Cult Worship Research Articles

The Life of Adam and Eve and the nature of Second Temple religious devotion: Can Satan be trusted concerning the worship of Adam?

The Life of Adam and Eve contains an episode in which Satan describes the protoplast Adam receiving worship from the angels of heaven, worship commanded by God himself. This tradition has played a role in recent debates over the nature of Second Temple religious devotion to the God of Israel. In particular, it has been put forward as an example that undermines arguments that Israel’s God alone was the exclusive recipient of Jewish cultic worship. Within this debate, the reliability of Satan as a narrator within the Life of Adam and Eve has yet to be considered. Demonstrating Satan to be an unreliable narrator would have significant implications for the role of the Life of Adam and Eve in the debate regarding the nature of Jewish religious devotion.

PREACHING TO GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE POWERS ACCORDING TO CHARLES L. CAMPBELL: AN IMPERIAL READING ON THE LETTERS OF COLOSSIAN AND EPHESIANS

This paper explores the issue of preaching to God, the Church, and the powers presented by Charles L. Campbell, where we learn that reading and interpreting Colossians and Ephesians (and indeed the whole New Testament) through the lens of Empire opens up the depths of interpretation and understanding which is not obvious, otherwise. What the New Testament writers penned spoke to the world around them, including the visual cues (art, temples, monuments, coins, festivals), values, politics, economics, faith (especially Emperor cult worship), and the realities of daily life within the Roman Empire. The New Testament writers understood the existence of the three powers (God, the Church, and the spirits or powers). Their daily lives were shaped by all kinds of forces that befall them, and the reality of these forces permeates their writing. The ultimate purpose is we are invited to examine (discern), enumerate, and speak loudly against the rulers, spirits in the air, and the governments of injustice that rule in this world with the power of the one ruler, the Way, which has another Kingdom overcoming the imperial Empire.

The Origin of Divine Christology by Andrew Ter Ern Loke

Reviewed by: The Origin of Divine Christology by Andrew Ter Ern Loke Glenn B. Siniscalchi andrew ter ern loke, The Origin of Divine Christology (SNTSMS 169; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Pp. xvi + 249. $29.99. One of the controversial discussions in the field of Christian origins pertains to the causal factors that produced widespread convictions among the primitive church communities that Jesus was not merely the Messiah, but that the God of Israel entered human history and became a man. This has become a fascinating topic of exploration in recent years, spurred on by the New Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, which is spearheaded by biblical scholars Richard Bauckham, Larry Hurtado, N. T. Wright, and the late Martin Hengel. These eminent scholars have argued convincingly that the earliest christological beliefs were already the highest form of christology. Andrew Ter Ern Loke aligns himself with most of the nuanced contentions of the aforementioned camp, but he argues that the highest christological expressions and devotional practices of the earliest Christian communities cannot be traced back to mere theological reflections about their newfound faith, but instead they go back to the teachings of [End Page 501] Jesus himself. As T.E.L. puts matters, "I shall argue that earliest Christian documents contain evidences of widespread conviction of the earliest Christian leaders concerning the divinity of Jesus, and I shall demonstrate that the origination of this widespread conviction is best explained by my proposal … that the historical roots of certain details contain the earliest Christians' perceptions that Jesus gave a clear indication that he regarded himself as truly divine" (p. 12). Loke acknowledges three broad evidential data that should be highlighted by NT historians in order to arrive at the thesis that Jesus's self-understanding is the causal factor that triggered the origin of divine christology. T.E.L.'s conclusions are heavily based on Pauline testimonies concerning the earliest Christian milieu before 50 c.e.: "The evidence in the Pauline epistles is highly significant, as they reflect the christological convictions present among the earliest Christians" (p. 24). For example, the strict Jewish belief in one God reinforces the strangeness and difficulty of believing that Jesus had an equal ontological standing with Yhwh (1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6–11). Instead, a much more powerful set of causes is needed to generate these contrasting convictions. The second piece of evidence follows the lead of Hurtado's major contributions and is a series of devotional practices among the earliest Christian believers: prayers said to Jesus; invocations and confessions of Jesus as the Lord; baptism into Jesus's name; the celebration of the Eucharist; hymns sung to Jesus; and prophetic speech. These practices demonstrate conclusively that the earliest believers at least recognized Jesus as divine: "Together with the observation that, in the first-century religious context, they have their closest analogies in the kinds of devotion given to divinities in the Roman religious environment, to the God of Israel in Jewish circles and to the various deities reverenced in non-Jewish groups, this demonstrates that they are properly understood as constituting the cultic worship of Jesus" (p. 44). The final piece of evidence is the spiritual desire for Christ, a desire reserved for Yhwh alone. After rebutting several objections to comprehensive depictions of earliest Christianity, T.E.L. considers the extent of highest christology. The earliest depictions of the Christian life that were assumed by Paul and the communities he addressed show "no need to explain or justify the christological contents of his teachings" (p. 101). This strongly suggests that "there is a lack of evidence of disagreements in his epistles concerning the person of Jesus and his divinity" (p. 102). Other considerable elements of evidence include Paul's persecution of Christian believers, Jewish opposition to the theological claims of the cross, traces of Aramaic (e.g., 1 Cor 16:22), and charismatic exegetical understandings of the Scriptures. The rest of the book concentrates heavily on outlining and answering recent objections to T.E.L.'s theses. Perhaps the greatest strength and weakness of the book is the systematic and comprehensive exposure of recent viewpoints and trends regarding the divine christology of the earliest Christians. Since...

