The classical Muslim scholarly tradition produced an assortment of literature on different religions including a considerable number of descriptive studies, a phenomenon that leaves imposing questions. Most importantly, how a pre-modern civilization was able to generate a tradition of descriptive scholarship on different religions in the absence…[Read more]

Scholars have made contesting claims about the nature and scale of works on religions by Muslim scholars before modern times. The present paper explores various primary and secondary sources, especially the classical bibliographical indexes that the scholarly tradition under scrutiny itself produced, and classifies these works into three types:…[Read more]

The Priestly or Aaronic Blessing contained in Numbers 6:22-27 is treasured by both Jewish and Christian communities. This commentary on the text and the context of the Blessing offers no radical exegesis. It is intended simply as guide to a few of the textual and interpretive issues embodied in this brief and ostensibly simple pericope.

Urban science is the planning branch that uses large scale data to establish new ways to govern cities, being systems of urban assessment an example of its contemporary manifestation. What Works Cities (WWC) from Bloomberg Philanthropies and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Cities and Communities (LEED© CC) from US Green Building…[Read more]

La cuenca Atoyac-Zahuapan está localizada entre tres volcanes en un valle agrícola importante. A más de 2000 metros de altura, la cuenca está localizada en la región del Alto Balsas y es uno de los primerios tributarios que alimentan el río Balsas. En la región hay una compleja dinámica de valle-montaña que se ha transformado por la diversid…[Read more]

El artículo examina el relato de Jack London “La Peste Escarlata” desde la perspectiva de la actual epidemiología evolucionista, sosteniendo que su comprensión pesimista de la dinámica epidemiológica en poblaciones crecientes, y su visión catastrofista de la evolución, son esencialmente correctas y se hallan muy por delante de las ideas recibi…[Read more]

This article examines the concept of ecomasculinity – how masculinities and ecologies interact – through the lens of deep ecology, arguing (following Serpil Oppermann) that Pynchon’s postmodernist boundary collapsing informs deep-ecological interconnections for male characters previously embroiled in negative cycles of patriarchal dominance.…[Read more]

Single finds are often neglected in the analysis of Bronze Age depositions, since their context is often unclear or even completely unknown. It is often assumed that single finds originally belonged to hoards, graves or settlements. But do they really belong to other contexts, or are they an autonomous context category that deserves more…[Read more]

Geomagnetic research and drillings provide new results regarding settlement organisation and population size of three small settlements from the Pre-Cucuteni and the Cucuteni A-B period of Suceava County in Romanian Bucovina. In these settlements from different stages of the Cucuteni-Tripolye complex, domestic dwellings can be distinguished from…[Read more]

Destruction is an element of human behaviour that is universally present throughout our history. But what are the driving forces behind these violent acts? Can an underlying motivation be recognised in the archaeological record? This article focuses on the destruction and mutilation of monumental architecture and figurative works, and puts them…[Read more]

Destruction is an element of human behaviour that is universally present throughout our history. But what are the driving forces behind these violent acts? Can an underlying motivation be recognised in the archaeological record? This article focuses on the destruction and mutilation of monumental architecture and figurative works, and puts them…[Read more]

By taking water as a viewpoint, this dissertation reveals that the urban communities of seventeenth-century Holland were highly subsidiary in nature. Individual townspeople, men and women alike, knew how to fend for themselves, incidentally having recourse to other inhabitants, businessmen, corporations or magistrates. Together, they constituted a…[Read more]

Queer theory’s standard origin story centers on Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Teresa de Lauretis. This article proceeds down a less-traveled road, one yet to be explored in biblical studies. Like standard queer theory, this trajectory’s roots are also in French thought—not that of Foucault or Jacques Lacan, howev…[Read more]

This article employs two strategies to understand Paul’s dissatisfaction with the meal practice of the Corinthian assembly in 1 Corinthians 11:17-31. First, it uses a form of queer reading to interrogate the text for its assumptions about normativity and deviance. Second, it puts the Corinthian meals in conversation with modern queer potlucks a…[Read more]

While queer biblical translation aims to validate the presence of the LGBTQI community within Christianity, it is often viewed as violating the ethical standards of canonical biblical texts. This paper analyses the Queen James Bible as an activist, queer translation of the Bible that intersects with questions of ethics. Drawing on prefatory…[Read more]

In the Hebrew Bible, God epitomises an ideal hegemonic masculinity: sexless but reproductive, in control of his creation, and hypermasculine when engaging with his feminised followers. As such, the Gospel writers depict Jesus as the Son of God with this, as well as the masculine ideals of the Greco-Roman world, in mind. Ultimately, this causes a…[Read more]

Queering Jesus is a call to remember the danger of the story of Jesus. The primary aim of this article is to offer a comprehensive survey of the representation of queer Jesus. Building upon the deconstructive work of Johannes Baptist Metz and the notion of the dangerous memories of Jesus’s suffering and death (memoria passsionis), this article t…[Read more]

This article explores the role of poetry and narrative methods in African-centred queer biblical studies and theology. As a case in point, it presents a poem, titled “Accused of a Sodomy Act,” by Tom Muyunga-Mukasa, that was written as part of a queer Bible reading project with Ugandan LGBTQ refugees. The poem is a contemporary re-telling of the…[Read more]

The article addresses the question why Christians often fail to achieve even the minimum standard of secular morality. It isolates from a long list of failures the undermining and maltreatment of women and sexual minorities. It describes four types of violence – gender, epistemic, symbolic, and hermeneutic – they are made to endure. It then und…[Read more]

This special edition is a form of pride. It is a celebration of thirty years since the birth of queer theory. Of course, being queer, this was no normative conception or birth. More of an artificial insemination and fusion of gene pools, characterised by anarchy, activism, subversion, deconstruction, alongside identitarian and non-identitarian…[Read more]