Showing papers on "Idolatry published in 2004"

Images, idolatry, and iconoclasm in late Medieval England : textuality and the visual image

Abstract: Illustrations Introduction 1. The Rule of Medieval Imagination 2. Making, Mourning, and the Love of Idols 3. The Idol of the Text 4. The Sacrament fo the Altar in Piers Plowman and the Late Medieval Church in England 5. Langland's Ymaginatif: Images and the Limits of Poetry 6. 'Et que est huius ydoli materia? Tuipse': Idols and Images in Walter Hilton 7. Sophistic, Spectrality, Iconoclasm 8. The Vivacity of Images: St Katherine, Knighton's Lollards, and the Breaking of Idols 9. The Iconoclast's Desire: Deguileville's Idolatry in France and England 10. Writing and the 'Poetics of Spectacle': Political Epiphanies in The Arrivall of Edward IV and Some Contemporary Lancastrian and Yorkist Texts 11. Iconoclasm and Bibliophobia in the English Reformations, 1521-1558 Afterword Works Cited Index

Moral Impurity and the Temple in Early Christianity in Light of Ancient Greek Practice and Qumranic Ideology

Abstract: The relationship between ritual purity and moral purity is of great importance for understanding the emergence of Christianity within its Jewish matrix. In his recent monograph, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, Jonathan Klawans demonstrates that moral impurity is a phenomenon to be found in various forms in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Jewish writings from the Second Temple period.' Whereas the sources of ritual impurity are either natural phenomena (e.g., childbirth, scale disease, and menstrual and seminal emissions) or certain cultic procedures (e.g., Lev 16:28; Num 19:8), moral impurity results from heinous acts, particularly offenses that pertain to social life such as sexual sins, bloodshed, idolatry, and deceit. Moreover, while ritual impurity may be unintentional, moral pollution is the result of a deliberate act, and thus testifies to the transgressor's own character.2 As a result of moral defilement, the sinner experiences a degradation in status, but does not defile those with whom he comes into contact. The Priestly traditions in the Pentateuch prescribe a complicated process for eliminating the impurity that results from sin: repentance, restitution, and an atoning sacrifice, through which

Syncretism and idolatry in the bible

Abstract: The terms "idolatry" and "syncretism" are widely and sometimes promiscuously used to describe ancient Israelite religious practices; however, the biblical evidence itself is not always clear. Given the Bible's central role in determining the nature of Israelite history, any study of Israelite syncretism and idolatry must begin by asking whether these terms accurately characterize the biblical account. Although images are a widespread feature of many religions, they are not always used as objects of worship. Aside from occasional descriptions of royal practice, biblical references to actual idol worship are largely confined to the prophets, whose tone is heavily polemical. As for syncretism, only 1 Kgs. xviii 21, 2 Kgs. xvi 10, and Zeph. i 5 explicitly condemn the blending of separate traditions. Other biblical authors were primarily concerned with Israel's worshipping the wrong god altogether.

Hindu Iconoclasts: Rammohun Roy, Dayananda Sarasvati, and Nineteenth-Century Polemics Against Idolatry

Abstract: Why, Salmond asks, would nineteenth-century Hindus who come from an iconic religious tradition voice a kind of invective one might expect from Hebrew prophets, Muslim iconoclasts, or Calvinists? Rammohun was a wealthy Bengali, intimately associated with the British Raj and familiar with European languages, religion, and currents of thought. Dayananda was an itinerant Gujarati ascetic who did not speak English and was not integrated into the culture of the colonizers. Salmond's examination of Dayananda after Rammohun complicates the easy assumption that nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm is simply a case of borrowing an attitude from Muslim or Protestant traditions. Salmond examines the origins of these reformers' ideas by considering the process of diffusion and independent invention--that is, whether ideas are borrowed from other cultures, or arise spontaneously and without influence from external sources. Examining their writings from multiple perspectives, Salmond suggests that Hindu iconoclasm was a complex movement whose attitudes may have arisen from independent invention and were then reinforced by diffusion. Although idolatry became the symbolic marker of their reformist programs, Rammohun's and Dayananda's agendas were broader than the elimination of image-worship. These Hindu reformers perceived a link between image-rejection in religion and the unification and modernization of society, part of a process that Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." Focusing on idolatry in nineteenth-century India, Hindu Iconoclasts investigates the encounter of civilizations, an encounter that continues to resonate today.

Pauline Conversations: Rereading Romans 1 in Christ:

Abstract: One of the most insidious forms of Christian idolatry is the fetishizing of biblical texts, as when the meaning of Romans 1 is (wrongly) stabilized as condemning homosexual love-making. With Karl Barth we can learn how to converse with Paul in Christ, so that we can benefit from what Paul has to teach us, and his teaching can benefit from what we have learned under the tutelage of the Spirit. In this context we learn that in Paul’s day there were no homosexuals, and Paul learns that there are homosexuals in our day, some of whom are included within the body of Christ, where they are learning to love God in their loving of one another. The article uses the work of Bernadette Brooten, David Halperin, Mark Jordan and Martti Nissinen; and discusses the work of Eugene Rogers and Douglas Farrow.

