Biblical and Talmudic Tradition

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Marek Tuszewicki

This chapter discusses the treatment of medical matters in the Biblical and Talmudic tradition. It talks about the way in which the holy books, as well as the midrashic, ethical, and kabbalistic literature based on them, influenced curative practices in Jewish society. Among the many customs of Jewish society, there are many examples of instrumental treatment of books. The Bible and Talmud created a system of laws regulating all aspects of a Jew's life, and contained many detailed pronouncements on health-related issues, including physical cleanliness, procedures designed to help maintain physical health, and the correct diet. So many and such varied matters were regulated in various places scattered throughout the extensive treatises and chapters that it seemed impossible to know them all fully. Assistance was at hand in the form of the halakhic codes but the rabbinic authorities of Ashkenaz discouraged study of halakhic matters from sources other than those written in Hebrew as they did not trust translations. The wealth of Bible-related resources grew larger the further one departed from a literal interpretation of words and quotations. The Bible constituted a boundless reservoir of quotes which might be used in conjurations against illnesses or on amulets. These were seen not only as guidance for action, but also as integral elements of sorcery.

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Ratcliffe ◽  
Amalia Gonzalez-Del-Valle

When the research process is viewed not merely as a set of methods for data collection and analysis but, instead, as an integrated series of arbitrary choices made by the researcher, it quickly becomes apparent that the prevailing conceptualization of rigor is much too narrow; indeed, the way rigor is currently conceptualized may well be responsible for the many errors that are commonly made in the research process. An expanded conceptualization of rigor is presented, and its implications for research into some critical health issues are discussed in some detail.


2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Patterson

This article addresses the increasingly popular approach to Freud and his work which sees him primarily as a literary writer rather than a psychologist, and takes this as the context for an examination of Joyce Crick's recent translation of The Interpretation of Dreams. It claims that translation lies at the heart of psychoanalysis, and that the many interlocking and overlapping implications of the word need to be granted a greater degree of complexity. Those who argue that Freud is really a creative writer are themselves doing a work of translation, and one which fails to pay sufficiently careful attention to the role of translation in writing itself (including the notion of repression itself as a failure to translate). Lesley Chamberlain's The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud is taken as an example of the way Freud gets translated into a novelist or an artist, and her claims for his ‘bizarre poems' are criticized. The rest of the article looks closely at Crick's new translation and its claim to be restoring Freud the stylist, an ordinary language Freud, to the English reader. The experience of reading Crick's translation is compared with that of reading Strachey's, rather to the latter's advantage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-220
Author(s):  
John Ranieri

A major theme in René Girard’s work involves the role of the Bible in exposing the scapegoating practices at the basis of culture. The God of the Bible is understood to be a God who takes the side of victims. The God of the Qur’an is also a defender of victims, an idea that recurs throughout the text in the stories of messengers and prophets. In a number of ways, Jesus is unique among the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. It is argued here that while the Quranic Jesus is distinctly Islamic, and not a Christian derivative, he functions in the Qur’an in a way analogous to the role Jesus plays in the gospels. In its depiction of Jesus, the Qur’an is acutely aware of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating, and the God who comes to the aid of the persecuted. Despite the significant differences between the Christian understanding of Jesus as savior and the way he is understood in the Qur’an, a Girardian interpretation of the Qur’anic Jesus will suggest ways in which Jesus can be a bridge rather than an obstacle in Christian/Muslim dialogue.


Author(s):  
Christopher Hanlon

Emerson’s Memory Loss is about an archive of texts documenting Emerson’s intellectual state during the final phase of his life, as he underwent dementia. It is also about the way these texts provoke a rereading of the more familiar canon of Emerson’s thinking. Emerson’s memory loss, Hanlon argues, contributed to the shaping of a line of thought in America that emphasizes the social over the solipsistic, the affective over the distant, the many over the one. Emerson regarded his output during the time when his patterns of cognition transformed profoundly as a regathering of focus on the nature of memory and of thinking itself. His late texts theorize Emerson’s experience of senescence even as they disrupt his prior valorizations of the independent mind teeming with self-sufficient conviction. But still, these late writings have succumbed to a process of critical forgetting—either ignored by scholars or denied inclusion in Emerson’s oeuvre. Attending to a manuscript archive that reveals the extent to which Emerson collaborated with others—especially his daughter, Ellen Tucker Emerson—to articulate what he considered his most important work even as his ability to do so independently waned, Hanlon measures the resonance of these late texts across the stretch of Emerson’s thinking, including his writing about Margaret Fuller and his meditations on streams of thought that verge unto those of his godson, William James. Such ventures bring us toward a self defined less by its anxiety of overinfluence than by its communality, its very connectedness with myriad others.


