Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

Today's social and political climate often pits conservative or traditional Christianity against "progressive" Christianity. But what is progressive Christianity? What is a progressive Christian? What is a progressive church? Christianity in Blue answers these questions by drawing from biblical scholarship, Christian history, theology, popular culture, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. Kaden shows how socially liberal values and progressive attitudes can be the fruits of taking seriously both the Bible and Christian tradition. But rather than treating these sources as static (...) authorities and the final word on every subject, Kaden argues that they are places to start one's exploration of how to be a Christian in the world. Being a progressive Christian is an ethical exhortation to "uplift human personality," as Martin Luther King Jr. once said. This exhortation structures how progressive Christians receive, interpret, and apply the Bible and Christian tradition to daily life. A robust tradition provides an anchor to avoid the illiberal trends in contemporary society, and a commitment to uplifting human personality provides a check against dehumanizing uses of Scripture and tradition. Christianity in Blue will help both progressive and conservative Christians better understand the importance of the Bible, theology, history, and philosophy for building a loving church for everyone. (shrink)

This critical reading/dialogue follows a straightforward structure. Firstly, it presents some of the major insights in J.D. Crossan’s book, attending to its inner logic on his critique on the violence which little by little creeps into the biblical texts. Secondly, it engages in a critique of his reading of Revelation, which is Crossan’s starting point for his discussion on violence. He observes here a direct contradiction with the Jesus of history, centre of interpretation for Scripture. This article points to (...) certain lacunae in his reading of Revelation and, finally, moves to a conclusion offering new ways to interpret and question Revelation’s violent imagery within its own literary context.Contribution: This article is a critical dialogue with one of J.D. Crossan’s latest books: How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence From Genesis Through Revelation. This is a vibrant and insightful book about how violence ultimately crept into the canonical texts, tainting even its ‘good news’. Crossan’s concern with this crude violence surfaces as he teaches different groups and he is asked why the Bible ends in Revelation on such a violent note, essentially with ‘a war to end all wars’, somehow buttressing the ‘myth of redemptive violence’. The special focus of this article resides thus on a nuanced reading of Revelation which tries to understand, in context, the function of such violent images. (shrink)

Os movimentos juvenis tiveram papel destacado nas transformações do campo protestante no Brasil durante as décadas de cinquenta e sessenta. Neste artigo, enfocamos especialmente a história dos grupos evangélicos que exerceram o trabalho religioso dentro das universidades: a Associação Cristã Acadêmica e a Aliança Bíblica Universitária do Brasil. Para compreender melhor as inovações que trouxeram, traçamos primeiramente um quadro do protestantismo brasileiro após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Em segundo lugar, fazemos uma história das organizações estudantis de tradição evangélica, enfatizando suas (...) diferenças identitárias e sua busca de penetração nas instituições eclesiásticas. Por fim, analisamos o contexto repressivo dentro e fora das igrejas após golpe civil-militar ocorrido em abril de 1964. Apresentamos, assim, as diferentes propostas teológicas, as práticas inovadoras e os embates surgidos com as instituições na tentativa de articulação feita pelos jovens entre as exigências confessionais do meio protestante, o engajamento sócio-político e o ambiente universitário da década de sessenta. Palavras-Chave: Universidade. Movimento Estudantil. Engajamento Social. Política.: The youthful movements has a paper detached in transformations of Brazil’s protestant field during the 50’s and 60’s decades. In this article, we look at the history of evangelical groups inside the universities with religious work: the Academic Christian Association and the University Biblical Alliance of Brazil. To better understand the innovations, we, first, traced a picture of the Brazilian’s Protestantism after World War II. In second place, we make an history of student’s organizations in evangelical tradition, emphasizing its identities, differences and search of presence although ecclesiastical institutions. Finally, we analyze a repressive context inside and outside of protestant churches after military government since April of 1964. We present, thus, different theological proposals, the innovator’s practices and strikes appeared with ecclesiastical institutions in attempt of joint, by young men and women ones, the confessional requirements of churches, the social political paper and the university environment of Sixties. Keywords: Evangelicals. University. Student. Social Engagement. Politics. (shrink)

This volume charts the Bible's progress from the end of the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. During this period, for the first time since antiquity, the Latin Church focused on recovering and re-establishing the text of Scripture in its original languages. It considered the theological challenges of treating Scripture as another ancient text edited with the tools of philology. This crucial period also saw the creation of many definitive translations of the Bible into modern European vernaculars. Although previous (...) translations exist, these early modern translators, often under the influence of the Protestant Reformation, distinguished themselves in their efforts to communicate the nuances of the original texts and to address contemporary doctrinal controversies. In the Renaissance's rich explosion of ideas, Scripture played a ubiquitous role, influencing culture through its presence in philosophy, literature, and the arts. This history examines the Bible's impact in Europe and its increasing prominence around the globe. (shrink)

What caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to (...) locate these explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco-Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history. Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil’s comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come. (shrink)

