Promotion of interculturality as a model of diversity management that is more respectful of the full enjoyment of the rights and freedoms of all citizens in real and effective equality conditions has ceased to be a utopia to become a reality, thanks to the social and-cultural relations that are taking place among equals belonging to different cultures through Cyberspace that constitutes, together with education, the new paradigm of interculturality in the Digital Age. Intercultural dialogues and exchanges taking place in this (...) context are born of feelings and emotions as intense and enriching as those that take place in real life, insofar as they emerge from the essence of personal identity, of one’s own ideology or conscience; And are governed, in most cases, by the regime of freedom that characterizes the digital culture, to act according to their own ideas, convictions or beliefs. (shrink)

Churches and communities of believers live their faith through a disposition and supportive attitude toward disadvantaged groups, this way they become a social network of support to the neediest. The processes of social integration are softened and problems arising are therefore solved more successfully, this is especially important when a new vital project starts or someone enters in a new society, as in the case of immigration. This research analyzes the role of social welfare networks of minority religions and the (...) social action they do. After a reflection on the social dimension of the concept of solidarity and the function of solidarity in religion, we collect the experiences of the protagonists, through semi-structured interviews on the role of the community of believers in the social integration of newcomers. (shrink)

The corpus of Pyramids Texts expresses in different ways the means by which the pharaoh achieved the transfiguration and integrated himself into the world of the gods. There are numerous references relating the deceased with Osiris, in direct form or indirectly. Among them, the contents of PT 219 reach the most significant degree given the large number of references to Osiris and his circle, integral theological tenor of osirian recomposition, and the references to geography related to Osiris, among others. This (...) study intends to analyze carefully the PT 219, framing the relationship between the Pharaoh and Osiris in the context of a larger liturgy. Then, and as conclusion, I seek to explain how this declaration can be a direct antecedent of the relationship of Re and Osiris in the New Kingdom Books of the Netherworld. (shrink)

In this article we follow the reception made by Augustine of Hippo of the Manichean myth; in this we see his visceral reaction against the doctrine of Mani, since –in addition to the apologetic elements properly– there is a clear attempt to take psychological distance from a religious experience that marked it in depth, in every way. In this controversial context we can also discern central aspects of a text that had liturgical value and which, as such, was of capital (...) importance to the Manichaean communities. This Augustinian reading has as horizon the near collapse of the Roman Empire of the West and the ever-increasing confrontation of Constantinople with Persian Empire, the mobility of its borders and the partly political and partly religious persecutions that Manichaeism underwent. (shrink)

Ángel Álvarez de Miranda studied in Rome with Professor Raffaele Pettazzoni, founder in Italy of the «History of Religions» and of a particular method for its study. Back in Spain, Álvarez de Miranda took the position of the newly created chair –in 1954– of «History of Religions» in the university of Madrid. This essay analyses the international practices of the circulation of ideas favouring the role of the personal «encounter» with these ideas abroad and the translation of foreign works. In (...) this last case, following Pierre Bourdieu, it shows the consequences of the circulation of texts without their own context. (shrink)

Within the Council of Europe, conscientious objection has been essentially addressed as a problem that results from the collision between the beliefs of minority religious groups and the duty of military service, although this issue has been secularised and diversified in both its objective and subjective aspects over time. Despite the differences between the approaches of European Court of Human Rights and the political bodies of the organization to the issue of conscientious objection, a clear, but slow, evolution can be (...) observed from the 60’s until today, especially regarding the perception of its legal nature and its relation with the freedom of thought, conscience and religion of the art. 9 of the Convention of Rome, showing today some key points that shape a consistent legal doctrine. This allows objectors to claim direct protection under the Treaty and imposes, ultimately, specific duties on states regarding the recognition of conscientious objection or the content of its regulatory framework. (shrink)

Revision of the main intellectual referents of Ángel Álvarez de Miranda who was professor of History of Religions at the University of Madrid from 1954 until his death in 1957. A more detailed study is made of Mircea Eliade and Raffaele Pettazzoni, but also are revised Santiago Montero Díaz, Pedro Laín Entralgo, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Kerenyi, Angelo Brelich, Xavier Zubiri, José Luis López Aranguren, Julio Caro Baroja, Wilhelm Schmidt and Gerardus van der Leeuw.

