Sūrat Āl cImrān and Those with the Greatest Claim to Abraham

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

After outlining the structure of the sura, the author focuses on vv. 64–99. He argues that these verses constitute a distinct sub-section that deals with the religion of Abraham. Having determined the precise extent of the sub-section, he discusses its opening verse in detail. He then lists the principal parallels between vv. 64–99 and Sūrat al-Baqara and suggests that the most plausible explanation of the parallels is that the subsection deliberately echoes that of Sūrat al-Baqara because it sets out to answer Jewish and Christian objections to some of the statements it contains. This leads to the examination of four issues that are foregrounded in the sub-section: Abraham's religious identity, prophetology and angelology, dietary regulations, and the identity of the Abrahamic sanctuary. In each case, the author draws on the Bible and Jewish and Christian literature in order to suggest the nature of the objections and to shed light on the way that the Qur'an responds to them. Like the objections themselves, the answers given are based on the interpretation of biblical texts. There is, however, one issue that cannot be dealt with in this way: the controversial claim that Muḥammad was the Messenger whom Abraham had prayed God would send to his progeny. In the final section of the article, the author shows how the liturgical character of Sūrat Āl cImrān encourages belief in the veracity of this claim.

Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Election ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

Chapter 1 homes in on Spinoza as a Bible critic. Based on existing historiography, it parses the main relevant historical contexts in which Spinoza came to articulate his analysis of the Bible: the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, freethinking philosophers, and the Reformed Church. It concludes with a detailed examination of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza’s major work of biblical criticism. Along the way I highlight themes for which Spinoza appealed to the biblical texts themselves: the textual unity of the Bible, and the biblical concepts of prophecy, divine election, and religious laws. The focus is on the biblical arguments for these propositions, and the philological choices that Spinoza made that enabled him to appeal to those specific biblical texts. This first chapter lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, which examines issues of biblical philology and interpretation discussed among the Dutch Reformed contemporaries of Spinoza.

How American Newspaper Comic Strips Portray God, Angels, and Humans

2020 ◽  
pp. 398-413
Author(s):  
Leonard Greenspoon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts

The comic strip as a mainstay of print and more recently online media is an American invention that began its development in the last decades of the 1800s. For many decades in the mid-twentieth century, comic strips were among the most widely disseminated forms of popular culture. With their succession of panels, pictures, and pithy perspectives, comics have come to cover an array of topics, including religion. This chapter looks at how the Bible (Old and New Testament) figures in comic strips, focusing specifically on three areas: the depiction of the divine, renderings of specific biblical texts, and how comic strips can function as sites in which religious identity and controversies play out. Relevant examples are drawn from several dozen strips. Special attention is also paid to a few, like Peanuts and BC, in which biblical imagery, ideology, and idiom are characteristically portrayed in distinctive ways.

'Job the Dog': Hélène Cixous on Wounds, Scars and the Biblical Text

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-448
Author(s):  
Hugh Pyper
Keyword(s):  
Helene Cixous ◽  
Clarice Lispector ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Allusions ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

AbstractHélène Cixous' engagement with biblical texts is a significant but neglected aspect of her work. In this essay, the biblical allusions in several of her works are traced, particularly centring around the theme of the dog and the bite or wound. The Bible represents for Cixous both an example of the unbounded writing she sees as feminine, and a text that is confined by masculine authority and taboo. These two aspects come together in her engagement with the writings of Clarice Lispector whose grammatically paradoxical phrase in Portuguese eles a biblia—'those he-bible', as translations inadequately represent it—embodies that tension. The tension between these styles of writing in the Bible opens up as a wound in the text which allows a penetration below the surface. The power of the Bible is in the way that this opening lets the reader see 'the meat we are' in an encounter with the 'root' of being.

The Lex Dei and the Latin Bible

2007 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-441
Author(s):  
Robert Frakes
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Latin Work ◽  
Shed Light

Two striking developments in late antiquity are the growing influence of Christianity and the codification of Roman law. The first attempt to harmonize these two developments lies in the late antique Latin work known by scholars as the Lex Dei (“Law of God”) or Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (“Collation of the Laws of Moses and of the Romans”). The anonymous collator of this short legal compendium organized his work following a fairly regular plan, dividing it into sixteen topics (traditionally called titles). Each title begins with a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (in Latin), followed by quotations of passages from Roman jurists and, occasionally, from Roman law. His apparent motive was to demonstrate the similarity between Roman law and the law of God. Scholars have differed over where the collator obtained his Latin translations of passages from the Hebrew Bible. Did he make his own translation from the Greek Septuagint or directly from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves? Did he use the famous Latin translation of Jerome or an older, pre-Jerome, Latin translation of the Bible, known by scholars as the Vetus Latina or Old Latin Bible? Re-examination of the evolution of texts of the Latin Bible and close comparison of biblical passages from the Lex Dei with other surviving Latin versions will confirm that the collator used one of the several versions of the Old Latin Bible that were in circulation in late antiquity. Such a conclusion supports the argument that the religious identity of the collator was Christian (a subject of scholarly controversy for almost a century). Moreover, analysis of the collator's use of the Bible can also shed light on his methodology in compiling his collection.

scholarly journals La conversión religiosa como instrumento de búsqueda y construcción de identidades: el budismo tibetano en España

2019 ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Carmen Castilla-Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Spanish Society ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

