A Theological Assessment of the Covenant between Judas Maccabeus and Rome: an Intertextual Analysis of 1 Macc 8:17–20

What was the biblical interpretation of the Jews’ conduct in the final stage of the history of Israel in the context of the Law of Moses right before the times of the New Testament? The proposed exegesis of 1 Macc 8:17–20, which describes the covenant between Judas Maccabeus and the Roman republic, strives to discover the theological evaluation of the behavior of the revolt’s leader conducted by the author of the book. The intertextual method is particularly helpful in discovering the right understanding of the text. This method enables one to purposefully combine the expressions found in the consecutive verses with the same expressions found in the earlier biblical books. The theology that underlies these books will reveal the right sense of the studied passage of 1 Macc. It turns out that the theological evaluation is totally different than the political evaluation, the latter being solely taken into consideration in historical-literary analyses and commentaries. The biblical author has a restrained stance toward the political success of the Maccabees. He wants to reveal their conduct in the context of the Lord’s Law, which strongly proves that the First Book of Maccabees should belong to the canon of the inspired texts.

Conclusion

This chapter is a brief summary of the main arguments and a development of the point that carefare policies form an integral part of the political success and legitimacy of the anti-liberal regime. The chapter also shows how selective and exclusionary the policies are.

Hizbullah's Changing Identity

<p>Hizbullah’s initial entry into Lebanon’s confessional political system seems contradictory considering the organisation’s perpetual view that this electoral system is corrupt and the very cause of Lebanon’s problems. Hizbullah views this system to have disenfranchised the Shi’a of Lebanon. Since its emergence in the 1980s Hizbullah has shifted from the religiously motivated goal of an Islamic revolution in Lebanon to the more nationalistic and secular project of providing ongoing resistance to Israel. This movement can be explained if we consider two separate facets of Hizbullah’s identity: It’s primordial Shi’a identity, and its identity as a resistance movement. A movement from the former to the latter has taken place. This work argues that Hizbullah has moved away from placing importance on that which defined it primarily as an organisation seeking the advancement of Shi’a to an identity that places more emphasise on its resistance activities against Israel. This latter identity is more instrumentalist in nature. While placing importance on its Shi’a identity was not counter-productive to participating within politics, it did oblige Hizbullah to adopt more idealistic political projects. Therefore, this shift initially allowed Hizbullah to deal more effectively with the pragmatic realities of political life in Lebanon, for which it requires more broad-based cross-communal support. However, recent events in the Middle East have indicated that Hizbullah’s resistance identity may not necessarily guarantee it political success.</p>

Hizbullah's Changing Identity

<p>Hizbullah’s initial entry into Lebanon’s confessional political system seems contradictory considering the organisation’s perpetual view that this electoral system is corrupt and the very cause of Lebanon’s problems. Hizbullah views this system to have disenfranchised the Shi’a of Lebanon. Since its emergence in the 1980s Hizbullah has shifted from the religiously motivated goal of an Islamic revolution in Lebanon to the more nationalistic and secular project of providing ongoing resistance to Israel. This movement can be explained if we consider two separate facets of Hizbullah’s identity: It’s primordial Shi’a identity, and its identity as a resistance movement. A movement from the former to the latter has taken place. This work argues that Hizbullah has moved away from placing importance on that which defined it primarily as an organisation seeking the advancement of Shi’a to an identity that places more emphasise on its resistance activities against Israel. This latter identity is more instrumentalist in nature. While placing importance on its Shi’a identity was not counter-productive to participating within politics, it did oblige Hizbullah to adopt more idealistic political projects. Therefore, this shift initially allowed Hizbullah to deal more effectively with the pragmatic realities of political life in Lebanon, for which it requires more broad-based cross-communal support. However, recent events in the Middle East have indicated that Hizbullah’s resistance identity may not necessarily guarantee it political success.</p>

All Politics Is Local

Each senator is responsible for developing an approach to his job that he believes satisfies his goals and future political success, and many senators pursue a style of representation that is based on relationships with constituents at home. This chapter looks more closely at how senators constrain their rhetorical agenda to prioritize constituent service—such as advertising state office hours and promoting town hall meetings—and examines how electoral incentives influence senators’ choice to adopt a constituent servant style of communication. This chapter explains how pressures from local constituents or the state’s political environment incentivize another group of senators to prioritize state-specific information for their geographic constituency. For constituent servants, the pressures that a senator faces from the party or the institution come second to the expectations of a senator’s constituency and the relationships maintained by constraining the message to localized issues.

Tatmadaw’s Crackdown on The Rohingyas: A SWOT Analysis

The recent Rohingya crisis has drawn intense research attention worldwide lately, but the Tatmadaw’s perspective in the crackdown has not received much attention. Thus, this article analyses Tatmadaw’s perspective on its crackdown decision on the Rohingyas. The article avails SWOT framework (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) for the analysis. The article argues that the Tatmadaw is militarily successful in achieving its goal. However, even though Tatmadaw is successful in the short-term, sustaining it in the long-term or converting military success into political success will be challenging, especiallyif international community comes into the stage with robust action.

The Safavid Machiavelli: Shāh ʿAbbās I and the “Great Man” Theory Revisited

Political discourse in various countries around the world has been characterized by disillusionment with governments’ failure to address pressing concerns of today’s societies. It is also possible to discern a kind of nostalgia about strong, charismatic political leaders, which has lent poignancy to the question of whether great rulers are born or are the product of a specific historical milieu and the confluence of social or cultural factors. The focus of this article will be the accession to power of Shāh ʿAbbās I (1571–1629; r. 1588–1629) and the policies the emperor implemented to redesign and reorganize the Safavid state, as depicted by the court historian Iskandar Beg Munshī (ca. 1560–ca. 1632). I argue that Iskandar Beg’s World-Adorning History of ʿAbbās speaks to modern leadership trait theories about the existence of certain qualities that define a good leader and set him/her apart from other people. At the same time, Iskandar Beg formulates in embryonic form the notion that possessing the fundamental traits and properties associated with an optimal leadership style is never a panacea or absolute guarantee for political success nor does it suffice to yield desirable results. The methods and techniques required for a long reign are the second salient aspect of Iskandar Beg’s portrayal of Shāh ʿAbbās. Iskandar Beg engages with some of the key themes that inform the political theory of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) as well. Iskandar Beg’s narrative invites comparison with The Prince, published more than one century before the completion of the History. Iskandar Beg was unlikely to have had access or have been exposed to the Florentine author’s ideas. But his description of Shāh ʿAbbās’ leadership practices bears uncanny resemblance to Machiavelli’s works, particularly the portions in The Prince that discuss the cases of rulers who acquired power thanks to their own virtue or fortune.