Author(s):  
Richard Wigmans

This chapter describes some of the many pitfalls that may be encountered when developing the calorimeter system for a particle physics experiment. Several of the examples chosen for this chapter are based on the author’s own experience. Typically, the performance of a new calorimeter is tested in a particle beam provided by an accelerator. The potential pitfalls encountered in correctly assessing this performance both concern the analysis and the interpretation of the data collected in such tests. The analysis should be carried out with unbiased event samples. Several consequences of violating this principle are illustrated with practical examples. For the interpretation of the results, it is very important to realize that the conditions in a testbeam are fundamentally different than in practice. This has consequences for the meaning of the term “energy resolution”. It is shown that the way in which the results of beam tests are quoted may create a misleading impression of the quality of the tested instrument.


Author(s):  
Jetze Touber

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.


Healthcare ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Nadir G. Abdelrahman ◽  
Raza Haque ◽  
Molly E. Polverento ◽  
Andrea Wendling ◽  
Courtney M. Goetz ◽  
...  

(1) Background: There is increasing scholarly support for the notion that properly implemented and used, technology can be of substantial benefit for older adults. Use of technology has been associated with improved self-rating of health and fewer chronic conditions. Use of technology such as handheld devices by older adults has the potential to improve engagement and promote cognitive and physical health. However, although, literature suggests some willingness by older adults to use technology, simultaneously there are reports of a more cautious attitude to its adoption. Our objective was to determine the opinions towards information technologies, with special reference to brain health, in healthy older adults either fully retired or still working in some capacity including older adult workers and retired adults living in an independent elderly living community. We were especially interested in further our understanding of factors that may play a role in technology adoption and its relevance to addressing health related issues in this population; (2) Methods: Two focus groups were conducted in an inner-city community. Participants were older adults with an interest in their general health and prevention of cognitive decline. They were asked to discuss their perceptions of and preferences for the use of technology. Transcripts were coded for thematic analysis; (3) Results: Seven common themes emerged from the focus group interviews: physical health, cognitive health, social engagement, organizing information, desire to learn new technology, advancing technology, and privacy/security; and (4) Conclusions: This study suggests that in order to promote the use of technology in older adults, one needs to consider wider contextual issues, not only device design per se, but the older adult’s rationale for using technology and their socio-ecological context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayo Togawa ◽  
Huiyan Ma ◽  
Ashley Wilder Smith ◽  
Marian L. Neuhouser ◽  
Stephanie M. George ◽  
...  

AbstractWe examined cross-sectional associations between arm lymphedema symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the Health, Eating, Activity and Lifestyle (HEAL) Study. 499 women diagnosed with localized or regional breast cancer at ages 35–64 years completed a survey, on average 40 months after diagnosis, querying presence of lymphedema, nine lymphedema-related symptoms, e.g., tension, burning pain, mobility loss, and warmth/redness, and HRQoL. Analysis of covariance models were used to assess HRQoL scores in relation to presence of lymphedema and lymphedema-related symptoms. Lymphedema was self-reported by 137 women, of whom 98 were experiencing lymphedema at the time of the assessment. The most common symptoms were heaviness (52%), numbness (47%), and tightness (45%). Perceived physical health was worse for women reporting past or current lymphedema than those reporting no lymphedema (P-value < 0.0001). No difference was observed for perceived mental health (P-value = 0.31). Perceived physical health, stress, and lymphedema-specific HRQoL scores worsened as number of symptoms increased (P-values ≤ 0.01). Women reporting tension in the arm had lower physical health (P-value = 0.01), and those experiencing burning pain, tension, heaviness, or warmth/redness in the arm had lower lymphedema-specific HRQoL (P-values < 0.05). Treatment targeting specific lymphedema-related symptoms in addition to size/volume reduction may improve some aspects of HRQoL among affected women.


Slavic Review ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 640-650
Author(s):  
Richard Mowbray Haywood
Keyword(s):  
The Many ◽  

Perhaps the most famous anecdote of the many connected with the reign of Tsar Nicholas I concerns the way in which he supposedly determined the route of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway. When asked by his officials the route along which it should be built, the tsar, on the spur of the moment, it is claimed, took a ruler, laid it on a map, and arbitrarily and hastily drew an absolutely straight line between the two capitals. The all-powerful despot had spoken, and his decision was carried out by his servile courtiers, regardless of consequences.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 1435-1443.e2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge D. Machicado ◽  
Amir Gougol ◽  
Kimberly Stello ◽  
Gong Tang ◽  
Yongseok Park ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document