Stages of Grief: Enacting Lamentation in Late Ancient Hymnography

AJS Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-124
Author(s):  
Laura S. Lieber
Keyword(s):  
Social Setting ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Status ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Way

This essay explores the rhetoric and performance of grief by examining two related bodies of texts composed in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: eulogies for deceased individuals (hespedim) and communal laments (kinot) for Jerusalem; also included are two “narrative laments” from the same corpus that construct the voices of grieving biblical characters. In the analysis, the dynamics among the living participants in the mourning rituals are investigated, as well as the ways rituals of individual grief and rituals of communal mourning shape each other. Throughout the analysis, specific rhetorical techniques associated with mourning in both the Jewish world and in classical Greco-Roman sources and early Christian materials merit particular scrutiny, as do the experiential components of rhetorical techniques such as refrains, antiphony, anadiplosis, and dialogue. Along the way, contextual features important for understanding the function and efficacy of these works are addressed: social setting, liturgical station, affinity for biblical texts, and the status of the mourned party.

Pathways ahead for New Zealand hill country farming

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.G. Scrimgeour
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Hill Farming ◽  
The Hill

This paper provides a stocktake of the status of hill country farming in New Zealand and addresses the challenges which will determine its future state and performance. It arises out of the Hill Country Symposium, held in Rotorua, New Zealand, 12-13 April 2016. This paper surveys people, policy, business and change, farming systems for hill country, soil nutrients and the environment, plants for hill country, animals, animal feeding and productivity, and strategies for achieving sustainable outcomes in the hill country. This paper concludes by identifying approaches to: support current and future hill country farmers and service providers, to effectively and efficiently deal with change; link hill farming businesses to effective value chains and new markets to achieve sufficient and stable profitability; reward farmers for the careful management of natural resources on their farm; ensure that new technologies which improve the efficient use of input resources are developed; and strategies to achieve vibrant rural communities which strengthen hill country farming businesses and their service providers. Keywords: farming systems, hill country, people, policy, productivity, profitability, sustainability

What's Divine about Divine Law?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Western Idea ◽  
Jewish Writers ◽  
Divine Law

In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. This book untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy. This book shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. The book describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. It shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. The book then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Greco-Roman and Pauline conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West. This book sheds critical light on an ancient debate that would shape foundational Western thought, and that continues to inform contemporary views about the nature and purpose of law and the nature and authority of Scripture.

Strategic threats to energy security as risks of quality of people's life

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-744
Author(s):  
V.I. Loktionov
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Economic Well Being ◽  
The Way

Subject. The article reviews the way strategic threats to energy security influence the quality of people's life. Objectives. The study unfolds the theory of analyzing strategic threats to energy security by covering the matter of quality of people's life. Methods. To analyze the way strategic threats to energy security spread across cross-sectoral commodity and production chains and influences quality of people's living, I applied the factor analysis and general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Results. I suggest interpreting strategic threats to energy security as risks of people's quality of life due to a reduction in the volume of energy supply. I identified mechanisms reflecting how the fuel and energy complex and its development influence the quality of people's life. The article sets out the method to assess such quality-of-life risks arising from strategic threats to energy security. Conclusions and Relevance. In the current geopolitical situation, strategic threats to energy security cause long-standing adverse consequences for the quality of people's life. If strategic threats to energy security are further construed as risk of quality of people's life, this will facilitate the preparation and performance of a more effective governmental policy on energy, which will subsequently raise the economic well-being of people.

Through the Lens of Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: In comparison between Amina Wadud’s and Mohammed Talbi’s Interpretations of Q. 4:34

SUHUF ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Afifur Rochman Sya'rani
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Married Couple ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
The Status ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Muslim Scholars ◽  
The Way

Most of traditional Muslim exegetes interpret Q. 4:34 in terms of maintaining the superiority of men over women. Some progressive Muslim scholars then insist a contextual approach to the verse to criticize gender inequality. Among some progressive Muslim scholars, this article comparatively examines the interpretations of Amina Wadud and Mohammed Talbi of Q. 4:34. Although both of them propose a contextual reading of the verse, they have different intellectual background, approach and method in interpreting the Qur’ān. The questions are to what extent the similarities and differences of both Wadud’s and Talbi’s interpretation of Q. 4:34 and how far their interpretations reflect their respective intention and perspective? Applying Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach, the article concludes that [1] Both Wadud and Talbi argue that the verse does not establish the superiority of men over women, but acknowledges duties division among married couple; [2] the difference among their interpretations is on the status of relationship among married couple; [3] Wadud’s and Talbi’s interpretations represent their respective hermeneutical situations and the way they define ontologically the nature of  interpretation and Qur’anic hermeneutics affect on producing the meanings of the verse.

Gospels before the Book

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. C. Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Collection ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Textual Tradition ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Early Christian Studies ◽  
The Way

What does it mean to read the gospels “before the book”? For centuries, the way people have talked about the gospels has been shaped by ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than they do with ancient writing and reading practices. Gospels Before the Book challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. The author explores a host of underappreciated elements of ancient textual culture, such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, postpublication revision, and multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues the earliest readers and users of the text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes (hypomnēmata). The Gospel according to Matthew, then, would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author but, rather, as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly, it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition, one is “right” and the others are “wrong.” Rather, each ending represents its own effort to fill in what some perceived to be lacking in the Gospel according to Mark. The text of the Gospel according to Mark is better understood when approached as unfinished notes than as a book published by an author. Larsen also offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels.

On What Matters

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Parfit
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Previous Treatment ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Normative Naturalism ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Way ◽  
What Matters

This third volume of this series develops further previous treatment of reasons, normativity, the meaning of moral discourse, and the status of morality. It engages with critics, and shows the way to resolution of their differences. This volume is partly about what it is for things to matter, in the sense that we all have reasons to care about these things. Much of the book discusses three of the main kinds of meta-ethical theory: normative naturalism, quasi-realist expressivism, and non-metaphysical non-naturalism, which this book refers to as non-realist cognitivism. This third theory claims that, if we use the word ‘reality’ in an ontologically weighty sense, irreducibly normative truths have no mysterious or incredible ontological implications. If instead we use ‘reality’ in a wide sense, according to which all truths are truths about reality, this theory claims that some non-empirically discoverable truths — such as logical, mathematical, modal, and some normative truths — raise no difficult ontological questions. This book discusses these theories partly by commenting on the views of some of the contributors to Peter Singer's collection Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity.

Sexual Defilement in Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Family ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Christian Society

Chapter 7 demonstrates that sexual sin became the main target for purity discourse in early Christian texts, and attempts to explain why. Christian imagery of sexual defilement drew from a number of traditions—Greco-Roman sexual ethics, imagery of sexual sin from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple texts, and both Jewish and pagan purity laws, all seen through the lens of Paul’s imagery of sexuality and sexual sin. Two broad currents characterized Christian sexual ethics in the second century: one upheld marriage and the family as the basis for a holy Christian society and church, while the second rejected all sexuality, including in marriage. Writers of both currents made heavy use of defilement imagery. For the first, sexual sin was a dangerous defilement, contaminating the Christian community and severing it from God. For the second, more radical current, sexuality itself was the defilement; virginity or continence alone were pure.

Early Christian Attitudes Towards Dietary Impurity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Normal Order ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Individual

This chapter describes how purity and defilement were practiced and discussed in diverse cults throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Empires and in contemporary Judaism. There were several types of purity and defilement. The first, a “truce” impurity perception, was temporary and mundane, a defilement occurring when there was an obstruction to the normal order or when categories were mixed up. A second type, the “battle” impurity perception, followed exceptional actions, typically deliberate, such as murder or adultery. Here purification required both punishment by the community and ritual actions, such as sacrifice. A third type became more and more significant in the first centuries CE. This was the defilement of the individual by his or her evil actions and dispositions, conceptualized at times as a “defilement of the soul,” and its purification through asceticism, philosophy, or repentance. Though purity and defilement also featured in Greco-Roman religion, it received an unusually central role in Judaism.

Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Practices ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
New Religion

This book examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. Concepts of purity and defilement were pivotal for understanding human nature, sin, history, and ritual in early Christianity. In parallel, major Christian practices, such as baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, felt, and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, formed the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was substantive: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion. The second was polemic: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagans, or “heretics”) as false. The book traces the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing dietary laws, death defilement, sexuality, and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. There are three central arguments. First, purity and defilement were central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those of contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Election ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

Chapter 1 homes in on Spinoza as a Bible critic. Based on existing historiography, it parses the main relevant historical contexts in which Spinoza came to articulate his analysis of the Bible: the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, freethinking philosophers, and the Reformed Church. It concludes with a detailed examination of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza’s major work of biblical criticism. Along the way I highlight themes for which Spinoza appealed to the biblical texts themselves: the textual unity of the Bible, and the biblical concepts of prophecy, divine election, and religious laws. The focus is on the biblical arguments for these propositions, and the philological choices that Spinoza made that enabled him to appeal to those specific biblical texts. This first chapter lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, which examines issues of biblical philology and interpretation discussed among the Dutch Reformed contemporaries of Spinoza.

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