Genesis Story Research Articles

Unravelling compulsory happiness in exile: Cristina Peri Rossi’s The Ship of Fools

A number of feminist critics of Latin American women writers in exile have suggested that women in exile may flourish as they are freed from the traditional gender restrictions imposed on them in their home countries. In this article I reexamine the association of exile with liberation through analysing Cristina Peri Rossi’s 1984 novel La nave de los locos ( The Ship of Fools) in the light of the tension between Rosi Braidotti’s Deleuzian affirmation of feminism as a ‘joyful nomadic force’ (1994: 8) and Sara Ahmed’s critique of compulsory happiness (2010). Peri Rossi juxtaposes the prescriptive worldview of the captivating medieval ‘Tapestry of the Creation’ in the Cathedral of Girona in Catalonia, which depicts the Biblical story of Genesis, and the diasporic and unpredictable wanderings of the protagonist Ecks on his journey to feminist enlightenment. I argue that while the novel seems to champion nomadic subjectivity, it also highlights the deceptive charm of imperative positive affect that may function as a disciplinary force, compelling subjects to follow a conventional path in life, and invalidating those who ‘stray’ from it. My reading of the novel calls for a nuanced approach to exile and diaspora that takes into account wider questions of the privilege and ease of movement – or, indeed, settling – enjoyed by or denied to various subjects.

Hospitality and Sovereign Violence: Derrida on Lot

Derrida's work on hospitality presents particular local conventions of hospitality as in a necessary but impossible relationship with an absolute hospitality, the obligation to welcome the other without conditions. Although this absolute hospitality is commonly read as the aspiration to which all of our practices of hospitality should tend, Derrida proposes a series of examples that show the dangers implicit in an automatic or limitless welcoming. The most famous of these is that of the Old Testament patriarch, Lot. The aim of this paper is to show, however, that the Genesis story is not primarily a parable about correct and incorrect practices of hospitality. In fact, what is at stake in the visit of the angels to Lot is the covenant between Abraham's line and the divine and the coming into the world of God's absolute sovereign violence. Derrida's account of hospitality is thus part of his discussion of sovereignty, its limitlessness, force and danger.

I Have Faith in Thee, Lord: Criticism of Religion and Child Abuse in the Video Game the Binding of Isaac

The game The Binding of Isaac is an excellent example of a game that incorporates criticism of religion. Isaac is a roguelike dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons. Both from the perspective of narrative and of game design, McMillen built The Binding of Isaac around the Biblical story of Genesis 22:1-19, which has the same name in Jewish and Christian tradition, but he placed it in a modern-day setting in which a young boy is endangered by a mentally disturbed mother who hears “voices from above” that instruct her to sacrifice her only child. Multiple critical references to Christianity can be found in addition to the narrative: hostile embodiments of the seven deadly sins, rosaries, Bibles, and crucifixes, and unlockable characters, such as Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, Samson, and Cain, who are all depicted negatively in both Jewish and Christian traditions. McMillen’s inspiration came from his own experiences with his family, which was made up of both Catholics and born-again Christians. The game describes both the dark creativity and the mental and physical abuse associated with religion. In this article, we analyse the narrative of The Binding of Isaac by performing an intertextual comparison with the Biblical narrative of Genesis 22:1-19. We then analyse the three-fold narrative structure of the game which enhances and nuances the criticism the game directs at religion.

Rise of the smartish machines

Michelangelo’s depiction of the creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel pivots on the iconic image of two fingers nearly touching—the finger of the creator and that of the creature he made in his image. That touch marks a crucial turn in the Genesis story: the beginning of a uniquely intelligent species on earth, though one that overreaches badly in the field of intelligence not much further on. A seemingly inexhaustible inspiration for art and literature, that imminent touch, with its implication of trouble ahead, has become a metaphor for artificial intelligence (AI). A machine endowed with the cognitive capabilities of its creator has been a goal in computer development since World War II. Rudimentary versions of mechanized human intelligence are now able to process data and analyze images that would overwhelm whole laboratories of human brains, and there is a general perception that the intelligent machine

Dreams, Riddles, and Visions: Textual, Contextual, and Intertextual Approaches to the Book of Daniel by Michael Segal

