We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Review of: BOGDAN PONIŻY - S. ELŻBIETA NATANAELA ZWIJACZ OSU, Obraz ludu Bożego według Księgi Liczb, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II w Krakowie, Kraków 2010, 417 s.
More...
The authors study different equivalents of the Hebrew word Eden in selected old and new Slavic translations of the Bible. The equivalents of this lexeme have been excerpted from several Slavic translations of the Bible, which were selected on the basis of diverse criteria. The translations are presented chronologically and old translations are opposed to the new ones. They represent three groups of Slavic languages: West Slavic, East Slavic and South Slavic and are connected with the base of translation, i.e. the original text and/or Greek or Latin text. They can also be classified according to religious denomination and the strategy of the translation.The observation of those equivalents enables us to see not only their variety and mutual influence among translations but also the struggle of Slavic translators with a very difficult language matter. Many factors were important in that struggle: genetic and structural distances between Semitic and Slavic languages, different perceptions of reality in distant cultures, the discrepancy between biblical and Slavonic realities and the influence of religious denomination. Another important factor was the state of biblical knowledge at the time – incomparably poorer in the case of the oldest Slavic translations in comparison to modern ones.
More...
A sermon attributed to Theodore Syncellus (Theodoros Synkellos) is considered as one of the basic sources for the study of the Avar siege of Constantinople in AD 626. Therefore, the most historians paid more attention to the analysis of its historical background than to its ideological content. From the ideological point of view, the document serves as an evidence that a fear for the future of the Empire and its capital Constantinople began to rise within emerging Byzantine society. The Avar siege served its author mainly as a model for developing his polemics with imaginary Jewish opponents and their religion. It deserves to be included in a long succession of similar polemical treatises, which have existed in Christianity from its earliest times.
More...
The predictions made by Kraków’s astrologers around the end of the 15th century constitute a treasure trove of information on daily life. One important topic raised in these unique prints were astrological forecasts addressed to various minorities, including Jews. Interestingly, a vast majority of these forecasts were not favourable to the followers of the Judaic faith, which must have been due to the air of ambivalence then pervading the Jews-Christians relations. Therefore the forecasts reflected the public mood then prevailing, the horoscopes produced on a mass scale becoming a weapon in this „propaganda warfare”.
More...
The source materials for the text are Warsaw newspapers of various political hues and local government periodicals. Due to the status of the capital city, the elections to the local government, while overshadowed by the parliamentary elections, were of exceptional importance for the young state. Their results aroused broad interests and elicited commentaries in the press. The author presents chronologically the results of the successive elections and the composition of the special administration, analysing the composition of the council of the city of Warsaw and naming representatives of local Jewish communities elected to that council based on democratic electoral regulations. She also mentions the voting pacts being formed in the local government forum. Special attention was paid to the last election, held in 1938, whose results were favourable to Bund, with quotes from writers interpreting that outcome. Appended to the article is a list of councillors representing Jewish milieux and parties, elected for each term.
More...
Mały Przegląd is a supplement to the Polish-language Jewish daily Nasz Przegląd. It is a specific settlement because it is made up of letters and texts by young readers and reporters. Many aspects of the pre-war daily life, the world in which the children lived, are presented here differently than in journals addressed to the grown-ups and in publications for children written by professional writers. Palestine, too, is different than the country one could read about in other Jewish periodicals: a country—one of many—that you go to, but often also return, where oranges indeed grow as promised but there is also unemployment, where the women go not so much to work in the pardes (orchards), but as cooks, or simply looking for a husband. Where young boys do not go to work in kibbutzim but to learn in a good secondary school in Tel Aviv. The Shomers do not always ride with a song upon their lips sing but often with a longing for the families left behin. In other words, realism prevails over idealism, helping the reader to learn about some aspects of emigration that have been little known so far.
More...
The author of the article embarks on an attempt at an aggregated review of scientific writings of the recent years connected with the history of the Łódź Ghetto. By presenting brief reviews of six publications, both monographs and source publications, he pinpoints not only the topics ignored by the researchers so far but first of all critically assesses the methods and methodology applied so far. The author looks at the consequences of the researchers’ approach and himself suggests taking a fresh look at the documentation left after the Łódź “closed-door district.” The key question he asks is about the right approach to the archives of the Jewish ghetto administration and the texts written by its employees. How can the credibility of these materials be evaluated? Were they subject to some form of censorship? What perspective to they offer? The article is not only a statement in the debate over the skills of the students of the Ghetto’s history but also the history of the Holocaust at large.
More...
