Zechariah 5 and the priestly law

The bizarre imagery of Zechariah 5, and the relationship between the two visions contained therein has long been a source of bafflement to commentators. This article argues that the content of these visions is dependent on three texts from the priestly law: Leviticus 14, 19 and Numbers 5. The first of these texts provides the legal precedent for Zechariah's attacks on theft, fraud and perjury, while the action taken by God (the entry of the curse scroll into the house of the perjured thief, followed by its destruction and the removal of ''wickedness'') makes use of Numbers 5 and Leviticus 14 respectively.     

The Mystery of St Cuthbert’s Ducks: An Adventure in Hagiography

‘St Cuthbert’s duck’ is a folk name for the common eider (Somateria mollissima). The saint’s affinity for the black-and-white ducks has been accepted uncritically for centuries. For such a well-documented saint, however, his ducks are strangely absent from early records. His near-contemporary hagiographers, including the Venerable Bede, make no mention of waterfowl. The enduring association begins almost five centuries after his death in a piece of twelfth-century folklorismus.     

Much Ado About Dugald: The Chequered Career of Dugald Stewart's Letter to Sir William Forbes on James Beattie's Essay on Truth

Summary

Although Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo's An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie has long served as an invaluable resource for those interested in Beattie's life and thought, there has been little scholarship on the genesis of Forbes's book. This article considers the role played by Dugald Stewart—as well as that of his friend, Archibald Alison—in the making of Forbes's Life of Beattie. It also examines the reasons for Forbes's decision not to print Stewart's letter in its entirety in the Life of Beattie and explores the letter's significance for understanding Stewart's philosophical development.     

Reviews

Books reviewed: A. Beer, A. Maude and W. Pritchard, Developing Australia's Regions: Theory and Practice K. Beesley, H. Millward, B. Ilbery and L. Harrington (eds), The New Countryside: Geographic Perspectives on Rural Change Alexander R. Cuthbert (ed.), Designing Cities: Critical Readings in Urban Design Ian Burnley and Peter Murphy, Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia     

Short Notices

Books reviewed: Philip C. Almond , Adam and Eve in Seventeenth‐Century Thought. Peter Smith (ed.), Bahá’ís in the West. Aaron Milavec , The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Community. Terry J. Tekippe , Bernard Lonergan: An Introductory Guide to Insight. Norman Roth , Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Mark Freeman , The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust: A Study in Quaker Philanthropy and Adult Education 1904–1954. Laurie Guy , Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Survey of Its Life, Beliefs and Practices. Heather Hendershot , Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture. Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck (eds), Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption. Máire de Paor , Saint MoLing Luachra. R. N. Swanson (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Time in Christian History: Papers Read at the 1999 Summer Meeting and the 2000 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society.     

Radical changes in Islamic glass technology: evidence for conservatism and experimentation with new glass recipes from early and middle Islamic Raqqa,Syria*

The chemical analysis of excavated glass fragments from dated archaeological contexts in Raqqa, Syria, has provided a detailed picture of the chemical compositions of artefacts deriving from eighth to ninth and 11th century glassmaking and glassworking activities. Evidence for primary glass production has been found at three excavated sites, of eighth to ninth, 11th and 12th century dates; the first two are discussed here. The 2 km long industrial complex at al‐Raqqa was associated with an urban landscape consisting of two Islamic cities (al‐Raqqa and al‐Rafika) and a series of palace complexes. The glass fused and worked there was presumably for local as well as for regional consumption. Al‐Raqqa currently appears to have produced the earliest well‐dated production on record in the Middle East of an Islamic high‐magnesia glass based on an alkaline plant ash flux and quartz. An eighth to ninth century late ‘Roman’/Byzantine soda–lime recipe of natron and sand begins to be replaced in the eighth to ninth century by a plant ash – quartz Islamic soda–lime composition. By the 11th century, this process was nearly complete. The early Islamic natron glass compositional group from al‐Raqqa shows very little spread in values, indicating a repeatedly well‐controlled process with the use of chemically homogeneous raw materials. A compositionally more diffuse range of eighth to ninth century plant ash glass compositions have been identified. One is not only distinct from established groups of plant ash and natron glasses, but is believed to be the result of experimentation with new raw material combinations. Compositional analysis of primary production waste including furnace glass (raw glass adhering to furnace brick) shows that contemporary glasses of three distinct plant ash types based on various combinations of plant ash, quartz and sand were being made in al‐Raqqa during the late eighth to ninth centuries. This is a uniquely wide compositional range from an ancient glass production site, offering new insights into the complexity of Islamic glass technology at a time of change and innovation.     