Reviewed by: Dreams, Riddles, and Visions: Textual, Contextual, and Intertextual Approaches to the Book of Daniel by Michael Segal Malka Z. Simkovich Michael Segal. Dreams, Riddles, and Visions: Textual, Contextual, and Intertextual Approaches to the Book of Daniel. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 455. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. 248 pp. The book of Daniel is often studied as two independent halves that derive from distinct historical contexts. Daniel 1–6 is usually viewed as part of the “Jew in a Gentile’s Court” stories from the Persian period, while Daniel 7–12 is considered representative of the emerging apocalyptic material that was developed over the second half of the Second Temple period. Michael Segal’s recent contribution to the study of Daniel, however, shows that as a whole, the book interacts with biblical material by incorporating themes in prophetic passages into the [End Page 202] Danielic stories. Such incorporation implies that the authors of Daniel believed that the events recorded or alluded to in Daniel were the fulfillment of prophetic predictions. By exploring the ways the authors of Daniel drew on biblical material and used it to understand Jewish life under Persian rule, Segal offers a compelling new perspective on Daniel’s place in scriptural tradition. Segal uses the term “narrativization” to refer to narrative texts that draw on themes that appear in earlier nonnarrative biblical texts. He posits that the authors of Daniel used narrativization to advance polemical arguments, such as the idea that the restoration of the Judean community and its temple was a fulfillment of the earlier prophets’ predictions. The author of Daniel 5, for example, makes this point by narrativizing material from Isaiah 21 in a way that suggests that the speaker of this passage is not Isaiah, but the king of Babylonia. Segal’s opening study of Daniel 1 demonstrates how this chapter establishes the exilic setting and the major themes that will recur throughout the book. He argues that the first chapter comprises two originally independent units, a unit that now makes up the outer “frame” of the chapter concerning Daniel’s training in the royal court, and a narrative unit in the middle of the chapter regarding Daniel’s dietary restrictions. These narratives were later woven together, which accounts for certain exegetical difficulties in the chapter. Segal’s analysis of Daniel 2 establishes his focus on how early biblical stories influenced the writers of Daniel. According to Segal, the bulk of Daniel 2 was influenced by the Joseph stories in Genesis, but differences between the Joseph stories and Daniel 2:15–24a, as well as the fact that Daniel 2:14 and 2:24 have Daniel approaching Arioch twice, indicate that Daniel 2:15–24a was added by a later writer. Segal suggests that this section was written as a parallel to Daniel 7. The parallels between these chapters reflect a contrast between God and Antiochus that indicate that Antiochus’s rule will ultimately be nullified by God. Segal next examines Daniel 5, which he compares to Daniel 2, arguing that thematic and linguistic links between these two chapters reflect a common editorial hand. Segal offers a novel reading of Daniel 5:2–3, arguing that Belshazzar, and only Belshazzar, saw the writing on the wall in a revelation that was given to him. This reading strengthens the connection between Daniel 5 and Daniel 2, in which only Nebuchadnezzar receives a divinely sent dream. In both stories, the king’s courtiers do not share the king’s experience, and only Daniel can interpret the king’s vision. Both chapters, therefore, “demonstrate the superiority of divinely inspired knowledge to the extensive educational training of Mesopotamian scribes and scholars in antiquity” (67). Segal then turns to Daniel 4, arguing that the Old Greek and Masoretic versions of the chapter derive from an original version, which he seeks to reconstruct based on parallels between the two extant versions. Segal believes that the tree featured in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream symbolizes the king, who has become arrogant and does not recognize the Jewish God’s dominion over him. This imagery depends on similar tree imagery in Ezekiel 31. The twelve-month time span in Daniel 4...

A Tale of Two Trees: Delinking Death from Sin by Viewing Genesis 2–3 Independently from Paul

Abstract The link between sin and death is rooted in the first stories of Genesis and developed particularly by Paul in the NT. While Genesis sometimes presents death as sin’s consequence, at other times the immoral are preserved and the righteous die prematurely. The presence of two trees is used to explain a cause-effect link between obedience and death, but the connection is surprisingly uncertain: the couple does not die on the day they eat from the forbidden tree as forewarned. I use both a narrative and theological approach to understand better death within God’s judicial framework and liberate it from anachronistic attempts to impose Paul’s direct link between sin and death on the more nuanced view presented in Gen 2–3. By underscoring the ambiguity in Genesis, we are better able to identify its unique theological purpose that has a bearing on other Genesis themes.

Book Review: Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volumes 115

This book review examines a five-volume set published by the Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher and edited by Morten Bergsmo, Cheah Wui Ling, Yi Ping, Song Tianying, and Klaus Rackwitz. The first three volumes retell the genesis story of international criminal law from stereoscopic perspectives. In addition to new research on Nuremberg and Tokyo, Volume 1 includes some of the less celebratory accounts from the post-WWII period and provides visibility into the hundreds of less salient trials that took place in the European and Pacific theaters before domestic authorities, military tribunals, and people’s courts. Volume 2 of the series presents rich accounts of national efforts at enforcing international criminal law around the world, including trials in China and the then-Soviet Union, where a prolific history of postwar prosecutions belies contemporary reticence about the project of international criminal justice. Contributions by national criminal law experts in Volume 3 reinforce the centrality of complementarity in the ICC system. Volume 4 takes up intersecting questions of criminal procedure and investigative methodologies, such as the use of demographic analysis to prove international crimes and the contributions of fact-finding commissions to accountability exercises. Volume 5 is devoted to the capstone event in the modern history of international criminal law: the establishment of the ICC. This volume contains copies of, or adaptations from, a series of memoranda solicited by the series main editor from a range of experts as the ICC was being created. These contributions track the myriad logistical, strategic, and legal decisions — from the sublime to the mundane — that must be resolved to build and operate an entirely new judicial system virtually from scratch. This final volume also features more praxis-oriented chapters, touching upon best-practice methodologies for war crimes investigations, including evidentiary analysis and forensics, by some of the world’s great international criminal law practitioners. The series will be an essential resource for both academics and practitioners interested in the history of international criminal law as a distinct field and also of the early days of the ICC, the world’s first permanent international criminal court.