The cult of the Santa Muerte in Mexico

The article examines the peculiarities of the development of the cult of the Santa Muerte, which emerged in Mexico in the late XX century as a result of a combination of popular Catholicism and a modern reinterpretation of pre-Columbian beliefs. The cult of the Santa Muerte is loosely institutionalized and is primarily a reflection of individual religiosity. Adherents of the cult worship the Death as the great equalizer and the one who can provide assistance to her devotees. The cult has several million followers, most of whom continue to consider themselves Catholics. The cult of the Santa Muerte is viewed negatively by the government, which associates it with the narcoculture. If successfully enculturated, the Cult of the Santa Muerte or elements of it could transcend the boundaries of the ethnic community of Mexicans.

Metaia

It could be said with some precision, that in Antiquity the myth of the Argonauts and especially of Medea herself as a personage of this myth, has enjoyed popularity not only in Greece but also outside its territories. The first among the Italic tribes to be introduced to the personage of Medea no doubt were the Etruscans, who were the first to establish intensive contacts with the Greeks from Euboea founding a colony in Cumae, Italy. It is noteworthy that the first image of Medea in the World Art is seen on Etruscan ceramics. The paper gives detailed analyses of Etruscan olpe and other artefacts on which Medea early appears, providing a solid precondition for substantive conclusions. Some new versions of an interpretation expressed in relation to each of the artefacts on the basis of critical analysis of Etruscan archeological material, of classical texts and of previously undertaken modern research, are provided. Images of Medea in Etruscan art confirmed from the Orientalist era to the Hellenization period represent an original, local interpretation of Medea's image. Medea's magical art turned out to be familiar to the Etruscans, who were well known all throughout the Mediterranean for divination and being experts of magic. In contrast to the Greeks, they turned Medea into an object of cult worship, identifying her with the Etruscan sun god Cavatha.

Probing the Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality: Worship, Mediatorial Figures, and the Homoousion

AbstractThis article explores the question of whether modern theologians can adopt pro‐Nicene theology on the basis of modern biblical studies. It argues that under two hermeneutic assumptions (identified as the canon principle and inspiration principle), key data assessed in the Christological monotheism debates provides warrant for pro‐Nicene defenses of consubstantiality. Three features of Athanasius’s Contra Arianos are explored in dialogue with modern biblical scholarship to defend this claim: Athanasius’s variegated mediatorial Christology, his emphasis on Christ as preeminent mediator, and his appeals to cultic worship of Christ in the New Testament.

