The History of Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Hengstermann
Keyword(s):  
Religious Imagination ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Platonism

Isaiah 14: The Birth of a Zombie Apocalypse?

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-142
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Time Reversal ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
History Of

Isaiah 14, a text about the infamous fall into the netherworld of a proud celestial being, has played a key role in the history of biblical understanding. In particular, the netherworld eschatology shaped Israelite end-time beliefs, or apocalyptic eschatology. In Isaiah 14, before readers’ eyes, a transcendent archetype, the ill-fated “Shining One,” materializes on earth as an historical figure, King Sargon II of Assyria. Later, the idea of an “incarnation” of the Shining One as an earthly entity evolves as a key catalyst of a radical new religious imagination. In Ezekiel 38–39, the Shining One becomes “incarnate” as Gog of Magog, a monstrous, but real, apocalyptic “zombie.” Editors first reworked Isaiah 14 as a prophecy of Babylon’s fall and later redeployed the text to depict a final, end-time reversal of Babylon’s hubris.

scholarly journals The Religious Imagination in Literary Network and Muslim Contestation in Nusantara

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217
Author(s):  
Kamaruzzaman Bustamam-Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of

This study aims to examine the history of religious imagination and contestation in Nusantara. It will trace the issue of transformation of Islamic thought as religious imagination from Middle East to the region by looking at the network of Muslim scholars, the development of institution, and the distribution of religious ideas in kitabs. I will utilize socio-historical approach as means to understanding the early development of Islamic intellectual. It is said that Aceh as the first place of Islamization process in Nusantara. It can be seen from the early historical facts such as Kingdoms of Peureulak, role of ‘ulama of Pasai, and institution of dayah as place of reproduction of ‘ulama in the region. It is argued that there have been many of anthropological and archaeological evidences that had influenced the early reproduction of Islamic thought in Southeast Asia. In addition, this study will also examine the current potrait of contestation among Muslim in political landscape in the country. It indicates that the identity of Muslim has to do with the roots of historical narrative in the Nusantara.

How to Read the Word for Lazarus Resurrection? On the Question of Old Russian Myth-Making and Religious Imagination in the Slavic Medieval Apocrypha World

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-185
Author(s):  
Miura Kiyoharu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
The Third ◽  
Russian Word ◽  
Ancient Literature ◽  
History Of

The article sets the task of investigating, using the example of the apocryphal Word for Lazarus Resurrection, some of the features of old Russian myth-making and the manifestation of religious imagination reflected in the Slavic medieval apocrypha. For this, the concept of “divine sight” is introduced, which goes back to the principle of the image described by P. Florensky and called ‘the eyes of God’. In addition, the proposed article suggests that Old Russian Word for Lazarus Resurrection has a connection with ancient literature. The article is divided into three parts. To substantiate the proposed assumptions, the first part of the article is devoted to an overview of the history of the study of this apocryphal work before A.S. Nikolaev (a researcher of our time), who emphasizes the connection between the Word for Lazarus Resurrection with the Indo-European root. To substantiate the application of the “divine sight” technique in the analysis of a literary work, in the second part of the article, we will consider the cultural soil of the ancient Christian apocrypha. Further, on the basis of the first two parts in the third part, using the concept of “divine sight,” we will analyze the drama of the Word for Lazarus Resurrection.

Lovable and Love and Love of Himself

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Alexander Earl ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Platonism

Current trends in scholarship—epitomized in the works of, inter alia, Lewis Ayres, Adrian Pabst, and Rowan Williams—argue for a metaphysics of relationality at the heart of Christian thought that is at its root Platonic. This metaphysic is in turn typified by its commitment to divine simplicity and its corresponding apophatic grammar, which serve as useful points of contact with Plotinus’s own thought. Examination of key texts in Plotinus’s Enneads demonstrates a shared trinitarian grammar when speaking about the first principle. These connections prompt a need to articulate trinitarian dogma as an important step in the history of philosophy, and not just theology, especially for resolving the perennial problem of the one and the many. This “Christian Platonism” has been in a necessary process of recovery and re-articulation, of which the above is put forward as a contribution.

Reimagining Religious Imagination, in Theory and in Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-408
Author(s):  
Adrian Ivakhiv
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
David Morgan ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Jack Miles, Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2020). T.M. Luhrmann, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020). David Morgan, Images at Work: The Material Culture of Enchantment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, The Life of Imagination: Revealing and Making the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2019). Jeffrey J. Kripal, Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

Representing the Twelve Calendrical Animals as Beastly, Human, and Hybrid Beings in Medieval China

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Chungwa Ho
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Early History ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Sources ◽  
China Today ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Primary Materials

In this study, the early history of the calendrical animals is traced to the mapping of space, time, stars and constellations, the rise of correlative cosmology and the mantic arts in China. It draws attention to the representations of the calendrical animals as beasts, humans and hybrids, their internal as well as external sources of inspiration, and the differing perspectives on the relationship between humans and animals underlying such depictions. Archaeology provides the primary materials for the study of the belief in the calendrical animals as arbiters of human fate in medieval China. Today the calendrical animals continue to engage the religious imagination and beyond, as they also spark the discourse on national identity and global politics.

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