The Virtue of Sobriety: Integral Ecology in Its Full Flourishing Jennifer E. Miller Notre Dame Seminary New Orleans, Louisiana

The Virtue of Sobriety:Integral Ecology in Its Full Flourishing Jennifer E. Miller Notre Dame Seminary New Orleans, Louisiana Jennifer E. Miller Introduction Pope Francis's 2015 social encyclical entitled Laudato Si' (LS) introduces a new term into Catholic social teaching, "integral ecology," and with it, gives an impetus to the further development of theologically based virtue ethics, or virtuous morality, as found in the virtue of sobriety. In order to understand the term "integral ecology" and its implications in sobriety properly, it is necessary to situate it within the context of earlier social encyclicals. Thus, I will first review the social encyclicals to show how integral human development forms the background for integral ecology. Then I will further investigate the meaning of integral ecology by following the pontiff 's Scriptural exposition of the natural moral law. Finally, I will conclude by demonstrating how the praxis of integral ecology, rooted within the natural moral law, comes to maturity in the virtue of sobriety. Although there has been a suggestion that proportionalist moral reasoning might be one way of understanding the moral implications of integral ecology,1 through [End Page 205] careful examination of the text, Pope Francis's call for integral ecology can then be understand as the summons to a full flourishing of the natural moral law in the virtue of sobriety, needed by society especially to realize this broadened idea of integral human development within the context of all of Creation. The Context of Integral Ecology "Integral human development,"2 meaning "the context within which … an adequate approach to ecology can be conceived,"3 was first introduced by Blessed Pope Paul VI in 1967, two years after the close of the Second Vatican Council.4 In contrast to earlier methodology: "[Paul VI] did not take the current conception of economic development as a starting point and then modify it. Instead, he laid down certain basic criteria by which we can measure to what extent any changes brought about in society deserve to be called authentic human development, … [thus providing] a heuristic notion of development, a framework or [End Page 206] anticipation of the 'shape' of genuine development."5 This framework of genuine development, christened by the Pontiff "integral human development," insisted upon promoting the good of every man and of the whole man6 in the "transition from less human conditions to those which are more human."7 In order to ensure the integral nature of such development, it enumerated four aspects of progress that required respect and promotion: economic, social, cultural, and spiritual.8 Paul VI saw the elaboration of these four interrelated aspects of human development as constitutive of the Church's contribution to society: "The Church, … which 'seeks but … to carry forward the work of Christ himself under the lead of the befriending Spirit,' … wishes to help [men] to obtain their full flowering and that is why she offers [them] what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global vision of man and of the human race."9 This global vision of the development of the human person, emphasizing the relationship of the various aspects of integral human development, as well as that between the development of each individual person and that of society as a whole, became a constant reference point elaborated in later encyclicals. St. John Paul II's 1987 social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (SRS), written to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio (PP),10 begins by stating that "the aim of the present reflection is to emphasize, through a theological investigation of the present world, the need for a fuller [End Page 207] and more nuanced concept of development."11 The idea of integral human development here becomes more Scripturally, and thus more theologically, rooted. It emphasizes the revelation of the "specific nature of man"12 in the Creation story of Genesis and reveals and establishes the importance of the virtue of solidarity in having and being for such development.13 Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 social encyclical, also written to commemorate PP, continues to insist that "progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient."14 He highlights the importance of civil...