Spirituality trapped in androcentric celebrity cults in South Africa post-1994

This article makes a distinction between cultic spiritualties that are prevalent in South Africa and a womanist spirituality of liberation. The current trends related to celebrity lifestyles in post-1994 South Africa deeply suggest an erasure of our subversive memory rooted in our quest for liberation, infused with a culture of protest, the struggle for the affirmation of a black woman’s dignity and life. One of the biggest challenges we face in the rise of cultic worship in South Africa, this article will argue, is that spiritual malaise in a nation does not require argument and analyses albeit important, but a response that tames it with enhancing self-love and care and thus the development of the language and grammar of the soul – the rationality of the soul as propounded by Cone. The focus of this article will be on the ongoing Omotoso case as symbolic of these rapturous, pervasive life-killing forms of spirituality that a black womanist cannot be silent about. The article will show how celebrity culture traps our resources of spirituality we need to heal the nation that has been wounded but now continues with self-inflicted wounds two decades after its political liberation.

960 - From cult worship to cure: The history of human castration

960 - From cult worship to cure: The history of human castration

Tectonic Klippe Served the Needs of Cult Worship, Sanctuary of Zeus, Mount Lykaion, Peloponnese, Greece

Tectonic Klippe Served the Needs of Cult Worship, Sanctuary of Zeus, Mount Lykaion, Peloponnese, Greece

Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry W. Hurtado

Reviewed by: Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry W. Hurtado Najeeb Haddad larry w. hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016). Pp. xiv + 290. $29.95. For Larry Hurtado, what seems to be normal “religion” to us now is not what was normal during the first centuries of Christianity’s inception. Ultimately, H. is seeking to “address our cultural amnesia” (p. 1). His argument is twofold: first, he contends, by means of historical inquiry, that early Christian worship was distinct from other Greco-Roman religious and philosophical cults. He does not deny that the early Jesus movement resembles its Greco-Roman environment, arguing rather that early Christianity avoids being completely alien while maintaining its distinctiveness. Second, H. claims that what we now consider “religion” or “religious” is a result of Christian influence and was not true of Roman-era Christianity. In five chapters, he methodically demonstrates how Roman-era Christianity was radically different, not only in its approach to worship but also in its ethics. In chap. 1, H. discusses how Roman-era Christianity was a distinct religious phenomenon by examining Jewish and pagan criticism of the early Jesus movement. For a Jewish response to the early Jesus movement, H. appeals to the letters of Paul. I think this aspect of Paul is often overlooked, but H. makes excellent use of what we find in the Pauline corpus. H. then appeals to non-Christian Greco-Romans like Pliny “the younger,” Galen, Marcus Aurelius, Lucian, Celsus, as well as others. He suggests that their negative responses to Christianity were partly due to Christian withdrawal from cultic worship, which may have had negative ramifications, both social and economic (pp. 23–24). Furthermore, because Christians, unlike their Jewish counterparts, were actively trying to dissuade Greco-Romans from their gods, they were understood to be a threat to the Greco-Roman religious establishment. H. concludes that Roman-era pagans saw Christians as being very different from themselves. In chap. 2, H. shows how Christianity represents a “new kind of faith.” It was the Christians’ monotheism, their refusal of Greco-Roman cultic worship, and their denial of the existence of the Greco-Roman gods that made Christianity culturally odd. Indeed, Christianity lacked those things that were typical of ancient cults: “no altar, no cult-image, no priesthood, no sacrifices, and no shrines” (p. 43). H. emphasizes an exclusivity found in Christianity that is unparalleled in other Greco-Roman cults, for example, the cult of Isis or that of Mithras. Unlike the voluntary associations of the Greco-Roman world, Christianity demanded an exclusive devotion to the faith. In chap. 3, H. highlights Christianity as a shared faith, not by means of ethnicity as in Judaism but by means of belief and practice. He draws on the example of Jewish proselytization: Greeks who became Jewish would give up their Greek identity (ethnos) in exchange for a Jewish identity (ethnos), but Christian converts would remain Greeks, or Romans, or Jews. Their identity (ethnos) would not change, but instead their religious practice and way of life would become the defining aspects of their new religion. Chapters 4 and 5 shift from Christianity as distinctive in religious identity to distinctive in practice. H. suggests that early Christianity was a “bookish” religion, meaning that there was a great focus on Christianity’s efforts to make “reading, writing, copying, and dissemination of texts” common among its adherents (p. 105). For example, H. draws on the tradition that Pauline letters, though written to a specific community, were shared trans-locally [End Page 714] and read aloud (p. 112). Christianity also popularized and preferred the codex to the widely used scroll. H. points to the codex as an example of Christians deliberately trying to accommodate a larger body of documents, which shows that they were actively copying texts and sharing them. In summary, Christianity was uniquely text oriented “in the context of the varied religious environment of the time” (p. 141). In chap. 5, H. highlights Christianity’s distinctive ethic. Contrary to their Greco-Roman neighbors, Christians engaged in certain practices that made them unique, including...

