The Magi and the Star

2020 ◽  
pp. 212-223
Author(s):  
D. H. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The West ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World

Matthew’s account of the Magi (magoi) is unique in the Bible and has led to a great many questions about their identity and what we should make of the ‘star’ that prompted their trip in the first place and led them to Christ. Exactly when Christian writers first ascribed the Magi as kings is unknown, but attribution of royalty to the Magi appears to have been established by the onset of the sixth century. Thereafter, the three ‘kings’ become commonplace in European illuminated manuscripts and art. Although it is generally assumed that the Magi were three in number, because they presented three gifts, three is not the only accounting. In the later Eastern sources, especially in Syria, the names of twelve Magi are also listed. But in the West, three names prevailed: Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, with different spellings. By Late Antiquity, it was commonly thought that each of the Magi had a separate country of origin: each one signified one of the three parts of the world—Africa, Asia, and Europe—and that these were linked with the sons of Noah, who fathered the three races of Earth. Writers perpetuated this construct through the medieval period.

scholarly journals Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose: Dialoguing with Jewish Tradition

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 763
Author(s):  
Bart J. Koet
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Cultural Consciousness ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

It is the thesis of this article that a secular form of the biblical Exodus pattern is used by Woody Allen in his Broadway Danny Rose. In the history of the Bible, and its interpretation, the Exodus pattern is again and again used as a model for inspiration: from oppression to deliverance. It was an important source of both argument and symbolism during the American Revolution. It was used by the Boer nationalists fighting the British Empire and it comes to life in the hand of liberation theology in South America. The use of this pattern and its use during the seder meal is to be taken loosely here: Exodus is not a theory, but a story, a “Big Story” that became part of the cultural consciousness of the West and quite a few other parts of the world. Although the Exodus story is in the first place an account of deliverance or liberation in a religious context and framework, in Broadway Danny Rose it is used as a moral device about how to survive in the modern wilderness.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander O'Hara
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The World

In the early Middle Ages Europe’s political landscape was significantly shaped by the emergence of new fundamental modes of identification, both ethnic and religious. These processes created new forms of social cohesion and conflict. The world into which the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder Columbanus entered when he left Ireland toward the end of the sixth century was a world of gentes, new constellations of peoples. The pluralistic political landscape of the gentes had replaced a world of empire. This chapter introduces the themes and approach of this volume, which explores Columbanus’s influence on Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the modern European Union; the emerging idea of Europe in the early Middle Ages, which Columbanus gave voice to; and how reciprocity and cultural hybridity can be useful lenses through which to study this period of transformation from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Angel

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-48
Author(s):  
A. Isabelle Amezcua ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Principles ◽  
The West ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Contact Points ◽  
Common Motif ◽  
The World

Angels are a common motif in the World, and in the West. Not just in religion (and, by extension, philosophy), but also in art and its myriad expressions. There are many ways to imagine (that is, to make an image of) angels, and their etymology is just as varied. For instance, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew mal’akh, it means “shadow of God,” which sounds a bit ominous. Angels can often be understood as representative of various religions’ ethical principles, a moral symbol par excellence; and yet still others may fall from grace for their transgressions. While they are not always all called “angels,” celestial beings who act as contact points between God(s) and humans appear frequently in many different theologies and mythologies around the world. In the Qur'an, for example, Allah sends angels, who are described as having many pairs of wings, as messengers. The Bible, of course, references various angels as well. There is no one way an angel can be depicted. Fierce, kind, with many wings, or none at all. This particular piece focuses more on the angel’s expression. The expression is aloof. The piece is sketchy, loose, like our translations or ideas of angels.

Gnostic Biblical and Second Sophistic Homeric Interpretation

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-217
Author(s):  
Austin Busch
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Bodies

Abstract Gnostic biblical interpretation closely resembles, from a formal perspective, Second Sophistic interpretation of Homeric Epic, which no less than the Bible constituted canonical scripture in late antiquity. This becomes apparent when one compares rewritings of Homer in Philostratus’ Heroicus and in Dio Chrysostom’s Trojan Oration to biblical revision in the Secret Book of John, the Nature of the Rulers, and On the Origin of the World. This essay accounts for this resemblance with reference to ancient rhetorical textbooks and model compositional exercises (progymnasmata), which treat a rhetorical tactic identified as ἀνασκευὴ (“refutation”). It also ponders the implications and interpretive possibilities of joint analysis of these two bodies of late antique scriptural revision.

