Ibn Kātib Qayṣar's long-neglected Commentary on the Apocalypse of John is a veritable treasure trove for those interested not only in the early transmission of the biblical text and its history of interpretation, but also in the way ancient definitions of prophecy and vision were reconceived in Arabic Christian theology. Written in Cairo by a thirteenth-century Egyptian author, it is one of only two large-scale medieval commentaries on Revelation produced in the Arabic language. The other such commentary was composed by a fellow Copt, Būlus al-Būshī, who was a near contemporary of Ibn Kātib Qayṣar. Together, these two works provide a compelling witness to the currency of this apocalyptic biblical text among Christians living in Islamic Egypt.

While it is de rigueur for commentators to contrast the epistle of James with the epistles of Paul on matters of faith and works,E.g., Martin Dibelius, James (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 174–80; Ralph P. Martin, James (WBC 48; Waco: Word, 1988) 82–84; cf. Richard Bauckham, James (New Testament Readings; London: Routledge, 1999) 113–40. it is often overlooked that both writers also found occasion to delve into the mysteries of “the human problem,” of how it is that sin corrupts human existence. In fact, comparison of the two reveals a number of basic similarities.For the latter, see, e.g., David E. Aune, “Two Pauline Models of the Person,” in The Whole and Divided Self (ed. David E. Aune and John McCarthy; New York: Crossroad, 1997) 89–114. They agree, for instance, that the failure of human moral experience is attributable to a struggle between competing elements of the human personality, a struggle understood to be in some fashion continuous with a more pervasive conflict between antithetical metaphysical realities, conceived in terms familiar from Jewish apocalypticism. Given this mutual impingement of the psychological and the cosmological, it follows for both authors that the inner structure of the human personality is susceptible to the deceiving, destructive power of certain quasi-personal entities (sin, flesh, desire) associated with supernatural evil, while the solution to this predicament resides in the possibility of participation in a reality that is determined by a divine victory over evil, again conceived in apocalyptic terms.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) is often cited as the outstanding figure of modern Orthodox Judaism in the twentieth century.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the British Association of Jewish Studies Conference, University of Southampton, England, in July 2002. Born into one of the most famous rabbinic families of nineteenth-century Lithuanian Jewry, Soloveitchik held unimpeachable “Orthodox” credentials, and as head of the Talmud faculty at New York's Yeshiva University, he spent his active working life as a teacher of Talmud. With his deep roots in the world of the Lithuanian yeshivah (Talmudic academy), Soloveitchik was an exemplar of the sophisticated “Brisker” method of Talmudic study that had reached its apotheosis in the hands of his grandfather, the great R. Chaim Brisker (1853–1918). This “Brisker” method,So called after the town of Brest-Litovsk (Brisk), where R. Chaim settled after his time as the rosh (head) of the Volozhin Yeshivah. with its emphasis on conceptual precision and abstract analysis, was characterized by the value it placed on the intellectual pursuit of Talmud study “for its own sake.”For further discussion of the Brisker method, see Norman Solomon, The Analytic Movement: Hayyim Soloveitchik and his Circle (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1993); Marc B. Shapiro, “The Brisker Method Reconsidered,” Tradition 31, no. 3 (1997), 78–102; and Moshe Soloveitchik, “‘What’ Hath Brisk Wrought: The Brisker Derekh Revisited,” The Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000)1–18. Significantly, though, the intellectual pursuits that Soloveitchik valued expanded his intellectual horizons far beyond traditional Talmudic fare. Thus, in a famously pioneering break with family tradition, at the age of twenty-two he went to study at the University of Berlin where he would receive a doctorate in philosophy, concentrating on the epistemology and ontology of the Neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher, Hermann Cohen.