The Altar Not Destroyed in Deuteronomy 16.21

Deuteronomy 16.21–17.1 articulates three cultic laws establishing norms for worship. Interacting with recent Pentateuchal scholarship, this study examines Deut. 16.21–17.1 with an eye to issues in the text. An initial observation is that the literary unit does not cohere well with the surrounding laws in Deuteronomy. To address the problem of context, the study extends to comparable cultic laws elsewhere in Deuteronomy and in Exodus (Exod. 34.13; Deut. 7.5; 12.2–3). The comparison sheds greater light on Deut. 16.21–17.1 and suggests a dating of the text to the middle of the Second Temple period. Such dating, in turn, explains why this literary unit fits uneasily into its context of Deut. 16.18–18.22. The conclusion focuses on the altar in Deut. 16.21 as a reflection of changing perspectives on cultic worship expressed within the book of Deuteronomy.

The role of dance and what it teaches about the transcendence in possession and efficacy among the Brekete Gatsi cult

This research was conducted on the Brekete Gatsi cult in Ghana to investigate the use of the body in action during the dance in the ritual context. Brekete is a possession cult found among the Ewe’s of the Volta Region-Ghana. Devotees in this cult worship the deities Kunde and Ablewa on every Friday, Sunday and during ceremonial days. They also propitiate other pantheons who are children of Kunde and Ablewa. During ritual moments they call on these deities, who manifest themselves by embodying trained mediums to enter into an act of communion with the religious community. This state of embodiment is manipulated by rhythms paralleled with ritual sacrifices and dance which the community believes attains efficacy through possession. Therefore, this article will discuss the role of two dances which are performed during the ritual of the cult. Both dances occur during the same ritual events but may be distinguished by the fact that one of them is accompanied by possession and the other is not. I have therefore labelled them as Wu (Dance) and Trɔwo le ewu du (deities are dancing). It is through the analysis of these dances that it is possible for the reader to understand the relationship between the mundane world and the supernatural world of the people who perform in this cult. The methodology used has been that of classical anthropological research approach and more particularly of participant observation of events of which I had no prior knowledge due to my Christian urban upbringing. I wish to highlight the exoticism of the experience for a researcher who, despite his own upbringing, tackled a different religious phenomenon irrespective of his social and religious affiliations. Thus, with my focus on the bodily actions and how they are used to gain access into the celestial world, I identify dance as an instrument and a medium by which the physical evidence of possession comes about. To that effect, and through the phenomenon that religious possession dance is laden with complexities and meaning, this article will hereby develop how the ritual processes and the differences between the movement of “Wu and Trɔwo le ewu du” teaches us about the ritual efficacy of possession dance. I argue here that both possession dance and the dance without possession (i) are contra-kinetically constructed, (ii) have movement sequences employing sagittal symmetrical principles, and (iii) although they have limited motifs of the steps and arm gesture, the possession dance has many variations. Finally, the Wu serves as a prelude to Trɔ di amedzi (deity has embodied or mounted its medium) and Trɔwo le ewu du, which has the concept of possession among the Brekete Gatsi cult based on the philosophy of repetitive motif characterised by intense energy, rhythmic tempo and musicality (multidi-mensional, accentuation and phrasing) from the brekete drum.