La expresión bíblica «Hijo del hombre» ha sido, desde el principio del cristianismo, una de las más estudiadas, utilizadas e interpretadas. Este artículo intenta estudiar, desde los textos, el origen de la expresión en el libro de Daniel y su aparición en la Septuaginta, en algunos textos de los llamados apócrifos y en el Nuevo Testamento. Los autores de los evangelios, que escriben en griego y conocen bien el libro de Daniel, relacionan de manera directa el mensaje apocalíptico y mesiánico (...) que aparece en Daniel 7,13, y el uso trivial y cotidiano en arameo de la expresión autorreferencial, dando lugar a la interpretación de «el Hijo del hombre» como título salvífico o mesiánico. (shrink)

One of the most beautiful and enigmatic texts in the corpus of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles is beyond doubt the so-called Hymn of the Pearl, whose meaning, however, is far from getting an academic consensus in the current bibliography. As A.F.J. Klijn in his «The So-Called Hymn of the Pearl », Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 14, n. 3 156, stated a coherent analysis of the poem should bring an answer to two main questions: «What is meant with the pearl? (...) and Who is the principal person in this hymn?». The following pages will try to propose a tenable meaning to this passage by allocating it in its due conceptual context and will offer a consequent hypothesis to those questions that remain still opened. (shrink)

Among the elements which have gradually been complicating the countless representations of the Virgin Mary throughout history, this paper seeks to highlight and interpret conceptually one of special doctrinal significance in some Marian images during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the temple, in whose interior some artists place some actual or symbolic episodes of Mary, from her birth or her Annunciation to the Sacra Conversazione, to give a few examples. Even though at first sight it looks as a mere scenographic (...) or ornamental ingredient, without iconographic value, this precise shape of temple reveals in fact some profound Mariological and Christological meanings. In that order of ideas, this essay is based on a double methodological strategy: first and foremost, to analyze some Marian images which include in the aforementioned period the shape of a temple, in order to see what kind of role such a religious building plays in them; secondly, to discover the relevant keys for interpreting such images, by analyzing some specific texts of the Church Fathers and medieval theologians who identify with Mary the figure of the «temple of God». For this reason, after a brief introduction to the problem, the present study is structured into three main parts inextricably intertwined: in the first we comparatively analyze twelve Marian paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which the Virgin appears inside a temple; in the second we explain the many exegesis that, in a consistent and strong patristic and theological tradition, identify the analogy of the templum Dei directly with the Virgin Mary, or indirectly with the Christ’s human body conceived in her womb; on the basis of this double analysis of images and exegetical writings, the third part of the paper states as a synthetic conclusion that the artistic representation of a temple or a church building in some Marian images of this period offers a compelling plastic metaphor of Mary and, ultimately, of her virginal divine motherhood. (shrink)

According to Robert Hertz, death means a change in social relations. The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the kind of mediation that different world populations establish with their deaths. We compared examples from different eras and regions, and three main strategies are identified which, even if they admit certain number of variations, can be characterized by the persistence of a common logic. These are: distance, in which identities and relations are modified; recycling, when identities are maintained but (...) relations are transformed; and retention, which accepts the transmutation of identities, but not of relations. Once described the qualities of each one, we show that, far from being able to identify any economic-social conditioning, these strategies can coexist as possibilities in the mind of every society. (shrink)

The supraconfessional spirit, very characteristic of the Ottoman world, which tended to regroup many different elements, and was based on the universal conviction, according to which all religions are valued and competed for the same purposes, still resonates in the Balkans. A significant example, that in this article is analyzed from the perspective of the phenomenon of shared holiness and as a mirror of diverse influences, is an icon of Bulgaria, the unusual Islamic-Christian representation of the Virgin and Child, which (...) was recently located in a village where, apart from the «Turks» and Bulgarians, there are still living descendants of the Don Cossacks, who are ethnically Russian. (shrink)

This article makes a critical reading of two Types of Faith from an approximation to its sources and its context. Analysing two types of faith suggested by Buber, we identify the characterization of the same from the perspective of the history of religions. This raises the development, from a philosophicaltheological perspective, of a reflection on the Buber’s criteria of demarcation in the distinction between emunah and pistis, while on the image that of Jesus and Paul reflects his work.