This book examines the importance of 'military ethics' in the formulation and conduct of contemporary military strategy. Clausewitz's original analysis of war relegated ethics to the side-lines in favour of political realism, interpreting the proper use of military power solely to further the political goals of the state, whatever those may be. This book demonstrates how such single-minded focus no longer suffices to secure the interest of states, for whom the nature of warfare has evolved to favour (...) strategies that hold combatants themselves to the highest moral and professional standards in their conduct of hostilities. Waging war has thus been transformed in a manner that moves beyond Clausewitz's original conception, rendering political success wholly dependent upon the cultivation and exercise of discerning moral judgment by strategists and combatants in the field. This book utilises a number of perspectives and case studies to demonstrate how ethics now plays a central role in strategy in modern armed conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of just war, ethics, military strategy, and international relations. in strategy in modern armed conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of just war, ethics, military strategy, and international relations. (shrink)

Theorizing resistance -- Hellenistic rule in Judea : setting the stage for resistance -- Interaction and identity in Seleucid Judea : 188-173 BCE 78 -- Recreating the empire : the sixth Syrian war, Jason's revolt, and the reconquest of Jerusalem -- Seleucid state terror -- The edict of Antiochus : persecution and the unmaking of the Judean world -- Daniel -- Enochic authority -- The apocalypse of weeks : witness and transformation -- The book of dreams : see and cry (...) out. (shrink)

In this book Joan Wallach Scott discusses the role history has played as an arbiter of right and wrong and of those who claim to act in its name-- "in the name of history." Scott investigates three different instances in which repudiation of the past was conceived as a way to a better future: the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996, and the ongoing movement for reparations for (...) slavery in the United States. Scott shows how in these cases history was not only used to explain the past but to produce a particular future. Yet both past and future were subject to the political realities of their time and defined in terms of moral absolutes, often leading to deep contradictions. These three instances demonstrate that history is not an impartial truth, rather its very meaning is constructed by those who act in its name. (shrink)

The monograph considers the relationships of ethical systems in the ancient Near East through a study of warfare in Judah, Israel and Assyria in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. It argues that a common cosmological and ideological outlook generated similarities in ethical thinking. In all three societies, the mythological traditions surrounding creation reflect a strong connection between war, kingship and the establishment of order. Human kings’ military activities are legitimated through their identification with this cosmic struggle against chaos, (...) begun by the divine king at creation. Military violence is thereby cast not only as morally tolerable but as morally imperative. Deviations from this point of view reflect two phenomena: the preservation of variable social perspectives and the impact of historical changes on ethical thinking. The research begins the discussion of ancient Near Eastern ethics outside of Israel and Judah and fills a scholarly void by placing Israelite and Judahite ethics within this context, as well as contributing methodologically to future research in historical and comparative ethics. (shrink)

Statistical analysis has been a common method for determining progress in missional activity. In the case of Bible translation, measurable statistics have been readily available showing progress. However, there have been gaps such as biblical, sociological, theological and missiological factors. The aim of this study is to consider broader factors than just quantifiable measurements that could be used to develop a missiological foundation for missional progress, especially for Bible translation. The setting was to analyse inputs from leaders within (...) the Bible translation movement in terms of their understanding of the factors to be considered for a missiology of progress. Using a qualitative study based upon a questionnaire, the researcher grouped the responses by common categories and then analysed the key findings. The qualitative nature of how Bible translation was conducted reveals important factors such as signs of increased collaboration between Bible translation agencies, improved quality of relationships between Bible translation agencies and the local church, and also theologically significant milestones. The study concludes that progress in the Bible translation movement has to be considered within the broader context of God’s mission. Church history has revealed how progress in one era could be regress in another era. Consequently, reflecting and learning together within the Bible translation movement has been a key to progress, and therefore, all participants in the Bible translation movement have been called to work and learn together. (shrink)

There are many possible approaches to describing the effects and uses of music in a particular society. It would be a mistake to assume that music in the Bible is not the cement of social life and has no liturgical significance. The present study seeks to explore how people in ancient times employed music using the harp and the ram's horn , to cope with roles that were open or never-ending in their demands. In particular, it focuses upon the (...) role played by music in secular life as well as religious rituals, as described in the Bible. The method used was an extensive literature study of the Old and New Testament, textbooks and relevant peer reviewed journals, with a focus on both secular and religious reasons for singing, dancing and playing instruments. It was found that the Bible described the use of the harp and the ram's horn associated with singing and dancing during celebrations, for military use, as well as mourning or lamentation. It was concluded that music using different instruments, including the harp and shofar, helped people to cope with the demands of everyday life and thus played an important role in both secular life and religious rituals in biblical times. (shrink)

In their political treatises, the scholastic writers Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome discussed the question of whether women should serve in the military. The dispute came in response to Aristotle, who reported in his Politics that Plato and Socrates taught that women should receive the same military training as men and take an equal part in fighting. Such a treatment was made possible by a medieval context in which women under certain circumstances could be feudal lords (...) responsible for maintaining a contingent of knights and sometimes commanding them, and in which a large number of medieval stories of women fighters or leaders of knights circulated, some of them mythical but others based on real women. Both Giles and Ptolemy ultimately rejected female participation but, in keeping with the dialectical method, proposed arguments on both sides. These involve historical precedent, the biological and medical differences between men and women, analogies between female animals and women, divinely ordained gender roles, and the benefits of exercise. (shrink)