SLAVES, STORIES, AND CULTS

This article examines a dramatic story about a slave rebellion on the island of Chios and argues that such stories were the medium through which masters and slaves negotiated compromise between the slaves' desire to be free and the masters' desire to control their slaves. This interpretation arises from a recognition of the complexity of a story that on the one hand celebrates the triumphs of a heroic slave over his masters, but on the other hand suggests that such resistance can be contained if masters treat their slaves humanely. Numerous parallels are drawn with contemporaneous and later historical societies involving compromises between subordinate groups and those who would control them. Finally, the article demonstrates that religious cults could be a medium for negotiating a middle ground, and that the story of the slave hero on Chios illustrates this function by making the slave the object of cultic worship by both masters and slaves.

Against Her Kind: The Phenomenom of Women Against Women in Ovia Cult Worship

This paper addresses the incidence of ‘Women against Women’ in Nigerian folklore. Much has been written on Nigerian folklore, but mainly from within the mortal axis, as reflected in many folktales that cut across different communities in Nigeria. However, it has been observed that this gender phenomenon extends to the supernatural realm, where gods and goddesses, especially the latter, seem to prefer members of the opposite sex as the objects of their attention and goodwill. This paper focuses on Benin mythology, with particular emphasis on the cult and festivals of the Bini goddess, Ovia. Of the origin stories of most of the gods and goddesses in Bini mythology, the Ovia cult is unique, as it provides a gender reason why membership is restricted to men. Adopting a psychoanalytical and feminist approach, the paper concludes that Ovia’s deliberate exclusion of women re-echoes the negativity ascribed to women.

Light and Shadows over Petra: Astronomy and Landscape in Nabataean Lands

A statistical analysis of the orientation of Nabatean sacred monuments demonstrates that astronomical orientations were often part of an elaborated plan and possibly a trace of the astral nature of the Nabataean religion. Petra and other monuments in the ancient Nabataean kingdom have proven to be marvellous laboratories for the interaction between landscape features and astronomical events, showing impressive hierophanies on particular monuments related to cultic times and worships. Among other findings, the famous Ad Deir has shown a fascinating ensemble of light and shadow effects, perhaps connected with the bulk of Nabataean mythology, while from the impressive Urn Tomb, a series of suggestive solstitial and equinoctial alignments emanate which might have lately helped its selection as the cathedral of the city. This paper demonstrates that the sky was a substantial element in Nabataean religion and reveals new evidence for cultic worship centred on the celestial sphere.