Jews often appear in Christian polemical literature as clichéd arch heretics in the context of inter-confessional Christian polemics, rather than for their own sake, in a polemic directed against Judaism itself. In the multi ethnic and multi-religious Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth political conflicts often took the form of religious polemics, and religion served as a central channel for expressing not only religious feelings but also national and political identity. The use of Jews in polemical literature was widespread and can be found in Orthodox polemics directed against the union with Rome, Uniates’ defense of the union, Catholic-Protestant polemics in the context of the Counter-Reformation and in other contexts. This paper examines such use of Jews in inter-confessional Christian polemics in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
More...
The article is devoted to the phenomenon of radical assimilation in the late 19th century. The author focuses on the Markusfeld family, who had lived in Kraków since at least the mid-18th century. The study is an attempt to show the history of family against the background of the history of Galicia, in the second half of the 19th century, when the idea of integration was finally abandoned, and integration ceased to be seen as solution of “the Jewish question.” The paper is based on Bauman’s analysis of the general sociological mechanisms of modern assimilatory processes, and refers to the category of radical assimilation (T. Endelman). It seeks to answer the question of why most family members chose to convert at the end of the 19th century. The author shows that the choice of “default” religion, “universal” values, and “right” idiom was not tantamount to their affirmation – but it was a way to look for happiness and fulfillment, which was (unlike in France), according to some Jews not accessible while staying Jewish. Baptism was also a form of protection – the Second World War would prove it effective.
More...
In Jewish folklore, from ,,Alphabet of Ben Sira” on wards, Lilith becomes Adamʼs first wife, who was created at the same time as Adam. The idea in the text that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts, while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adamʼs rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made. Whereas there are five references to Lilith in the Babylonian Talmud. According to Talmud Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in own likeness, after his own image,from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image.The only occurrence is in the Book of Isaiah 34, 14, describing the desolation of Edom, where the Hebrew word tyliyLi appears in a list of eight unclean animals, some of which may have demonic associations. Since the word tyliyLi is a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible. As it seems that Lilith was a demon of the night which would coincide with the possible references to the ,,lilītu” in Babylonian demonology. However, this view is challenged by some modern research such as by J.M. Blair who considers that the context indicates animals.
More...
The prophet himself, during his life underestimated by anyone, attained the unique exaltation in leaving God and later biblical history of salvation. He went to God in an extraordinary way (2 Kings 2: 1-2. 11-13) as a reward for absolute fidelity to God, vocation and mission that he was obliged to complete. Yes,absolutely, because even while experiencing a deep crisis, he persisted at God,spoke to him in prayer and asked for help. And when finally it proved not to be such as what he asked but the opposite, instead of death and blissful peace in the land of the dead he had to take a new superhuman action, however, it has finally been adopted and faithfully executed. That is why throughout the Old Testament tradition, he was expected at his second coming. It was believed that he would begin the Messianic times, coming back to the earth as he has gone to heaven – on a fiery chariot harnessed to fiery steeds. His coming was confirmed by Messiah Jesus of Nazareth during the descent from the Mount of Transfiguration when he explained to students that his mission was fulfilled int he person and activity of John the Baptist (Mt 17, 9-13).
More...
Everyone who studies the New Testament Bible must take into account its Aramaic background that results from several factors:– the Aramaic language was very popular in Roman Palestine during the first century A.D.;– the Aramaic was Jesus’ mother tongue;– Jesus’ teaching was being recorded in Aramaic and then it circulated among the people;– the oldest Church consisted of Aramaic speaking communities.It is worth remembering that the New Testament authors, when working on the Greek Gospels, they were following their Aramaic language habits. The effects of them were aramaisms in the Greek texts, Aramaic sentence constructions and even Aramaic words rendered by Greek letters.The aim of this paper is to investigate Aramaic anthroponyms, i.e. personal proper names existing in the Greek text of the New Testament. Seven Aramaic personal names beginning with the syllable bar- („son of...”): Barabbas (Matt 27:16), Bariēsous (Acts 13:6), Barnabas (Acts 4:36), Barsabbas (Acts 1:23), Bartholomaios (Mk 3:18), Bartimaios (Mk 10:46) and Simōn Bariōna (Mt 16:17) were analysed; furthermore four Aramaic apostles’ nicknames: Kēphas (John 1:42), Boanērges (Mark 3:17), Thōmas (Mark 3:18) and Thaddaios (3:18), and at last one female name – Tabitha (Acts 9:36).Aramaic names and nicknames recorded in Greek script are one of clever devices that help to localize the text of the Gospel in the multilingual environment of Roman Palestine of the first century AD and thereby make it more reliable for a reader.Apart from Aramaic anthroponyms in the Gospels there are also many Aramaic toponyms (geographical proper names), common words and phrases. They will require futher research.
More...
