Mary and the Gospel Narratives

Author(s):  
Chris Maunder

This first chapter in the book lays foundations for later chapters which cite New Testament references to Mary. The passages which include Mary are summarized, along with interpretations by patristic theologians that led to Marian doctrines in East and West. The views of contemporary writers are also discussed. The gospels are analysed independently, revealing a development from a brief and rather minimal mention of Mary in Mark’s Gospel to greater emphasis in Matthew, Luke, and John. Those familiar with the Western traditions of Mary may be surprised to learn that, while a tradition of a first resurrection appearance of Christ to Mary originating in the gospels was posited in the West but then rejected, it was accepted by some important theologians in the East. It follows that there is an argument for Mary’s presence in sight of the cross being recorded not only in John, but in all four gospels.

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
David J. Neumann

AbstractSwami Vivekananda was the most influential pioneer of a Yogi Christ, illustrating well over a century ago how the life and teachings of Jesus might be incorporated within a larger Hindu worldview—and then presented back to Western audiences. Appropriation of Jesus, one of the central symbols of the West, might be viewed as the ultimate act of counter-Orientalism. This article begins by providing a brief biography of Vivekananda and the modern Hinduism that nurtured him and that he propagated. He articulated an inclusivist vision of Advaita Vedanta as the most compelling vision of universal religion. Next, the article turns to Vivekananda's views of Christianity, for which he had little affection, and the Bible, which he knew extraordinarily well. The article then systematically explores Vivekananda's engagement with the New Testament, revealing a clear hermeneutical preference for the Gospels, particularly John. Following the lead of biblical scholars, Vivekananda made a distinction between the Christ of the Gospels and the Jesus of history, offering sometimes contradictory conclusions about the historicity of elements associated with Jesus's life. Finally, the article provides a detailed articulation of Vivekananda's Jesus—a figure at once familiar to Christians but, in significant ways, uniquely accommodated to Hindu metaphysics. Vivekananda demonstrated a robust understanding and discriminating use of the Christian Bible that has not been properly recognized. He deployed this knowledge to launch an important and long-lived pattern: an attractive, fleshed out depiction of Jesus of Nazareth, transformed from the Christian savior into a Yogi model of self-realization. Through his efforts, Jesus became an indisputably Indian religious figure, no longer just a Christian one. The Yogi Christ remains a prominent global religious figure familiar to Hindus, Christians, and those of other faiths alike.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Friedman ◽  
Ying-Yi Hong ◽  
Tony Simons ◽  
Shu-Cheng (Steve) Chi ◽  
Se-Hyung (David) Oh ◽  
...  

Behavioral integrity (BI)—a perception that a person acts in ways that are consistent with their words—has been shown to have an impact on many areas of work life. However, there have been few studies of BI in Eastern cultural contexts. Differences in communication style and the nature of hierarchical relationships suggest that spoken commitments are interpreted differently in the East and the West. We performed three scenario-based experiments that look at response to word–deed inconsistency in different cultures. The experiments show that Indians, Koreans, and Taiwanese do not as readily revise BI downward following a broken promise as do Americans (Study 1), that the U.S.–Indian difference is especially pronounced when the speaker is a boss rather than a subordinate (Study 2), and that people exposed to both cultures adjust perceptions of BI based on the cultural context of where the speaking occurs (Study 3).


1963 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Richmond

In the most southerly group of desert routes between Syria and Mesopotamia Palmyra lies at the cross-roads. The north-eastward route from Damascus to Circesium is crossed by the eastward route from Emesa, now Homs, to Babylonia. Palmyra owes this key-position first to its precious springs and secondly to the fact that here the natural traffic lines from west to east debouch from the Syrian mountains into the head of the eastwardlooking basin of the Wadi el Khorr, a winter tributary of the Euphrates. Nor were these obvious routes the sole possibility. At Circesium the Euphrates may be crossed: at its eastward turn the lower river and its valley-dwellers become dominant—here runs the modern frontier between Syria and Iraq. Avoiding this control, caravan routes, negotiable solely by those with intimate knowledge of the waste and its people, lead direct to the heart of Mesopotamia and onwards to the Persian Gulf. As between East and West, Palmyra, an island in the desert, offered both a mart for exchange and an essential staging-point for direct through traffic. Its possessors were by nature masters of the situation; and, while they might be subject to the cultural or political influences of either East or West, their geographical isolation secured for them an independence founded upon pre-eminent experience of desert ways, which constituted them the natural masters and middlemen of the caravan routes that met and branched or crossed in their oasis.


2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig S. Keener

Majority World readings of Matthew (and the Gospels generally) often help us to appreciate the very sorts of stories that seem most alien to readers in the West: stories of unusual cures and exorcisms of hostile spirits. Rather than simply allegorising these narratives, many Majority World readers treat them as models for experiencing healing and deliverance. Accounts of these experiences appear in a wide variety of cultures; in addition to a range of published sources, the article includes some material based on the author’s interviews with people claiming first-hand experiences of this nature in the Republic of Congo. Such readings invite a more sympathetic hearing of some Gospel narratives than they often receive in the West.


