scholarly journals CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL, HIERARCHICAL AND EGALITARIAN: SOCIAL-POLITICAL USES OF THE CONCEPT OF “HOME” IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Phronimon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Strijdom
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
The Family ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
The One ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
Point Of Departure

The cognitive linguist George Lakoff has argued that in the human brain two concepts of the family are mapped onto two contrasting political concepts, which reveal two kinds of systemic morality: a hierarchical, strict and disciplining father morality of conservatives on the one hand, and an egalitarian, nurturing parent morality of progressives or liberals on the other. Taking Lakoff’s thesis as point of departure, I offer a critical comparison of social-political uses of the concept of “home” in the early Roman Empire and Pauline Christianity. For this case study I engage primarily with the work of John Dominic Crossan, a prominent scholar of early Christianity within its Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. Although “home” does not constitute the focus of his analysis, a close reading of his oeuvre does allow us to identify and highlight this as a crucial theme in his work. The focus will be on the patriarchal home under Greco-Roman imperial conditions as model of the imperial system, the Pauline egalitarian concept of the Christian home and house churches, and the deutero-Pauline return to the imperial model. By comparing these case studies from another epoch and another culture, thevalidity of Lakoff’s thesis will be tested and our understanding of the concepts “liberal” and “conservative” will be enriched.

“Who is his mother so I can curse him?”: The role of the mother as a passive (dangerous) medium on curse tablets

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-362
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Private Action ◽  
The Family ◽  
The One

Abstract Curse tablets are artefacts of a very specific nature. They are generally interpreted as material expression of a particular magic action, usually performed by an individual. Such finds are especially interesting for the study because they represent an epigraphic monument, on the one hand, as well as a standard archaeological find with its specific context on the other hand. A particularly interesting phenomenon is visible on curse tablets throughout the Mediterranean – the presence of mother's name to identify the victim of the curse. The “boom” of this phenomenon occurs in the 2nd century AD, but there also are much older examples, particularly from the 4th and 3rd century BC. In the 2nd century AD, the identification of the mother spread to Italy and the African provinces, where this kind of targeting became dominant. In my paper, I will focus on the later, Latin and Greek curse tablets in the Roman Empire. Mothers' names were assigned to identify a particular person: This is interesting because patronyms were usually used in the Greco-Roman world as the identifier. The purposes of the curse tablets bearing the mother's name were thus different: the tablets were used in cases of private action in competition, love or trials linked to family affairs – all within a ritual framework. For this reason, this paper aims to observe the curse tablets as an important medium of the ritual practice which should enable us to answer the questions: Why should the name of the father, which is usually used, be replaced by the name of the mother? Could the reason for such replacement be the recognition of the mother as a mediator for targeting her child? Is this the most precise identification, as the mother is more accurately identifiable than the father? What does it tell us about the care-giving function of the mother within the family and about the authors of the curse tablets?

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Otto
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Intellectual Formation ◽  
The Relationship

Between the second and the sixteenth centuries CE, references to the Jewish exegete Philo of Alexandria occur exclusively in texts written by Christians. David T. Runia has described this phenomenon as the adoption of Philo by Christians as an “honorary Church Father.” Drawing on the work of Jonathan Z. Smith and recent investigations of the “Parting of the Ways” of early Christianity and Judaism, this study argues that early Christian invocations of Philo reveal ongoing efforts to define the relationship between Jewishness and Christianness, their areas of overlap and points of divergence. The introduction situates invocations of Philo within the wider context of early Christian writing about Jews and Jewishness. It considers how Philo and his early Christian readers participated in the larger world of Greco-Roman philosophical schools, text production, and the ethical and intellectual formation (paideia) of elite young men in the Roman Empire.

scholarly journals Teaching Re-use Strategies for Modernist Buildings.

2018 ◽  
pp. 186-201
Author(s):  
Els De Vos ◽  
Eva Storgaard
Keyword(s):  
Educational Programme ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
European Universities ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
Degree Level ◽  
Research And Design ◽  
Point Of Departure

The joint European+ project Re-use of Modernist Buildings (RMB) started its activities in 2016. It is an educational collaboration between different European universities and organisations. The main objectives of this initiative is on the one hand to enhance student and staff mobility through a shared educational programme on master degree level; on the other hand it is to develop transformation strategies for modernist  buildings, mainly from the post-war period. RMB wants to develop an educational approach to this specific architectural heritage based on common definitions, approaches and methodologies. It takes its point of departure in existing research, educational practices and reference projects in the partner countries. This paper discusses the need for appropriate approaches to modernist buildings, definitions of re-use strategies and the position of RMB – as well as how the project’s educational programme is conceived and structured. Additional a more detailed description of the concept and the making of a so-called Case Study Handbook of Modernist Buildings follows, illuminating its asset as an important research and design tool.

