scholarly journals Sexuality and shifting paradigms – setting the scene

2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Over Time

The social environment of the Biblical world can be distinguished in the Eastern Mediterranean (Semitic) and the Western Mediterranean (Greco-Roman) contexts. From a historical chronological perspective these contexts first functioned separately and then later merged because of Hellenisation. In both these Mediterranean contexts sexuality, religion and marriage were intertwined, but the values attributed to them, were different. The Old Testament mostly mirrors the Eastern Mediterranean world, whereas the New Testament represents a syncretism of the values of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean worlds. In order to understand the changes in the values attributed to sexuality, religion and marriage over time – from premodern, to modern, to postmodern times – it is necessary to investigate the social dynamics in the different eras. The aim of the article is to explore the nature of the interconnections and the values attributed to sexuality, religion and marriage in Biblical times.

scholarly journals Armoedekultuur: Die leefwereld van die Nuwe Testament en die situasie in Suid-Afrika vandag

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andries Van Aarde
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Culture Of Poverty ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Social Scientific

Culture of poverty: The world of the New Testament then and the situation in South Africa today. In this article poverty in the world of the New Testament is explained in the  light of the social dynamics of the first century Eastern Mediterranean. The focus is on the sub-culture of the disreputable poor. Features of a culture of poverty are reflected upon from a social-scientific perspective in order to try to understand why poverty is intensifying in South Africa today. The article aims at identifying guidelines for Christians in using the New Testament in a profound way to challenge the threat of poverty. The following aspects are discussed: the underdevelopment of third-world societies over against the technical evolution in first-world societies during the past two hundred years, economic statistics with regard to productivity and unemployment in South Africa, the social identity of the disreputable poor, poverty within the pre-print culture of the biblical period, and the church as the household of God where Christians should have compassion for others.

Archaeology, Greco-Roman

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Insight Into

Greco-Roman archaeology is an indispensable source of scholarship for biblical scholars. Those who work in a largely textual discipline benefit from conversation with archaeologists to situate literary data within its historical material contexts. Greco-Roman archaeology can also provide insight into the economic, social, political, and religious lives of persons in the ancient world, including marginalized persons whose lives are often obscured by elite literary material. Lastly, Greco-Roman archaeology and biblical studies have intertwined histories and entanglements with colonialism, and comparative work helps to uncover those legacies, especially where they are still operative in the present. While biblical scholars might long for evidence that directly connects to specific individuals in the earliest Christ communities (and thus to the texts of the New Testament), archaeological evidence most often provides evidence for context and not positivist truth claims. Biblical scholars looking, for example, for a particular building where Paul might have slept or where the first Christ communities may have met will be disappointed by the archaeological evidence. Though this evidence is rich and diverse and specific, it does not tell us about the particular individuals biblical scholars so often seek. In other words, the questions biblical scholars ask of Greco-Roman archaeology are often unanswerable. A better use of Greco-Roman archaeology is to guide biblical scholars in asking better questions and learning about the social, economic, and material context from which texts and communities emerge.

scholarly journals Author Reply: Why Hate Is Unique and Requires Others for Its Maintenance

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-326
Author(s):  
Agneta H. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Author Reply ◽  
Emotion Words ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

In this reply, I discuss some important issues raised in two commentaries. One relates to the distinction between hate and revenge, which also touches upon the more general problem of the usefulness of distinguishing between various related emotions. I argue that emotion researchers need to define specific emotions carefully in order to be able to examine such emotions without necessarily using emotion words. A second comment focusses on the factors influencing the development of hate over time. The question is whether there is an intrapersonal mechanism leading to an increase or decrease of hate over time. I think it is the social environment that is essential in the maintenance of hate.

Marriage and Sexual Relations in the New Testament World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Loader
Keyword(s):  
Roman Society ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
Marital Sex ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding

After a brief overview of the social context and role of marriage and sexuality in Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, the chapter traces the impact of the Genesis creation narratives, positively and negatively, on how marriage and sexuality were seen both in the present and in depictions of hope for the future. Discussion of pre-marital sex, incest, intermarriage, polygyny, divorce, adultery, and passions follows. It then turns to Jesus’ reported response to divorce, arguing that the prohibition sayings should be read as assuming that sexual intercourse both effects permanent union and severs previous unions, thus making divorce after adultery mandatory, the common understanding and legal requirement in both Jewish and Greco-Roman society of the time. It concludes by noting both the positive appreciation of sex and marriage, grounded in belief that they are God’s creation, and the many dire warnings against sexual wrongdoing, including adulterous attitudes and uncontrolled passions.

Enabling Occupation: The Importance of an Affirming Environment

2001 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Rebeiro
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Occupational Therapists ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Occupational Engagement ◽  
Occupational Performance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

Occupational therapists have become increasingly concerned with factors beyond the individual which impact occupational performance. Several recent models propose that the environment is a significant influence on occupational performance and upon its meaningfulness. An in-depth, qualitative study was conducted which explored the meaning of occupational engagement for eight women with mental illness (Rebeiro & Cook, 1999). This study yielded several important insights about the environment, which have recently been replicated by Legault and Rebeiro (2001) and Rebeiro, Day, Semeniuk, O'Brien, and Wilson (In Press). Participants suggested that environments that provide opportunity, and not prescription are more conducive to fostering occupational performance. Participants further suggested that an environment that provides Affirmation of the individual as a person of worth, a place to belong, and a place to be supported, enables occupational performance over time. A series of research studies indicated that the social environment is an important consideration in planning therapeutic interventions which aim to enable occupation. Implications for occupational therapy practice, education and research are offered

scholarly journals Self-organizing dominance hierarchies in a wild primate population

