Passion and compassion of god in the old testament

Abstract

The point of departure is the Kitamorian “Pain of God Theology”. However, the present survey is that of exegesis and of biblical theology. We pose the question whether the concept of the “immutability of God” is that of the OT? We believe our focal texts (Hos 11,8; Jer 31,20; Isa 63, 9+15) do challenge that notion. The righteous God of Israel is not presented as a vindictive god, who delights in judgement. Rather, the glimpses of God's “emotions”, read “passions”, suggest a more complex God‐image. The righteousness of God demands judgement, whereas his compassion finds another solution. We find that female and masculine imagery in connection with God's attitude and feelings toward his people, are frequently interchangeable. The all‐embracing motherly love of God may be seen as an expression of God's heart in tension between inevitable judgement and compassionate love. But the same aspect may also be expressed in the father/son relationship. The passion of God in OT is not a static or inherent condition of God's being. Rather, the anthropomorphic (or, anthropopatic) expressions may be glimpses of a rare “I‐You” relationship between God and his people Israel. The passion of God then becomes the most profound expression of God's dynamic response to man's fatal situation.     

Friedrich Sunder and the boundaries of gender

The article explores the gendered imaginary in the Gnadenleben of Friedrich Sunder (1254–1328) and the formation of clerical masculinity in the context of feminine devotional life. Friedrich Sunder worked as a convent chaplain for a Dominican female community and lived within the convent's area. In his book Sunder employs language, images and devotional practices that can be considered in medieval culture to have been feminine. Almost simultaneously, however, he applied masculine roles and emphasised his own manliness. Although Sunder accepted female forms of religiosity and wrote on practices that were considered especially suitable for women, at the same time his priestly masculinity was defined by the physical boundary the cloister created between the enclosed feminine religiosity and that of a pastoral masculine priesthood. His discussion of gender within the mystical frame defined the boundaries of his own masculinity in the web of different traditions of both the proper way of life and the gendered nature of religious practices.     

The Janulis Burial: A Case of Gender Fluidity in the Middle Archaic Period?

ABSTRACT

An amateur 1969 excavation at the Middle Archaic period Janulis site in Ontario unearthed the skeletal remains of three individuals and a dog. One of these, an adult female with an extensive offering, displayed several changes in the bones of her right arm and shoulder caused by the repetitive and intensive practice of an overhand throwing motion. The association of eight projectile points with her skeleton indicates that the activity was projectile throwing, suggesting a strong emphasis on hunting, normally a masculine role. She also had a turtle-shell rattle, an instrument usually associated with men in that time period. In contrast, the presence of two deer styliform bones in the burial point to a feminine role. These anomalies raise the possibility that this individual had adopted a nonbinary gender status, but the paucity of reliable comparative data makes it difficult to precisely define that status.     

The Prehistoric Development of Intensive Green-Cone Piñon Processing in Eastern California

Abstract

The upland piñon zone has long been an important source of data for archaeological theorybuilding in the Western Great Basin. Recent excavations in the piñon zone on Sherwin Summit eastern California, the traditional homeland of the Owens Valley Paiute, have shed much light on the role of rock rings and charcoal stains in green-cone piñon processing and storage. Radiocarbon dating points to a late prehistoric intensification of green-cone processing in the area (ca. 500–100 b.p., uncalibrated), which we suggest is the result of scheduling conflicts during late summer and fall. Green-cone procurement allowed local residents to harvest piñon earlier in the season, freeing time to harvest irrigated and wetland seeds, to participate in annual festivals, and to hunt.     

Una mujer desnuda,de Lola Beccaria: Espacios y escrituras del cuerpo

This article discusses the applicability of postfeminist discourse to contemporary Spanish cultural production. Incited by the apparent confrontation with traditional feminist thinking, postfeminist theories are thought to be an obstacle to the rights of women in contemporary societies. Bearing in mind such complications of the term, our essay questions the recent criticism that postfeminism has received in the last few years and tries to elucidate how its implications affect the progressive development of the achievements of previous or simultaneous feminisms. Such discussion is presented in this essay through the study of the narrative texts of Lola Beccaria and La Fura dels Baus, who respectively present in her novel (Una mujer desnuda, 2004) and their film (Fausto 5.0, 2001) features of the feminine subjectivity in collision with the masculine gazes of the discourses that partake in the construction of the feminine characters.     

The Perpetually Wedded Wife of God: A Study of Shaykh Musa “Sadā Suhāg” as the Founder of Sadā Suhāgiyya Silsilah

Some of the sufis have conceptualised the relationship of human beings with God in gendered terms, and identified themselves with the feminine while imagining God in masculine terms. Such a characterisation can be found in sufi poetry, but it also finds manifestation in certain sufi practices as well, such as the male sufis dressing up as women. A fifteenth‐century South Asian sufi, Shaykh Musa “Sadā Suhāg” of Gujarat — the founder of Sadā Suhāgiyya Silsilah — dressed up like a married woman or a bride. His androgynous appearance, soubriquet, and the name of the sufi silsilah he founded, indicate that he ingeniously indigenised the sufi idea of God's bride keeping in view the Indian cultural ethos and social conventions.     

