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Author: Christian H. Bull
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2011-10-28
Total Pages: 561
ISBN-13: 9004212078
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDrawing on a wide array of sources, this anthology sets out to analyze the concepts of mystery and secrecy that occur in the ritual and rhetoric of antique Mediterranean religion, with an emphasis on Gnosticism, Christianity, and Paganism.
Author: Christian H. Bull
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2011-10-28
Total Pages: 560
ISBN-13: 9004215123
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMystery and secrecy were central concepts in the ritual, rhetoric, and sociological stratification of antique Mediterranean religions. That the ultimate nature and workings of the divine were secret, and either could not or should not be revealed except as a mystery for the initiated, was widely accepted among Pagans, Jews, and then Christians, both Gnostic and otherwise. The similarities and differences in the language of mystery and secrecy across religious and cultural borders are thus crucial for understanding this important period of the history of religions. The present anthology aims to present and analyze a wide selection of sources elucidating this theme, reflecting the correspondingly wide scholarly interests of Professor Einar Thomassen in honor of his 60th birthday.
Author: Michael E. Stone
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 193
ISBN-13: 0190842385
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSecret societies in ancient Judaism -- "Esoteric", mysteries, and secrecy -- Esoteric as a social category -- The social organization of secrecy -- Initiation and graded revelation -- Other secret Jewish groups and traditions -- The social setting of esoteric tradition
Author: Hugo Lundhaug
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2015-10-19
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9783161541728
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Hugo Lundhaug and Lance Jenott offer a sustained argument for the monastic provenance of the Nag Hammadi Codices. They examine the arguments for and against a monastic Sitz im Leben and defend the view that the Codices were produced and read by Christian monks, most likely Pachomians, in the fourth- and fifth-century monasteries of Upper Egypt. Eschewing the modern classification of the Nag Hammadi texts as “Gnostic,” the authors approach the codices and their ancient owners from the perspective of the diverse monastic culture of late antique Egypt and situate them in the context of the ongoing controversies over extra-canonical literature and the theological legacy of Origen. Through a combination of sources, including idealized hagiographies, travelogues, monastic rules and exhortations, and the more quotidian details revealed in documentary papyri, manuscript collections, and archaeology, monasticism in the Thebaid is brought to life, and the Nag Hammadi codices situated within it. The cartonnage papyri from the leather covers of the codices, which bear witness to the monastic culture of the region, are closely examined, while scribal and codicological features of the codices are analyzed and compared with contemporary manuscripts from Egypt. Special attention is given to the codices’ scribal notes and colophons which offer direct evidence of their producers and users. The study ultimately reveals the Nag Hammadi Codices as a collection of books completely at home in the monastic manuscript culture of late antique Egypt."--
Author: Christopher Partridge
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-05
Total Pages: 1017
ISBN-13: 1317596757
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume presents students and scholars with a comprehensive overview of the fascinating world of the occult. It explores the history of Western occultism, from ancient and medieval sources via the Renaissance, right up to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and contemporary occultism. Written by a distinguished team of contributors, the essays consider key figures, beliefs and practices as well as popular culture.
Author: T. J. Lang
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Published: 2015-10-16
Total Pages: 334
ISBN-13: 3110435470
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn general, theological terms this study examines the interplay of early Christian understandings of history, revelation, and identity. The book explores this interaction through detailed analysis of appeals to "mystery" in the Pauline letter collection and then the discourse of previously hidden but newly revealed mysteries in various second-century thinkers. T.J. Lang argues that the historical coordination of the concealed/revealed binary ("the mystery previously hidden but presently revealed") enabled these early Christian authors to ground Christian claims - particularly key ecclesial, hermeneutical, and christological claims - in Israel's history and in the eternal design of God while at the same time accounting for their revelatory newness. This particular Christian conception of time gives birth to a new and totalizing historical consciousness, and one that has significant implications for the construction of Christian identity, particularly vis-à-vis Judaism.
Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2022-03-29
Total Pages: 621
ISBN-13: 1000556182
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSecrecy is a central and integral component of all religious traditions. Not limited simply to religious groups that engage in clandestine activities such as hidden rites of initiation or terrorism, secrecy is inherent in the very fabric of religion itself. Its importance has perhaps never been more acutely relevant than in our own historical moment. In the wake of 9/11 and other acts of religious violence, we see the rise of invasive national security states that target religious minorities and pose profound challenges to the ideals of privacy and religious freedom, accompanied by the resistance by many communities to such efforts. As such, questions of secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and security are among the most central and contested issues of twenty-first century religious life. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is the definitive reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates in this crucial field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into five parts: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks Secrecy as Religious Practice Secrecy and the Politics of the Present Secrecy and Social Resistance Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance. This cutting-edge volume discusses secrecy in relation to major categories of religious experience and individual religious practices while also examining the transformations of secrecy in the modern period, including the rise of fraternal orders, the ongoing wars on terror, the rise of far-right white supremacist groups, increasing concerns over religious freedom and privacy, the role of the internet in the spread and surveillance of such groups, and the resistance to surveillance by many indigenous and diasporic communities. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements, and religion and politics. It will be equally central to debates in the related disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, security studies and cultural studies.
Author: David Creech
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2017-08-01
Total Pages: 168
ISBN-13: 9783161529832
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDavid Creech explores at length the Apocryphon of John's ambivalent treatment of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Although Moses is explicitly corrected at five points in the text, Genesis' account of creation is nonetheless the basis for the Apocryphon's cosmogony and anthropogony. Its uneven treatment of the biblical text is the result of a dispute between the authors of the Apocryphon and other early Catholics. At the earliest stage of the text the Christians who wrote and read the Apocryphon worshiped alongside other early catholic Christians without any sense of contradiction or inconsistency. The key shift in the Apocryphon occurred after Irenaeus of Lyons' assault on "Knowledge Falsely So-Called." In response to his concerted effort to bring the church under the authority of early catholic bishops, the framers inserted corrections to Moses. The corrections are primarily rhetorical and used to refute early catholic identity markers.
Author: John Joseph Collins
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 565
ISBN-13: 0199856494
DOWNLOAD EBOOKApocalypticism arose in ancient Judaism in the last centuries BCE and played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity. It is not only of historical interest: there has been a growing awareness, especially since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, of the prevalence of apocalyptic beliefs in the contemporary world. To understand these beliefs, it is necessary to appreciate their complex roots in the ancient world, and the multi-faceted character of the phenomenon of apocalypticism. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature is a thematic and phenomenological exploration of apocalypticism in the Judaic and Christian traditions. Most of the volume is devoted to the apocalyptic literature of antiquity. Essays explore the relationship between apocalypticism and prophecy, wisdom and mysticism; the social function of apocalypticism and its role as resistance literature; apocalyptic rhetoric from both historical and postmodern perspectives; and apocalyptic theology, focusing on phenomena of determinism and dualism and exploring apocalyptic theology's role in ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. The final chapters of the volume are devoted to the appropriation of apocalypticism in the modern world, reviewing the role of apocalypticism in contemporary Judaism and Christianity, and more broadly in popular culture, addressing the increasingly studied relation between apocalypticism and violence, and discussing the relationship between apocalypticism and trauma, which speaks to the underlying causes of the popularity of apocalyptic beliefs. This volume will further the understanding of a vital religious phenomenon too often dismissed as alien and irrational by secular western society.
Author: Anna Collar
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2022-05-30
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13: 042976930X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNetworks and the Spread of Ideas in the Past: Strong Ties, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange gathers contributions from an international group of scholars to reconsider the role that strong social ties play in the transmission of new ideas, and their crucial place in network analyses of the past. Drawing on case studies that range from the early Iron Age Mediterranean to medieval Britain, the contributing authors showcase the importance of looking at strong social ties in the transmission of complex information, which requires relationships structured through mutual trust, memory, and reciprocity. They highlight the importance of sanctuaries in the process of information transmission, the power of narrative in creating a sense of community even across geographical space, and the control of social systems in order to facilitate or stifle new information transfer. Networks and the Spread of Ideas in the Past demonstrates the value of searching the past for powerful social connections, offers us the chance to tell more human stories through our analyses, and represents an essential new addition to the study and use of networks in archaeology and history. The book will be useful to academics and students working in the Digital Humanities, History, and Archaeology.