In the present study a historiographical review is performed according to the main hypotheses have been proposed from a Darwinian point of view to analyse religion. First, the basic pillars of Darwinian theory are analysed: variation, inheritance and selection. Keeping in mind these previous ideas, Darwinists theorists have analysed the religion well as neutral phenomenon while exaptation, as a non-adaptive phenomenon from a memetic perspective while anachronism and as an adaptive phenomenon from a single and multilevel standpoint. Finally, a critical (...) review is realised about problems and solutions of each perspective. (shrink)

In the framework of the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Independence of Colombia and, using the method of historical prosopography, this article aims to analyze the contribution of the Franciscan Father Francisco Antonio Florido as a social and political actor in the process of consolidation of the Bases of the republican project through three specific facets in its role as chaplain in the military campaigns, in its protagonism in the political celebrations and in the promotion to the education. It (...) really surprises him how he broke with the entrenched ideological scheme that had linked the ecclesiastical estate with the Spanish monarchy, and became one of the most staunch defenders of the Free Fatherland with a progressive and modern thinking. A verification of the contribution of the ecclesiastical establishment to the process of formation of the Republic. (shrink)

During the first centuries of our age, the decadence of the Han government contributed to a society receptive to salvific ideas and in turn, favored the advent of millenialist movements. These organizations, with its values well rotted in Daoist cosmology, would develop a new discourse around the ideas of moral and social responsibility, would install a personified source of authority in the figure of the master and would propose a critical alternative to the prevailing Confucian orthodoxy. In this paper I (...) analyze the role of the Taiping Jing « The Scripture on Great Peace » as the textual source of authority for the aforementioned processes and its importance to unite and institutionalize the Daoist movement to allow it become what some authors would label as «religious Daoism». (shrink)

In search of a suitable place for ascetic practices, Chinese Buddhist nuns travel well into the mountains and take shelter in places that allow them to be in seclusion. Among these places we find abandoned temples; spaces that are commonly used by religious people. Is there any quality or characteristic of abandoned spaces such that it becomes of special value for the practice of religious women? What does the abandoned space provoke or transmit to the nun? Does it produce a (...) connection between physical space and the higher consciousness experience achieved in inner practice? This paper analyzes the experience of a Buddhist nun in an abandoned temple on Nanwutai Mountain in Zhongnan-shan. In this analysis, we propose that the aesthetics of the abandoned space influences the way in which the nun interprets the attainment of a pure consciousness. This may be understood as the union of both interior and exterior spaces, and as such, the liberation of all restraints and the ultimate comprehension of the Buddhist universe. (shrink)

Amongst numerous and assorted new ways of contemporary spirituality, shamanism can be highlighted, in particular neo-shamanism as one of the new spiritual development. From the recovery of our ancient relationship with nature, in the origins it searches for a primitive religion preserved by some indigenous people. In this article, we try to reflect on the arrival and spread of such phenomenon in Spain within the context of the new spirituality market, within that mystic-esoteric constellation in which the Western World lives (...) as a way of valid explanation facing the lurking modern and postmodern lack of sense that forces us to look back. In this way, we recover old ways of transcendent knowledge in philosophies and ancient religions that work as new strategies through which we can confront quotidian reality». (shrink)

Los principales referentes intelectuales de Ángel Álvarez de Miranda, historiador de las religiones.

This paper offers a comparative study of the decisive moment in the biblical and quranic story of Eve, generally perceived as having been the violation of the covenant made with the Creator. According to it, Adam and Eve were forbidden to approach the tree or to eat from its fruit, a fact that is generally perceived as having been meant to establish common and different structural elements. The violation of the divine order did not come out of nowhere; it had (...) its causes and consequences. The triple T divides the violation into three stages. In the first one, which is the temptation, we encounter the incitement and the initiation to the transgressor incident. Then, in the transgression, we find out, how the disobedience happened. Finally, comes the tragedy, which includes the results and the consequences. (shrink)

This article presents the main contributions made from History and Social Sciences in the study of the Immaculate Conception in Spain. The classic division between Ecclesiastic History and Church History is applied to carry out a diachronic analysis of the bibliography on this issue, taking into account both historical narrative/research’s development and the different contexts it goes through. This analysis is set out as a case study in order to show the evolution of historical studies on the Church and religion (...) and their thematic and methodological possibilities nowadays. (shrink)