Book Review: Monotheism and Ethics, ed. Tzvi Langermann
Originally published to bible-philos list.
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Review of Guy G.[edaliahu] STROUMSA, A New Science: the Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason [Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press, 2010]
Published in Archaeus. Studies in the History of Religions 15 (2011), fasc, 3, pp. 509-521 [November 2011].
Published in Archaeus. Studies in the History of Religions 15 (2011), fasc, 3, pp. 509-521 [November 2011].
‘Three Perspectives on Abraham’s Defense Against Kant’s Charge of Immoral Conduct’
The Journal of Religion 89:4 (October 2009), pp.467-497 (co-authored with Philip Rudisill)
The Shaping of New Testament Narrative and Salvation Teachings by Painful Childhood Experience
Archive for the Psychology of Religion 33 (2011) 1-54
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This article considers the influence of childhood corporal punishment, abandonment, and neglect on the development and... more This article considers the influence of childhood corporal punishment, abandonment, and neglect on the development and reception of seminal New Testament teachings. Two related but distinct propositions are argued. First, that widespread patterns of painful childhood experience provided a thematic template that deeply shaped the New Testament during its formative period. Second, that this thematic shaping has contributed, on an individual level, to subjective experiences of faith and, on a cultural level, to the initial spread and subsequent persistence of Christianity. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on religious texts, historical evidence about the treatment of children, and several areas of psychology. The article ends with an exploratory excursus intended to stimulate thought about possible childhood influences in non-Christian religions and myths; the traditions considered are Judaism and Islam, the religious-philosophic system of karmic reincarnation that is foundational to Hinduism and Buddhism, and a Greek mythic text associated with the historically important Eleusinian mystery religion.
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Relationship is a two-way effect. Both Muslims and followers of other religions should come ahead to understand each... more
Relationship is a two-way effect. Both Muslims and followers of other religions should come ahead to understand each other. Islam as a religion has universal appeal in it. It has a friendly and neighborly relationship with all eastern religions. Need of the time is to utilize modern recourses while bridging gapes and making stronger relationship than ever before between Islam and eastern religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.
Islam regards all human beings as members of Allah’s family and urges them to cooperate with each other in worldly affairs.
Here we discussed some of the rights of non-Muslims and duties of Muslims towards their fellow human brothers according to Islamic Shariah to establish the length of relationship and cooperation between Muslims and others. We discussed relationship between Muslims and others in social, political, economic spheres and can rightly conclude that Islam as a religion deals with every individual irrespective of his religion, creed or colour with honour, justice and equity.
And Who is My Neighbour? Levinas and the Commandment to Love Re-Examined
by Anna Strhan
published in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2009
With the publication of 'A Common Word' in October 2007, both Christian and Muslim leaders have in recent years... more With the publication of 'A Common Word' in October 2007, both Christian and Muslim leaders have in recent years highlighted the contemporary significance of the commandment to love the neighbour as a starting point in working towards a meaningful peace between these religious traditions. In this paper, I propose that Emmanuel Levinas’s presentation of obligation towards the neighbour in a relation of proximity in Otherwise than Being provides a provocative reinterpretation of this commandment, extending its appeal by suggesting that the demand of responsibility towards the neighbour and the possibility of peaceful relations is a transcendental condition of subjectivity rather than understanding it as a commandment addressed to members of the Abrahamic religions. Levinas’s conceptions of illeity, vulnerability and proximity as preconditions for society and justice provide a challenge to how we think about relations with others in education, particularly for considering the nature of inter-faith and intra-faith dialogue. Levinas’s vision of loving the neighbour is not sentimentalised but admits of the potential violence found in the approach of the neighbour whilst at the same time presenting the obligation of responsibility to the neighbour as bringing the possibility of peace.
Cognitive Semiotics and On-Line Reading of Religious Texts: A Hermeneutic Model of Sacred Literature and Everyday Revelation
by Vito Evola
Published in the Journal of Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Vol. 6 (N. 2) 2005.
- See also Hogan, Patrick Colm (2005) “Introduction to Special Issue on Literary Universals” Journal of Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Vol. 6 (N. 2) 2005.
