Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

Habits of the Heart Individualism and Commitment in American Life

Ideology-An Introduction

1. On Romanization 2. Roman power and the Gauls 3. The civilising ethos 4. Mapping cultural change 5. Urbanising the Gauls 6. The culture of the countryside 7. Consuming Rome 8. Keeping faith? 9. Being Roman in Gaul.

Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. By G. Woolf. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge1998/2000. Pp. xv + 296, figs 20. Price: £40.00 (bound); £15.95 (paper). ISBN 0 521 414456 (bound); 0 521 789826 (paper).

Hellenism and Empire explores identity, politics, and culture in the Greek world of the first three centuries AD, the period known as the second sophistic. The sources of this identity were the words and deeds of classical Greece, and the emphasis placed on Greekness and Greek heritage was far greater now than at any other time. Yet this period is often seen as a time of happy consensualism between the Greek and Roman halves of the Roman Empire. The first part of the book shows that Greek identity came before any loyalty to Rome (and was indeed partly a reaction to Rome), while the views of the major authors of the period, which are studies in the second part, confirm and restate the prior claims of Hellenism.

Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, A. D. 50-250

In this article I explore the manner in which Herod expressed his Jewish self-identity and how he used it to rule his own people. Evidence from Herodian intermarriage, ritual baths in Herod's palaces, and speeches by Herod and Nicolaus are interpreted as representations of Herod's commitment to the Jewish ethos, namely, traces of Herod's preservation of or reflection on his own Jewish identity. My aim is therefore to understand how Herod perceived — or rather, wanted his Jewish subjects to perceive — his Jewishness, and how he reflected — or wanted others to reflect — on his combination of the Jewish and Greco-Roman ways of life

Herod's Jewish Ideology Facing Romanization: On Intermarriage, Ritual Baths, and Speeches

Cet article propose une etude sur la purete non sacerdotale dans le judaisme ancien a partir de textes, de nouvelles preuves provenant de Qumran, et surtout de fouilles archeologiques et une nouvelle approche des caracteristiques religieuses et sociales de ce phenomene, cela afin de fournir une interpretation nouvelle de quelques questions importantes : - Qui etaient ceux qui observaient une purete non sacerdotale ? Cela caracterisait-il seulement les Pharisiens ? - Comment les gens l'observaient-ils dans leur vie quotidienne ? - Pourquoi des Juifs observaient-ils une purete non sacerdotale ?

Pure Individualism: the Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism

This article demonstrates that according to the Acts of the Apostles, the major charges brought against Peter, Stephen, and Paul—as well as, in later Christian texts, against James—are violations of the Temple's sacredness, both by means of statements about and actions within it. On the narrative level, in their portrayal of the conflicts and trials of these early Christian leaders, the ancient Christian sources argued that because the early Christian community in Jerusalem sought to partake in the Temple worship in its own way, Jesus' followers were falsely accused of violating the Temple's sacredness. On the historical level, it may be concluded that these events were authentic, and that they were affected by two factors: (a) The assumption, on the part of the Jewish community, that Jesus represented an anti-Temple stance. This assumption was based on Jesus' ‘cleansing’ action at the Temple, and the saying attributed to him regarding the destruction of the Temple and the erection of a new one ‘not made with [human] hands’. As such, Jesus' followers were viewed as posing a threat to the Temple as well. (b) The meticulous approach to Temple rituals held by the Sadducean high priests in charge of the prosecutions. According to their approach, any deviance from the proscribed procedure desecrated the sacrificial cult and was to be avoided at any cost.

Temple Concerns and High-Priestly Prosecutions from Peter to James: Between Narrative and History

There are several diverences between the laws of cult and the pre-supposition regarding ritual and impurity in the Priestly Schools and the book of Deuteronomy. Both sources regard the relationship between the priest and the laity and the access to the sacred in diverent ways. The fundamental reason that lies at the base of these diverent cultic systems is distinct perceptions of holiness. The diverence is not in the concept of what is holy and what is profane, but rather in the understanding of what holiness really is. The Priestly Schools view holiness as dynamic, sensitive and dangerous, and maintain that the access to the sacred should be limited. In contrast, in Deuteronomy holiness is static, and the access to the sacred is far less restricted, since it is not dangerous or threatening. In other words, in Deuteronomy holiness is not an active entity but a status. These opposing world-views regarding the holy are actually related to general conceptions about the character of the relationship between humans and nature on the one hand, and between man and God on the other hand.

Eyal Regev

Papers

Herod's Jewish Ideology Facing Romanization: On Intermarriage, Ritual Baths, and Speeches

Pure Individualism: the Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism

Temple Concerns and High-Priestly Prosecutions from Peter to James: Between Narrative and History

Priestly dynamic holiness and deuteronomic static holiness

The Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Sacred: Meaning and Ideology in the Halakhic Controversies between the Sadducees and Pharisees