Author(s):  
Lucianna Benincasa

In this qualitative study of school discourse on national day commemorations, focus is on the "social creativity strategies" through which group members can improve their social identity. Discourse analysis was carried out on thirty-nine teachers' speeches delivered in Greek schools between 1998 and 2004. The speakers scorn rationality and logic, stereotypically attributed to "the West" (a "West" which is perceived not to include Greece), as cold and not human. The Greeks' successful national struggles are presented instead as the result of irrationality. They claim irrationality to be the most human and thus the most valuable quality, which places Greece first in the world hierarchy. The results are further discussed in terms of their implications for learning and teaching in the classroom, as well as for policy and research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-241
Author(s):  
Volker W. Framenau ◽  
Barbara C. Baehr

The wolf spider (Lycosidae Sundevall, 1833) genusArtoriaThorell, 1877 is revised for New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia, to include 34 species, 21 of which are new to science:A.albopilata(Urquhart, 1893),A.altaFramenau 2004,A.beaurysp. n.,A.barringtonensissp. n.,A.belfordensissp. n.,A.berenice(L. Koch, 1877),A.bondisp. n.,A.boodereesp. n.,A.comleroisp. n.,A.corowasp. n.,A.equipalussp. n.,A.extraordinariasp. n.,A.flavimanaSimon, 1909,A.gloriosa(Rainbow, 1920),A.grahammilledgeisp. n.,A.helensmithaesp. n.,A.howquaensisFramenau, 2002,A.kanangrasp. n.,A.kerewongsp. n.,A.lineata(L. Koch, 1877),A.marootasp. n.,A.mckayiFramenau, 2002,A.mungosp. n.,A.munmorahsp. n.,A.myallensissp. n.,A.quadrataFramenau, 2002,A.slatyerisp. n.,A.streperasp. n.,A.taeniiferaSimon, 1909,A.teraniasp. n.,A.triangularisFramenau, 2002,A.ulrichiFramenau, 2002,A.victoriensisFramenau, Gotch & Austin, 2006, andA.wilkieisp. n.LycosapruinosaL. Koch, 1877, currently listed inArtoria, is considered a nomen dubium.Artoriaare largely forest dwellers, although some species have preferences for more open areas such as riparian or coastal environments or grasslands. Consequently, the genus mainly occurs east and west along the Great Dividing Range, although some species can be found into the Riverina, Cobar Peneplain and Darling Riverine Plains IBRA regions to the west.


1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar Melton

For over a century now, scholars have viewed the divergent paths of agrarian development east and west of the Elbe river as a watershed in German history. In the west, according to this view, peasants from the late Middle Ages on enjoyed increasing freedom from direct seigniorial interference in their social, economic, and judicial affairs. Seigniorial obligations (often commuted to cash rents) remained, as did a degree of seigniorial control over peasant lands in many regions, but peasants west of the Elbe increasingly shed the more onerous seigniorial obligations, and could generally move without the lord's permission.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Robert J. Getty

The mistranslation by Mr. J. D. Duff of nox ubi sidera condit as ‘where night hides the stars’ is also the interpretation of many commentators from Sulpitius in the last decade of the fifteenth century to Lejay in the last decade of the nineteenth. Lucan is clearly speaking of East and West in 15, of South in 16, and of North in 17–18. How can night be said to hide the stars in the West? Burman saw the difficulty and expressed himself thus: ‘…dubito, an recte dicatur, nox condere sidera, id est, Stellas, quae sole cadente prodeunt, et se spectanda praebent, obscurare et occulere: neque nunc occurrit alius ex veteribus locus, unde ita locutos fuisse Poetas appareat. Nox enim adveniens prodit sidera, praecipitans uero, aurora adveniente, potest recte dici condere, et quasi auferre ex oculis hominum sidera.’ Burman then was tempted to understand sidera as the sun, but could not parallel this use of the plural, although he admitted the use of sidera solis. He cited Ouid. Met. 14, 172–3 caelumque et sidera solis / respicio, as did Haskins, who took the same view with hesitation. Ezra de Clerq van Jever in his Specimen Selectarum Observationum, which he published at Leiden in 1772, definitely understood sidera as the sun, though he could parallel only sidus in the singular from Ouid. A.A. 1, 723–4 aequoris unda / debet et a radiis sideris esse niger. But, it may be said, these Ovidian passages are such that no ambiguity is possible, and are not quite relevant to Lucan's phrase.


2016 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Terry Root

The classic theistic doctrine of an immutable God, unaffected by anything outside of God and apathetically incapable of suffering, underpins many atonement theories which project only the suffering of Jesus at the cross. That view is heavily dependent upon the continuing acceptance of the theological paradox of the immutable divine Father and the suffering divine Son. This essay argues that this view is too narrowly christological, lacking in theological context and unsupported by the New Testament witness to the unique relationship and unity of purpose in action of the Father and the Son. It further argues that when that narrow christology is contextualised by the theology of the New Testament witness a picture emerges of God the Father united in suffering love with God the Son at the cross to redeem creation from the effects of sin. Additionally it demonstrates that divine action in Christ’s resurrection and exaltation, as explicitly described within the New Testament witness, strengthens the hypothesis that both the Father and the Son willingly undertook the sacrificial suffering necessary to achieve their unity of purpose.


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