"Slavery, Race, and Freedom on the Spanish Anglo Borderlands"

"Slavery, Race, and Freedom on the Spanish Anglo Borderlands" Christian PinneniD On a cool, crisp fall day, the free black man James appeared in front of the Spanish governor of Natchez during court day in 1781. The settlement was an outpost built on—and below—bluffs that oversaw the mighty waters of the Mississippi river dissected by muddy roads following a haphazard pattern. It was home to many other African men and women, the overwhelming majority of whom were slaves. James, however, had recently been freed and now sought to prove to everyone in town that indeed he deserved to be treated as a free man. To do so, James had to demand from the governor that two white men pay the debt owed to him. There are many things we do not know of the encounter. How did James address the governor? After all, the man was an official of the Spanish empire that had only recently brought the English settlers of Natchez into its fold during the American Revolution, and the language of the court was Spanish, not the English James likely spoke. How did the Spanish governor receive James? Did he accept his case as any other, or did he hesitate in light of the racial identity of the other petitioners and claimants that day, assuredly all white? Did the governor understand the importance of the case for the next decade and a half of Spanish stewardship in Natchez, or did he simply follow the letter of the law? Whatever the case, James, a former slave, received justice. The two white men, Clement Dyson and John Staybraker, were ordered to pay their debt.1 With this decision, the governor of Natchez had brought the full leverage of Spanish law to an Anglo-American white population and their black slaves, and this would have tremendous consequences for the following decade. James's actions might not appear revolutionary in the Age of Revolutions that had recently swept up the remote district in its wake, but in many ways they can be read as such. James, a black man who had no rights under the previous government, had asserted his rights under Spanish law as he approached the Spanish governor with his case. For the first time in the eight-decade-old European history of the District—which had previously been held by France (until 1763) and then Great Britain—whiteness no longer appeared as the exclusive marker of citizenship or defining aspect of freedom and liberty in the burgeoning plantation society. This step of agency, self-preservation, and justice undertaken by James, presents an important marker in the historical record of Natchez. By extension, James' [End Page 551] and other people of color's stories that claimed these rights need to be unearthed to complete our picture of race relations at the margins of the American Republic to aid our understanding of slavery and race in the emerging United States. The Natchez District, the outpost of three empires in the eighteenth-century Gulf South, was not a topic in any of the essays chosen for Richmond Brown's Coastal Encounters, the most useful collection of essays on the borderlands in the colonial South to date. In the words of Brown, Natchez, and the entire region, is "a significant but heretofore relatively neglected subject."2 Unfortunately, not much has changed over the last decade. This article draws on the intellectual approaches to southern borderlands in Brown's attempt to chip away at the blank spots of the region's history and to emphasize the importance that borderland studies play in understanding early American history in general, and the history of race and slavery in particular. Outside of the traditional focal points for race and slavery studies of colonies like Virginia and South Carolina, historians are able to test the conclusions drawn by scholars of the aforementioned areas. Usually, the borderlands complicate the genesis story of slavery in the United States, and thereby adds to our understanding of the role that black men and women played in the development of the American Republic. Most recently, Kathleen DuVal, in her acclaimed Independence Lost, argues that the Gulf Coast "sheds new light...

The genesis of victimization surveys and of the realist-constructionist divide.

The invention of victimization surveys is often presented as a synthesis of the two theoretical attitudes that, supposedly, dominated the 1960s debate over official crime statistics: realism and social constructionism. This paper turns this genesis story on its head. Using original archives, I argue that victimization surveys responded to organizational opportunities in the field of applied research. It was only after the fact that two of their architects seized the debate on crime measurement to broadcast their invention. In so doing they strategically recast the terms of this debate into a binary division between two antithetical social ontologies. This case is used to discuss how social scientists come to reinterpret and misunderstand their history.

Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology Christopher T. Begg, David A. Leiter, Paul L. Redditt, and John Thomas Willis 547. Uwe Becker, "Neue Einsichten und Konzepte zur christologischen Deutung des Alten Testaments," KD 62 (2016) 95-114. B.'s paper discusses modern christological interpretations of the OT. After a short review of the emphasis on the witness of the OT to Christ by W. Vischer and K. Barth in the mid-20th century, B. focuses on various, more recent approaches that might be designated as contemporary christological perspectives on the OT (the canonical approach, concepts of "Biblical Theology" or new spiritual readings). The paper concludes with some general remarks on how the OT as a "pre-Christian" book might function as the biblical text for the preaching of the gospel. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] [End Page 147] 548. J. Lanier Burns, "The Biblical Use of Marriage to Illustrate Covenantal Relationships," BS 173 (2016) 273-96. B.'s article explores the theme of marriage in the Bible with two foci in mind: theological method for use with biblical audiences, and Scripture's use of itself to progressively develop a unified, Christ-centered message with marriage as a foundational paradigm in order that biblical audiences understand truth. B.'s investigation begins with prophetic texts, which, though negative, clearly explicate Israel's idolatry with covenantal marriage in the background. Thereafter, B. looks back at creation for marital ideals "from the beginning." Finally, he discusses the marriage/adultery metaphor in Revelation 17–21 with a view to showing that the paradigmatic marriage theme extends from Genesis through Revelation. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 549. M. Daniel Carroll R. (Rodas), "Old Testament Law, Then and Now: Cultural Boundaries and Moral Identity—Engaging Christopher Wright's Paradigm Approach," Kairós 58-59 (2016) 37-59. Christopher J. H. Wright's paradigm proposal for the appropriation of OT Law for the modern world can be enhanced and broadened by way of a critical incorporation of the insights of cultural anthropology and the use of John Rogerson's contributions to the field as a theoretical framework. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 550. [Genesis; Sirach] Jeremy Corley, "Divine Creation and Human Morality from Genesis to Ben Sira," ITQ 81 (2016) 343-61. Several Second Temple texts undertook to harmonize the differences between the P creation story in Genesis 1 and the J creation narrative in Genesis 2–3. Ben Sira (Sirach), e.g., makes selective use of both creation stories, especially when referring to human mortality. While Sir 25:24 seems to suggest that sin and death entered the world through Eve, Sir 17:1-2 appears to pass over the primeval sin and instead to regard human mortality as a natural disposition of the Creator who providentially allots humanity a fixed number of days of earthly life. In this interpretation, which is similar to various other interpretations of Genesis 3 in early Judaism and Christianity that emphasize human mortality as deriving from the primeval sin, Ben Sira does nonetheless echo the primeval punishment of humanity (Gen 3:19) by using the verb "return" in Sir 17:1. Having done this, Ben Sira in 17:2 proceeds to follow Jewish sapiential reflection (esp. Psalm 90) and Stoic teaching in presenting death as something natural within God's providential plan. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 551. Kyle C. Dunham, "Yahweh War and Ḥerem: The Role of Covenant, Land, and Purity in the Conquest of Canaan," DBSJ 21 (2016) 7-30. D.'s overview of the broad contours of the ḥerem practice demonstrates that the practice had a key place in Israel's conquest of Canaan. Tied as it was to covenanted land purity, the practice was integral to the occupation of the land, but then became obsolete following the conquest. Ḥerem was enacted by Israel as a way of affirming God's exclusive holiness and sovereign right to inhabit and bequeath the sacred land of his dwelling place in accordance with his character and promises. The enactment of ḥerem further underscored God's sovereignty and justice. God has sovereign right over life, and Israel...

Daughter of a Gun

Daughter of a Gun Sarah Curtis Graziano (bio) When my father was twenty-two, he wrote number 175 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever written. My father’s name, Sonny Curtis, is not well-known, but the song, “I Fought the Law,” is. Since Bobby Fuller plucked it from B-side obscurity and made it a hit in 1964, hundreds of artists have covered it, from The Clash to Bruce Springsteen to Johnny Cash to me, once, in my twenties. At Lonnie’s Western Room karaoke bar in Nashville, I confused the tempo with my father’s blues version—the only version I’d ever heard him play at home—and rightly bombed. A quick YouTube search unearths another female cover, this one by an all-woman Japanese street punk band unsubtly named Thug Murder. Pierced and clad in the universal stylings of disaffected youth, the women run through concrete city lots hurling the song like a tight fist, a screaming declaration of war—not quite the anthem of resignation I’ve always heard. Other than our two versions, few women have touched it. It’s a masculine song, and men are drawn to it. It’s a violent song, and each man who covers it stamps it with his own brand of violence. Bobby Fuller didn’t rob people with the original version’s “zip gun”—a crude firearm that made its rounds among 1950s teenage gangs—but rather a “six-gun.” The Clash changed the line “I miss my baby and I feel so bad” to “I killed my baby and I feel so bad.” Five years ago, a historic letterpress company in downtown Nashville designed a poster commemorating my father, to advertise [End Page 35] a show he was performing at the Country Music Hall of Fame. His manager called him after he’d seen the print. “They put guns on your poster, Sonny,” he told him. “Is that okay with you?” When my father later told me about this conversation, we both laughed, sharing the same unspoken thought. What a silly question. It’s no accident that my father wrote a song mythologizing guns. He hails from West Texas cotton farmers and cowboys, Dust Bowl survivors and victims of a lawless land. Guns play a crucial role in his family’s mythology, as stories hinge on whether or not the protagonist had a side arm. If I begin unspooling the thread at the spot where the gun mythology was formed in my father’s family, I can see the places where it looped and knotted, spinning on and on, until it reached me. My Texan grandparents were poor, and though I didn’t inherit much, I did inherit these stories. They are spoken heirlooms, subjective truths hammered out in living rooms after Sunday suppers, one brother’s feelings and observations fused with the thing his sister overheard—memory as alchemy, or sculptures chiseled over time to form the contours of my family’s reality. They have been told to me by my grandfather Arthur, written to me by my father, and corroborated by my father’s brother, my uncle Pete. They are the stories I tell myself as I grapple with my own complicated heritage, to answer the questions of why I sit under that gun poster every night as I eat dinner with my family, and why, though I consider myself a pacifist, it inspires in me a feeling of pride. I have two main stories to tell. Every mythology, including this one, has a genesis. The first story, the genesis story, does not contain a flood or a birth, but rather a death, a murder. The second story is one of redemption, a righting of wrongs, and the place where the myth took root in the dry West Texas dirt, alongside unending rows of cotton. Through the ages, its branches spread, sprouting habits and convictions that still exist in my family today. And on one branch, if I look closely enough, I can even see a song about a gun. [End Page 36] May, 1913 The house was unusually quiet when my great-grandfather Will Curtis...