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1814) ◽  
pp. 20151512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Franz ◽  
Emily McLean ◽  
Jenny Tung ◽  
Jeanne Altmann ◽  
Susan C. Alberts
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

Linear dominance hierarchies, which are common in social animals, can profoundly influence access to limited resources, reproductive opportunities and health. In spite of their importance, the mechanisms that govern the dynamics of such hierarchies remain unclear. Two hypotheses explain how linear hierarchies might emerge and change over time. The ‘prior attributes hypothesis’ posits that individual differences in fighting ability directly determine dominance ranks. By contrast, the ‘social dynamics hypothesis’ posits that dominance ranks emerge from social self-organization dynamics such as winner and loser effects. While the prior attributes hypothesis is well supported in the literature, current support for the social dynamics hypothesis is limited to experimental studies that artificially eliminate or minimize individual differences in fighting abilities. Here, we present the first evidence supporting the social dynamics hypothesis in a wild population. Specifically, we test for winner and loser effects on male hierarchy dynamics in wild baboons, using a novel statistical approach based on the Elo rating method for cardinal rank assignment, which enables the detection of winner and loser effects in uncontrolled group settings. Our results demonstrate (i) the presence of winner and loser effects, and (ii) that individual susceptibility to such effects may have a genetic basis. Taken together, our results show that both social self-organization dynamics and prior attributes can combine to influence hierarchy dynamics even when agonistic interactions are strongly influenced by differences in individual attributes. We hypothesize that, despite variation in individual attributes, winner and loser effects exist (i) because these effects could be particularly beneficial when fighting abilities in other group members change over time, and (ii) because the coevolution of prior attributes and winner and loser effects maintains a balance of both effects.

scholarly journals Palaeohispanic Languages and Epigraphies

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Do So

At least four writing systems—in addition to the Phoenician, Greek, and Latin ones—were used between the fifth century BCE and the first century CE to write the indigenous languages of the Iberian peninsula (the so-called Palaeohispanic languages): Tartessian, Iberian, Celtiberian, and Lusitanian. In total over three thousand inscriptions are preserved in what is certainly the largest corpus of epigraphic expression in the western Mediterranean world with the exception of the Italian peninsula. The aim of this book is to present a state of the question that includes the latest cutting-edge scholarship on these epigraphies and the languages that they transmit. To do so, the editors have put together a volume that from a multidisciplinary perspective brings together linguistic, philological, epigraphic, numismatic, historical, and archaeological aspects of the surviving inscriptions. The study of these languages is essential to achieve a better understanding of the social, economic, and cultural history of Hispania and the ancient western Mediterranean. They are also the key to our understanding of colonial Phoenician and Greek literacy, which lies at the root of the spread of these languages and also of the diffusion of Roman literacy, which played an important role in the final expansion of the so-called Palaeohispanic languages.

Drawing Down the Moon: Defining Magic in the Ancient Greco­Roman World

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Perceived Efficacy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Over Time

This introductory chapter provides a definition of magic. One of the most useful adjustments in the recent scholarship on magic has been the turn to considering magic as a dynamic social construct, instead of some particular reality. Magic is not a thing, but a way of talking. Thus, magic is a discourse pertaining to non-normative ritualized activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the act, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer. Such a discourse always has a history, since such a way of talking about things shifts over time as different people do the talking. When one speaks of “magic,” therefore, one should always explain: “magic for whom?” Any specific piece of evidence from the ancient Greco-Roman world provides an example of magic for that particular person, from one particular perspective. To speak of “magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world” is thus to refer to the whole range of things that various people in those cultures during those times could label as “magic.” The chapter then considers the act of drawing down the moon.

Jesus and Paul

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-170
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pastoral Letters ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters

The writings of Paul form a major part of the New Testament. This includes not only the so-called undisputed letters of Paul but also other letters attributed to him in antiquity that might have been written by later disciples of Paul citing him as author to evoke his apostolic authority. This chapter describes what we know of Paul’s life, beginning with his strong Jewish identity as well as his roots in the Greco-Roman world. Paul himself cites his inaugural visionary experience of the Risen Jesus as a decisive turning point in his life, leading him ultimately to be an ardent proclaimer of the gospel to the Gentile world. Paul’s letters to various early Christian communities in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world served as extensions of his missionary efforts. Although fashioned in a different literary form than the gospel narratives, Paul’s letters also portray Jesus’s identity as both rooted in Judaism and exhibiting a unique transcendent character and purpose. Paul’s Christology focuses intensely on the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The so-called deutero-Pauline Letters extend Paul’s theological vision; in the case of Colossians and Ephesians, situating the redemptive and reconciling role of Christ within the cosmos, and, in the case of the Pastoral Letters, bringing Paul’s exhortations about the life of the Christian community to some of the developing challenges of the late first-century church.

New Testament Archaeology Beyond the Gospels

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Methodologies

New Testament archaeology outside of the gospels traditionally focused on the eastern Mediterranean world and was directed to recovering inscriptional material, identifying sites, and documenting individuals mentioned in the New Testament. In the course of the twentieth century, archaeologists of the New Testament used archaeology to establish the backdrop to the New Testament (which frequently meant the urban worlds of Paul and the first Christians), and to reconstruct social and cultural contexts in the Pauline world. This chapter surveys these different approaches and considers how new methodologies and ways of thinking have provided a wealth of data beyond the physical space of the urban world. The chapter considers case studies from Cyprus, Asia Minor, Greece and Macedonia, and Crete.

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