Many controversial issues surround the life and work of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, but the question of his dual relationship to the Jewish community and the Roman imperial establishment has been especially contentious. Should Josephus be considered a loyal Jew, or was he a turncoat and a coward who abandoned his people for the sake of a luxurious life in the Flavian imperial court? Josephus's early and late works alike reveal that he had to answer this question himself. The numerous and celebrated apologetic elements of his writings testify to Josephus's need to defend his actions during the war. In J.W. 3.354, for example, he defends his decision to surrender at Jotapata in a prayer that alludes to his prophetic destiny: “I willingly surrender to the Romans and consent to live; but I take you to witness that I go, not as a traitor, but as your minister.” Josephus, then, uses his narratives to address criticisms of his actions. In addition, he explicitly describes his hostile reception by all parties after his surrender at Jotapata. In Life 416, he writes, “my life was frequently in danger, both from the Jews, who were eager to get me into their hands, to gratify their revenge, and from the Romans, who attributed every reverse to some treachery on my part, and were constantly and clamorously demanding of the emperor that he should punish me as their betrayer.” In other words, both the events in the narrative and the apologetic tone in which Josephus narrates such events indicate that Josephus was considered a traitor by both Jews and Romans in his own lifetime.

“I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath.” (Lam 3:1)

“Now there was a wall all around the outside of the temple area. The length of the measuring reed in the man's hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length; so he measured the thickness of the wall.” (Ezek 40:5)

Jerome translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin over a decade and a half beginning in about 390 c.e. With each translation he included a preface dedicating (in most cases) the translation to a friend or patron and defending his reliance on what he called the hebraica veritas (Hebrew truth) against his many detractors. This last feature of the prefaces proved necessary because by choosing the Hebrew text of the Old Testament as his base text, Jerome directly challenged the traditional position of the Septuagint within the church. The unpopularity of this move in some circles compelled Jerome repeatedly to justify his adherence to the Hebrew text. Similarly, in his Preface to Samuel and Kings (the “Helmeted Preface” or Prologus galeatus) he famously advocated the Hebrew canon as the Christian Old Testament and relegated all other books to the apocrypha. As part of this latter category, Jerome named six books outside the Jewish canon that were finding acceptance as fully canonical in some quarters and would much later receive the label “deuterocanonical,” these books being Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. In multiple ways Jerome sought to restore the Christian Old Testament to what he considered the original Hebrew text and canon.

Apocalyptic studies flourished in the 1970s and early 1980s. This interest probably had something to do with the social and political upheavals of the 1960s and their effects, but I won't go into that issue today. In 1970, Klaus Koch's book Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik was published in Germany. In 1972 it appeared in English under a title more friendly to scholars: The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic. The subtitle, however, preserved the edginess of the original: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area of Biblical Studies and Its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy.1 My favorite chapter is the one entitled “The Agonized Attempt to Save Jesus from Apocalyptic.” The main title of the English version, as well as the title of the chapter I just mentioned, unfortunately converted a respectable German noun into the substantive use of an adjective with a vague referent.

The old and very illegible inscription from Athens containing the charter of the Eleusinian Mysteries was happily completed by a few small fragments discovered during the American excavations on the Agora. It was not an easy task for Professor B. D. Meritt to bring together the broken pieces and the stone bearing the inscription (now in the British Museum). He did it with his usual epigraphical expertness and contributed very much to the reading and to the restoration of a document which has been a real problem to many scholars for a long time. Of course, the inscription so old and so badly preserved will continue to be debated by specialists in different fields of Classical studies, but the part of Professor Meritt in elucidating this important testimony of the ancient Greek cult always will be gratefully appreciated. I should like to discuss some passages of the document in question in the hope that small changes in certain lines may perhaps make it more intelligible.

When I was completing my book on foundational theology, I presented a paper on the concept of broad reflective equilibrium and foundational theology to a group of colleagues at a conference sponsored by the Association of Theological Schools. This paper summarized the book's concluding section, which dealt with the relationship between contemporary criticisms of foundationalism and a foundational theology employing the method of broad reflective equilibrium. It advanced a systematic and historical argument. Systematically, the section argued that the method of broad reflective equilibrium offered a vision of foundational theology that avoided the pitfalls of foundationalism, overcoming the foundationalism of fundamental theology. It appealed to current discussions about methodology, specifically, the discussions on reflective equilibrium in the philosophy of science and in political ethics. The historical argument appealed to Schleiermacher by relating Schleiermacher's stance on the relationship between systematic and philosophical theology to the conception of a nonfoundationalist foundational theology, employing the method of broad reflective equilibrium.

