The Miracles of an Eschatological Prophet

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 131-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Eve
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Holy Man

While it has not been a central aspect of his work on the historical Jesus, E.P. Sanders has contributed to the understanding of Jesus’ miracles. In Jesus and Judaism, Sanders argued that Jesus was an eschatological prophet and maintains that he certainly healed people in ways that his contemporaries regarded as miraculous, but that his miracles were not signs of the end, and cannot be used to determine what type of figure he was. The fuller treatment of miracles in the later The Historical Figure of Jesus emphasizes the exorcisms and dismisses the nature miracles as having made minimal impact, leading Sanders to conclude that Jesus’ miracles were not as spectacular as the Gospels suggest, and that they probably led his contemporaries to view Jesus as a holy man like Honi the Circle-Drawer, although Jesus himself probably understood his miracles as signs of the imminent arrival of the new age, and his disciples may have come to see them as a defeat of evil powers and as a legitimation of Jesus’ claims. After summarizing Sanders’s arguments this article goes on to suggest how some of their foundations may be secured while also suggesting that the case for associating Jesus’ miracles with his role as an eschatological prophet may be stronger than Sanders allowed. It then concludes by indicating how Sanders’s account of the role of Jesus’ miracles might be further rounded out first by exploring their possible symbolism (as Sanders does with the Temple incident) and second through various social-scientific approaches.

Doing Tricks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Borba
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Business Transaction ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Social Scientific

Sex work has long been of interest to a variety of fields, among them anthropology, sociology, public health, and feminist theory, to name but a few. However, with very few exceptions, sociolinguistics seems to have ignored the fact that commercial sex, as an intersubjective business transaction, is primarily negotiated in embodied linguistic interaction. By reviewing publications in distinct social scientific areas that directly or indirectly discuss the role of language in the sex industry, this chapter critically assesses the analytical affordances and methodological challenges for a sociolinguistics of sex work. It does so by discussing the “tricks” played by sex work, as a power-infused context of language use in which issues of agency (or lack thereof) are paramount, on sociolinguistic theory and methods. The chapter concludes that the study of language in commercial sex venues is sociolinguistically promising and epistemologically timely.

“Killing the Elephant”: Murderous Beasts and the Thrill of Retribution, 1885–1930

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Louise Wood
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Industrial Age ◽  
Public Executions

At the turn of the last century, circus elephants who had, in fits of distemper, killed circus trainers, workers, or spectators were regularly put to death. That alone is not extraordinary. What is fascinating is that the killings of these animals were not infrequently staged as public executions, with the elephant playing the role of the menacing criminal facing his just rewards before a crowd of eager witnesses. News accounts in turn reported these events as they would criminal executions, framing them as stories of murder, remorse, and retribution. This article treats these remarkable events as complex rituals through which larger tensions and conflicts surrounding crime and punishment in this period became manifest. These executions, performed as extensions of the modern circus, were commercial spectacles in and of the industrial age. Still, like circuses, they were also events full of ambivalence about this new age, as they acted out popular controversies over the nature of criminality, the meaning of justice, and the role of vengeance in modern life.

scholarly journals Transnational Religious Tourism in Modern China and the Transformation of the Cult of Mazu

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Yanchao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Religious Tourism ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Temple

This article explores transformations in the worship of popular goddess Mazu as a result of (religious) tourism. In particular, it focuses on the role of transnational tourism in the invention of tradition, folklorization, and commodification of the Mazu cult. Support from the central and local governments and the impact of economic globalization have transformed a traditional pilgrimage site that initially had a local and then national scope into a transnational tourist attraction. More specifically, the ancestral temple of Mazu at Meizhou Island, which was established as the uncontested origin of Mazu’s cult during the Song dynasty (960 to 1276), has been reconfigured architecturally and liturgically to function as both a sacred site and a tourist attraction. This reconfiguration has involved the reconstruction of traditional rituals and religious performances for religious tourism to promote the temple as the unadulterated expression of an intangible cultural heritage. The strategic combination of traditional rituals such as “dividing incense” and an innovative ceremony enjoining all devotees of “Mazu all over the world [to] return to mother’s home” to worship her have not only consolidated the goddess as a symbol of common cultural identity in mainland China, but also for the preservation of Chinese identity in diaspora. Indeed, Chinese migrants and their descendants are among the increasing numbers of pilgrims/tourists who come to Mazu’s ancestral temple seeking to reconnect with their heritage by partaking in authentic traditions. This article examines the spatial and ritual transformations that have re-signified this temple, and by extension, the cult of Mazu, as well as the media through which these transformations have spread transnationally. We will see that (transnational) religious tourism is a key medium.

