Suffering and Sacrifice

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-76
Author(s):  
Sarah Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
The Status ◽  
Spiritual Self ◽  
And Function ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

This article offers the argument that suffering (yisurin) in the Babylonian Talmud functions as a locus for the relationship between God and rabbinic Jews. Scholars of rabbinic martyrdom and asceticism have tended to claim that the Talmud's positive portrayal of suffering is a theodical apology for unexplained evil in the world. However, the article argues that the Talmud—in contrast to earlier rabbinic texts—presents suffering as spiritually relevant not primarily to justify preexisting suffering, but rather to develop a site at which to interpret information about an individual's spiritual status. The article draws on theories of sacrifice's structure and function, in conjunction with close analysis of rabbinic texts that relate suffering to sacrifice. The pericope at the core of the article's argument demonstrates a strikingly technical approach to the human experience of suffering, describing four examples of yisurin in which no real physical suffering occurs; in each instance the “victim” experiences extremely mild discomfort at most, and at the least barely registers an experience of inconvenience. Nonetheless, these experiences all qualify as “suffering,” and are thus still understood to bear indisputable soteriological import. Physical suffering in the Talmud is thus open for interpretation, yielding information about the status of the sufferer's spiritual self. Human suffering is viewed as religiously desirable in both late rabbinic and early Christian literatures. By developing an understanding of its hermeneutical function for the rabbis, this article helps to elucidate the value of suffering for rabbinic literature as a subset of late antique religious discourse.

Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
The Relationship

Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions brings together thirteen scholars of late-antique, medieval, and renaissance traditions who discuss magic, religious experience, ritual, and witch-beliefs with the aim of reflecting on the relationship between man and the supernatural. The content of the volume is intriguingly diverse and includes late antique traditions covering erotic love magic, Hellenistic-Egyptian astrology, apotropaic rituals, early Christian amulets, and astrological amulets; medieval traditions focusing on the relationships between magic and disbelief, pagan magic and Christian culture, as well as witchcraft and magic in Britain, Scandinavian sympathetic graphophagy, superstition in sermon literature; and finally Renaissance traditions revolving around Agrippan magic, witchcraft in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and a Biblical toponym related to the Friulan Benandanti’s visionary experiences. These varied topics reflect the multifaceted ways through which men aimed to establish relationships with the supernatural in diverse cultural traditions, and for different purposes, between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance. These ways eventually contributed to shaping the civilizations of the supernatural or those peculiar patterns which helped men look at themselves through the mirror of their own amazement of being in this world.

scholarly journals Did the Rabbis Believe in Agreus Pan? Rabbinic Relationships with Roman Power, Culture, and Religion inGenesis Rabbah63

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-450
Author(s):  
Moshe Simon-Shoshan
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article presents a reading of the story of the Patriarch's meeting with the Emperor Diocletian as it appears in the late antique midrashic compilation,Genesis Rabbah. The story encapsulates the complexity of the relationship between the rabbis and Roman political, cultural and religious hegemony, showing the rabbis as both in eternal conflict with the Roman Empire and its culture and, yet, in many ways, very Roman themselves. In the second half of the article, I argue that this story presents a unique perspective on rabbinic views of both “demons” and the Olympian gods themselves. I conclude by comparing and contrasting these views with the approaches of early Christian thinkers.

VARRO IN VIRGILIAN COMMENTARIES: TRANSMISSION IN FRAGMENTS

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL VALLAT
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Indirect Transmission ◽  
Manuscript Transmission ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Function

Abstract: This paper analyses the transmission of Varro in late antique Virgil commentaries. Various problems are identified and discussed: the reliability of authors' names and titles of works in citations and testimonies; different forms of quotation; complications entailed by manuscript transmission; the delimitation of the fragments; the indirect transmission of Varro already in antiquity; the status and function of Varro in a Virgil commentary. Finally I suggest that Varro had a special if implicit status in fourth-century ideological debates, in the tacit rivalry of grammarians with Christian polemicists.

scholarly journals Prostor i funkcije sakristije u ranokršćanskom razdoblju na primjeru zadarskoga episkopalnog sklopa

Ars Adriatica ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Ana Mišković
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The West ◽  
Additional Function ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Byzantine Architecture ◽  
East End ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Church