Book Reviews

Twenty Years On, special issue of Australian Historical Studies (1996) Carpenter, Jennifer and MacLean, Sally-Beth (eds) Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (1995); Ward, Jennifer (ed.) Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066–1500 (1995); Goldberg, P. J. (ed.) Women in England c. 1275–1525. Documentary Sources (1995) Surtz, Ronald E. Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila (1995); Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne Feminism and the Honor Plays of Lope de Vega (1993) Matter, E. Ann and Coakley, John (eds) Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious and Attistic Renaissance (1994); Monson, Craig A. Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent (1995) Goodman, Dena The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (1994) Ruane, Christine Gender, Class, and the Professionalization of Russian City Teachers, 1860–1914 (1994) Dyhouse, Carol No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (1995) Bonner, Thomas Neville To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine (1992); Roberts, Shirley Sophia Jex-Blake. A Woman Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Medical Reform (1993); Leneman, Leah In the Service of Life: The Story of Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (1994) Hartman Strom, Sharon Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900–1930 (1992); Kwolek-Folland, Angel Gendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870–1930 (1994); Cohen, Miriam Workshop to Office: Two Generations of Italian Women in New York City, 1900–1950 (1992) Swindells, Julia (ed.) The Uses of Autobiography (1995) Alexander, Sally Becoming a Woman and Other Essays in 19th and 20th Century Feminist History (1994): Davidoff, Leonore Worlds Between: Historial Perspectives on Gender and Class (1995)     

Zechariah's Angels: Their Role in the Night Visions and in the Redaction History of Zech 1,7-6,8

ABSTRACT

Zechariah's first vision (Zech 1,8-17) and its portrayal of angelic beings offer important criteria for determining earlier shapes of the cycle of the night visions. At a primary level, the first night vision consisted of a question-answer communication between the prophet and a celestial messenger designated ??? (1,8.9a.10.11b). At the next stage the angelus interpres had been added, partly absorbing the function of the ??? (1,9b.14), before the angel of Yhwh was inserted (1,11a.12-13). Based on the result that the earliest version of Zech 1,8-17 did not know of an ange-lus interpres the other night visions are analyzed.     

Transformation and Specialization in London and its Topography

This article puts John Tallis’s London Street Views (1838–40) into conversation with some of the major topographical projects that preceded them. By examining how London was represented in works including Richard Horwood’s PLAN of the Cities of LONDON and WESTMINSTER the Borough of SOUTHWARK, and PARTS adjoining Shewing every HOUSE (1792–9), Richard Phillips’s Modern London (1804) and Rudolph Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808–10), it considers the extent to which the form, content, price and organizing principles of the Street Views iterated on prior traditions while drawing out aspects of Tallis’s work that should be read as representing innovative new directions. The Street Views were more specialized and more explicitly focused on business than the relatively genteel works of the earlier nineteenth century, but topography had long been a commercial prospect, often publisher-led rather than author-driven. As the century progressed, changes in the city and in technologies of representation modified the ways in which visions of London were assembled and sold, allowing for significant expansions in their potential audiences. However, there were also considerable continuities in what was depicted, in the reliance on part-publication and in the areas that were seen as being crucial to the experience of the metropolis. This article traces these continuities and discontinuities qualitatively, quantitatively and spatially.     

Performing gender in lay saints' Lives

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, this article shows how femininity and masculinity are performed in three lay saints' Lives from the middle Byzantine period: the Life of Philaretos the Merciful (820), the Life of Thomaïs of Lesbos (mid-tenth century) and the Life of Mary the Younger (eleventh century). The approach of these texts through gender performativity shows in the most graphic way the difference between male and female constructions of sanctity on the one hand, and the important role that gender plays in the construction of lay sanctity, on the other.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed: John Barton (ed.), The Biblical World. Stephen Hunt (ed.), Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to Waco. Gervase of Tilbury , Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor. Rachel Fulton , From Judgement to Passion. Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200. Malcolm Lambert , Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation. Carter Lindberg (ed.), The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period. Helen Parish and William G. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe. Peter Matheson , The Imaginative World of the Reformation. Bernard Joassart , Monseigneur Duchesne et les Bollandistes. Correspondence. Bernard Joassart , Friedrich von Hügel, Cuthbert Hamilton Turner et les Bollandistes. Correspondence. Iain M. Mackenzie , God's Order and Natural Law: The Work of the Laudian Divines. Stephan Greenblatt , Hamlet in Purgatory. Hanne Sanders (ed.), Between God and the Devil, Religious and Magical World‐Views in the Nordic Countries 1500–1800. John K. Nelson : A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishoners in Anglican, Virginia, 1690–1776. John Allen Macaulay , Unitarianism in the Antebellum South: The Other Invisible Institution. Loretta M. Long , The Life of Selina Campbell: A Fellow Soldier in the Cause of Restoration. Linda C. Raeder , John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity. Ralph Waller , John Wesley: A Personal Portrait.. Richard P. Heitzenrater , The Elusive Mr. Wesley. Michael Goldsmith and Doug Munro ,The Accidental Missionary. Tales of Elekana. Allan K. Davidson (ed.), Tongan Anglicans 1902–2002. From the Church of England Mission in Tonga to the Tongan Anglican Church. Lynne Hume : Ancestral Power: The Dreaming, Consciousness and Aboriginal Australians. Heather McDonald , Blood, Bones and Spirit: Aboriginal Christianity in an East Kimberley Town.     