Flexing Femininity: Female body-builders refiguring 'the body'

This paper considers the built bodies of female body-builders and their training environments. Empirical findings suggest that place of training provides a material and discursive environment that reworks bodies in the feminine/masculine binary. However, the female body-builder works her body within this binary as well as beyond the acceptable feminine/masculine dualism. Three possible, non-exclusive, readings of female body-builders are offered. I argue that the specific materiality of female muscled (built) bodies provides the ground for contestation of the feminine/masculine binary as well as other binaries such as nature/culture, body/mind and sex/gender, thereby opening up new spaces to reconceptualise sexed bodies in geography. The ontological and socio-political status of female body-builders demands a refiguring of sexual difference.     

An alternative approach to hab 1,2‐2,20

Abstract

In the first part the ideological nature of the OT historical narrative is stressed, which means that it is hardly usable as a historical source alone. Therefore, in the second part three demands are formulated should we decide to use an OT text in a historical analysis: 1) the event we want to investigate has to be mentioned in the OT, 2) must correlate with material from archaeological excavations, and 3) must be mentioned in at least one external written source. The final part is devoted to an overview over the Scandinavian excavations at Tel Fukhar, Jordan.     

Possible hellenistic influences in the historical parts of the old testament

There is an agreement among scholars concerning the meaning of the Hebrew verb from the root in the OT. They all suppose that this verb means “sexual desire”. However, they base their opinion neither on the origin of this root nor on the study of all the verses in which it appears in the OT. The aim of the present study is to show that this Hebrew verb is originated in another language where it has many other meanings. In addition, it aims to prove that in most of the appearances of this verb in the OT there is no need to assume it has a sexual meaning.     

A View of Their Own: Women's Committee Leadership Styles and State Legislatures

Analysis of survey data from 291 state legislative committee chairs suggests that professionalization has important gender implications not previously explored. Legislatures are gendered in the sense that culturally masculine and feminine committee management styles are more at home in some legislatures than in others. "Citizen" legislatures seem to be more hospitable to "feminine" behaviors of inclusion and a motivation focused on people-oriented concerns. Professionalized legislatures–promoted in large part on the basis of a masculine vocabulary of independence, rationality, expertise, and competition with the executive–discourage inclusive or collegial committee strategies and public-minded motives. Professional legislatures may be positive environments in which to nurture policy leadership, but their committee leaders eschew public participation.     

Chronology as a structural element in the old testament

In a situation when consensus is hard to reach both concerning agreement between the historical parts of OT with the real history and the process of establishing the biblical books, there is need to seriously consider if new methods and views can contribute towards a growth of knowledge and understanding in these respects. As argued in the paper the OT chronology can serve as a main structural element, considering the solution presented by Stenring of a unified dating within twelve biblical books. Examples are further given of concealed meaning behind the dates. Some conclusions concerning the text history are drawn.     

Emphasizing the Daughter of Pharaoh

ABSTRACT

A woman mentioned as “the daughter of Pharaoh” reappears six times in the OT, five in 1Kings and once in 2Chronicles. Because of her mentioning several times in the OT as King Solomon's woman scholars came to the conclusion that the union between this woman and the King was of a great importance. These scholars, however, have ignored the development concerning her status in King Solomon's palace and the cause for this devel-opment. The changing position of this woman in the palace of King Solomon is one of the indications to a change in power of the kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Solomon.     

Ideology,archaeology and history in the old testament

Abstract

While Ottosson's approach to historical studies may be correct, his understanding of the ideological character of the OT narratives may be to narrowly defined, as this ideology has many layers and reflects a diversified tradition.     

Affective Protest Symbols: Public Dissent in the Mass Commemoration of the Sewŏl Ferry’s Victims in Seoul

ABSTRACT

Symbols used in the Sew?l protests in downtown Seoul from 2014 onwards proved effective in soliciting public engagement for three years. After the sinking of the Sew?l ferry that took 304 lives, most of them high school students, objects such as yellow ribbons gained iconic status as signifiers of the demand to investigate the ferry’s sinking and honour the memory of the victims. New visual indexes that created and articulated this emotionally laden discourse formed a common visual language of grief and anger towards the Korean authorities. This ethnography-based article explores the development of the protest’s affective aestheticism, its main agents and semiotics, and how it produced affect, which had strong cultural, social and emotional impacts. In 2016, the Sew?l movement became the core of larger protests against the ruling elites.     