(http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe/archi
In this essay a hermeneutic model of the higher level understanding during on-line ritual reading by devotees of their... more In this essay a hermeneutic model of the higher level understanding during on-line ritual reading by devotees of their respective sacred literatures is proposed, using the instruments provided by cognitive sciences. The way a devotee reads a sacred text differs from the way he or she would read a common piece of literature or how a lay person might read the same sacred text. After providing an overview of metaphor, anthropomorphism, and the “religious brain”, it is suggested how devotee-readers might make sense of a religious text and why it should be so important for their own personal everyday life. Universals are implicated in this genre of literature and the way it is interpreted.
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Seen by:Sahl b. al-Faḍl al-Tustarī's Kitāb al-Īmāʾ
by Gregor Schwarb أغريغور شوارب גריגור שוורב
Published in:
גנזי קדם (Ginzei Qedem: Genizah Research Annual) 2 (2006), pp. 61*–105*
[in English]
http://shop.ybz.org.il/VSHOP/WizCgi.cgi?WizCustomer=02109691125HEHE&La
Reconstruction and presentation of the most important Karaite theological-legal treatise of the late 5th/11th century.... more
Reconstruction and presentation of the most important Karaite theological-legal treatise of the late 5th/11th century.
The introduction of Aristotelian Syllogistics into uṣūl al-fiqh.
The reception of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā among the Karaites.
"The Muslim Reception of Biblical Materials: Ibn Qutayba and his A'lam al-nubuwwa"
by Sabine Schmidtke زابينه اشميتكه סבינה שמיטקה
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22 iii (2011), pp. 249-74
The two earliest extant Muslim works containing comprehensive lists of biblical predictions of the prophet Muḥammad... more The two earliest extant Muslim works containing comprehensive lists of biblical predictions of the prophet Muḥammad from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are the Kitāb al-Dīn wa-l-dawla by the Nestorian convert to Islam ʿAlī Ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī (b. ca. 194/810, d. 251/865) and the Aʿlām al-nubuwwa by Ibn Rabban’s contemporary Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muslim b. Qutayba (b. 213/828, d. 276/889). Ibn Qutayba’s Aʿlām al-nubuwwa clearly eclipsed Ibn Rabban’s al-Dīn wa-l-dawla in popularity – the text was used over the following centuries by various authors as a reference text for the biblical material it contained. An incomplete and (as it seems) unique manuscript of Ibn Qutayba’s work, which is preserved in the Dār al-kutub al-Ẓāhiriyya in Damascus, has mostly escaped scholars’ attention until now. The article contains a critical edition of the first eight sections of the text that contain biblical materials.
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Seen by: and 19 moreParody and Polemics on Pentecost: Talmud Yerushalmi Pesahim on Acts 2?
in Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard (eds.), Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into its History and Interaction. (Jewish and Christian Perspectives 15; Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 279-293. [proofs, slight changes made afterwards]
Against recent scholarship, the Christian Pentecost is explained as continuation of wide-spread Jewish Second Temple... more Against recent scholarship, the Christian Pentecost is explained as continuation of wide-spread Jewish Second Temple traditions about Shavuot as festival of revelation and covenant making. Furthermore, similar as some Church Fathers were acquainted with Jewish rabbinical traditions, (some) Rabbis knew about Christian liturgy and ideology. A passage in yPes 10.1 (37c) can be interpreted as parody of the story about the allegedly “drunken” disciples in Acts 2.
The Field of Religion and Ecology: Addressing the Environmental Crisis and Challenging Faiths
by Tony Watling
Published in Religion: Beyond a Concept, de Vries, H, ed:473-489, New York: Fordham Press, 2008.
This essay is concerned with “religion and ecology,” or religious environmentalism. It analyzes how religious... more This essay is concerned with “religion and ecology,” or religious environmentalism. It analyzes how religious traditions are used to understand and interact with the environment and environmental issues, suggesting wass of relating to these that are different from and possibly less destructive and ecologically harmful than those of the modern secular worldview. It argues that religious traditions may thereby be gaining new private and public relevance, while perhaps also being changed in the process, becoming more envrionmentally friendly and ecumenical. The article ethnographically and qualitatively analyzes a “field of religion and ecology” comprising ecologically minded academics ansd representatives of various religious traditions who promote such ideas, stimulating new eco-spiritualities and theologies, possibly even a new eco-religious movement. It also explores the environmental reintepretation of several religious traditions within the field, highlighting not only some influential images and views but also any commonalities or convergences that may be arising or are being encouraged between them.
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