Resumen: Aunque el mapa religioso de la España actual ha cambiado considerablemente como consecuencia de la inmigración, no es solamente este factor el único a tener en cuenta a la hora de mencionar el cambio que ha experimentado la sociedad española en materia religiosa pues, el número de españoles que se convierten desde el catolicismo a otras confesiones ha aumentado extraordinariamente. Este trabajo busca reflexionar sobre los procesos de conversión al budismo en España, tomando como ejemplo, la ciudad de Granada, a partir de observaciones etnográficas y través del relato biográfico que nos ofrecen personas conversas a esta religión. Además de analizar los motivos que les llevaron a la conversión, nos acercamos a la manera en que estas personas han construido su nueva identidad religiosa, modificando su sistema de creencias y valores, así como su percepción de la sociedad en la que viven.Abstract: Although the religious map of Spain today has changed considerably as a result of immigration, this is not the only factor to take into consideration when mentioning the change in religious matters that the Spanish society has experienced. The number of Spaniards that convert from Catholicism to other faiths has increased remarkably as well. This project seeks to reflect on the processes of conversion to Buddhism in Spain, using the city of Granada as an example. This analysis is based on ethnographic observations and the biographical testimony offered by people who converted to Buddhism. In addition to analyzing the reasons that led to this conversion, we also shed light on the way in which these individuals have built their new religious identity, modifying their system of beliefs and values as well as their perception of the society they live in.

scholarly journals A AMORIS LAETITIA E SUA FUNDAMENTAÇÃO BÍBLICA

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ney Brasil Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Family ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Amoris Laetitia ◽  
The Way

Resumo: O que se entende por “fundamentação bíblica” de um documento eclesiástico,no caso, da Exortação Apostólica “sobre a alegria do amor na família”?Obviamente, é a verificação da maneira como o autor do texto recorreu à Bíbliapara justificar suas afirmações. Em outras palavras, qual a hermenêutica dascitações bíblicas apresentadas pelo papa Francisco? Nesse sentido, meu trabalhonão se reduzirá à mera identificação dos textos bíblicos em cada um dos novecapítulos. Além de identificá-los, procurarei contextualizá-los e, quando for o caso,avaliá-los do ponto de vista da exegese, contribuindo assim, espero, para umamelhor apreciação do documento. O desenvolvimento do trabalho percorrerásimplesmente a sequência dos nove capítulos, em cada um deles examinandoas citações bíblicas explícitas, sem esquecer de aludir às citações implícitas.Palavras-chave: Argumentação bíblica. Hermenêutica. Matrimônio. Família.Abstract: What does one mean by “biblical foundation” of an ecclesiasticaldocument, namely, of the Apostolic Exhortation “about joy of love in the family”?Obviously, it is the examination of the way how the author of the text resortedto the Bible in order to justify his assertions. In other words, which was the hermeneuticsof the biblical quotations presented by pope Francis? In this way, thepaper won’t be reduced to the mere identification of the biblical texts in each oneof the nine chapters. Besides identifying them, the author will try to show theircontext and, when necessary, will evaluate them from an exegetical point of view,so contributing to a better appreciation of the document. The paper will simply gothrough the sequence of the chapters, in each one examining the explicit biblicalquotations, without forgetting to allude to the implicit quotations.Key-words: Biblical argumentation. Hermeneutics. Marriage. Family.

scholarly journals Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 2

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way ◽  
Reading Texts

This essay is to be an extension of the essay �Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 1�. Two more �hermeneutical aspects� are proposed and discussed in this essay: the aspects of spirituality and embodiment. These two aspects are presented in this essay to supplement and compliment the hermeneutical process. A few remarks on the idiosyncrasy of texts pave the way for the legitimate exploitation of spiritualities (lived experiences) embedded in biblical texts which should be regarded as an addition to �biblical hermeneutics� and which have to serve as a catalyst for the embodiment of the �reading texts�.

Géographie et cartographie fictionnelles dans l’Utopie (1516) de Thomas More

Moreana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (Number 181- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 9-68
Author(s):  
Jean Du Verger
Keyword(s):  
Complex Network ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Third ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

The philosophical and political aspects of Utopia have often shadowed the geographical and cartographical dimension of More’s work. Thus, I will try to shed light on this aspect of the book in order to lay emphasis on the links fostered between knowledge and space during the Renaissance. I shall try to show how More’s opusculum aureum, which is fraught with cartographical references, reifies what Germain Marc’hadour terms a “fictional archipelago” (“The Catalan World Atlas” (c. 1375) by Abraham Cresques ; Zuane Pizzigano’s portolano chart (1423); Martin Benhaim’s globe (1492); Martin Waldseemüller’s Cosmographiae Introductio (1507); Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia (1513) ; Benedetto Bordone’s Isolario (1528) ; Diogo Ribeiro’s world map (1529) ; the Grand Insulaire et Pilotage (c.1586) by André Thevet). I will, therefore, uncover the narrative strategies used by Thomas More in a text which lies on a complex network of geographical and cartographical references. Finally, I will examine the way in which the frontispiece of the editio princeps of 1516, as well as the frontispiece of the third edition published by Froben at Basle in 1518, clearly highlight the geographical and cartographical aspect of More’s narrative.

Korea's Confucian Culture of Learning as a Gateway to Christianity: Protestant Missions in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
K. Kale Yu
Keyword(s):  
Close Association ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Confucian Culture ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Culture Of Learning ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Protestant Missions

As Protestant missionaries landed on Korean shores in the late nineteenth century, a great deal of effort went into creating a Christian identity using literacy and literature as cornerstones of missional strategy that would become the benchmark of the Christian experience for Koreans. The relationship between the Protestant missions' emphasis on reading and Korea's Confucian culture of learning is of particular importance for an understanding of the growth of Christianity in Korea because Christianity's close association with literacy and sacred writings energised the Confucian imagination of Korean culture. Perceiving the reading of Christian literature, including the bible, as a salient way to salvation, Koreans turned to reading and memorising the scriptures to experience the manifestation of God's revelation. The high respect afforded to education and learning as a dominant cultural value constitutes an important, if overlooked, element in the replication of faith in Korean society that reproduced the gospel under their own familiar terms.

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