ТРАДИЦИИ СТРАННИЧЕСТВА И ХРАМОПОПЕЧЕНИЕ: НА МАТЕРИАЛАХ ВОЛОГОДСКОЙ ГУБЕРНИИ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ XIX – НАЧАЛА XX ВЕКА

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Наталья Александровна Шушвал
Keyword(s):  
Fund Raising ◽  
Organic Part ◽  
Parish Community ◽  
Peasant Community ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church

В статье на архивных и этнографических материалах Вологодской губ. рассказывается о месте и роли странничества в деле храмопопечения. Само храмопопечение в крестьянском сообществе представляло собой заботу об устройстве храма – его внешнем и внутреннем благолепии, а также отношение к нему, бытующее в крестьянской среде во второй половине XIX – начале XX в., и все виды и формы коммуникаций, вызванные этим отношением. Сбор доброхотных подаяний для нужд храма являлся частью индивидуальных форм храмопопечения и органичной частью странничества. В статье прослеживается, как происходила организация сборов на храм внутри приходского сообщества, какую роль в ней исполняли священнослужители, какими качествами обладали сами сборщики и что являлось мотивами для участия в данной практике храмопопечения. Сборщики на храм иногда собирали средства без разрешения епархиального начальства, выпадали из церковной нормативности, но при этом полностью соответствовали пониманию крестьянами истинного благочестия. Несмотря на стремление церкви регулировать данный вид попечения, оно было ярким проявлением крестьянской религиозности. В статье можно увидеть, что странничество в крестьянской среде было бы невозможно без таких явлений крестьянской жизни, как странноприимство, идеи милосердия и представления о храме как о сакральном центре крестьянской общины. The article on the archival and ethnographic materials of the Vologda province tells about the place and the role of wandering in the matter of church care. The care of the church itself in the peasant community was a concern for the structure of the church – its external and internal splendor, as well as the attitude towards it that existed in the peasant environment in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries and all types and forms of communication caused by this attitude. Collecting voluntary alms for the needs of the temple was part of individual forms of church care and an organic part of wandering. The article notes how the church fund-raising had organized within the parish community, what role the clergy played in it, what qualities the collectors themselves possessed, and what were the motives for participating in this practice of temple care. Canvassers sometimes raised funds for the church without the permission of the diocesan authorities, which fell out of church standards, but at the same time fully corresponded to the peasants’ understanding of true piety. Despite the desire of the church to regulate this type of care, it was a vivid manifestation of peasant religiosity. It can be seen in the article that wandering among the peasant environment would have been impossible without such a phenomenon of peasant life as hospitality, the idea of mercy, and the idea of the temple as the sacred center of the peasant community.

‘Not Science but PR’: GM Food and the Makings of a Considered Sociology

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 262-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Murcott
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology ◽  
Scientific Production ◽  
Gm Food ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Sociology Of Food

This article sketches a sociology in the making that arises out of the case of GM food in Britain in 1999. It is presented with a view to moving, collaboratively, towards its further study. A ‘considered sociology’ is not original. It requires treating as an integral and enduring part of the field of investigation the historical and social characterisation of that same field. An evaluation of the sociology of food indicates that field's limitations for the examination of GM food, with one key exception. The article moves on to propose the need for (a) an as yet underinvestigated field of the industrialisation of food together with the role of science and technology within it, and (b) an examination of the industrialised (social) scientific production of ‘the consumer’. These may then serve as a basis for examining the manner in which public coverage of GM food could be characterised not as a matter of science but of a PR and is now publicly construed as a debate, ‘pro’ and ‘anti’.

Matthew 17.24-27 and its Value for Historical Jesus Research

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-274
Author(s):  
Gertraud Harb
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
The Temple

AbstractMany scholars have noted that the story of the temple tax in Mt. 17.24-27 could be attributed to the historical Jesus. This article contributes additional details in its support. After a brief discussion of the temple tax and its possible application in the Gospel of Matthew an analysis shows that the oldest pre-Matthean tradition is Mt. 17.25b-26. Next, three criteria of historical Jesus research are applied to these verses: plausibility, contrary tendency and coherence. The conclusion reached is that the saying can and should be attributed to Jesus himself. Thus, though the tax had been widely accepted in Judaism, it is probable that the historical Jesus refused the payment of the temple tax for himself and for his disciples and possibly for all Jews. Hence, the story of the temple tax should be considered and incorporated into the discussion of the historical Jesus and his attitude towards the Temple of Jerusalem.