Sufis in the Hasidic Mishkan

Sufis in the Hasidic Mishkan Aryeh Wineman (bio) Alongside the considerable place devoted to sacred space in Jewish traditional sources, one might detect also a questioning voice concerning the very idea of the mishkan (Tabernacle)—and in its wake, also of the Temple in Jerusalem. In his prayer at the dedication of the Temple, Solomon himself is reported as having asked, “But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). A midrashic passage has Moses ask the same basic question when commanded to build the Tabernacle, a question to which God responds simply with instructions about placing a number of boards in various directions so that God might then contract the divine presence to dwell in that space.1 Another midrashic passage raises the same apparent paradox of constructing a dwelling-place for God, whose presence is everywhere—evoking a resolution in the form of an analogy likening the Tent of Meeting to a cavern near the shore of the sea into which water rushes, while the amount of water in the entirety of the sea is in no way diminished.2 Implicit questions concerning the Tabernacle might be overheard also in the suggestion, voiced in a number of texts, that the command to erect the Tabernacle was occasioned by the sin of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32–33), even though in the text of the Torah that episode appears following the initial command to build the Tabernacle. A passage in Midrash Tanḥuma specifies that the command to build a Tabernacle was given on the tenth of Tishrei (along with the command to observe that day, Yom Kippur, each year as a day of seeking forgiveness), for on that day, God forgave the Israelites after the incident of the Golden Calf.3 A similar statement appears [End Page 110] in Seder Olam Rabbah,4 and a passage in Midrash Aggadah artistically delineates a series of correspondences between making the Golden Calf and the building of the Tabernacle.5 Together, those texts infer that if not for the Golden Calf episode, the command to build the Tabernacle would never have been given. In addition, some sources go even further, suggesting that the very idea of constructing a Tabernacle originated not with a divine command but with a request on the part of the Israelites themselves, either as an empirical sign of divine forgiveness or as insignia for their Sovereign as other peoples have.6 The rich and edifying body of interpretation of the biblical Tabernacle found in an array of post-biblical traditional texts might itself suggest that, over time, the very concept of sacred space had become somewhat problematic and called for creative embellishment. Was God’s desire to dwell in the lower world fulfilled in the building of the Tabernacle?7 And could the physical structure of the Tabernacle serve, in any other than a purely symbolic sense, as a dwelling-place for the divine presence? It has been suggested that the Book of Deuteronomy, with its recurrent reference to the single valid place for cultic worship as “the place where God causes the divine Name to dwell,” represents a more abstract retreat from the earlier, simpler conception of the Divine as actually dwelling in the Tabernacle.8 And in light of our own knowledge of the ancient Near East, we might ask: are the many chapters and verses in the Torah relating to the Tabernacle merely a purified reflection of ancient practices and conceptions ultimately rooted in pagan culture and its assumption that every god or goddess requires his or her own temple?9 Out of considerations perhaps not that remote from our own, the early Hasidic masters also wrestled in their own way with the very concept of the mishkan as a physical structure. With the premise that just as God transcends time, so too the mizvot emanating from God must likewise pertain to all time (past, present, and future), and must furthermore address every single individual, Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, who authored the first printed Hasidic book, posed questions concerning the meaning of the...

In the Shadow of Death: Saint Boniface and the Conversion of Hessia, 721-54 by John-Henry Clay (review)

Reviewed by: In the Shadow of Death: Saint Boniface and the Conversion of Hessia, 721-54 by John-Henry Clay Sabina Flanagan Clay, John-Henry , In the Shadow of Death: Saint Boniface and the Conversion of Hessia, 721-54 (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 11), Turnhout, Brepols, 2010; hardback; pp. xix, 487; 41 b/w illustrations, 21 maps; R.R.P. €105.00; ISBN 9782503531618. According to John-Henry Clay, the Wessex-born St Boniface, long known as 'the apostle of the Germans', is 'one of the most intensely studied figures of the early Middle Ages' (p. 403). So why should an account of just thirty-three years of his missionary campaign in an area equivalent to the pre-Reformation archidiaconate of Fritzlar require a 487-page book? Clay distinguishes his own work from previous scholarship on Boniface by its interdisciplinary nature. He describes himself as 'a historian of anthropological bent' but firmly places his work within the pale of 'landscape studies' (pp. 39-40). However, his chief methodological novelty consists in using the rich deposit of North Hessian archaeological research to explore how the mission was carried out at a regional level or, as we might say, on the ground. Nor is it just the physical landscape of hills, groves, and springs with names suggesting pagan cultic worship that Clay examines, for he projects upon it various metaphorical landscapes: 'the landscapes of politics, of shifting boundaries of settlement and control, of movement and trade, of ecclesiastical governance and religious devotion' (p. 5). Before reaching this point in Chapters 7 and 8, entitled 'Representing the Mission' and 'Experiencing the Mission', a great deal of preliminary territory must be traversed: namely 'Introduction', 'Historiography', 'West Saxon Origins', 'Hessia on the Eve of the Bonifatian Mission', and 'Chronology of the Bonifatian Mission in Hessia'. The thoroughness with which preliminary debates on such matters as pastoral care in the early Anglo-Saxon period and the interpretation of furnished inhumations arranged in large cemeteries are canvassed doubtless reflects the book's origin as a PhD thesis. Many readers might have been prepared to take on trust conclusions reached here only after extensive argumentation, so as to arrive more directly at Clay's original contributions to the subject of the mission to Hessia. [End Page 241] For all the interesting byways that the author traverses, it is not clear how history viewed through landscape differs from what historians have long been doing. R. H. Tawney spoke of the need for the historian to have a stout pair of boots, and even this review shows that topographical metaphors pervade everyday speech. Furthermore, what we might think of as traditional historical discourse is easily subsumed into the landscape project by metaphorical means. One of the most interesting sections of the book is Clay's analysis of the terms and expressions used in correspondence about the mission (pp. 238- 77 and App. 1 and 2). This kind of literary analysis would appear to be on quite a different plane from the discussion of the physical landscape until we recall (though surprisingly Clay does not) that many such tropes are what E. R. Curtius would have called topoi. So perhaps everything can be connected to 'landscape' if broadly enough conceived. Readers must make up their own minds about how novel and well-grounded such an approach may be. Sabina Flanagan School of History and Politics The University of Adelaide Copyright © 2013 by the Author

