Isaiah b. Amoz’s Attitude towards the Faith of the Gentile Nations

This article discusses the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion described in Isa 2,2-5, focusing on Isaiah’s attitude to their future faith in the God of Israel. A number of ways of understanding Isaiah’s view are proposed on the basis of a series of ever-widening interpretive circles. These are determined by their linguistic and/or substantive and/or cognitive affinities with the vision, influencing the exegesis of the vision either through their content or the worldview they reflect. None of the circles entails a reading of the vision as a closed unit isolated from its context.     

A Royal Isaianic Servant of YHWH?

In this article I argue that the Isaianic Servant of YHWH is a non-royal figure. The main arguments are as follows. The form of Isa 42,1-4, the motifs of 42,1 and the projected role of the servant in relation to justice do not support the idea that the servant is a royal figure. Likewise, in Isa 61,1-3, the portrait drawn is that of a prophetic figure with a speaking ministry. The servant of Isaiah 40-55 and the Davidic ruler of Isaiah 9, 11 and 16 cannot be equated, for the servant’s proclamatory role precedes the founding of God’s kingdom, whereas the role of the Davidic ruler is as enforcer of justice within the consummated kingdom. The focus in Isaiah 40-66 is on God as the King who liberates his people and redeems Zion and this leaves to the servant the prophetic roles of speaking and suffering as agent of the Divine King.     

Using Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty to rethink cultural policy: a case of Poland

The overarching aim of this paper is to rethink the normative aspects of Polish cultural policy after 1989, using a conceptual framework built upon Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. More specifically, this article aims to analyse the rhetoric used in cultural policy and the practice of policy-making, in order to uncover and characterise the normative role that the state has played in shaping and executing cultural policy in Poland after 1989. The analysis shows that Polish cultural policy has been dominated by a perfectionist logic, which corresponds to Isaiah Berlin’s concept of positive liberty. It means that cultural policy has not been axiologically neutral but instead it has been based on state’s judgements about what kind of art is worthy support. On the other hand, the analysis shows that Polish cultural policy after 1989 cannot be classified as negative liberty.     

NAḤAL ZERED IN THE BIBLE AND THE BARAITA DE-TEḤUMIN

Abstract

As a result of a mistaken interpretation of the Madaba map, biblical Na?al Zered is often identified in the scholarship as Wādi al-?sā, which marks the boundary between Moab and Edom southeast of the Dead Sea. In reality, the brook of Zered does not appear on the Madaba map and the sole documentary evidence available for its identification is the Bible, which situates Na?al Zered near Na?al Arnon. The author proposes Wādi Nkheile, which spills into the Arnon from the southeast, as the most likely candidate for the biblical Zered. This identification perhaps also sheds light on the conflicting biblical sources regarding the question of whether or not the Moabites allowed the Israelites to pass through their territory en route to Canaan. In the postbiblical era Na?al Zered appears in the boundaries baraita (baraita de-te?umin) as part of the eastern border of the land of Israel and the article demonstrates that the identification of Na?al Zered as Wādi Nkheile is consistent with the geographical logic of the baraita.     

Estado de Graça: A Utopia Teológico-Política do Padre António Vieira

This essay discusses Jesuit Priest António Vieira's (1608–1697) Messianic writings, specifically the texts in which he comments on the impending arrival of the Kingdom of Christ, described as a most happy state suffused with divine grace. This Kingdom would be perfect and complete, and it would take place on earth, not in the purely spiritual sphere of heaven. I argue that the earthly dimension of Vieira's conception of the Kingdom of Christ opens his Messianism to a political dimension. It will lead him to consider the coexistence of nations during this Millenarian Kingdom in terms of “perpetual peace,” a notion later secularized by the thinkers of the Enlightenment.     

WHY IS THE MINARET SO SHORT? EVIDENCE FOR EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE ON MT ZION

Abstract

On top of King David's Sepulchre at Mt Zion there is an Ottoman minaret known as al-Nabi Da'ud. Compared with other minarets in Jerusalem, al-Nabi Da'ud seems to be somewhat shorter, and has a squat-like appearance. To track why it is shorter than other minarets, we inspected written historical sources, a sequence of old drawings dated between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries and analysed the minaret's metric proportions. In drawings dated to and before 1833, the minaret is portrayed much higher than in drawings and photographs dated to and after 1838. Furthermore, comparative height-diameter ratio of various parts of the minaret does not fit those of its counterpart, the al-Qal'a minaret. Thus, we suggest that the minaret was originally built higher but damaged during the 1834 earthquake, and reconstructed to a lower height sometimes afterwards.     