Painting the Hortus Deliciarum—Medieval Women, Wisdom, and Time by Danielle B. Joyner

Reviewed by: Painting the Hortus Deliciarum—Medieval Women, Wisdom, and Time by Danielle B. Joyner Mihaela L. Florescu Danielle B. Joyner, Painting the Hortus Deliciarum—Medieval Women, Wisdom, and Time (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press 2016) 242 pp. The Hortus deliciarum, which translates into English as "the garden of delights," is an important twelfth-century manuscript because it challenges the traditional view that only men created texts in medieval European culture. The HD was made by women with an immediate female audience in mind beyond the wider audience of men. Danielle B. Joyner has produced a magnificent book on the creation and meaning of the HD. Her informed text connects perfectly with the beautiful images culled from the HD. Unfortunately for medieval purists, the only surviving proof that the HD ever existed comes from later sources. In 1818, Christian Moritz Engelhardt portrayed medieval life as an interpretation of the HD. The mid-nineteenth century saw a study of this important work by Comte Auguste de Bastard. Baptiste Petit-Gerard also studied the codex, his notes only being published in the 1950s. Medieval scholars only have a partial facsimile of the HD, published in 1979 by the Warburg Institute. The facsimile, gathered from nineteenth-century sources, represents the recreation of nearly half of the imagery and two-thirds of the text of the original manuscript. The history of the HD is closely tied to that of the history of the small monastic community of Hohenbourg, in Alsace. Duke Frederick II of Swabia invaded Hohenbourg in the early twelfth century. His son, Frederick Barbarossa, appointed Relinde as abbess and it was under her rule that the [End Page 218] community was rebuilt, Augustinian rule was adopted, and work on the HD was presumably begun. In the early 1170s, Herrad succeeded Relinde as abbess and work on the HD continued. In the manuscript, Herrad is portrayed as producing the codex and directing the work of the nuns, yet nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scholars were so biased by the mores of their times, they refused to consider that women were capable of such work. The existence of the HD challenged established male hierarchies. Today, however, there is no doubt, and it is openly recognized, that women in the twelfth century were indeed responsible for the production of this magnificent manuscript. The content of the HD features themes from the Bible. It includes the following: fols. 1r–v: introductory texts; fols. 2r–66v: Old Testament visual and textual narratives; fols. 67r–84r: Old Testament textual recapitulation; visual and textual transitional material; fols. 84v–167r: visual and textual narratives of Christ's life; fols. 167v–199r: visual and textual narratives of apostolic missionary work; fols. 199v–241r: visual and textual narratives of moralizing allegories on the soul and Ecclesia; fols. 241v–263v: visual and textual narratives of prophetic end-times; fols. 264r–315v: textual recapitulation, texts on church synods, canon law; fols. 316r–322r: computus tables and texts; fols. 322v–323r: portrait of Hohenbourg past and present; fols. 323v–324v: concluding verses. Chapter 1, "Feminae, Libri, et 'Hortus deliciarum'", places the HD in the context of its times. Herrad is portrayed as giving instructions on iconographies featured in both the Guta-Sintram Codex and the Rupertsberg Scivias. In addition, similar moralizing themes appear in an array of medieval manuscripts. On the topics of pride and virginity the HD is similar to works such as the Speculum virginum, the Liber floridus, and the Zwiefalten. Chapter 1 brings to light a number of further comparisons. Visual distinctions are noted between the HD and St. Albans Psalter. Yet, the HD stands apart from its brethren by its sophisticated imagery and by its use of visuals in places where text would normally be employed. Chapter 2, "Stellae et Tempora", examines the first folios of the manuscript which are devoted to the story of Creation. The addition of sin into the world is compared to the existence of the Trinity and the creation of times. Narrative imagery and diagrammatic images and texts are used to portray the story of Genesis in a display of fluid twelfth century style. In Chapter 3, "Artes et Computus," the liberal arts...

The Creation of the World by Virgil Solis

Abstract Virgil Solis (1514 – 1562), a prosperous artist and printmaker from Nuremberg, dedicated his final major work to an illustration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although the designs of most of the woodcuts for this first extensive German series were borrowed from the Metamorphoses series of the French artist Bernard Salomon (c. 1508 – 1561), a closer study reveals several notable differences in the details of individual scenes, among them The Creation of the World. Placing Solis’ work within the tradition of the printed illustrated editions of Ovid’s magnum opus, which had by then crystallized mainly in Italy and France, the article argues that Solis’ illustration drew not only on the earlier Metamorphoses, but also on printed German Bibles, following the parallels taken up at the time between the Creation story in the Metamorphoses and the Creation story in Genesis.