Muslim Political Theology Before and After Empire: Shāh Muḥammad Ismāʿīl’s Station of Leadership (Manṣab-i Imāmat)*

ABSTRACT

This essay examines an important yet hitherto unexplored early-nineteenth century Indo-Persian work of Muslim political theology Station of Leadership (Man?ab-i Imāmat; also known as Darājāt-i Imāmat), written by the towering and contentious Sunnī thinker and political theorist from Delhi Shāh Mu?ammad Ismā?īl (d. 1831). In this hugely critical though lesser known of Ismā?īl’s texts, he sought to detail a theory and framework of ideal forms of Muslim political orders and leaders. Man?ab-i Imāmat presents a fascinating example of a text of Muslim political theology composed during a moment marked by a crisis of sovereignty as South Asia gradually yet decisively transitioned from Mughal to British rule. In this essay, through a close reading of Man?ab-i Imāmat, I aim to bring into view a vision of Muslim political thought and understanding of sovereignty that exceed and subvert the modern privileging of a territorial conception of the nation-state as the centerpiece of politics. I show that while tethered to an imperial Muslim political theology that assumed Islam’s superiority over and subsumption of other religious identities and traditions, sovereign power for Ismā?īl indexed not territorial sovereignty but the maintenance of Muslim markers of distinction in the public performance of everyday religious life.     

Approaching Personality through Style: The Seriously Perplexing Figure of Dezső Szabó

Abstract

Dezs? Szabó (born 1879, Klausenburg/Kolozsvár/Cluj, Austria-Hungary, died 1945, Budapest) was a towering figure of his generation. Literary critic, social pamphleteer, satirist, and novelist, he aroused strong passions on all sides with his rhetorically freighted prose and his fluid, yet forceful, political views. All accounts of his work concentrate on its intent, content, or consequences, and it is widely agreed that Szabó’s ‘style’ was his most prominent trait. And yet it is as if the political and ideological impact of the man has all but eclipsed the writing itself: with the exception of one brief monograph of 1937, we have no study devoted to the detailed examination of the ways in which he used Hungarian. Such a study is what is attempted in this essay. The method is primarily linguistic: all pertinent features of Szabó’s use of Hungarian are discussed, from the submorphemic (alliteration and other sound-patterning) through his immoderate derivational morphology, overstuffed noun phrases, and idiosyncratic lexis.     

Abkopplungstendenzen des suburbanen Raums von der Kernstadt – das Beispiel der Filderregion südlich von Stuttgart

In bundesdeutschen Agglomerationen zeichnen sich Tendenzen ab, da? sich der suburbane Raum aus der engen funktionalen Verflechtung mit der Kernstadt abkoppelt und eine zunehmend eigenst?ndige Entwicklung vollzieht. Empirische Belege dafür sind bisher eher selten (u.a. Brake et al. 1997), auch wenn diese Entwicklungen schon Mitte der 90er Jahre beobachtet wurden (Aring 1996, Müller/Rohr-Z?nker 1997, Burdack/Herfert 1998). Die Plausibilit?t der These einer Abkopplung wird nachfolgend für die Filderregion anhand von Daten aus empirischen Untersuchungen der Jahre 1998 bis 2001 untersucht; den Schwerpunkt bilden dabei die Gemeinden der „engeren” Filderregion, die rund um den Flughafen gelegen direkt an die Kernstadt Stuttgart angrenzen: Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Filderstadt und Ostfildern. Die Untersuchungen vereinen Methoden qualitativer und quantitativer Art, neben schriftlichen Befragungen mittels standardisierter Frageb?gen wurde über teilstrukturierte Interviews in Betrieben ein direkter Zugang zu den Einsch?tzungen von unternehmerischer Seite gew?hlt. Eine der Untersuchungen konzentrierte sich auf unternehmensorientierte Dienstleistungsbetriebe ( Eisenreich 2001), eine zweite erfa?te in einer „Wirtschaftsdatenbank” wichtige Strukturdaten von Unternehmen aller Wirtschaftszweige in Leinfelden-Echterdingen verbunden mit Einsch?tzungen der Betriebsleiter ( Schenk u.a. 2000); derzeit l?uft eine dritte Studie zur Dynamik des Einzelhandels in der polyzentrischen Siedlungsstruktur des engeren Filderraums ( Bartenbach u.a. 2002). Correspondence to:Dirk Eisenreich Correspondence to:Winfried Schenk     

Jerusalem 720-705 BCE. No Flood of Israelite Refugees

ABSTRACT

Beside the use of ???? in the priestly and poetic material of the Hebrew Bible the term appears several times in First Isaiah. While priestly authors used (verb and noun) only in reference to God as elementary part of his revelation, the meaning in Isa 1-10 and 13-23 differs frequently. ???? ap-pears with regard to God, persons and objects. in Isa 6; 8 and 10,5-34 the term names a phenomenon which is equivalent to the Mesopotamian melammu ?arruti. In Isa 5 and 10,1-4 it is used as expression for the visible image of a person or a nation. Finally in Isa 4,2-6 and 11,10-16 it represents mount Zion as place of God's revelation. Insofar the results of the motif critical investigation approves former redaction critical studies. In contrast to this in Isa 13-23 the term has an almost consistent meaning. In Isaiah's words to the nations it is used for the nation's actual condition and qualifies the situation as good or bad.