stratification of antique Mediterranean religions. That the ultimate nature and workings of the divine were secret, and either could not or should not be revealed except as a mystery for the initiated, was widely accepted among Pagans, Jews, and then Christians, both Gnostic and otherwise. The similarities and differences in the language of mystery and secrecy across religious and cultural borders are thus crucial for understanding this important period of the history of religions. The present anthology aims to present and analyze a wide selection of sources elucidating this theme, reflecting the correspondingly wide scholarly interests of Professor Einar Thomassen in honor of his 60th birthday.
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1 online resource (xx, 540 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004215122 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in Jewish and Christian history /
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Elias J. Bickerman, who passed away a quarter of a century ago, was one of the twentieth century's great historians of the ancient world. His innovative genius and breathtaking erudition are evident in his writings, many of which are now considered classics. Bickerman's contributions to the history of ancient Judaism and early Christianity remain particularly significant but his three volume collection, Studies in Jewish and Christian History , has been out of print for some time. Thus, the publication of this new edition of Studies, now entirely in English, along with Bickerman's most famous book, The God of the Maccabees , is designed to bring Bickerman's central studies on ancient Judaism and early Christianity to a new generation of students and scholars.
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English, French, and German. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047420729 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
How Heaven Works : The Collective Shamanic Journeys of Phạm Công Tắc and the Syncretic Afterworld of Caodaism /
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In 1948, Vietnam's great 20th Century mystic Phạm Công Tắc (1890-1959) began a series of sermons making Caodaism's claims to universal salvation the clearest. In only two decades, Caodaism had stamped its fast-growing presence on the nation. With potent creative and poetic skill Phạm Công Tắc invited his co-religionists to take a shamanic journey with him to examine the heavens and literally see how they would be saved. The 35 sermons translated here are provided with a commentary and extensive introduction by Hartney. How Heaven Works is a fascinating insight into the deep connection between shamanic atmosphere, literature, and Modern syncretic concepts of salvation. See Less
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1 online resource (385 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004697935
Nonnus of Panopolis in context II : poetry, religion, and society ; proceedings of the international conference on Nonnus of Panopolis, 26th - 29th September 2013, University of Vi...
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Nonnus of Panopolis in Upper-Egypt is the author of the 48 books of the last large scale mythological epic in antiquity, the Dionysiaca . The same author also wrote an epic poem on the life and times of Jesus Christ according to St John's Gospel . Nonnus has an outstanding position in ancient literature being at the same time a pagan and a Christian author, living in a time when Christianity was common in the Roman empire, while pagan culture and traditional world views were still maintained. The volume is designed to cover literary, cultural and religious aspects of Nonnus' poetry as well as to highlight the social and educational background of both the Dionysiaca and the Paraphrasis of the Gospel of St. John .
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004355125 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Revolutionary Organisation : Armed Struggle from the Late 18th Century to the Present /
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This is the first comprehensive study of the phenomenon of the armed-struggle revolutionary organisation. The Revolutionary Organisation covers the period from the late 18th century to the present, is global in scope, and discusses organisations inspired by all main ideological traditions: communist, anti-colonialist, nationalist, democratic, Islamist, fascist, and white supremacist. The condition of life-and-death struggle with the state imposes similar patterns of operation upon these organisations, irrespective of their ideological inclinations. This work interprets armed-struggle revolutionary organisations as hybrids of three orientations: an apparatus of professional revolutionaries; an emotional community sustained by ideology, battle comradeship, and ritual; and an instrument of physical force nurturing an heroic organisational ethos.
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1 online resource (364 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004737235
The Congress of Carlowitz (1698/99) : Supra-cultural Diplomatic Norms and Practices of Peacemaking at the End of the Seventeenth Century /
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This book delivers the first comprehensive analysis of the Peace Congress of Carlowitz (1698/99), challenging traditional Eurocentric views on early modern diplomacy. It demonstrates that peacemaking norms and practices were largely 'supra-cultural'-transcending cultural and religious divides across Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Carlowitz emerges as a significant multi-religious congress that introduced pioneering practices, particularly in ceremonial regulations. By confronting cultural essentialism, provincialising the Westphalian congress-model paradigm, and demythologising Carlowitz as a decisive political turning point-notably marking the adoption of a Western European-style diplomacy by cultural 'outliers' such as the Ottoman Empire and Muscovy-this study offers fresh insights into the complexity and polycentric nature of early modern multilateral diplomacy.