The Greek and other early renderings of Hebrew ḥèsed and its adjective ḥāsîd only complicate the exegesis the more because of the contradictory renderings given, e.g. in Greek ἔλεος, ὅσιος, ὁσιότης, in Latin ‘misericordia,’ ‘sanctus.’ With fine sense the translators of the English Bible invented a new word for the noun, ‘lovingkindness.’ Similarly the Christian word χάρις = Latin ‘gratia,’ coming down from the New Testament, has had its many-faceted history. The modern use of the word is complicated by the concurrence of Classical and Biblical tradition. The Christian asks for God's grace, and yet renders Him grace at meals, and indifferently speaks of the grace of physical form and bearing, while ‘gratitude’ and ‘graciousness’ have their particular denotations.

The device of using a Christian straw man as an intermediary, for the purpose of evading the usury laws, which is mentioned in the three thirteenth century Hebrew documents quoted in Heichelheim's article, also appears in a case decided by the Court of The Exchequer of The Jews in 1272. In this case a Jew borrowed money from another Jew at interest, using the above device, and gave the creditor a mortgage on a certain house as security for the debt. The debtor then sold the mortgaged house to a Christian. Upon default by the debtor the creditor sought to recover the debt from the mortgaged property which was then in the hands of the Christian purchaser. The case is interesting because the court refused to be misled by the evasive practice and adjudged the transaction usurious, and also because of the insight it affords into the working of the medieval mind with regard to the question of usury. An English court, consisting of Christian judges, apparently held that although it was permissible for a Jew to take usury from a Christian, it was unlawful for him to take usury from another Jew.

Iceland, that island of marvels, has preserved for us, as it has done in most other fields of Germanic culture, nearly all of what we know about the religion of our pagan ancestors. The two Eddas, the Elder (Poetic) and the Younger (Prose) Edda, furnish the whole body of coherent mythology accessible to us. As for the cults themselves, we are much less well informed, but such knowledge as we have is drawn mainly from the Sagas, prose tales dealing with men and events, real and fictitious, of the heathen time, written down two or three centuries after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in the year 1000, yet seeking to give a faithful picture of the manners and beliefs of the old days, and with scarcely a trace of the intolerance which almost obliterated the pagan traditions in other parts of Germanic territory. The distribution and popularity of the cults, their relative age and gradual expansion have been revealed by the brilliant researches of Professor Magnus Olsen on the Norwegian place-names and by the subsequent studies inspired by his work.

The early centuries in the history of Christian asceticism, and of monasticism to which it gave rise, invite a short and accessible overview. The present article aims to supply this. It relies on a very large sampling of texts, mostly hagiographic. As ascetics are there to be seen described by contemporaries and near-contemporaries, they share many traits which can be grouped under principal headings and frequency of mention. A statistical profile emerges, presented under numerous headings and totals which in turn indicates the ascetics’ most salient aims and acts, and helps to explain the course of development of their institutions. The findings challenge a still-famous and almost universally accepted overview offered by Peter Brown (1971). This the present article seeks to replace at the outset, through calling in question Brown’s methodological assumptions, and second, in its closing pages, through challenging Brown’s picture of the holy man in other, more factual points.

The comparative study of Paul and the rabbis, an interest of students of the New Testament ever since Christian Hebraism, radically changed in the second half of the twentieth century. If “the study of relations between Judaism and early Christianity, perhaps more than any other area of modern scholarship, has felt the impact of World War II and its aftermath,” then, within this, Pauline scholarship has felt this impact the most. Various post-Holocaust studies read Paul not only in connection to early Judaism but specifically to rabbinic Judaism, which they saw as the epitome of both halakhic and Midrashic discourses. Turning to Tannaitic and Amoraic literatures expressed an urgent need to recontextualize Paul as part of traditional Judaism.

According to the least charitable view of Cyril's part in the “Nestorian controversy,” it was for him nothing more than that—a political scheme to eject a man whose scrutiny he had come to fear from a see whose power he had always envied. This account suggests that his apparent tergiversations tell us nothing of his theology: as a Christian he believed what the rest of Christendom believed, but as a prince of the church he turned his coat whenever this would serve to disguise his malice or change the wind. The more generous account reproaches Cyril not with bad faith but with bad logic: throughout his work, he oscillates between conflicting paradigms, in one of which the true subject of Christology is the Word who assumes the flesh, while in the other Christ has only the “compositional” unity that results from the coming together of two natures. The first prefigures the Chalcedonian shibboleth “one person in two natures”; the second Cyril himself encapsulated in the formula “from two natures,” which can be taken to entail that after the union there were no longer two natures but one. That Cyril himself drew this conclusion, contradicting the Chalcedonian Definition before he had heard it, is put beyond doubt for many by his defiant reiteration of a formula that he derived without knowing it from Apollinarius: “one nature [phusis] of the Word enfleshed.”

