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Author: Neil Asher Silberman
Publisher: Booksales
Published: 2001-03
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780785813248
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe ancient Jewish spiritual tradition of Kabbalah is shown to be far more than an otherworldly, occult way of knowledge -- it is a direct, often revolutionary response to the tyranny of earthly potentates and kings.
Author: Segal
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 1977-12
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 9004667482
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this study of the rabbinic heretics who believed in Two Powers in Heaven, Alan Segal explores some relationships between rabbinic Judaism, Merkabah mysticism, and early Christianity. Two Powers in Heaven was a very early category of heresy. It was one of the basic categories by which the rabbis perceived the new phenomenon of Christianity and one of the central issues over which Judaism and Christianity separated. Segal reconstructs the development of the heresy through prudent dating of the stages of the rabbinic traditions. The basic heresy involved interpreting scripture to say that a principal angelic or hypostatic manifestation in heaven was equivalent to God. The earliest heretics believed in two complementary powers in heaven, while later heretics believed in two opposing powers in heaven. Segal stresses the importance of perceiving the relevance of rabbinic material for solving traditional problems of New Testament and gnostic scholarship, and at the same time maintains the necessity of reading those literatures for dating rabbinic material. Please note that Two Powers in Heaven was previously published by Brill in hardback, ISBN 90 04 05453 7 (no longer available).
Author: Grant Von Harrison
Publisher:
Published: 2015-07-13
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780910558006
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe powers of heaven are very real and can dramatically influence the course of events in a person's life. In our relationship with deity, the powers of heaven include any influence of power (inspiration, gift of the spirit, power of the priesthood, etc.) which is governed by God and operates in our behalf. A study of the scriptures reveals that the ways the powers of heaven can assist mortal men are virtually unlimited. Exercising the faith required to call upon the powers of heaven involves a very specific process. In order to be proficient at exercising faith, you must understand the process thoroughly and then learn to apply the process in your daily pursuits. This book will help you understand the process required to pull down the powers of heaven to bless your life. When you successfully follow this process, you will be able to call upon the powers of heaven to assist you in realizing your righteous desires.
Author: Peter Schäfer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-03-03
Total Pages: 188
ISBN-13: 0691181322
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"In this book Peter Schäfer casts light on the common assumption that Judaism from its earliest formulations was strictly monotheistic. Over and over again in the Hebrew Bible the biblical writers insist upon the idea that there is one and only one God. But the biblical text is multifarious and contains many sources that subvert from within the strong monotheistic thesis. Old Canaanite deities such as Baal and El, although pushed to the edges, prove stubbornly persistent. They come to the forefront in, for example, the famous "Son of Man" of chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel. In sum, Schäfer argues that monotheism was an ideal in ancient Judaism that was consistently aspired to, but never fully achieved. Through close textual analysis of the Bible and certain key post-biblical sources, Schäfer tracks the long history of a second, younger, subordinate God next to the senior Jewish God YHWH. One might expect that with early Christianity's embrace of this idea (in the form of Jesus Christ), Judaism would have abandoned it utterly. But the opposite was the case. Even after Christianity usurps the original Jewish notion of a second, younger God, certain post-biblical Jewish circles-in particular early Jewish mystical circles-maintained and revived it with the archangel "Metatron," a controversial figure whose very existence is questioned and fiercely debated by the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud. This book was originally published in Germany by C.H. Beck Verlag in 2016"--
Author: Walter Wink
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published:
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 9781451419979
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'The pages of this book represent the quest of a man intent on discerning the nature of structural evil in light of the biblical evidence. His experience of living for a time in Latin American and witnessing extensive social and political oppression appears to have moved him profoundly. The end result is a book that is a model of the attempt to integrate scholarship with faith.'--Clinton E. Arnold, Catalyst
Author: Clinton E. Arnold
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2009-09-20
Total Pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780830876563
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSatan worship. Witches. New Age channelers. The last two decades have witnessed a vast upsurge in occult activity. Scores of popular books have warned Christians of the dangers and urged them to do battle against these spiritual forces. Few books, however, have developed a careful biblical theology on demons, principalities and powers. Clinton Arnold seeks to fill this gap, providing an in-depth look at Paul's letters and what they teach on the subject. For perspective, he examines first-century Greek, Roman and Jewish beliefs as well as Jesus' teaching about magic, sorcery and divination. Arguing against many recent interpretations that have seen principalities and powers as impersonal social, economic and political structures, Arnold contends that the New Testament view is that such forces are organized, personal beings which Jesus defeated at the cross and will bring into full subjection at his return. In his concluding section Arnold suggests practical ways in which Christians today can contend with the forces of evil. A thoughtful, biblical look at an urgent challenge facing the church.
Author: Dionysius the Areopagite
Publisher: DigiCat
Published: 2023-11-21
Total Pages: 307
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDionysius the Areopagite (or Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite) remains one of the most enigmatic figures of the early Christianity. He was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of Paul the Apostle mentioned in Acts 17:34. This attribution to the earliest decades of Christianity resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both the East and the West. The Dionysian writings and their mystical teaching were universally accepted throughout the East, amongst both Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, and also had a strong impact in later medieval western mysticism, most notably Meister Eckhart. Its influence decreased in the West with the fifteenth-century demonstration of its later dating, but in recent decades, interest has increased again in the Corpus Areopagiticum.
Author: Vincent Goossaert
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
Published: 2021-12-15
Total Pages: 433
ISBN-13: 9882372023
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe book is on the shortlist of ICAS Book Prize 2023 Humanities The origins of modern Daoism can be traced to the Church of the Heavenly Master (Tianshidao), reputedly established by the formidable Zhang Daoling. In 142 CE, according to Daoist tradition, Zhang was visited by the Lord on High, who named him his vicar on Earth with the title Heavenly Master. The dispensation articulated an eschatological vision of saving initiates—the pure, those destined to become immortals— by enforcing a strict moral code. Under evolving forms, Tianshidao has remained central to Chinese society, and Daoist priests have upheld their spiritual allegiance to Zhang, their now divinized founder. This book tells the story of the longue durée evolution of the Heavenly Master leadership and institution. Later hagiography credits Zhang Daoling’s great-grandson, putatively the fourth Heavenly Master, with settling the family at Longhushan (Dragon and Tiger Mountain); in time his descendants—down to the present contested sixty-fifth Heavenly Master living in Taiwan— made the extraordinary claim of being able to transmit hereditarily the function of the Heavenly Master and the power to grant salvation. Over the next twelve centuries, the Zhangs turned Longhushan into a major holy site and a household name in the Chinese world, and constructed a large administrative center for the bureaucratic management of Chinese society. They gradually built the Heavenly Master institution, which included a sacred site; a patriarchal line of successive Heavenly Masters wielding vast monopolistic powers to ordain humans and gods; a Zhang lineage that nurtured talent and accumulated wealth; and a bureaucratic apparatus comprised of temples, training centers, and a clerical hierarchy. So well-designed was this institution that it remained stable for more than a millennium, far outlasting the longest dynasties, and had ramifications for every city and village in imperial China. In this ambitious work, Vincent Goossaert traces the Heavenly Master bureaucracy from medieval times to the modern Chinese nation-state as well as its expansion. His in-depth portraits of influential Heavenly Masters are skillfully embedded in a large-scale analysis of the institution and its rules, ideology, and vision of society.
Author: Andrew T. Lincoln
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2004-12-23
Total Pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9780521609395
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe author analyses passages in Paul's letters where the concept of heaven plays a significant role, and discusses the relation of the concept to the background of his thought, his views of history, of the cosmos, of the destiny of humanity, and of the nature of Christian existence.