Noah's Ark, Mt. Meru, and the God of the Rainbow

AbstractThe warning is clear: Unless human beings reach a change of civilization in the ecological sense within the next ten years, we will not have a future—any future. However, a change of civilization does require a change of religious beliefs as well. As Lynn White Jr. asserted many years ago, our present science and technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecological and economic crises can be expected from them alone. “Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious,” as White assures, “the remedy must also be essentially religious.” Still, where do we begin? The author is convinced that any ecological reconstruction of Christian theology and missiology must begin with the Scripture. A solid re‐reading of the Bible will do. This is the reason why the author revisits the well‐known story of Noah's ark to reveal the inconvenient truth almost verbatim – the truth that the Noah's Ark is the story of God's new covenant of life with not only human beings but also with the Earth, represented by the animals from the ark. After scrutinizing the creation stories in Genesis 1 to 9, comparing in particular the two different commandments of God in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, as well as in Genesis 1 and Genesis 9, the author confirms that a just and sustainable future can only be built upon the biblical God of the rainbow, who shows no favor to human beings, and who makes a new covenant of life with all flesh. What we need is a new vision of Christian beliefs and discipleship that honors God, values the Earth, and emphasizes humility [humus] of humanity [humus], concludes the author.

Divine Creation and Human Mortality from Genesis to Ben Sira

Despite the differences between the Priestly creation story in Genesis 1 and the Yahwist’s creation narrative in Genesis 2–3, several Second Temple period Jewish texts began to harmonize both accounts. Ben Sira (Sirach) makes selective use of both Genesis creation stories, especially when referring to human mortality. While Sirach 25:24 implies an allusion to sin and death entering the world through Eve, Sirach 17:1–2 appears to pass over the primeval sin and instead seems to regard human mortality as a natural disposition by the Creator who providentially allots humanity a fixed number of days of earthly life. Like some interpretations of Genesis 3 within early Judaism and Christianity, emphasizing human mortality as deriving from the primeval sin, Ben Sira echoes the primeval punishment of humanity (Genesis 3:19) by employing the verb ‘return’ in Sirach 17:1. Thereafter, Sirach 17:2 follows Jewish sapiential reflection (especially Psalm 90) and Stoic teaching to present death as something natural within God’s providential plan.

Does Inequality Really Matter?

There is a great temptation to deal with the issues of inequality either in terms of economics alone or in a polemical style that simply dwells on the bad effects of inequality-as if that solves the problem. Instead, I want to start by seeking to address this issue more theologically, thus my question, Does inequality really matter?So what if there's inequality? There has always been inequality and there most certainly always will be inequality. This is not just a quick lapse into an approach much influenced by Darwin, that affirms the solutions for our society are about survival of the fittest and devil take the hindmost, if you'll excuse the mix of disciplines in that sentence. Rather, it's a genuine question in terms of a world that is deeply caught up in diversity, and seemingly to the world's great benefit.To put it another way: are the extremely wealthy merely the latest or possibly the last minority, a persecuted group to be identified, whom we need to defend, not attack? Should there be marches, or possibly processions of limos or Rolls Royces (necessarily chauffeurdriven), down Wall Street or Lombard Street with elegantly crafted placards produced by top-end designers saying, Justice to the ultrarich, Billionaires are people too? Why does inequality matter?I want to go back to two originating stories, turning first to the Genesis story and the development of diversity within humanity in its earliest forms.In the great west window of Canterbury Cathedral, in the center of the bottom row of stained glass, there is an image of Adam digging in the Garden of Eden. The cathedral, for those who do not know it, progresses from west to east upwards, like this church. As you go further east you go further up, except in Canterbury it's pretty steep: it goes up about thirty-five feet. At the east end, just near where the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury would have been until the Reformation, there is the throne of St. Augustine, into which one is rather firmly put when you start this job. Archbishop Robert Runcie used to say that he was constantly reminded that when he sat on the throne of St. Augustine, he was level with Adam digging at the other end of the cathedral.Underlying that comment is a wealth of thoughtfulness about the relative importance of offices to which others ascribe importance, but also the significance of Adam digging in the garden. One can meditate for days on those particular stories in the early chapters of Genesis. But one of the aspects to note is that at the beginning we are all equal. In the days of the English revolution in the seventeenth century, the gentry who were overthrowing the tyrannical rule, as they saw it, of Charles I were not in the slightest bit interested in equality with the peasantry. They wanted a decent hierarchy, only with those who were slightly more important taken down a peg or two, or taken off a head or two. Cromwell took strongly against the levelers and the diggers, quasi-communist groups who went back to Adam and Eve and proclaimed there should be no social distinctions. Hierarchy is deeply embedded, but the Adam and Eve story, the story of the Garden, has constantly come back to capture the imagination of those who see that in the creation of God there is equality.And at the heart of the Genesis story of the creation of human beings is the essential nature of the human being, both male and female, existing to know God intimately and to walk intimately with God. There is an equality of worship, in adoration of the presence of God; there is an equality of reveling and feasting, in fellowship with God in the Garden. Equality is a gift in creation, it is the foundation of equality before the law, equality of voice in the public square, equality in righteousness.Walter Brueggemann makes a similar point in his commentary on Isaiah, concerning chapter fifty-nine. The postexilic community in Israel is deeply flawed: not by its lack of worship, of which there is plenty, but by its inequalities injustice, in voice, in inclusion of all who accept Torah, regardless of wealth and status. …