Hebrews' Angelology in the Light of Early Jewish Apocalyptic Imagery

ABSTRACTHebrews' references and allusions to angels are investigated in the light of early Jewish apocalyptic imagery and against the backdrop of similarities with a number of aspects that possibly underlie the Qumran community. It became clear that the author of Hebrews has a complex and more developed understanding of angels. Firstly, the author presents a “high” Christology in Heb 1–2, which argues about Christ's exaltation to the right hand of God, a position as King and Judge that differs from the other “sons of God,” i.e. the angels (1:4–5). As they have inferior positions, roles and names, the angels should worship this “Firstborn” (1:6). They are made to be winds, flames of fire, servants (1:7) and messengers of God to humanity (2:2). After his temporary humiliation (2:7), Christ now rules whereas the angels are still carrying out their duties through the aeons as servants of God. Secondly, Heb 12–13 takes the reader into heaven and presents an apocalyptic glimpse of a festal gathering of earthly believers and angels in the heavenly Jerusalem, sharing in an act of cultic worship within the “congregation of the Firstborn.” Thirdly, the character of Moses as a “son of God” (Heb 3) and that of Melchizedek (Heb 7), who was perceived as the archangel Michael in some circles of early Judaism, were positioned alongside the angels by the author of Hebrews. His angelology is clearly subordinate to his Christology—a picture which becomes even clearer against the backdrop of the position of angels in the early Jewish apocalyptic world. Fourthly, Christian hospitality is based on the argument that those entertained might even be angels. The appeal is rooted in the belief of the visitation of angels amongst humans in an anthropomorphic form which makes them unrecognizable to humans. This argument completes the circle of relations between Christ, the angels and humans in Hebrews: Christ occupies the ultimate position in heaven and the angels are subordinate to him. Angels are nonetheless of a higher rank than humans, being the messengers of God.

The Defilement of the Hands as a Principle Determining the Holiness of Scriptures

The principle articulated in Mishnah Yadayim 3:5 that 'all holy scriptures defile the hands' ) is one of the most perplexing in rabbinic literature, for how can something that is holy impart uncleanness to the hands? The enigma lies within the principle itself: it is precisely because scriptures are holy that they impart uncleanness ; writings that are not holy, such as the books of Homer (m.Yad. 4:6), the Gospels, other heretical books, and the book of Ben Sira (t.Yad. 2:13), do not impart uncleanness. What I should like to propose in this article is an explanation that seeks to clarify the principle of tum'at yadayim by the concept of holiness as a sacred contagion. Holy scriptures, like other holy objects of cultic worship, were considered sources of contamination. But unlike them, holy scriptures do not render objects with which they come into contact holy; rather they make the hands unclean. Holy scriptures were considered a particular kind of sacred contagion. It is suggested that the key to understanding the defilement principle is found in the traditions about the Ark of the Covenant and its lethal power to kill those who are ineligible to touch it.

