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This study addresses the problems of the identity of the antiphons in the Office in the post Pentecosten period. The antiphons in question are among the New Testament canticles Benedictus for lauds and Magnificat for vespers. The given section of the Office is not strictly regulated, and accordingly various divergences are found among European liturgical traditions. This melodic and liturgical material is therefore useful in determining and specifying the individual traditions. There is variability not only in the selection and arrangement of antiphons in a particular series but also in the texts and melodies of antiphons. A thoroughgoing analysis of the post Pentecosten series of antiphons has shown that in certain cases where antiphons have an identical text they have entirely divergent melodies or striking melodic deviations. For this reason it is necessary to work also with the musical component of the chosen repertoire, hence to process the antiphons in terms not only of their texts but also their melodies. A comparative musical analysis enables us to trace the bonds between the traditions which used a given melody and to reveal the relationships between the centres which performed the repertoire of the Office.
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This paper brings together two phenomena not commonly regarded as closely connected: linguistic patterns in ancient Biblical transmission, and Jewish-Christian relations as manifest in Polish-Israeli dynamics. After summarizing the nature of Jewish-Greek language in the Septuagint (LXX) and related texts, the discussion proceeds to an explanation of the “bifurcation of meaning” that arose between Jewish and Christian interpreters who read the same words. This exegetical and translational reality exerted a strong real-world effect on Jewish-Christian interaction throughout history. Medieval and modern Polish-Jewish and Polish-Israeli relations continue to bear the stamp of such ancient linguistic and theological reconfigurations. Today a renaissance of Jewish cultural life in Poland has energized Christians as well as Jews, opening up new possibilities for collaboration and mutual understanding. At the same time, political tensions related to conflicting versions of the past—particularly the Holocaust and its memory—have laid bare fundamental contradictions between and within Israeli and Polish self-perceptions. The paper argues that study of Biblical languages and early Judeo-Christian traditions is of great relevance for the current situation and for prospective future progress in fellow feeling and inter-national understanding
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The present article pleads for the revival of an interreligious dialogue on ethics and law as an instrument of peace and reconciliation. Whereas the first phase of IRD was marked by a considerable prominence of these topics, the have become of less importance in the second phase. This needs correction for two reasons. Theoretically the rationality of dogmatic or systematic insights (as found in all faith traditions) is largely exclusive, whereas the rationality of ethics, also religiously founded ethics, is basically inclusive. It is therefore open to dialogue. There exists considerable common ground on norms, rules and values between religious traditions, which are to serve humans, the society and the political community. This is of particular importance in today’s multi-religious societies as well as in a world more than ever interconnected by globalization. The article concludes with an analysis of the document on Human Fraternity of Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayyeb and its ethical approach to dialogue.
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The purpose of this study is to shed some light on the historical context in which Patriarch Joseph lived in ancient Egypt. If, in the case of his great-grandfather, Patriarch Abraham, we can speak only of a short period of stay in Egypt for him and his family (Genesis 12, 10-20), regarding Joseph, his life and career in Egypt , at Pharaoh’s court, was decisive for the historical course of the Jews until their departure from Egypt under the hand of Moses and Aaron. The historical interval between Abraham’s departure from Egypt and Joseph’s arrival here, as a slave sold by his brothers to a caravan of merchants, will be exposed in the present study, which is then continued with the truest dating, of the many issued, of the time when Joseph lived in Egypt, one of the defining factors of this date being the presence of the Hyksos in Egypt, a people who were related to the Jewish people.
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The article tends to show the reception of the Book of the Zechariah in the canonical Gospels. There are four quotations from the Book of Zechariah in the Gospels. Namely, (1) Zech. 9:9 is quoted in Mt. 21:5 and also in Jn. 12:15. (2) Zech. 11:12–13 occurs in Mt. 27:9–10 and (3) Zech. 12:10 in Jn. 19:36, which is a peculiar crux interpretatum because of emendations in relating to the Masoretic Text. Finally, (4) Zech. 13:7 is quoted in Mt. 26:31 and Mk. 14:27. It is very important to point out that mentioned New Testament quotations show various degrees of usage of the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint respectively.