Dividing Relics

2018 ◽  
pp. 159-179
Author(s):  
Robert Wiśniewski
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Description

It is commonly believed that the practice of dividing corporeal relics had begun as early as the fourth century and that it was initiated in the eastern Mediterranean, to appear in the West at a much later date. This chapter challenges both these views. It demonstrates that there is no early description of dismembering a saint’s physical remains, and the evidence of the veneration of specific body parts is extremely scarce. Testimonies to the deposition of the same saint’s relics in several places can be better explained by transfers of relics, their independent discoveries, or the production of contact relics than by the actual division of relics. If this practice really existed in Late Antiquity, it was probably extremely rare in either part of the empire before the sixth century.

Gregory the Great's Europe

1981 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Markus
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Eastern Empire

Gregory became pope in the summer of 590, to succeed his predecessor who had been carried away by the plague. Nearly fifty years had passed since the first outbreak of the plague in the time of Justinian. Let the plague serve as our signpost to a period of upheaval across Europe. If the 530s were the ‘age of hope’ a disastrous reversal began in the 540s. The succeeding half-century was a time of collapsing hopes and darkening horizons: the prospect of imperial reconquest and peace receding after 540, never to be more than ephemerally and precariously realized; the dreams of spiritual and political unification revealed as illusory; war, plague and the obscure workings of ‘demographic forces’ combined to turn the Italy of Boethius into that of Gregory the Great in the course of some sixty years. The contours of the societies of late Antiquity were becoming displaced to produce a new social landscape. Some of this transformation has left visible traces in our evidence and has been extensively studied; much of it has been concealed from us, either through lack of evidence or through failure to ask the right questions. It is only in recent years, to take one example, that the subtle shifts in Byzantine religiosity and political ideology discernible in the later sixth century have begun to cohere into something like a unified picture of a ‘new integration’ of culture and society in the towns of the Eastern Empire. How far the world of Western Europe was exposed to analogous changes may be a question impossible to answer; in any case, it needs approaching piecemeal and with the necessary discrimination of time and place.

Prevalence of Suicidal Ideation in Sri Lanka

Crisis ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudath Samaraweera ◽  
Athula Sumathipala ◽  
Sisira Siribaddana ◽  
S. Sivayogan ◽  
Dinesh Bhugra
Keyword(s):  
Suicidal Ideation ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
General Population ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
National Average ◽  
The West ◽  
Suicide Methods ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Completed Suicide ◽  
The World

Background: Suicidal ideation can often lead to suicide attempts and completed suicide. Studies have shown that Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world but so far no studies have looked at prevalence of suicidal ideation in a general population in Sri Lanka. Aims: We wanted to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation by randomly selecting six Divisional Secretariats (Dss) out of 17 in one district. This district is known to have higher than national average rates of suicide. Methods: 808 participants were interviewed using Sinhala versions of GHQ-30 and Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation. Of these, 387 (48%) were males, and 421 (52%) were female. Results: On Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation, 29 individuals (4%) had active suicidal ideation and 23 (3%) had passive suicidal ideation. The active suicidal ideators were young, physically ill and had higher levels of helplessness and hopelessness. Conclusions: The prevalence of suicidal ideation in Sri Lanka is lower than reported from the West and yet suicide rates are higher. Further work must explore cultural and religious factors.

Psychology from Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic Perspectives

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fouad A-L.H. Abou-Hatab
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Western Psychology ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

This paper presents the case of psychology from a perspective not widely recognized by the West, namely, the Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic perspective. It discusses the introduction and development of psychology in this part of the world. Whenever such efforts are evaluated, six problems become apparent: (1) the one-way interaction with Western psychology; (2) the intellectual dependency; (3) the remote relationship with national heritage; (4) its irrelevance to cultural and social realities; (5) the inhibition of creativity; and (6) the loss of professional identity. Nevertheless, some major achievements are emphasized, and a four-facet look into the 21st century is proposed.

"Monotheistic" tendency in the late antiquity paganism

1996 ◽  
pp. 56-61
Author(s):  
I. Mozgovyy
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The World

The unceasing approximation of the remarkable 2000th anniversary of the coming to the world of Christ highlights the need for further analysis of those processes that took place in the spiritual life of the ancient peoples and laid the foundations of modern civilization with its universal human norms and values.

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

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