scholarly journals Diakonos and prostatis: Women’s patronage in Early Christianity

2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Osiek
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
Patronage System

In spite of numerous studies on the patronage system in Mediterranean antiquity, little attention has been paid to either how the patronage of women was part of the system or how it differed. In fact, there is substantial evidence for women’s exercise of both public and private patronage to women and men in the Greco-Roman world, by both elites and sub-elites. This information must then be applied to early Christian texts to infer how women’s patronage functioned in early house churches and Christian life.

scholarly journals Introduction

Ramus ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill ◽  
Helen Morales
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Ancient Source ◽  
Jewish Leader ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
Jewish Revolt ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
The Temple ◽  
State Of Israel

Josephus, cultural critic and chronicler of the Jewish revolt against Rome (66-73/4 CE), is one of the most polemical and compelling writers of the Roman Empire. He writes in Greek, as a Jewish leader of a revolt against Rome, who came over to the Romans. His extraordinary prose combines an extended self-justification, an explanation of Jewish culture to the Romans, through the medium of a culturally privileged Greek, and the riveting story of a failed rebellion against the dominant Empire of the Mediterranean, written now as an awkward insider of the corridors of power, recalling his own opposition to that power. Josephus, that is, writes on and through the boundaries of culture; if all history is written by victors, he writes as a defeated leader now with the triumphant new emperor: he crosses the boundary between victor and victim, insider and outsider. For the scholar interested in post-colonial writing, in cultural identity, in the rhetoric of self-fashioning, Josephus is a remarkable gift. What is more, the history he tells has powerful resonances today in the Middle East: it is he who gives us the authoritative account of Masada, the rocky desert fortress destroyed by the Romans and now a central icon of the state of Israel. The destruction of the Temple is a founding moment in the Jewish imagination, still rehearsed in ritual and political rhetoric. What more could one want from an ancient source? In 2003, Mary Beard invited us to imagine the euphoric reception classicists would give his work were it to be newly discovered today:This is the kind of text that ancient historians and literary critics would die for. It is the kind of text that makes the study of Greco-Roman antiquity so much richer than that of almost any other ancient society. The kind of text we just can't get enough of.

Fragmentary Theory of Secularization and Religionization — Changes in the Family Structure as a Case Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Netanel Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Family Structure ◽  
Dimensional Changes ◽  
Civil Marriage ◽  
Family Patterns ◽  
Opposite Trend ◽  
The Family ◽  
Modern Family ◽  
The One ◽  
Central Claim

AbstractThe central claim of this article is that the multi-dimensional changes in the modern family structure may be explained as a manifestation of the simultaneous processes of secularization and religionization. On the one hand, the rising acceptance of secular alternatives to the traditional family structure indicates that modernization processes weaken religious behavior and authority, as the classical secularization thesis has claimed. On the other hand, ongoing loyalty to the religious family patterns, and even their relative intensification, reflect the opposite trend. Serving as a case study, the changes in the Israeli religious family structure — reflected by civil marriage, cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock children — clearly illustrate how modernization generates horizontal and vertical fragmental processes in which religion and secularism supplement as well as compete with each other, creating an increasingly divided society in which religiosity and secularism flourish side by side among various groups and within distinct realms.

Eine Sache der Familie?

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Greschat
Keyword(s):  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Family ◽  
Roman Antiquity

AbstractIn Greco-Roman antiquity, the family or the household (

Kingdom and Cross

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-168
Author(s):  
Lisa Sowie Cahill
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The One

The Bible guides Christian ethics by showing how Jesus and early Christianity transformed the moral conventions of first-century Greco-Roman society by making them more inclusive and compassionate. This is the one side of the coin. The other side, however, is that the Bible also attests to the problem of the existence of evil and suffering in human life. In Paul's theology of cross and resurrection, Christian ethicists confront the ineradicable nature of this problem and the need to identify with those who must suffer.

St Aying Abroad with the Family

2010 ◽  
Vol 160 ◽  
pp. 24-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
The Family ◽  
Naturalistic Setting ◽  
L2 Development ◽  
The One

Abstract The present paper deals with second language learning in an increasingly common type of situation: the one encountered by children of families that move to a different country for a limited period of time. These children enjoy a learning experience that provides them with a naturalistic setting for full immersion in the language community as well as formal instruction at school. The paper presents a case study that investigates the longitudinal development of English proficiency in two Catalan-Spanish bilingual siblings during a year’s stay abroad with their family. Specifically, the study measures gains in the two learners’ written productions in English by examining the development of the dimensions of fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical diversity and accuracy. The findings highlight the variability inherent in L2 development and the possible effects of proficiency level on the language gains. In addition, the on-site observation provides insights into the qualities of the stay abroad experience that also help explain the results.

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