The Augustan Art of Poetry: Augustan Translation of the Classics by Robin Sowerby

59 Lewis’s The Captive,’’ a look at the masculine gothic ideology of Lewis’s briefly performed play in 1803 (Lewis pulled it when too many audience members went into convulsions of horror), are less convincing, but still helpful. Ms. Fowler seems to need first to legitimize Haywood before arguing that the author marketed her image and sought authorial equality. Mr. DeRochi attempts to counter scholars who find a feminist critique in Lewis’s gothic novels by reading Captive as it ‘‘uses brutalized femininity for aesthetic titillation’’ and thus presents the actress as ‘‘less an embodiment of social injustice and more an agent for pure aesthetic terror.’’ Though their topics are exciting and useful, Chloe Wigston Smith’s and Erin J. Smith’s essays on theatrical portraits and dance, respectively, are also not as argumentatively forceful as they could be. In ‘‘Dressing Up Character: Theatrical Paintings from the Restoration to the Mid-Eighteenth Century,’’ Ms. Wigston Smith researches over 170 paintings from 1660–1750 to piece together several claims tied loosely together: renderings of performer costumes reveal the changing social status of actors, shifting ideas about character, changing roles of visual communication and codes, and new temporal strategies of seeing the present through past fashion. Ms. Erin Smith’s ‘‘Transitional Performances: Eighteenth-Century London Theater and the Emergence of Professional Dance,’’ though on a fascinating topic—the impact of the French Revolution on dance as an art form struggling for independence from the audience—needs the focus of Mr. Ennis’s own contribution, ‘‘Invasion of the Afterpieces: Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Frederick Pilon, 1778–79,’’ a thorough and rhetorically nuanced analysis of Sheridan’s The Camp: A Musical Entertainment (1778), Frederick Pilon’s The Invasion; or, A Trip to Brighthelmstone (1778), and other ‘‘invasion’’ afterpieces of 1778 and 1779 that critique English preparedness for foreign invasion. Mr. Ennis and Ms. Bailey Slagle’s anthology is exactly the kind of study we need right now. It counters recent claims that the trendy archival frenzy, the novelty of discovering old things long ignored, will somehow harm the practice of close reading . On the contrary, textual analysis still has its place in this collection, and the essays refocus the eye so that it can read prologues, epilogues, and the other blind spots of dramatic texts more closely indeed. Mr. Ennis and Ms. Bailey Slagle modestly note in their Introduction that their collection may not be a turning point in the history of theater, but it certainly could be a turning point for teachers struggling to find fresh approaches to eighteenth-century drama. It urges pedagogues of drama to try harder, to push past student-friendly lessons only about the mainpieces students can buy in their bookstores, and think more creatively about how to account for the ‘‘complicated artistic transactions that took place on, and around the stages in that time and place.’’ Katherine E. Ellison Illinois State University ROBIN SOWERBY. The Augustan Art of Poetry: Augustan Translation of the Classics. New York: Oxford, 2006. Pp. 368. $99. The first of the four lengthy chapters comprising this detailed and well-argued study describes how Marcus Hieronymus Vida’s neo-Latin poem De Arte Poetica 60 (1527) codified the Roman Augustan poetic aesthetic so influential on Dryden and Pope. This is the ‘‘Immortal Vida! On whose honour’d Brow / The Poet’s Bays and Critick’s Ivy grow,’’ to quote Pope’s Essay on Criticism, yet how many of us have looked into Vida, even in translation? Fortunately Mr. Sowerby has, allowing us to profit from his close readings and his description of the Augustan aesthetic. He acknowledges early on that ‘‘the term ‘Augustan’ has very largely fallen out of fashion’’ when most new literary studies ‘‘are concerned with issues to do with race, gender, politics, [and] commercialization,’’ but he believes, and clearly demonstrates, that ‘‘the term is still useful in drawing attention to a dominant set of aesthetic values shared by the main poets of the time and underlying their achievement.’’ Vida’s Maronology (the cult worship of P. Virgilius Maro, better known as Virgil) was inherited from the late Romans themselves and dominated throughout the Greekchallenged Renaissance. To illustrate Mr. Sowerby’s approach...