scholarly journals A Mind in Training: Philo of Alexandria on Jacob's Spiritual Exercises

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-288
Author(s):  
Elisa Uusimäki
Keyword(s):  
Mental Practice ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
Spiritual Training ◽  
Wise Person ◽  
Philosophical Life

How does Philo of Alexandria depict the formation of a wise person? This article pays attention to the centrality of spiritual training in Graeco-Roman philosophy, and argues that Philo likewise regards the process of seeking wisdom as entailing mental practice. The analysis focuses on two passages of Quis rerum divinarum heres sit and Legum allegoriarum where Philo attributes lists of spiritual exercises to the figure of Jacob. As such, these accounts illustrate how Philo makes use of scriptural interpretation as he imagines the execution of a life dedicated to wisdom. The listed exercises are largely familiar from Graeco-Roman philosophical traditions, yet they coexist with and contribute to the performance of Philo's ancestral tradition. This mέlange of cultural elements suggests that Philo discusses Jacob's inner cultivation in order to enable his audience to grasp (one prospect of) how to lead a Jewish philosophical life in the Roman Alexandria.

scholarly journals THE INVESTIGATION OF “DİĞENİS AND AZRAIL” AND “DUHA KOCA OĞLU DELİ DUMRUL” IN CONTEXT OF INTERCULTURAL INTERACTION

2022 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 174-183
Author(s):  
Sentaç ARI
Keyword(s):  
Analysis Method ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Wise Person ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Elements

Epics are the oldest products in the world. They are passed down from generation to generation. They allow us to detect cultural exchanges. In the study, the works of "Digenis and Azrael" and "Duha Kocaoğlu Deli Dumrul" were compared. The work focused on common cultural elements. Anonymous epic called "Digenis and Azrael" was translated from Dimotiki Greek into Turkish. Both works were analyzed in a holistic way with content analysis method. There are religious elements in both works. Belief in the existence and oneness of God is emphasized. In both works, the protagonists are famous for their beatings. They both fought with the Azrael who came to take their lives. In the end, they accepted God's will and accepted death. In both works, there is a grandfather who is defined as a wise person and he comments on the hero. The differences in the works are as follows: Azrâil wants to take Digenis' life because the time has come. He wants to take Deli Dumrul's life because he is suspicious of God's unity and power. Azrâil, who is a strong character in Deli Dumrul, bows to the power of Digenis in Digenis. Deli Dumrul's mother does not want to give her life for her son. Azrael's mother advises Azrael not to take anyone's life. In both works, the inability to accept death in the universal human thought and the desire to change the result are handled.

“From My Body Alone Do I Know This”: Sacrament & Scripture as Technologies of the Self in the Work of Jacob Böhme

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-186
Author(s):  
Joshua Levi Ian Gentzke
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Therapeutic Practice ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This essay employs Michel Foucault’s typology of technologies to elucidate the relationship between early modern Eucharistic polemics, scriptural hermeneutics, and the practice of self-creation in the work of Jacob Böhme (1575–1624). Böhme’s work has often been dismissed as philosophically and theologically incoherent. Yet when understood as a therapeutic practice of self-transformation, what might appear to be madness can be seen as method. I demonstrate that Böhme created a program of “spiritual exercises,” rooted in the corporeal imagination, which absorbed and subverted religious power by reinterpreting two institutional “technologies of power” – the Eucharist and scriptural hermeneutics – and synthesizing them into a “technology of the self.” I show that Böhme drew upon esoteric thought to radicalize early modern Protestantism, transforming it from a form of religious protest bent on institutional reform into a countercultural spirituality centered on self-creation. Thus, Böhme developed a creative hermeneutics that appropriated and rejected aspects of competing Protestant modes of sacramental and scriptural interpretation to formulate an erotic gnosis of self and world exploration.

The effect of mental practice on melodic jazz improvisation achievement.

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
Peter Miksza ◽  
Kevin Watson ◽  
Iantheia Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Mental Practice ◽  
Jazz Improvisation

Balancing Act: Identity and Otherness among Latin American Immigrants and their Food Practices

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Paulette Kershenovich Schuster
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Food Practices ◽  
Food Research ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Latin American Immigrants

This article deals with the identity construction of Latin American immigrants in Israel through their food practices. Food is a basic symbolic element connecting cultural perceptions and experiences. For immigrants, food is also an important element in the maintenance of personal ties with their home countries and a cohesive factor in the construction of a new identity in Israel, their adopted homeland. Food practices encode tacit information and non-verbal cues that are integral parts of an individual’s relationship with different social groups. In this case, I recruited participants from an online group formed within social media platforms of Latin American women living in Israel. The basic assumption of this study posits that certain communication systems are set in motion around food events in various social contexts pertaining to different national or local cuisines and culinary customs. Their meaning, significance and modifications and how they are framed. This article focuses on the adaptation and acculturation processes because it is at that point that immigrants are faced with an interesting duality of reconstructing their unique cultural perceptions to either fit the existing national collective ethos or create a new reality. In this study, the main objective is to compare two different immigrant groups: Jewish and non-Jewish women from Latin America who came to Israel during the last ten years. The comparative nature of the research revealed marked differences between ethnic, religious and cultural elements that reflect coping strategies manifested in the cultural production of food and its representation in two distinct domains: private and public. In the former, it is illustrated within the family and home and how they connect or clash with the latter in the form of consumption in public. Combining cultural studies and discourse analysis, this article offers fresh insight into new models of food practices and reproductions. The article’s contribution to new food research lies in its ability to shed light on how inter-generational and inter-religious discourses are melded while food practices and traditions are embedded in a new Israeli identity.

C. S. Lewis’s Use of Scripture in the ‘Liar, Lunatic, Lord’ Argument

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-66
Author(s):  
Leslie Baynes
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
The Liar

C. S. Lewis’s ‘Liar, Lunatic, Lord’ argument elicits important questions about Jesus and scriptural interpretation that need addressing, not least because of its immense popularity in some Christian circles. Did Jesus really go about saying that he was God, or the Son of God, or that he had always existed? After examining the biblical record, must one conclude that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or God? Are there really no alternatives? The point of this paper is most emphatically not to attempt to disprove Jesus’ divinity, but rather to demonstrate that Lewis’s use of the gospels is insufficient to prove it. The paper argues that even without deeming the gospels ‘legends,’ but rather accepting them as a reliable portrayal of the words of Jesus, Lewis’s argument falls short because he fails to put the gospels into their first-century context. He instead reads post-Nicene Christology into Hellenistic Judeo-Christian documents.

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