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Many Muslim countries are at the receiving end of Western imperialist pretensions, not only economically and politically, but also ideologically, culturally, religiously, and even militarily. At the same time, Muslim societies are weak and divided in many ways including along Sunni-Shi‘a fault lines. As a result they are unable to resist those pretensions and sometimes they are even contributing to them. This is also the case with Bosnian society which, instead of initiating a process of integration and of overall strengthening, is weakening and being eaten away even religiously. This makes it important to pay attention to the Shi‘i understanding of the role of the Prophet and his exemplary life (sunna), because only by getting to know each other and by engaging in a constructive inter-Muslim dialogue can Muslims liberate themselves from prejudices, suspicions and animosities, and build a strong and a productive community before achieving the goal of an aware community (umma).
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The Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in 2006 in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, was in many respects of great importance. After many years of not so fruitful ecumenical meetings, the World Council of Churches had become exactly what Georg Florovsky was warning about a few decades earlier: a kind of forum. Still, the orthodox Churches in co – operation with other Christian churches and communities found a way and contributed to finding a solution for resolving this problem, which was an activity that opened a new perspective in the ecumenical movement at the very beginning of the 21st century. This paper shows the work of the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which met in Porto Alegre with a special regard for the engagement of the Orthodox Churches in the period shortly before and during that assembly.
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In this short essay the author deals with Ibn al-Hazm's work Al-fisalu fi al-milal wa ahw a'wa al-nihal. The author points out that this is a work written by Ibn Hazm from the exoteric point of view, which means that Ibn Hazm offered his own critique of various religions and sects.
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Knowledge of Muhammad was available in Christendom from after the early expansion of his religion. The earliest documented Christian knowledge of Muhammad stems from Byzantine sources. Nicholas I Mystikos was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 901 to 907 and from 912 to his death in 925. Emperor LeoVI the Wise made him mystikos. Nicolas was involved in foreign policy, first as regent for infant Constantine the Porphyrogenetos in 913 – 920 and to 925 as is evidenced by his letters. His three letters caliph Al-Muqtadir have been preserved. Nicholas corresponded with the Caliph on political matters. From them we learn that a good deal of mutual tolerance did, in fact, exist between Moslems and Christians, especially when the opponents were able to exercise retaliation in case of abuse.
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Povijest franjevaca u bosanskohercegovačkom prostoru vrlo je osebujna. Ona u sebi ne sadrži nikakve generalne karakteristike svih susreta religija.
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The article represents a brief summary of our knowledge of the cult of Mithras. In addition, the author elucidates the similarities and fundamental differences between the cult of Mithras and Christianity. The author, in the absence of written sources, analyzes mithraistic iconography on which he bases his further analysis. This paper presents particular historical circumstances in order to draw a clearer picture of the period in which Mithraism and Christianity appear within the Roman Empire.
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This paper discusses a special aspect of the Papal-Hungarian relations, the emergence of the canonical regulations in the archbishop and bishop elections in the Hungarian church from the late twelfth century. The study focuses on the actions of the popes regarding those elections. Furthermore, it examines how the regulations of the canon law influenced the situation in Hungary, and in which cases and under what circumstances the members of the cathedral-chapters, or the suffragan-bishops turned to the Apostolic See in cases of disputed elections. The paper also inquires into the role the Hungarian rulers played in the elections of the thirteenth century and looks at how they managed to help their candidates to receive the offices they sought. A further focus is on the question of whether there were significant clashes between ecclesiastical and lay power, sacerdotium and regnum in thirteenth century-Hungary and whether the elections really were a source of conflict between the popes and the Hungarian kings. Lastly, the paper identifies and analyzes which tendencies existed until the outset of the fourteenth century regarding the above-mentioned questions, and, because a comparative approach is also necessary, evaluates these tendencies in light of the situation in other regions of Western Christendom.
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It can be said that dialogue between Christianity and Islam springs from the essence of Christianity, which is the foremost religion of dialogue. There are basic and essential differences between the religions of Christianity and Islam, which cannot be ignored, but there are also common elements which can be discussed.
