scholarly journals Books, Scribes, and Cultures of Reading in the Shepherd of Hermas

Author(s):  
TRAVIS W. PROCTOR

In this article, I analyse how the Shepherd of Hermas constructs an ancient Christian reading culture through concurrent portrayals of Christian reading, copying and book production. I argue that, by portraying its protagonist Hermas as an idealised reader, scribe and auditor, the Shepherd constructs an early Christian reading culture that authenticates Hermas's role as prophet, activates the textual dissemination of the Shepherd and ritualises the practice of Christian auditory ‘reading’. The article closes with ‘Hermas the freedman’, which considers how Hermas's self-presentation as a formerly enslaved person may have connections to the Shepherd's centralisation of ancient reading cultures.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 137-165
Author(s):  
Rafał S. Niziński

The philosophy of Xavier Zubiri is recognized as one of the most diffi cult to understand because there is something unclear in it. Therefore one may guess that there is a hidden presumption done by Zubiri. Zubiri in the self-presentation of his philosophical backgrounds acknowledges that his philosophy owes most to the phenomenology of Husserl and metaphysics of Heidegger. He also admits of being infl uenced by Aristotle to a certain degree. Zubiri starts his analyses from perception of things, with which he fulfi lls phenomenological requirement of beginning philosophy with the description of reality. As the fi nal step he ads metaphysics, which explains the description of reality. Following this code of interpretation of Zubiri’s philosophy it is difficult to grasp its core meaning. What is this hidden supposition? In The Supernatural Being: God and Deifi cation in Saint Paul’s Theology, which he wrote in the 30s’ and 40s’ of the 20th century, Zubiri presents early Christian Neoplatonic theology. In the same work Zubiri also states that it is possible to discover the same ideas following the way up, i.e. departing from the creatures and ascending to God. And this will be the hidden supposition of his philosophy. This paper tries to show the philosophy of Zubiri can be understood as a kind of proof that the Neoplatonic vision of the reality presented in The Supernatural Being: God and Deifi cation in Saint Paul’s Theology is true and can be discovered by reason alone, i.e. departing only from description of facts.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 173-175
Author(s):  
Marcin Krzysztof Nabożny

“The Reading Culture of Early Christianity” was written by Edward D. Andrews and published by Christian Publishing House, Cambridge, Ohio in 2019. It is historical and biblically centered with 226 pages: it provides the reader with the production process of the New Testament books, the publication process, how they were circulated, and to what extent they were used in the early church.


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Roma ◽  
Federica Ricci ◽  
Georgios D. Kotzalidis ◽  
Luigi Abbate ◽  
Anna Lubrano Lavadera ◽  
...  

In recent years, several studies have addressed the issue of positive self-presentation bias in assessing parents involved in postdivorce child custody litigations. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is widely used in forensic assessments and is able to evaluate positive self-presentation through its Superlative Self-Presentation S scale. We investigated the existence of a gender effect on positive self-presentation bias in an Italian sample of parents involved in court evaluation. Participants were 391 divorced parents who completed the full 567-item Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 during child custody evaluations ordered by several Italian courts between 2006 and 2010. Our analysis considered the S scale along with the basic clinical scales. North-American studies had shown no gender differences in child custody litigations. Differently, our results showed a significantly higher tendency toward “faking-good” profiles on the MMPI-2 among Italian women as compared to men and as compared to the normative Italian female population. Cultural and social factors could account for these differences.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Jansen ◽  
Cornelius J. König ◽  
Eveline H. Stadelmann ◽  
Martin Kleinmann

This study contributes to the literature on self-presentation by comparing recruiters’ expectations about applicants’ self-presentational behaviors in personnel selection settings to applicants’ actual use of these behaviors. Recruiters (N = 51) rated the perceived appropriateness of 24 self-presentational behaviors. In addition, the prevalence of these behaviors was separately assessed in two subsamples of applicants (N1 = 416 and N2 = 88) with the randomized response technique. In line with the script concept, the results revealed that recruiters similarly evaluated the appropriateness of specific self-presentational behaviors and that applicants’ general use of these behaviors corresponded to recruiters’ shared expectations. The findings indicate that applicants who use strategic self-presentational behaviors may just be trying to fulfill situational requirements.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document