Historical Critical Interpretation is not (Necessarily) Critical Historical Interpretation: Taking Account of the Oral/Aural Conditions of the First-Century Mediterranean World

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Pieter F. Craffert
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Critical Interpretation

scholarly journals Palaeohispanic Languages and Epigraphies

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Do So

At least four writing systems—in addition to the Phoenician, Greek, and Latin ones—were used between the fifth century BCE and the first century CE to write the indigenous languages of the Iberian peninsula (the so-called Palaeohispanic languages): Tartessian, Iberian, Celtiberian, and Lusitanian. In total over three thousand inscriptions are preserved in what is certainly the largest corpus of epigraphic expression in the western Mediterranean world with the exception of the Italian peninsula. The aim of this book is to present a state of the question that includes the latest cutting-edge scholarship on these epigraphies and the languages that they transmit. To do so, the editors have put together a volume that from a multidisciplinary perspective brings together linguistic, philological, epigraphic, numismatic, historical, and archaeological aspects of the surviving inscriptions. The study of these languages is essential to achieve a better understanding of the social, economic, and cultural history of Hispania and the ancient western Mediterranean. They are also the key to our understanding of colonial Phoenician and Greek literacy, which lies at the root of the spread of these languages and also of the diffusion of Roman literacy, which played an important role in the final expansion of the so-called Palaeohispanic languages.

Gaining a Past, Losing a Future: Web 2.0 and Internet Historicity

2012 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Allen
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Web 3.0 ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
The Web

This article explore how, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the internet became historicised, meaning that its public existence is now explicitly framed through a narrative that locates the current internet in relation to a past internet. Up until this time, in popular culture, the internet had been understood mainly as the future-in-the-present, as if it had no past. The internet might have had a history, but it had no historicity. That has changed because of Web 2.0, and the effects of Tim O'Reilly's creative marketing of that label. Web 2.0, in this sense not a technology or practice but the marker of a discourse of historical interpretation dependent on versions, created for us a second version of the web, different from (and yet connected to) that of the 1990s. This historicising moment aligned the past and future in ways suitable to those who might control or manage the present. And while Web 3.0, implied or real, suggests the ‘future’, it also marks out a loss of other times, or the possibility of alterity understood through temporality.

Jan Hasištejnský z Lobkovic: A Fifteenth-Century Czech Traveler to the Mediterranean World

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Lisy-Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Multinational Group ◽  
Central European ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Twenty First Century

In 1493, a Czech nobleman named Jan Hasištejnský z Lobkovic embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As nearly all Central European pilgrims did, he traveled south through the Tyrol to Venice and joined a large, multinational group there before setting out across the Mediterranean. He remained nearly a month in Venice, meeting prominent political figures, visiting churches and cloisters, and admiring the realism of the painting and sculpture of the Venetian quattrocento. Among all the other marvels of Venice that he describes in his 1505 travelogue is the memory of his day trip to the island of Murano. “In this little town,” he writes, “there are, I think, close to seventy artisans or more, and all are glass makers.” He describes some of the fine works that he saw there, and eagerly adds, “and there is always a great quantity of these various things completed, so that whoever arrives wants to buy something of it.” In this moment, the fifteenth-century tourist is not that far removed from his counterpart in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Redeeming Woman: A Response to the “Second Sex” Issue from within the Tradition of Catholic Scriptural Exegesis

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 474
Author(s):  
Deborah Savage
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
Exegetical Tradition

The aim of this paper is to correct an historical error: the ancient claim, grounded in a flawed understanding of the reproductive act, that woman is inferior to man. I will show that the lineage of this can be traced as far back as the pre-Socratic philosophers, finally finding its earliest concrete expression in a claim most have either dismissed, forgotten, or never heard: Aristotle’s argument that women are merely “malformed males” and are therefore “inferior to man.” The theory found support in the first century with a historical interpretation of Genesis 2:18-23, traceable in particular to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo (BC 13-AD 54). Philo’s own theory about woman echoed that of Aristotle’s; his legacy includes the vague feeling that Scripture itself declares that, since woman is created after man, she is necessarily subservient to him. She becomes, as it were, the “second sex.” I dispute both these accounts and show that they can be defeated on their own terms. Through the lens of Hebraic and Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology, and building on the insights of St. John Paul II, I provide a robust, philosophically and theologically grounded account of man and woman from within the Catholic exegetical tradition.

scholarly journals The Introduction of Christianity to the Sub-Continent and its Historical Evolution

2017 ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
Dr. Hashmat Ali Safi ◽  
Dr. Hussain Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Mediterranean World