Between Woman, Man and God: A New Interpretation of the Ten Commandments

Abstract: 1 The Winding Paths of Biblical Wo/Manhood 1 The Decalogue: scholarly controversies and consensus 2 Making wo/man 3 A new reading of the Decalogue and some old problems II Monotheism and Monogamy? Text, Image, and Paradigm (Word One Word Two) 1 Meanings of monotheism 2 Moses and gendered monotheism 3 Norms of piety/impiety: on altars and slaves in the 'Covenant Code' 4 A calf of gold: the allure of the image and the attraction of apostasy 5 Purity, pollution and piety: Leviticus and Numbers on 'leprosy' 6 Making monotheists: Deuteronomy's version 7 Family and female slavery: Deuteronomy 15 8 From broken to recovered Torah: a calf of gold, a queen and a prophetess Coda and 'conversion' III Oath: Daughter of Discord? (Word Three Word Nine) 1 Sins of speaking 2 Harmony and matrimony 3 Deuteronomy on justice 4 Vows, virginity and parenthood 5 Tongues of duplicity? Rahab and Jael 6 On witches and wives: from Ein Dor to Jezebel Coda: Ruth and redemption IV The Sabbath: Invoking Liberation? Revoking Creation? (Word Four) 1 The Sabbath: biblical and modern Interpretations 2 Exodus and the Sabbath: labor and leisure on the seventh day 3 Eve: A gift of the Sabbath? 4 Deuteronomy's Sabbath of liberation 5 "Is it a Sabbath or new moon Today?" maternity, Sabbath, and 'creation' 6 From Jericho to Jerusalem: Rahab, Athalya and the meaning of sabbatical 'liberation' V The Burden of Birth and the Politics of Motherhood (Word Five) 1 Motherhood and deference 2 The name of the father: from Leviticus to the daughters of Zelophehad 3 The meaning(s) of motherhood: Genesis variations 4 Moses and maternity 5 Deuteronomy's disobedient sons and unruly daughters 6 Mothers and super-sons: the story of Samson VI The Mapping of Murder (Word Six) 1 'Law' and ethics 2 The meaning of murder according to Numbers 3 Metaphors of murder: The Genesis Version 4 Is the killing of women justifiable? Murder as rape 5 A Deuteronomic anatomy of murder 6 Killing for lust? the female body as motivation 7 Metaphors of murder: the rape of Tamar 8 The killing female of the species Postscript: the female body as a deadly weapon VII Conjugality and Covenant (Word Seven) 1 Prelude: whose adultery is it anyway? 2 Adultery: the view of Leviticus 3 Adultery according to Genesis 4 Revealing the concealed: the ordeal of the sotah 5 Adultery: the view of Deuteronomy 6 Does sinning pay? The morality of adultery in 2 Sam 11 VIII Stealing Hearts Thieving Bodies (Word Eight) 1 What does 'stealing' really mean? 2 Between man and man: Exodus on abduction 3 Rachel: mediating men by theft 4 Deuteronomy on stealing humans 5 When women steal hearts and men steal women 6 Stealing babies IX The Constrains of Desire (Word Ten) 1 Sins of the soul 2 Coveting foreign women: the seeds of idolatry 3 Coveting knowledge and sowing the seeds of human morality 4 Deuteronomy's ideology of coveting: why

Paul, Monotheism and the People of God: The Significance of Abraham Traditions for Early Judaism and Christianity