Potential Contributions of Spatial Analysis to Geographic Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T)

Geographic information systems (GIS) are having tremendous impacts on many scientific and application domains. The traditional subfield of spatial analysis is witnessing a major resurgence and enhancement due to GIS and geographical information science (GISci), an interdisciplinary field focusing on the theory and methodology underlying GIS software. The interdisciplinary field of geographic information systems for transportation (GIS-T) has emerged to focus on the role of GIS in transportaton analysis and planning. This paper suggests the benefits of closer linkages between spatial analysis, GISci, and transportation through a focused review of spatial analytical issues and their potential contributions to GIS-T. Specifically, this paper reviews the following issues: (i) modifiable areal units; (ii) boundary problems and spatial sampling; (iii) spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity; and (iv) alternative representations of geographic environments. The discussion highlights the general issues as well as identifies their specific relevance to GIS-T. In addition, this paper identifies some emerging tools from GISci that can address these spatial analytical issues in GIS-T.     

Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra in Translation: A Century of Interpretation of a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Text

Many translations of ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Buddhist text of seventh/eighth‐century India, have been published since 1892. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra is one of the few Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist texts available in Sanskrit and it was influential in Tibetan Buddhist schools. This article explores how translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is no longer the preserve of scholars but has moved to being carried out by Buddhist practitioners influenced by Tibetan schools of Buddhism. It shows how translators’ motives for translating the text have reflected changing attitudes to Buddhism and its texts. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra has been translated as a source of information, a literary work, an inspirational work and, with the rise of Western interest in Tibetan Buddhism in the late twentieth century, as a vehicle for the transmission of Buddhist teachings. Nevertheless, further scholarly investigation of the Sanskrit text of the Bodhicaryāvatāra remains to be done.     

Black Geographies of Respite: Relief,Recuperation, and Resonance at Florida A&M University

In this article, I argue that places of respite provide relief from the burdens of oppressive articulations and experiences of society and space and are produced through three general practices: relief as a practice that mitigates psychological and physical burdens of oppression; recuperation as a form of (self-)care that can help heal harms; and affirmative resonance as a practice of counter-storytelling that challenges hegemonic social narratives and internalises affirmative narratives for marginalised peoples. Through a case study with members of the Marching 100 at Florida A&M University (FAMU), I demonstrate how these relational practices produce FAMU as a multiscalar place of respite for black students. Finally, I claim that places of respite, produced through a black sense of place, offer scholars interested in affirmative black geographies an ontological object produced by (and productive of) visions and practices of black life and produced for the celebration and protection of black lives.     

Essentializing ‘Black Pete’: competing narratives surrounding the Sinterklaas tradition in the Netherlands

The Netherlands’ most important tradition, the celebration of the feast of Saint Nicholas, (Sinterklaas) has become subject to nation-wide contestation. As Dutch society has become more multicultural, partly due to the immigration from the former Dutch colonies in the West-Indies, new sensitivities have arisen about this institutionalised heritage practice. At the core of the controversy is the figure of Black Pete (Zwarte Piet), Saint Nicholas’ black-faced companion. Some communities within Dutch society perceive this figure as highly menacing and insulting. To the majority of the population, however, Zwarte Piet is an essential part of its heritage and identity. The ensuing controversy can be understood as a matter of heritage narratives conflicting. These narratives do not just give meaning to the tradition, but are also instrumentalized by actors in the debate to achieve their goals. They are used to justify or reject the appearance of Zwarte Piet, and to critically debate Dutch identity. In this article we reconstruct the Zwarte Piet narratives, and explain why these are so incommensurable. Naturally, we also pay attention to what is at stake for the activists on all sides.     