Christianity was introduced to the Indian sub-continent in the first century by St. Thomas one of the twelve disciples of Jesus in Kerala, India. It was the trade that established socio-political links between India and eastren Mediterranean world and ultimately introduced Islam, Christianity and Judaism to this region. After the decline of Thomasonian Christians another group from Jerusalem and Baghdad re-established chiristainity in Malabar region. Historically Christianity made its way into the strange land by adopting its customs. It is said that Thomasonian Christians were culturally Indians, religiously Christians and ritually easterners. During their hard time in India they were supported by the Muslim rulers who let them flourish under the umbrela of their protection. Keywords: Christianity, Sub-continent, Islam, Malabar, Jerusalem

The Bible as Secular Story

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Mulsow
Keyword(s):  
Divine Providence ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
Critical Interpretation

Hermann von der Hardt’s exegetical work is extremely idiosyncratic and controversial. Yet it is important for at least two reasons. First, his reading of the Bible evinces a thorough philological approach that served to corroborate his view of the complicated, encoded structures of biblical history. Secondly, von der Hardt refused to present the Book of Jonah as a prediction of Christ’s coming, as was usually done before him. Instead, he adopted a strictly historical interpretation that avoided delving into the mysteries of divine providence and explained the book as series of practical, moral, and political recommendations. His exegesis shows a predilection for a historical-critical interpretation that fits in the tradition associated with La Peyrère, Spinoza, and Simon. For von der Hardt, the moral implications of the text were of overriding importance.

Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran?

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34
Author(s):  
Jodi Magness
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
First Century ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Animal Bones ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Air Space ◽  
The Mediterranean

Among the most puzzling features at Qumran are deposits of animal bones belonging to sheep, goat, and cattle, mixed with ash, which were placed on the ground between large potsherds or inside jars and covered with little or no earth. The deposits are concentrated in the open air spaces, mainly on the northwest and southeast sides of the site. Following Roland de Vaux, most scholars have interpreted these deposits as the remains of ritual but non-sacrificial meals eaten by the Qumran sectarians. However, comparisons with remains from ancient sanctuaries around the Mediterranean world and Near East leave little doubt that these deposits represent sacrificial refuse and consumption debris. Furthermore, records from de Vaux’s excavations suggest that in the first century B. C. E., an altar was located in an open air space on the northwest side of the site. The possibility that animal sacrifices were offered at Qumran is supported by legislation in sectarian works and in non-sectarian works that were considered authoritative by the sect. This evidence suggests that the Qumran sectarians observed the laws of the desert camp with the tabernacle in its midst, including offering animal sacrifices as mandated by biblical law.

A Symposiastic Background to James?

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter-Ben Smit
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Common Life ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Epistle Of James ◽  
The Way

The Epistle of James is not commonly seen in relation to early Christian common meals. At the same time, the work is preoccupied with the common life of an early Christian community, which in turn was, generally speaking, closely related to the way in which it celebrated its meals. In other words, ethics, ecclesiology, and etiquette were closely related. Based on this consideration, this essay attempts to relate aspects of the epistle to symposiastic conventions as they were known in the first-century Mediterranean world.

Hagiography and the Reconstruction of Local Religion in Late Antique Egypt: Memories, Inventions, and Landscapes

2006 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Frankfurter
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Historical Authenticity

AbstractScholars interested in the continuing vitality or decline of traditional religion in the late antique Mediterranean world often find themselves dependent on hagiographical texts, which inevitably depict traditional heathenism as a foil to their Christian heroes and thus cannot be used as simple documentation for historical realia. This paper proposes ways of drawing historical evidence for real, continuing local religion from hagiographical texts from late antique Egypt. After a discussion of the specific ways in which hagiography imposes literary and biblical themes on its representation of traditional religious practices, two points of authentic memory are presented: topographical traditions and traditions about expressive gesture. In contrast, the hagiographical image of the Egyptian priest, for example, carries little historical authenticity. A concluding section of the paper defends and outlines the use of anthropological models for the historical interpretation of hagiography.

scholarly journals The ancient Mediterranean values of honour and shame as a hermeneutical procedure: A social-scientific criticism in an African perspective

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Mahlangu
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
Value System ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
African Context ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
People Today

The life of modern people evolves around economics and all that goes with it, such as labour, production, consumption and possessions. These things do not only motivate many peoples' behaviour, but claim most of their energy and time. Therefore, the organising principle of life of people today is instrumental mastery - the individual's ability to control his or her environment, personal and impersonal, to attain a qualityorientated success: wealth, ownership, "good looks" proper grades, and all countable indications of success. But, in the first century Mediterranean world, economics was not the be-all and end-all. People worked primarily to conserve their status and not to gather possessions. Thus, the pivotal values of the first century Mediterranean world was honour and shame. This article looks at how social-scientific critics have attempted to show how the understanding of these values would lead to an understanding and interpretation of the New Testament. In this article the author approaches this paradigm from an African perspective. It is shown that the African interacts and transacts with the New Testament with his/her own value system in which these values are also encountered. This, therefore, makes the reading of the Bible in an African context possible.

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