A study of rabbinic legal rulings concerning the barren wife reveals the subordinate place of women in rabbinic Judaism's systematic vision of an ideal reality. Yet at the same time, aggadic texts demonstrate that demands of necessity and compassion often prevailed over halachic prescription, illuminating the rift which not infrequently separated rabbinic theory and actual practice. Moreover, a review of aggadic reflections on barren women also yields suggestive insights into the dilemma of suffering, and the efficacy of prayer, as well as examples of the ways in which biblical models could become paradigms and symbols of empowerment in women's lives.

Historians of Buddhism in China have long ago noted the fact that after the T'ang dynasty Buddhism no longer played a creative rôle in the literature and arts of China, and that the Buddhist church ceased to make any significant contributions toward the religious and social life of the nation. Some people are inclined to attribute this decline of Buddhism to the suppression of 845, when 260,000 monks and nuns were ordered defrocked, and over 40,000 temples and shrines ordered destroyed. It was held that the religion never recovered from this blow. However, this view does not take into account the fact that during certain periods of the Sung dynasty, the number of monks and nuns actually exceeded that under the T'ang; in 1021, monks 397,615, nuns 61,239; in 1034, monks 385,220, nuns 48,742. It would be necessary therefore to look for some other factors to account for the decline in the influence of the sangha, especially during and after the Sung dynasty.

In a previous article published in this journal, I discussed the relation between the neurological system and some culturally prescribed forms of self-inflicted pain. I showed that the way humans experience and communicate pain depends on the cybernetic features of the peripheral and central nervous system. The body-self, our sense of coherent and embodied agency, was also discussed in its relation to neural function—Ronald Melzack's “neurosignature.” These topics traced a basic epistemology of self-inflicted pain. I showed that an intentional manipulation of systemic neural features could result in states of “self-transcendence,” or effacement, to which many mystics have aspired. These dynamics take place beneath the level of consciousness. They constitute a neuropsychology. But what happens at the conscious level, in the awareness of the self-mutilator? How do the neurological processes translate into decisions to hurt oneself, and what are the consequences of such pain? These questions are the subject of the present work. The discussion now moves to the psychological level of the experience of pain, but it builds carefully on the neurocybernetics of the previous article. There will be no deus ex machina Self who becomes magically reborn through the ordeals of pain. For reasons that will become explicit shortly, I will adhere to the strict rules of phenomenology that regulated the first article. The subject who undergoes pain will only be discussed as an expansion of the body-self.

With the growth of Arminianism in the post-Awakening period, a decisive move away from Puritan orthodoxy occurred in New England. In this article I shall map the contours of this movement, using as my guide a recent work of the political theorist, Judith Shklar. In her book Ordinary Vices, Shklar describes the rise of Enlightenment thought in the West as primarily a shift in value structures. As a result of this shift from the moral universe defined by the seven deadly sins to one defined by the “ordinary vices,” traditional political, moral, and religious systems were viewed from a new perspective. From this perspective it was possible to perceive in these systems a deeply entrenched cruelty. I shall argue that Shklar's analysis can be fruitfully applied to changing trends in religious thought that were wrought by the Enlightenment in America. Specifically, I shall argue that the rise of Arminianism and the general liberalization of Christianity in eighteenth-century New England were informed by a perception, created by the influx of Enlightenment values into the colonies, of the systemic cruelty of the body of doctrine traditionally maintained by orthodox Puritan divines.

“Lord, at this time are you restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

The disciples' leading question in Acts 1:6 sets the context for Luke's narration of the last words which the risen Jesus speaks on earth. The Lord's oracular answer clearly divides in two parts. Acts 1:7 conveys a sharp caution to those who would speculate about God's timetable: “It is not yours to know the periods or occasions which the Father has established in his own authority.” Yet Jesus' final words respond positively to the question of restoration by revealing the deployment of theocratic dominion, even indicating the geographic staging of Acts: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the end of the earth” (1:8).