Integrated Visions (Part II): Envisioning Sustainable Energy Landscapes

Climate change and resource depletion are driving the transition to renewable energy sources. Both the supply of renewables and the demand for energy are influenced by the physical environment and therefore concern spatial planning and landscape design. Envisioning the long-term development of alternative energy landscapes – that is sustainable energy landscapes – present spatial planners and landscape architects with new challenges. The first paper of this two-part series discussed several existing approaches to long-term regional planning and landscape design, and presented an alternative, five-step approach for the composition of integrated visions [Stremke, S., Kann, F. Van & Koh, J. (2012) Integrated Visions (part I): Methodological Framework, European Planning Studies, [20(2), pp. 305–320]. This paper illustrates how the five-step approach was employed to compose a set of integrated visions for the development of sustainable energy landscapes in south of the Netherlands. The proposed five-step approach is then examined with respect to a set of criteria stressed in the planning and design literature.     

An abbot between two cultures: Maiolus of Cluny considers the Muslims of La Garde‐Freinet

In July 972, Muslim raiders from the citadel of Fraxinetum (modern La Garde‐Freinet) abducted Abbot Maiolus of Cluny and his entourage as they crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass (Mons Iovis) in the western Alps. This article analyses a little‐known letter that Maiolus sent to his Cluniac brethren to secure payment for his release. Interwoven with biblical passages drawn from the Book of Samuel and the Psalter, the abbot's ransom letter provides the rare opportunity to examine how one of the most influential Christian leaders of the tenth century perceived his Muslim captors and their religion.     

The making of a minor saint in Drogo of Saint‐Winnoc's Historia translationis s. Lewinnae

In 1058, the Flemish abbey of Saint‐Winnoc stole St Lewinna's relics from a minster in southern England. The community worked to establish her cult in Flanders. Although scholars have focused on the material gain Saint‐Winnoc probably hoped the cult would bring, this article argues that the development of the abbey's communal identity figured more prominently in its motives. The community saw Lewinna primarily as a means to help bolster its bid for independence from its mother house.     

Book Reviews

Nelson, Claudia Invisible Men: Fatherhood in Victorian Periodicals, 1850–1910 (1995) Bourke, Joanna Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (1996) Sztreter, Simon Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (1996) Bland, Lucy Banishing the Beast. English Feminism and Sexual Morality 1885–1914 (1994) Grossman, Atina Reforming Sex. The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950 (1995) Mitchell, Sally The New Girl: Girls’ Culture in England, 1880–1915 (1995) Tinkler, Penny Constructing Girlhood: Popular Magazines for Girls Growing Up in England, 1920–1950 Johnson, Lesley The Modern Girl: Girlhood and Growing Up (1993) Giles, Judy Women, Identity and Private Life in Britain, 1900–50 (1995) Stanley, Liz Sex Surveyed, 1949–1994 (1995) Tebbutt, Melanie Women’s Talk: A Social History of ‘Gossip’ in Working-Class Neighbourhoods, 1880–1960 (1995) Zarnowska, Anna and Szwarc, Andrzej (eds) Kobieta i edukacja na ziemiach Polskich w XIX i XX wieku (1995) Bard, Christine Les Filles de Marianne. Histoire des féminismes 1914–1940 (1995) Reynolds, Siân France Between the Wars. Gender and Politics (1996) Fieseler, Beate Frauen auf dem Weg in die russische Sozialdemokratie 1890–1917: eine kollektive Biographie (1995) Quack, Sibylle (ed.) Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period (1995) Wagner, Leonie, Mehrwald, Silke, Maierhof, Gudrun, Jansen, Mechtild M. (eds) Aus dem Leben jüdischer Frauen. ‘Welche Welt ist meine Welt?’ (1994) Frader, Laura L. and Rose, Sonya O. (eds) Gender and Class in Modern Europe (1996) Hill, Bridget Servants: English Domestics in the Eighteenth Century (1996) Faust, Drew Gilpin Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (1996) Morton, Patricia (ed.) Discovering the Women in Slavery: Emancipating Perspectives on the American Past (1996) Copelman, Dina London’s Women Teachers: Gender, Class, and Feminism, 1870–1930 (1996) Garb, Tamar Sisters of the Brush: Women’s Artistic Culture in Late 19th-Century Paris (1994) Orr, Clarissa Campbell (ed.) Women in the Victorian Art World (1995) Willson, Perry R. The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy (1993) Pickering-Iazzi, Robin (ed.) Mothers of Invention: Women, Italian Fascism and Culture (1995) Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’s Sport (1994) Cayleff, Susan E. Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1995) Berg, Maxine A Woman in History. Eileen Power, 1889–1940 (1996)