This chapter examines the role of the Bible in the works of Soren Kierkegaard, explaining that Kierkegaard was so heavily indebted to the Bible that some critics considered him to be an expositor of Scripture. He used the Bible to obtain ideas for cultural criticism and literary images and tropes. The chapter argues that Kierkegaard cannot be ignored as a substantial participant within and contributor to the history of biblical interpretation, contending that he is personally and (...) authorially inculturated in the world of the Bible. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes (...) original scholarly contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

The optimal functioning of male coalitionary behavior in a military context may run contrary to some of the arguments about the importance of individual differentiation in Baumeister et al. Incentives become institutionally inverted within military contexts. Because the history of combat exerted powerful and sustained selection pressures on male groups, individual identification can work against the successful completion of collective action problems surrounding in-group defense in military contexts.

The article by Sannikov Sergiy “History and Hermeneutic Horizons of the Bible Commentaries in the Slavic Context: Part 1. History and Practice of the Bible Commentaries in the Slavic Context” is the first part of the research of the history and hermeneutic horizons of the Bible commentaries in the Slavic context. The author surveys the history of the Bible interpretation in Eastern Europe, analyzes the diachronical interpretation principles progress, shows the hermeneutical methods (...) used in the Evangelical movement of in the 19th and 20th centuries and the correspondent hermeneutic approaches in the Orthodox tradition. The author distinguishes the main hermeneutic principles being the basis for the commentators of the 19th-20th centuries and the approaches to interpretation practiced in the Slavic context. A special attention is given to the Bible interpretation made by national authors who have been publishing their works during the last 20 years. The main emphasis is made on the literature on hermeneutics published in recent years and used in Evangelical educational institutions. (shrink)

In The Hasidic Moses, Aryeh Wineman invites readers to join him on a journey through various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hasidic texts that interpret the life of Moses. Such texts read their own accent on spirituality and innerness along with their conceptions of community and spiritual leadership into the biblical account of Moses. Wineman reveals the ways in which historical Hasidic voices interpreted both the Exodus from Egypt and the scene of Revelation at Sinai as statements concerning what occurs constantly in (...) our lives at all times. In addition, Wineman shows how Hasidic readers embraced the idea that Moses had to die in order that his soul might return to the world in the righteous and holy ones of every generation, and that the presence of Moses actually transcends time and is present in spiritual understanding as it unfolds at any moment in any period. ""Aryeh Wineman has written a clear and accessible book that serves as a delightful entry into the world of Hasidic thought. Using the template of Hasidic interpretations of the life of Moses, he takes the reader carefully through a broad range of Hasidic works, highlighting the Hasidic resistance to the plain meaning of scripture, opting instead for their penchant for devotional and spiritually deepening readings... The impulse toward spiritualizing both deepens the original text of the Torah and transcends it, stimulating the reader to read the Torah as an edifying document, rather than primarily a historical, legal, or even national work."" --Joel Hecker, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ""Aryeh Wineman's The Hasidic Moses is a triumph on every level... The figure of Moses is brought alive in the words of the classic Hasidic masters and is made available for a new generation of spiritual seekers hungry to find meaning in biblical models and mystical texts. The Bible tells us that no one knows where Moses is buried--but we can say that he lives robustly in Aryeh Wineman's sparking new book!"" --Nehemia Polen, Hebrew College, Newton Centre, Massachusetts ""Aryeh Wineman writes authoritatively as the scholar he is, but addresses himself--like the rabbi he also is--not to other scholars, but to readers and seekers who would like to understand. In this way he lives the humility of the teacher Moses and leads us through his writing into the depths of the Hasidic homily and parable... For those of us who don't have direct access to the hasidic texts he translates, his gentle and careful presentation of The Hasidic Moses is a gift from soul to soul."" --Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus and Burnt Books Aryeh Wineman has written many studies in the area of Hebrew literature and Jewish mysticism. (shrink)

Ethics in the axial age -- Some aspects of rabbinic ethics -- Medieval philosophical ethics -- Medieval rabbinic and kabbalistic ethics -- Modern Jewish ethics.

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 2, pp 163 - 223 The paper demonstrates that when translating explicit anthropomorphisms in Scripture, medieval Karaites are neither particularly more nor less literal than their rabbinic counterparts. Indeed, they often propose translations similar to those of Targum Onqelos and Saʿadyah Gaon. Moreover, although their lines of argument are different, both Saʿadyah and the Karaites insist that human language is responsible for corporeal descriptions of God in the Bible, and they resort to the linguistic (...) conventions of figurative language and extension of meaning to justify these theologically disturbing expressions. The Karaites’ contribution consists of advancing and refining these linguistic justifications by introducing, for example, the concept of polysemy to account for certain kinds of problematic formulations. In addition, they are probably the first commentators in the history of Jewish Bible exegesis to cite the rabbinic dictum, “the Torah speaks in the language of man” to explain the presence of anthropomorphisms in Scripture. (shrink)