The sacristy is an ancillary but also a necessary liturgical space in every religious complex. Judging from late-antique and early-medieval written records, a chamber adjacent to the façade or the east end (frequently one of the pastophoria) of the main congregational church had the function of a sacristy. In the regions practising the Western rite, the sacristy was located next to the church façade. It housed liturgical vessels, ecclesiastical objects, liturgical vestments for the clergy and books. The sacristy was the place where priests were robed for the eucharistic celebration and from which they emerged in the solemn procession marking the beginning of the service. In the West, the sacristy was not the place where the gifts of the congregation were accepted; instead, they brought them to the church’s chancel screen. on the other hand, in the east, the additional function of the sacristy was that of the place where gifts were presented (prothesis). Therefore, the congregation had access to it so that they could deposit their offerings which the clergy then carried to the altar. In any case, in the West and east alike, there was no separate room set aside exclusively for the offerings of the congregation. In fact, it cannot be said that the prothesis and diaconicon – the chambers flanking the presbytery – had the function of a sacristy at this point because they appeared in Byzantine architecture only in the early middle ages. Constantinopolitan sources confirm that a liturgical reform took place between the first three decades of the eighth century, that is, the office of Patriarch Germanus i, and the mid-tenth century reign of emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus: the previously unified liturgical function of the sacristy split into two. Therefore, the application of the terms prothesis and diaconicon to the chambers (pastophoria) flanking the main apse in early Christian architecture should be discarded.  Focusing on the example of the chamber situated next to the façade of the early Christian Cathedral in the episcopal complex at Zadar, it can be noted that its architecture and function were that of a sacristy, especially if one compares it to liturgical documents from Rome (Ordines romani). This chamber and its location are interpreted on the basis of the historical records of local chroniclers who mention a custom of offerings – the so-called Varina – during the office of Bishop Felix, and all of this, taken together, suggests that in the earliest Christian times the Church of Zadar practised a romanstyle Westernrite.

Writing systems and language contact in the Euro- and Sinocentric worlds

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Coulmas
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
System A ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractOn the social level languages contact usually implies hierarchies, reflecting historical processes of adaptation and power relations between groups of speakers. This paper considers language contact in the written mode from the point of view of choice, that is, choice of language and choice of writing system. A wider range of factors that have a bearing on choice in contact situations of languages and their writing systems must be taken into consideration: political, social, linguistic and ideological. Examples of each kind from the Eurocentric and Sinocentric worlds are discussed and compared with each other. Particular attention is paid to the relationship bilingual writers create between the units of two languages and two writing systems which, from a sociolinguistic point of view, is seen as indicative of the status and function of the languages involved.

The Riverrun of Rewriting Scripture: From Textual Cannibalism to Scriptural Completion

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 475-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract To retain the concept of rewritten Bible as a scholarly category it is not only crucial to slightly change the name of the notion by re-designating it “rewritten Scripture” but also to accord the term the status of a cross-cultural third-order concept. This will allow research to detach the notion from its somewhat current “parochial” nature intrinsically linked as it is to the study of Second Temple Jewish literature. Rewritten Scripture should be conceived of as an excessive form of intertextuality that signifies the relationship existing between scriptural predecessor and rewritten piece with respect to the question of authority. Apart from advancing the theoretical discussion of the nomenclature, the essay takes a fresh look at a moot point that has loomed large in previous debates, whether rewritten Scripture strives to replace its scriptural predecessor or aims to complement it in an irenic fashion. The acknowledgement of some aspectualism grants legitimacy to both viewpoints, when they are rightfully understood within their proper perspectives. Finally, the article engages in typological considerations that will allow us to distinguish between three continua defined by respectively content, form, and function. Each constitutes a continuum on its own that advantageously may be segmented by several caesuras, which will allow us to differentiate between irenic scriptural completion at the one end of the spectrum and scriptural cannibalism at the other end of the spectrum. The fact that two works belonging to the category diverge on one continuum does not imply a corresponding divergence at other continua.

scholarly journals Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Islamic Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Safet Bektovic
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Cultural Renaissance ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Role And Function

In the aftermath of the cultural renaissance movement (naḥḍa), especially during the second half of the 20th century, philosophy succeeded in regaining the status it enjoyed in medieval times as an important part of the Muslim intellectual discourse. In recent decades, philosophical thought (falsafa) has gained more prominence and relevance, especially with regard to the Islamic debate about the role and function of the Islamic tradition in the contemporary modern world. In this debate, Muslim philosophers deal with various questions and issues, foremost among them: the concept of knowledge, the wider question of reform (iṣlāḥ), and the relationship between religion and secularism. How Muslim thinkers and philosophers understand the questions and how they answer them vary widely, depending on their methodological approach to these issues - metaphysics, historicity, hermeneutics, and deconstruction – as well as their different positions regarding the role of philosophy in relation to contemporary Islām in general and its role in understanding the Islamic tradition’s relation with modernity in particular. The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the methodological diversity in contemporary Muslim philosophy, through readings of the work of four thinkers.

scholarly journals FROM KNOWLEDGE CATHEDRALS TO NETWORKED CO-CREATION: PUBLIC LIBRARIES, TRUST AND THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Ray Wyatt ◽  
Dale Leorke
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Exchange Governance ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
And Function ◽  
A Site ◽  
Networked Society