In the paper, a Jewish perspective of the John’s story about healing the blind is presented. The range of Jewish documents and prayers connected with healing the blinds is discussed. The context of healing on Sabbath is provided, emphasizing that Jesus “had created” new eyes for the man born blind. The passages from Qumran and Talmud were analyzed to compare the forbidden activities with what Jesus had performed. In the final section, the context of exclusion of the healed blind man from synagogue is shown, too.
More...
The article considers the ethical treatise Shemonah Peraqim (The Eight Chapters) by Medieval Jewish thinker, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), who claims that human nature is prone to evil deeds and therefore it needs the assistance of mind treatment. The Shemonah Peraqim is written as an introduction to the Avot (The Fathers), the part of Mishna, in which ethical questions are treated against the background of the Jewish faith. In the Shemonah Peraqim, Maimonides combines the moral teaching of the Talmud and the Mishna with ethics of Aristotle and Al Farabi. Maimonides treats the first seven books of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in the first six chapters of his writing; analyzes human mind and its ability to revolt; discusses its maladies and their treatment; describes the differences between virtuous and temperate man. In the sixth chapter, Maimonides displays the contention between philosophers and rabbis concerning the rules of virtuous and religious life. In the last two chapters, he analyzes the Midrash literature about human nature and its relatedness to God.
More...
This paper outlines the history of the annual school reports publishing on the territory of Slovakia. It also provides the basic bibliographic sources in which the annual school reports are registered. The annual school reports began to be systematically published in the second half of the 19th century. Also the Jewish schools, which history is much older (e. g. a school existed at the synagogue in Bratislava as early as 1416) published them. During the extensive research in libraries in Slovakias well as 21 titles of the annual school reports of some Jewish schools published in Slovakia until 1918 were found. The annual school reports of the primary schools, business schools, religious schools (the so-called talmudtóra), boys‘ schools, girls‘ schools and co-educational schools are among them. The content of the annual school reports of Jewish schools is presented in the example of the annual school report of the boys‘ public school associated with the business school in Bratislava and public school in Liptovsky Mikulas. As artefacts of book culture they are an especially a rich source of information about a particular school, they document publishing activities of a school or its founders and complete the knowledge about production of individual printers and printing houses. Through the ownership stamps and records they provide information about previous owners and assist in the reconstruction of the library stocks. At the moment known annual school reports of Jewish schools are certainly only a part of a larger, not yet fully discovered corpus (e. g. we can assume the existence of the annual school reports of the higher schools - yeshivas in Hebrew). Their systematic research, documentation and expert processing should become part of research and protection of Jewish cultural heritage in Slovakia.
More...
The above article concerns the liturgy of Christians in the perspective of its coming into being, development and celebration in the cultural and religious context of Judaism. It is obvious that the liturgy of Christians does not bear traces of a pure continuation of the Jewish liturgy. However it is deeply rooted in the Old Testament soil of the historic-and-salvific space. Jesus, who initiated the liturgy of the New Testament and is present among us thanks to this liturgy, sanctifies us constantly and joins us to the glory He himself gives the heavenly Father. The liturgy celebrated at the present stage of the history of salvation had not been created by Jesus ex nihilo. Rather, He placed it in the context of a noble ritual tradition of the nation He originated from. The nation which, thanks to God's anointment and covenant, for many centuries had been the type of the Church – the heir of Jesus’ testament concerning the New Testament liturgy. Hence in the liturgy there are cult elements which stem out of the Judaism, however an effective power of salvific action is to be seen in them at the New Testament stage, i.e. In the liturgy set up by Christ, the only Priest of the New Covenant.Therefore the above article underlines Passover and synagogue elements present in the liturgy. What follows is an analysis of postures, gestures and vestments present in the prayer of Christians. Other elements elaborated upon are as follows: track of time, a weekly feast, Passover and Pentecost. Also, readers’ attention is drawn to texts genetically derived from Judaism and greetings and blessings used in the liturgy of the Church. The analysis focuses also on some phrases present in the Christian liturgy borrowed from the Old Testament and some natural elements, which origin and cult application go back to the pre-Christian times.
More...
The extracts treating of Jesus in the rabbinic literature included in the Babylonian Talmud describe the events from the life and public ministry of Master of Nazareth in a very peculiar way. The figure of Jesus is mentioned on the margin of other issues under discussion. Analyzing the report of Jesus’ death in the Babylonian Talmud it can be stated that the reference made to Jesus is of fragmentary character. Nevertheless it is not a literary fiction but a deliberate action of its authors. The text of the Babylonian Sanhedrin 43 a indicates the discrediting of Jesus of Nazareth and the community of his believers. According to the Babylonian Talmud Jesus was sentenced to death on suspicion of idolatry, magic and blasphemy.
More...