A Pauline Complement to Laudato Si’

References in the encyclical Laudato Si’ to the writings of Paul are brief and rare. Yet the creation stories of Genesis 1–3, which do feature prominently, receive a rich development in Paul’s theology, notably in his presentation of Adam as a negative foil to the redemptive work of Christ. This article argues that an appreciation of the Adamic theology emerging from passages such as Romans 5:12–21; Philippians 2:6–11; 1 Corinthians 15:21–28, and particularly Romans 8:18–22, can fruitfully enlarge the range of Scripture to which the encyclical makes appeal.

Climatologists, Theologians, and Prophets: Toward an Ecotheology of Critical Hope

Climatologists, Theologians, and Prophets: Toward an Ecotheology of Critical Hope

Climatologists, Theologians, and Prophets: Toward an Ecotheology of Critical Hope

Climatologists, Theologians, and Prophets: Toward an Ecotheology of Critical Hope Cherice Bock As people of faith begin to recognize in larger numbers that our relationship with creation is one of the most important challenges facing us today, I find myself pondering what we have to offer the environmental movement. The Christian scriptures begin and end with stories of God and creation: the oft‐mentioned creation stories of Genesis 1–2, and the eschatological reflections on the new heaven and earth, and the river and tree of life in Revelation 21–22. In between are the stories of the people of faith, and how we interact with God in the midst of creation. These stories place us in the larger picture and give us metaphorical concepts of where we come from, where we are going, and who we are in relation to all that is created. Within this transcendent story, each of us comes from a particular context, a place and time, an individual journey of relational connection to God and to others attempting to follow God's way. In this time and context, our stories are necessarily bound up with the ways that we treat one another and the rest of the natural world, but hope and purpose often feel elusive in religious and nonreligious settings alike. I am a Christian and a Quaker, with training in the social sciences, theology, and environmental studies and working in the religious academy. As such, I often ask myself what theologians and others involved in the interpretation and praxis of the Christian faith can contribute to caring for the environment in a more holistic way. My particular denominational history includes the connection of spiritual contemplation with social justice activism: a prophetic role in the midst of difficult situations. The biblical prophets held together both critique of their present time and hope for the larger meaning and purposes of God, and I wonder if this is the path for ecotheologians in the twenty‐first century. Tying all of these strands together, the idea of an ecotheology of critical hope formed in my mind. I suspect that ecotheologians must not simply critique, but we must be willing to enact hope in the midst of the despair that has paralyzed so many regarding issues of environmental import. This paper will show how I got to the idea of an ecotheology of critical hope, and what a lived ecotheology of critical hope could look like. Theologians as interpreters, not prophets? People of faith throughout history have often played the role of prophet, calling their cultures to more ethical treatment of one another, but it is not people of faith who are most often leading the prophetic call in the instance of climate change. In fact, there is a striking similarity between the prophetic and apocalyptic language in the Bible and the rhetoric of climatologists, economists, and even politicians. Therefore, when I read Forrest Clingerman's article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion last summer, “Theologians as Interpreters—Not Prophets—in a Changing Climate,” I found much that resonated with me, including his jibe at theologians: We are “a pretty helpless bunch” when it comes to fixing environmental problems. We are not the ones with the technical knowledge to solve the engineering problems that are happening as a result of climate change, or the ones who can create scientific models to help us anticipate the coming changes, or the ones to formulate holistic mitigation plans. We are good thinkers and we can be helpful advocates, and perhaps we can help shift our constituents’ worldviews, but we are not the ones who can solve the climate change problems we face as a global community if all we are doing is theological theorizing. Clingerman suggests that the role of theologians in the climate change conversation is to be mediators and interpreters of climate change, and in many ways, this makes good sense. Given the generally accepted definition of theology as “faith seeking understanding,” to seek to understand the issues of ultimacy surrounding climate change and interpret these issues in light of faith traditions and in language understandable to the general public is an important role. It is...