Abstract: Paul, Monotheism and the People of God: The Significance of Abraham Traditions for Early Judaism and Christianity, by Nancy Calvert-Koyzis. JSNTSup 273. London: T&T Clark, 2005. Pp. riv + 173. $115.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0567083780. This investigation of the figure of Abraham in early Jewish and Pauline texts represents a revised version of the author's 1993 dissertation at the University of Sheffield, supervised by Philip R. Davies and Andrew T. Lincoln. In traditional form, the first 60 percent of the research surveys Jewish texts, and the balance applies the conclusions to the interpretation of texts from Paul. The investigation of Jewish texts includes chapters devoted to Jubilees, several writings by Philo, Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities, Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. The Pauline texts studied are Galatians and Romans, and the book closes with a brief conclusion. The price per page for this volume is remarkable. Nancy Calvert-Koyzis uses "monotheism" to denote "the doctrine or belief that there is only one God." She cites Larry Hurtado for this language decision and otherwise eschews discussion of the current debates about the appropriateness of the terminology and concepts associated with this language. One of the results of this decision is that she begins from Paul's "redefinition of monotheism and thereby Abraham" (pp. 3-5, italics added), instead of considering a redefinition of the contemporary scholar's taxonomy and conceptualization of belief in the one God for Paul and other Jews of his period. Calvert-Koyzis sets out to show that Jewish traditions built around Abraham's rejection of idolatry and turning to faith in the one God provide the basis for understanding Paul's arguments as well as the matters at issue in the communities to which he writes. Rabbinic texts are not discussed, because Calvert-Koyzis wants to work with traditions she can be reasonably certain were active for Paul. Moreover, she undertakes to understand these texts "from the standpoint of Jewish concerns rather than from the standpoint of Pauline categories" (p. 4). The endeavor to listen to Jewish texts "in their own right" is to be applauded, of course, although one notes here that this introductory language is set already in contrast to "Pauline categories." Does this language not reveal a working assumption that adumbrates a traditional portrait of the "Christian" Paul of later "Paulinism" with which she will work? From the start can one know that Paul's categories are not shaped by Jewish concerns, in contrast to the other (Jewish) writings she explores? After all, are not the "Pauline" categories to which Calvert-Koyzis refers the product of later (non-Jewish) Christian traditions, which themselves should be subject to criticism, rather than fixed in the traditional ways they have been approached by interpreters? Should not the texts of Paul also be listened to "in their own right," and not first (and only) in later Christian, bifurcated categories? Should one not at least hypothesize that the Jewish arguments about Abraham and the one God upon which Paul depends might arise because of Jewish concerns that still guide him and his communities? Could they be his and their own, and not simply arise in order to address the categories and concerns he is (supposedly) forced to deal with-and thus to seek to subvert-because they are essential to his supposed Jewish opponents' arguments? What Calvert-Koyzis finds in the Jewish texts is that Abraham is the ideal example of a person who forsakes idolatry for faith in the one God, exemplified by obedience to the Mosaic legislation. She discusses the way the figure of Abraham is shaped and used by the various authors to express each one's rhetorical concerns. In Jubilees, Abraham is the ideal Jew, worshiping the Creator God, willing to destroy idols at the risk of losing his life. He is the one who remains faithful to God in the midst of the surrounding Gen tile idolaters, even in the midst of other Jews who compromise faith and Torah observance. …

Aquinas in Dialogue: Thomas for the Twenty‐First Century

Abstract: 1. Aquinas, Merit and Reformation Theology After the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: Michael Root (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary). 2. Ex Occidente Lux? Aquinas and Eastern Orthodox Theology: Bruce D. Marshall (Southern Methodist University). 3. Thomas Aquinas and Judaism: Henk J. M. Schoot (Catholic Theological University of Utrecht ) and Pim Valkenberg (Catholic University of Nijmegen). 4. Thomas Aquinas and Islam: David B. Burrell, CSC (University of Notre Dame). 5. Aquinas Meets the Buddhists: Prolegomenon to an Authentically Thomas--ist Basis for Dialogue: Paul Williams (University of Bristol). 6. Aquinas and Analytical Philosophy: Natural Allies?: Fergus Kerr, OP (Blackfriars). 7. On Denying the Right God: Aquinas on Atheism and Idolatry: Denys Turner (University of Cambridge). 8. Shouting in the Land of the Hard of Hearing: Ob Being a Hillbilly Thomist: Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt (Loyola College).

Idolatry and the Polemics of World-Formation from Philo to Augustine

Abstract: This article examines the association of idolatry with erroneous ideas about the natural world in the writings of late antique Jewish and Christian authors. It follows two polemical genres. The first is the hexaemeral commentaries composed by Philo of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea and Augustine, which positioned the hexaemeron against the background of natural philosophy and used various critiques of idolatry to revise or refute pagan natural philosophy. The second genre is that of heresiology initiated by Irenaeus of Lyon and adapted by Augustine to refute Gnostic and Manichaean cosmological myths and disregard for the creation account in Genesis. The article analyses a variety of ways in which the prohibitions against idolatry figured in methodological questions about how to conceptualize the natural world, how to locate the sources of conceptual error, and how to distinguish those errors from truth.

On Denying the Right God: Aquinas on Atheism and Idolatry

Abstract: Thomas Aquinas appears not to have been intellectually challenged by formal atheisms, nor are his 'five ways' of proving the existence of God best understood as arguments with formal statements of philosophical atheism. But his emphatically 'negative' theology does seem to offer a response to an over-optimistic and potentially idolatrous 'affirmativeness', and we might see the relevance of this negative theology as challenging atheisms of our times to come up with more radical forms of denial than they customarily achieve. In the light of this account of Thomas' natural theology, how are we to view his 'five ways'? As on the one hand valid as rational proofs and at the same time as avoiding the pitfalls of a Scotist 'onto-theological' metaphysics.

The Character of Secondary School Students' Idolatry and The Relation between Their Idolatry and Ego-evaluation

Abstract: The study tested 233 Secondary School students about their idolatrous structure, types and the relation between their idolatry and ego-evaluation with The Idolatrous Structure Questionnaire by ourselves.The result are:①There are three factors in secondary students' idolatrous structure: Approbation, Emotion, Behavior which are ranked from high scores to low scores.Scores of the three factors are diffent in gender and grade;②There are significant relations in factors of Idolatrous Structure, between factors of Characters of Idolatry and Ego-evaluation; ③ There are three types of idolatry in Secondary School students: Perceptual Adorer (21.00%), Intermediate Adorer (32.88%), Rational Adorer(46.12%).The benefit of three types of idolatry from more to less is Rational Adorer,Perceptual Adorer,Intermediate Adorer.