Measuring Religious Preferences in Nineteenth-Century Urban Areas

The author applies David Galenson's work on the life cycles of modern artists to the study of the paintings of old masters, from about the early fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries. Both the potential use of technical examination of paintings and the role of drawings for preconceiving compositions are explored as means for interpreting artistic behavior among pre-modern artists. Using a study of illustrations in texts to establish a list of canonical painters and the relative dates in which they are believed to have contributed their most important paintings, the author then analyzes a series of old master painters' working methods, demonstrating how their creative behavior corresponds to what their respective life cycles would suggest. Thus, the study of artists' life cycles could anticipate the use of optical and other mechanical devices for the production of premodern paintings based on such studies.     

“The good Dr. Lippe” and Herzl in Basel, 1897: A translation and analysis of the Zionist Congress's opening speech

Dr. Karpel Lippe of Jassy, who gave the opening speech at the first Zionist Congress, has been largely ignored in histories of Zionism. This article introduces an English translation of his speech. Lippe helped to legitimate “Congress-Zionism” by connecting it to earlier forms of Jewish activism. His address exposes tensions arising from the Basel meeting, including Ottoman suspicion, relations with the Orthodox, and conflicts over organizational priorities. Insisting upon his and his country's priority in the movement's history, Lippe's oration suggests an alternative perspective on early Zionism and raises broader questions for the historiography of nationalism.     

Preference for periphery? Cultural interchange and trade routes along the boundaries of late Iron Age Moab

ABSTRACT

This article explores the evidence for diversity in the material culture of Late Iron Age sites situated in the semi-arid margins of west-central Jordan. Least-cost analysis (LCA) is used to model a hypothesized secondary north-south route along the eastern boundary of Moab. Sites found along this route are shown to exhibit a disproportionate level of cultural diversity compared to ‘core’ settlements. These effects are especially pronounced at sites with clear cultic associations. The results of this investigation are in line with the recent literature on the archaeology of boundaries and frontiers, confirming that these zones are characterized by heightened cultural diversity and interchange across a range of domains.     

Orthodox violence: “Critique of Violence” and Walter Benjamin's Jewish political theology

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology.     

The “historical question” at the end of the Scottish Enlightenment: Dugald Stewart on the natural origin of religion,universal consent,and religious diversity

ABSTRACT

This study examines the leading early nineteenth-century Scottish moral philosopher Dugald Stewart’s discussion of the origin and development of religion. Stewart developed his account in his final work, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (1828), in an effort to show that the fact that polytheism was the first religion of humankind does not undermine the truth of monotheism. He wrote in response to similar discussions presented in David Hume’s “Natural History of Religion” (1757), which argued for the primacy of polytheism, and Stewart’s old moral philosophy tutor Adam Ferguson’s Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792), which argued for the primacy of monotheism. Stewart accepted the conclusions of the Scots’ enlightened study of religion, which argued for truth of Hume’s account, but aimed to reassert many of the natural theological arguments about the naturalness of religion that the “Natural History” had challenged. Stewart’s discussion acts as a useful way by which we can assess the achievement of the literati’s study of religion.     

The spaces of Australian capitalism: Making “place” out of “space” in The Unknown Industrial Prisoner

Radical geographers have emphasised the centrality of class relations to the production of social space. In particular, this literature makes the distinction between the homogenising “abstract space” of global capital and meaningful, specific social “places.” The tension between the two expresses itself in spatial forms, creating the landscapes of capitalism. This political-economic conception of space and place is generally under-explored in the Australian context, particularly regarding the highly important post-World War II Long Boom period. This article interrogates the spatiality of this epoch through David Ireland's award-winning novel The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Rooted in the notion of literary geography, which argues that literature “knows” things about the space of the society into which it is born, the article argues that Ireland portrays and handles in a particularly vivid and powerful way the dialectical articulations, simultaneously contradictory and intertwined, of space and place in the spatiality of Australian capitalism. Whilst he ultimately concludes that the powers of capital's abstract space dominate, he nevertheless demonstrates that through explicitly spatial projects of place-making, workers can attempt to impose their own political economy on the spatial form.     

Orthodox violence: “Critique of Violence” and Walter Benjamin's Jewish political theology

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology.