Book review

This article discusses four pictograph sites in the Lake of the Woods where the images were interpreted by several Indigenous peoples.

The present article challenges Walter C. Kaiser, Jr’s influential proposal for evangelical Old Testament missiology. Out of concern to avoid an understanding of “Israel as God’s favored or pet nation,” Kaiser argues that God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3 is for the sake of all nations, and as such, “the first Great Commission mandate of…[Read more]

Sicily – and especially Syracuse – seems to have had an ongoing preoccupation with paired eyes as an apotropaic or magico-religious symbol. This brief paper explores some signature pieces and speculates that the excised eyes of Santa Lucia, patron saint of Syracuse, may be but a recent embodiment of a propensity that dates back to the Neolithic era.

At Christmas, Christians celebrate that Jesus was born on December 25 as the son of God andthe Virgin Mary. But this event is not unique. In this article, I show that the birth of Jesus hasseveral non-Christian predecessors, whereby various elements of the ritual dynamics have beenChristianized and implemented into the figure we know today as Jesus Christ.

Sinabi ni Ramon Reyes: Kung ituturing nating relihiyon ang pangunahing dimensyon ng tao kung saan iniuugnay niya ang sagrado, sa “lampas,” sa nagbibigay ng batayan at pinakahuling kahulugan ng kanyang pang-araw-araw na pag-iral, kung gayon ang mga animistikong paniniwala at gawain ng ang mga unang Pilipino ay magiging kuwalipikado bilang…[Read more]

This paper focuses on two elements of the Passover Seder ritual and their connection to Piagetian education theory. After outlining Piaget’s theory of genetic epistemology and its implications for education theory, it focuses on Sigel’s distancing theory, which touts question asking as a tool for presenting information to students. This paper arg…[Read more]

In comics: how ancient rabbis upend “traditional” ideas of reproduction, gender, and humanity. A blog post commissioned by UC Press Blog about the book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species.

Link: htt…[Read more]

In comics: how ancient rabbis upend “traditional” ideas of reproduction, gender, and humanity. A blog post commissioned by UC Press Blog about the book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species.

Link: htt…[Read more]

Glossing was an important element of medieval western manuscript culture. However, glosses are notoriously difficult to analyze because of their triviality, fluid nature, heterogeneity of origin, complex transmission histories, and anonymity. Traditional scholarly approaches such as close reading and the genealogical method often do not produce…[Read more]

From 40 years of experience it is clear that spirituality has become entangled in abstractions: powers, perfection, supernatural, unreal, limitless knowledge, crystal ball perceptions, etc.
Dr Stephen Farra agreed with that – and went one better. Dr Farra stated “Our models are out reality. But our models are not reality. That coincides with the…[Read more]

This paper presents an analysis of data derived from thousands of publicly available photographs showing life on the International Space Station (ISS) between 2000 and 2020. Our analysis uses crew and locational information from the photographs’ metadata to identify the distribution of different population groups—by gender, nationality, and spa…[Read more]

The Norse poem Atlakviða shows an irregular metre which is difficult to classify. This makes it a useful test case for comparing the explanatory abilities of two major theoretical frameworks of Germanic alliterative verse: the positional theory and the word-foot theory. I argue that the word-foot theory is more successful, especially in deriving…[Read more]

Historical Synergy: Mannheim holds that historical and political thought is determined by the socio-historical location of the thinker and the political aspirations and material ambitions of the group or groups to which he belongs.
2. Prehistoric Artic Hunter-Gatherer Synergy of Beliefs in Animal Spirits w/ Economic-Political Realities Erica Hill…[Read more]

During the Neo-Assyrian period (approximately 934-612 BCE, based in modern Iraq) the annals and royal inscriptions of several kings mention women with a curious title: ‘Queen of the Arabs’. These women have been included in previous discussions regarding Assyrian interaction with the ‘Arabs’, but a full investigation into their roles as rulers…[Read more]

The Hebrew word “ruach” – the word connected to the idea-symbol of “spirit” translates alternately as “wind,” “breathe,” or “spirit.” In Arabic, there are two words for the words: spirit, soul or self – namely, ruH (spirit, soul) & nafs (spirit, soul, self). Both of these Arabic words are also connected to the ideas of breath or wind (e.g. ruH is…[Read more]

This paper compares psychostasia and/or kerostasia concepts from Indo-European, Semitic and adjacent cultures, and relates them to Cognitive Metaphor Theory. In the context of metaphysical weighing, the religions of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome all associated lightness with goodness and/or a favourable outcome; Hinduism does likewise. The…[Read more]

Este libro indaga en diferentes temas de la vida humana personal y social a la luz de Cristo. Su punto de partida es el acontecimiento de Jesús de Nazaret, y despliega sus implicaciones culturales, espirituales, sociales, éticas, políticas. Es original en la medida en que se dirige al mundo universitario, sin aceptar de antemano las re…[Read more]

The trend of Carolingian royal advice literature, Fürstenspiegel, or specula principum offers advice to kings on how to rule well and examples of ruling poorly. Interpretations of these texts have often focused on traditional ideas of the Carolingian reforms, for example the focus on classical models of rule in Sedulius Scottus’ De rectoribus ch…[Read more]