More...Or, playing Go with God
All the religious traditions raise endless prayers for living aids, those spread all over human lives. Without the hope that in all our needs and trials we have ‘someone’ to second us, so powerful that can help us overcome anything that stands in our path (more accurate 'against our wish'), most religious traditions would not be given any consideration, for humans become religious mostly when falling into a trial of life. By this hope religiousness flourishes and religious offer develops. Still, there is another way of considering prayer, one of spiritual becoming, diverse, and at the same time equally tender. It doesn’t offer goods, or aids, or anything specific, instead, it is professed by many spiritual persons that stood in the divine’s company. Theologians call it apophasis, spiritualists call it contemplation. Non-believers assert that the ‘responses’ of prayers followed by the ‘altering’ of reality is merely a mental projection, a Placebo effect of believing in prayer’s effect, or even just a mere coincidence. Either way, we need to learn prayer’s genuine significance and what it really provides. As for the subtitle, it is an allusion to the ancient game of Go whose main skill is to 'know' in advance tens, hundreds, or even infinite moving variables with their follow-ups, so you can be prepared and have a prepared answer every time to any move the teammate would make.
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In this paper, I consider Paleolithic women's spirituality as expressed through various aspects of their artwork found in the caves of Spain and the ‘Venus figurines and suggest these icons may be seen as an attempt by some of early these women artists to translate their own inner experiences and insights cataphatically, and thereby reconcile the tension between the image-less I experience ineffable transcendence using didactic expression grounded in images. This method was used later by the Spanish mystic Santa Teresa, who clearly felt the mystery needs to be related to personally; it is not an abstract mystery, but a mystery that is alive, that vibrates through us and is what animates every cell in our body; we are an embodiment of this living mystery. Whereas in the 16 Century it was normal for Teressa to consider the mystery as God, it was most likely customary for Paleolithic women to think of the mystery as the Universal or Great Mother, an insight some of them probably arrived at through analogy with the creative force expressing itself through their pregnant bodies. Whereas Santa Teresa employed images that meant something to the people living during her time, these ancient women probably did the same. From this perspective, their artwork may be seen as pointers to this 'entity' or mystery, which, is both immanent in creation and at the same time is beyond duality and all definitions. Here, I also submit that they probably realized the creative aspect of the enigma through their pregnancies, and, in their death, they recognized it as the destructive or dark phase in the cycle of life that is so necessary for ‘rebirth’ to occur, and, in its expression through celestial events, they probably celebrated it through their rituals and their pilgrimages which took place at specific times of the year.
More...Ecocritical and Religious Echoes
The article starts from the claims of some ecocritical theoreticians that Christianity may be considered among the roots of the belief that man masters the earth (at least in the West) and thus justifies the current environmental crisis. But even these critics feel the need to provide role models of environmental concern from the list of saintly figures of the Christian tradition. In an age completely enthusiastic about the union between science and technology, the Victorian Age, the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote sonnets that may be read through the ecocritical lens at a time when the concept had not been invented. The conclusions of the essay point out the relevance of the emergence of ecococritical studies in the 1980s, showing thus how literary studies, religion and spirituality join environmental concerns and contribute to man’s fair appreciation and treatment of nature.
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The most frequently mentioned prophet is Moses in the Qur’ān. One of the striking elements attracting attention in the life of Prophet Moses, mentioned in Qur’ān, is the issue of “Oqdah (knot) of tongue”. Such a flaw with a prophet who carries out a mission based on using the language well and effectively is seriously thought-provoking. It is remarkable that this case, closely related with human psychology, is also mentioned in Torah. In the Qur’ānic interpretations, there are some narrations and various interpretations on the incident that Prophet Moses put some embers in his mouth during his babyhood. In this study, the above-mentioned narrations and interpretations were criticized; and based on these interpretations, modern scientific information and expressions from Torah, the nature of the problem with Prophet Moses’ tongue was tried to be determined. It was concluded that the problem with the tongue of Prophet Moses might have stemmed from a physiological disorder due to a trauma he experienced when he was very young; besides, this speech difficulty, stuttering, lisping or dysfluency might be because of his overly excited, shy and ill-at-ease character; and this problem continued after his prophethood for a while, yet afterwards, he was healed; and there are some lessons in that a heavy tongue person might be chosen as prophet.
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