Since the mid-nineteenth century, public libraries have been trusted sites of information. They have retained this public trust even as the networked society and digital technologies have profoundly changed the status and function of information in social and economic life. Information super-abundance, ‘platform capitalism’ and the rise of ‘big data’ have made information a currency within increasingly intersecting processes of commercial exchange, governance, surveillance and self-expression. Libraries are not on the sidelines of this shift. As media centres and information managers, they have supported users to navigate how information is distributed and accessed. They are also actively shaping how information is put-to-use, reconfiguring their service delivery around user-centred models emphasising participation and co-creation, user experience, pleasure, innovation, and peer-to-peer learning. This paper explores the tensions at the heart of the library’s continued status as a site of trusted information. Using a theoretically contextualized ethnographic methodology, the paper discusses how libraries perform as infrastructures of trust in the knowledge economy. Part one contextualises the library’s altered relation to information within its physical transformation as an institution. Part two draws upon interviews with Australian library professionals to drill down into the range of ways libraries perform informational trust at a time of systemic mistrust. Our findings reveal that many of these institutional performances of trust are non-equivalent, suggesting that we need to develop new thinking around the trust infrastructures we need in an information-abundant, entrepreneurialist culture.

scholarly journals إشكالية النَّص والاجتهاد بالرأي في العصر الحديث: دراسة أصولية تحليلية

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (96) ◽  
pp. 95-55
Author(s):  
رائد نصري أبو مؤنس
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Original Text ◽  
University Professors ◽  
Islamic Jurisprudence ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Era

يُعَدُّ "منهج التجديد بالاجتهاد بالرأي" من أهم دعوات التجديد في العصر الحديث، والتي التفَّ حولها كبار علماء التشريع الإسلامي وأساتذته. منهج له آراؤه ومواقفه الـمُحدَّدة من قضايا التجديد، وفي مقدمتها العلاقة بين النَّص والاجتهاد بالرأي؛ بما هي قضية مشكلة تحتاج إلى وضع حدود ومعايير ضابطة لها. وقد عرض البحث لأهم مناحي دعوات التجديد في العصر الحديث، وصولاً إلى إبراز منهج الاجتهاد بالرأي، وموقفه من التجديد في النَّص الشرعي مشفوعاً بدراسة أصولية تحليلية. وانتهى البحث إلى أنَّ الاجتهاد بالرأي هو منهج تشريعي مستقر، يقبله النَّص الشرعي، قطعياً كان أم ظنياً، بكيفيات ومعايير مُحدَّدة، تحفظ للنص مكانته ووظيفته، وتُطلِق للاجتهاد آفاقاً ممتدةً. The approach of Ijtihad through opinion is considered one of the most important calls for renewal in modern era. This approach has attracted great scholars of Islamic jurisprudence and university professors. It has its own opinions and positions about issues of renewal, especially the issue of the relationship between the Islamic original text and the Ijtihad through Opinion. This issue requires setting certain conditions and criteria to guarantee needed control. This study have illustrated the most important aspects of the call for renewal in the modern era, that would highlight the approach of Ijtihad through Opinion and its position towards renewal of our understanding of the original Islamic text. In order to do that the study uses a fundamentalist analytical approach. This study has concluded that Ijtihad through opinion is a sound legal approach, accepted by the Islamic text whether our understanding of the text is categorical or just a possible one. However it should be accepted within certain qualities and criteria that preserve the status and function of the text, and open broad prospects for Ijtihad.

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) of DNA and RNA

1989 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 34-35
Author(s):  
Patricia G. Arscott ◽  
Gil Lee ◽  
Victor A. Bloomfield ◽  
D. Fennell Evans
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Structures ◽  
Inorganic Materials ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Scanning Tunneling ◽  
Tunneling Microscopy ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Dna And Rna ◽  
Calf Thymus ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

STM is one of the most promising techniques available for visualizing the fine details of biomolecular structure. It has been used to map the surface topography of inorganic materials in atomic dimensions, and thus has the resolving power not only to determine the conformation of small molecules but to distinguish site-specific features within a molecule. That level of detail is of critical importance in understanding the relationship between form and function in biological systems. The size, shape, and accessibility of molecular structures can be determined much more accurately by STM than by electron microscopy since no staining, shadowing or labeling with heavy metals is required, and there is no exposure to damaging radiation by electrons. Crystallography and most other physical techniques do not give information about individual molecules.We have obtained striking images of DNA and RNA, using calf thymus DNA and two synthetic polynucleotides, poly(dG-me5dC)·poly(dG-me5dC) and poly(rA)·poly(rU).

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