This essay examines the issue of David’s (lack of) clothing in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15. It asks: what potential meanings would be at play for ancient readers of these texts? Drawing on research into social memory and “forgetting,” it argues that Judean readers would partially warrant Michal’s distaste for David’s dressing-down, while still…[Read more]

A theory of the atonement is outlined which is grounded in an appropriation of the Platonic doctrine of participation, and an Irenaean theodicy. The purpose of Christ’s life and death was to enable humans to destroy the sinful aspects of their character, and to manifest Christ’s righteousness, by means of participation in the same Form. The the…[Read more]

Efforts on language documentation have been increasing in the past. While the amount of digital data of the world’s languages is increasing, only a small amount of the data is sustainable, since data reuse is often exacerbated by idiosyncratic formats and a negligence of standards that could help to increase the comparability of linguistic data.…[Read more]

This is a summary of 12 contributions made by me for the blog “The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks” in 2018. The contributions are shared in form of a PDF document with a table of contents that allows for a quick search of the contributions and offers also the direct links to the blog.

An ancient Sumerian proverb may be read as “good fortune [is embedded in] organisation and wisdom.” The present centennial survey is solely about organizing the last one hundred years of scholarship for a Sumerian afterlife myth named “Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld.” The initial discovery of artifacts with snippets of the myth can be dated…[Read more]

Contemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this…[Read more]

Contemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this…[Read more]

The story of Lough Derg in Ireland’s County Donegal is arranged around clusters of sectarian narratives in juxtaposition, synthesis and conflict. The Sanctuary of Saint Patrick sits on Station Island, a small rocky islet set within the waters of the lake. The site became well known in the early Middle Ages as the place of Saint Patrick’s del…[Read more]

Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης, Θεολογική Σχολή, Τομέας Ηθικής και Κοινωνιολογίας, Καθηγήτρια Νίκη Παπαγεωργίου της Κοινωνιολογίας της Θρησκείας
Μάθημα:
Θρησκείες και Κοινωνίες της Μέσης Ανατολής
στην Εισαγωγική Κατεύθυνση Μουσουλμανικών Σπουδών
Καλημέρα σας,
Δράττομαι της ευκαιρίας να ευχαριστήσω την Καθηγήτρια κυρία Νίκη Παπαγεωρ…[Read more]

2019 _ Εβραίοι Έλληνες: Διδάσκοντας για τους γνωστούς – αγνώστους. Σχόλια & addenda στα κείμενα των Φακέλων του Μαθήματος των Θρησκευτικών για τον Ιουδαϊσμό & α. Ιουδαίοι στο Ισραήλ – β. Ο Μεσσίας στον Ιουδαϊσμό Παρασκευή, 10 Μαΐου 2019 Καθηγητής Παναγιώτης Παχής & Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Αγγελική Ζιάκα Θεολογική Σχολή ΑΠΘ Πωλ Ισαάκ Χάγου…[Read more]

Review of Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity. Edited by EFTHYMIOS NICOLAIDIS. Pp. 198, illus., index. Brepols: Turnhout. 2018. £72. ISBN: 978-2-503-58191-0.

The article discusses the presence of a generative principle called Mōt in a short cosmogony found in the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos (c. 100 CE). The Phoenician History’s Mōt has been usually understood as the euhemeristic interpretation of a Semitic god of death, which is well documented in late Bronze Age documents from Ugarit. I a…[Read more]

This paper was originally prepared for a meeting of the Methodology Seminar of the Distant Worlds Graduate School (LMU, Munich) and was meant as an introduction to the use of the category of magic in the study of ancient Greek and Roman religions offered to a group of scholars coming from different disciplines.

The study of ancient magic is…[Read more]

This article treats late ancient rabbinic texts (ca. 1st-early 3rd cents. CE), reading them as biology, and following their ideas about the limits and possibilities of reproductive and species variation. I read sources from the tractates of Niddah, Kil’ayim, and Bekhorot, in the Mishnah and Toseta, as expressions of a science of generation, or a b…[Read more]

This thesis follows my earlier work on Aurignacian rock art by drawing a clear line between cave painting in the south of France and the holiest Hebrew script Ktav Ivrit or STA”M. This is an in depth study detailing relationships between Language, Mysticism and Kabbalah, as well as Religious Dogma that answers the question, “Why do all religions…[Read more]

This is a series of brief paradigms that suggest ways of manipulating abstraction, such as Art Language Religion and Politics, for use with a Carlos Ginzburg Evidentiary Paradigm, or other multivariate analysis. The tables in this appendix accompany the Index of Deities and Demons and How the Aleph-Bet Got Its Shape.

This thesis describes the evolution of the alphabet from Upper Paleolithic to present. We draw a direct line from Aurignacian rock art to Hebrew STA”M script and from Auriginal Paganism to Kabbalah using a Ginzburg Evidentiary Paradigm. Provides strategies for quantifying concepts, belief, and abstraction such as Art, Language, Religion, and…[Read more]

This is a formatted version (for e-book readers or printing) of a very long blog post about secular and radical Buddhism. It discusses Stephen Batchelor’s secular Buddhism, Seno’o Giro’s radical Buddhism (as well as its roots in Mahayana philosophy; Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra in particular), and several related topics.