Deliberation in Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
pp. 501-517
Author(s):  
John Gastil ◽  
Laura Black
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Public Sphere

The discipline of communication encompasses a broad spectrum of humanistic, interpretive, and social scientific approaches to studying public deliberation. Early work engaged Habermasian theories of the public sphere, and rhetorical scholarship has foregrounded the deliberative threads running back to the discipline’s earliest history in ancient Greece. The bulk of contemporary work, however, has examined the dynamics of deliberation, particularly in the context of face-to-face discussions and dialogues in small groups. These studies have revealed the importance of narrative and dialogic exchanges during deliberation, as well as the critical role of facilitation and the maintenance of deliberative norms. Research has also assessed the practical consequences of participating in deliberation. The discipline’s practical orientation has led some scholars to seek ways to optimize deliberative designs to maximize simultaneously the quality of their decision outputs and their civic impacts on participants.

scholarly journals Role of sustainomics and external climate forcing mechanism in biodiversity extinction : An overview

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
Neerja Upadhyaya ◽  
Ruchi Jain ◽  
R. Upadhyaya
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Complex Problem ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Sensitive Issue ◽  
The Government ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Living Organisms

Over millions of years, physiology and anatomy of the living organisms has been changed due to internal climate forcing mechanism. This has influenced the world wide distribution of species. External climate forcing mechanism has caused rapid rise in earth’s temperature and it is expected to rise by 2-4 °C by the end of the century. It has now been recognised as the most complex problem of present scenario and being concerned in almost every field of science. Climate change is the most sensitive issue which is a challenge not only for the government and society but also for each individual. In the present communication impact of external climate forcing mechanism on biodiversity and its extinction is being analysed and role of sustainomics for the same is overviewed. Studies reveal that the rate of speciation of flora and fauna is not in the accordance with the rate of externally enforced climate change. Thus, the increased rate of climate change has caused catastrophic mass extinction threat for plants, animals and insects in the anthrapocene era. The pattern of extinction and threatened species are not yet known. Various solutions for the problem have been suggested by the multidisciplinary researches, rooted by the sustainomics. These suggestions include to diverge from fossil fuel, to use renewables, to make and apply rules for 3Rs etc. Only cooperative involvement of social, scientific and industrial bodies may resolve the problem.

scholarly journals Keterlibatan Komunitas Penggiat Budaya dalam Mengomunikasikan Nilai Srawung Berdasarkan Relief Candi

KALPATARU ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Salma Fitri Kusumastuti ◽  
Yustina Dwi Stefanie ◽  
Dwi Kurnia Sandy
Keyword(s):  
The People ◽  
The Temple

Abstract. The value of srawung in Javanese society are slowly dying because of modernization. This value is related to harmony and respect to others, as can be seen in Ramayana reliefs from Candi Prambanan. Reliefs in the temple have been analysed by archaeologists through many researches and scientific books but at times, they are unable to deliver and communicate the value of srawung well. This research studied about how the heritage community conveys some research reports which contain important values to pursue a new relevant way of communicating its substantial value. The heritage community is partner to archaeologists, and also a part of society. So, with a role of heritage community, the value of srawung will be easily received by the people. Keywords: Ramayana Relief, Srawung, Heritage Community Abstrak. Di era modern ini nilai-nilai srawung yang berkaitan dengan kerukunan dan sikap saling menghormati sudah mulai terkikis. Pada dasarnya, nilai ini merupakan nilai luhur dari masa lalu yang dapat ditelusuri, salah satunya melalui relief Ramayana di Candi Prambanan. Relief di Candi Prambanan sebenarnya sudah banyak dikaji oleh para peneliti Arkeologi, tetapi penyampaiannya kepada masyarakat masih belum maksimal. Karenanya, permasalahan yang dibahas dalam tulisan ini adalah bagaimana melibatkan komunitas untuk berperan menyampaikan hasil penelitian dari para peneliti yang mengandung salah satu nilai luhur yaitu srawung. Tujuannya adalah untuk mendapatkan cara baru dalam menyajikan hasil penelitian arkeologi dengan lebih relevan dan luwes sehingga mudah diterima masyarakat. Komunitas penggiat budaya dapat menjadi rekan bagi peneliti untuk menyampaikan hasil penelitian dengan cara-cara relevan dan sesuai dengan perkembangan zaman. Kata kunci: Relief Ramayana, Srawung, Komunitas Penggiat Budaya

From Myth to History: Historicizing a Sage for the Sake of Persuasion in the Yellow Emperor Narratives

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanmo Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Historical Figure ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
The Many ◽  
Remote Past

Among the many depictions of the Yellow Emperor that survive in a number of early Chinese texts, the historicized image of this purported ancient sage king has been accepted by many Chinese scholars as that of a historical figure and has greatly inspired their reconstruction of China’s remote past. In examining some of the extant Huangdi narratives, especially passages preserved in theDiscourses of the States[Guoyu],Records of the Grand Historian[Shiji], andRemaining Zhou Documents[Yi Zhoushu], this paper reveals a trend of historicizing an originally mythical Yellow Emperor presented in early Chinese writings. It also explores the historiographical reasoning behind such historicization and provides an alternative approach emphasizing the role of persuasion in the Huangdi narratives.

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