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1 online resource (508 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004458499
Kypriōn Politeia, the Political and Administrative Systems of the Classical Cypriot City-Kingdoms /
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Through new readings and interpretation of Cypriot inscriptions - written in Cypriot-syllabic Greek, Eteocypriot, Phoenician, and alphabetic Greek - Kypriōn Politeia, the Political and Administrative Systems of the Classical Cypriot City-Kingdoms is the first book which reconstructs in detail the political and administrative systems of the Classical city-kingdoms of Cyprus. The book investigates the bodies of government beyond the Cypriot kings and the roles played by magistrates and officials in local governments, it analyses accounts of the headquarters of the main administrative and economic activities - such as palace archives, and tax collection hubs -, and demonstrates that these systems were similar in all the city-kingdoms.
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What kind of society would you face if you travelled to Cyprus in the 5th-4th cent. BC? This is the first book which analyses in detail the politico-administrative system of Classical Cyprus through the study of inscriptions written in different languages. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520431
9789004520332
Kypriōn Politeia, the Political and Administrative Systems of the Classical Cypriot City-Kingdoms /
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Through new readings and interpretation of Cypriot inscriptions - written in Cypriot-syllabic Greek, Eteocypriot, Phoenician, and alphabetic Greek - Kypriōn Politeia, the Political and Administrative Systems of the Classical Cypriot City-Kingdoms is the first book which reconstructs in detail the political and administrative systems of the Classical city-kingdoms of Cyprus. The book investigates the bodies of government beyond the Cypriot kings and the roles played by magistrates and officials in local governments, it analyses accounts of the headquarters of the main administrative and economic activities - such as palace archives, and tax collection hubs -, and demonstrates that these systems were similar in all the city-kingdoms.
:
What kind of society would you face if you travelled to Cyprus in the 5th-4th cent. BC? This is the first book which analyses in detail the politico-administrative system of Classical Cyprus through the study of inscriptions written in different languages. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520431
9789004520332
The Character of David in Judaism, Christianity and Islam : Warrior, Poet, Prophet and King /
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King David if one of the most central figures in all of the major monotheistic traditions. He generally connotes the heroic past of the (more imagined than real) ancient Israelite empire and is associated with messianic hopes for the future. Nevertheless, his richly ambivalent and fascinating literary portrayal in the Hebrew Bible is one of the most complex of all biblical characters. This volume aims at taking a new, critical look at the process of biblical creation and subsequent exegetical transformation of the character of David and his attributed literary composition (the Psalms), with particular emphasis put on the multilateral fertilization and cross-cultural interchanges among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004465978
9789004465961
Shakespeare and religio mentis: A Study of Christian Hermetism in Four Plays /
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Have you ever wondered why Cordelia has to die? Or how Alonso talks and walks about the isle while his body lies 'full fathom five' on the sea floor? Ever wondered why the monument to Shakespeare in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon names three pagans: Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil - king, philosopher, and poet? Or why Shakespeare is on Olympus, home of the Greek gods? This interdisciplinary study, the first to interpret the plays of Shakespeare in the light of the esoteric religious doctrines of the Corpus Hermeticum, holds answers to these and other puzzling questions.
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This landmark interdisciplinary study shines the light of religious Hermetism on Love's Labour's Lost, King Lear, Othello and The Tempest and reveals the 'religion of the mind' found in the Corpus Hermeticum to be a source of Shakespeare's understanding of human psychology. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520608
9789004516328
Shakespeare and religio mentis: A Study of Christian Hermetism in Four Plays /
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Have you ever wondered why Cordelia has to die? Or how Alonso talks and walks about the isle while his body lies 'full fathom five' on the sea floor? Ever wondered why the monument to Shakespeare in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon names three pagans: Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil - king, philosopher, and poet? Or why Shakespeare is on Olympus, home of the Greek gods? This interdisciplinary study, the first to interpret the plays of Shakespeare in the light of the esoteric religious doctrines of the Corpus Hermeticum, holds answers to these and other puzzling questions.
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This landmark interdisciplinary study shines the light of religious Hermetism on Love's Labour's Lost, King Lear, Othello and The Tempest and reveals the 'religion of the mind' found in the Corpus Hermeticum to be a source of Shakespeare's understanding of human psychology. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520608
9789004516328