High God Research Articles

The Religion of the Qur’ānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities

AbstractThis article (in two parts) is devoted to the first step of an attempted reconstruction of the religion of the Qur’ānic mušrikūn on the basis of the Qur’ān and indisputably earlier evidence alone. The first part concludes that the mušrikūn believed in the same Biblical God as the messenger and that their lesser beings, indiscriminately called gods and angels, functioned much like (dead) saints in later Islam and Christianity. This is not exactly new since it is more or less what Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb concluded three hundred years ago. The second part examines the high God hypothesis and tries to relate the beliefs of the mušrikūn to those of other monotheists in late antiquity, with indeterminate results: in terms of their views on God and the lesser beings, the mušrikūn could equally well be pagan monotheists and Jews (or Judaisers).

Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (review)

Reviewed by: Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism Mark S. Smith Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism, by Jan Assmann. George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. 196 pp. $26.95. This volume comes from the hand of one of the best-known figures in the field of Egyptology. The topic is "the relationship between God and the gods" (p. 1). It concerns what Assmann calls the "Mosaic distinction," which is "the idea of an exclusive and emphatic Truth that sets God apart from everything that is not God and therefore must not be worshipped" (p. 1). Exclusivity, though, is not exclusivity of divine existence, as the other gods exist; rather, it is the exclusivity of Israel's belonging to God and not to any other deity. Chapter One surveys basic concepts of ancient polytheism, specifically three dimensions: "shapes" (cult images and representations of a deity in the temple cult); "transformations" (cosmic manifestations as sun, moon, and the [End Page 151] like); and "names" (linguistic representations that include not only proper names, but also titles, pedigrees, genealogies, and myths). These categories suggest how polytheism made sense to ancient peoples, gave them meaning and shaped their identity. Chapter Two addresses the relationship between violence and various forms of theism. Assmann points out that polytheistic cultures are hardly peaceful, tolerant, and non-violent and that their acts of violence may be sanctioned by deities, but that they do not promote religious intolerance. This distinction is not nearly as prominent in the corpus of biblical texts as Assmann's discussion would suggest. Assmann also raises the question of the intolerant monotheism of Akhenaten, which he sees reflected in some of the Seth traditions (pp. 44–48). In this respect Assmann shows an affinity for Freud's theory, expressed in his 1939 work Moses and Monotheism, that the monotheism of Moses can be connected with the alleged monotheism of Akhenaten in the Amarna Age. This theory has enjoyed wide currency since Freud, and it is not uncommon to hear it expressed in scholarly and non-scholarly circles alike. However, the impact of this influence has little to do with "monotheism" in Israel. Chapter Three examines a number of ancient texts from across traditions and time periods for their "translation" of divinity. Deities from different cultures were equated or identified with one another. Assmann suggests that this intercultural discourse about deities led to the idea that various nations basically worshipped the same deities. Assmann cites the notion of "the Highest God" in the later period, a sort of super-god recognized across the Mediterranean world, as well as deities with multiple names ("hyphenating gods"), and various expressions of single gods whose characteristics are identified as the other deities. This series of stunning non-biblical texts is followed with a cursory contrast with biblical monotheism. Chapter Four discusses the impact of "the Axial Age," a period around the middle of the first millennium when cultures from Rome to China questioned fundamental notions of reality. Assmann notes cases in ancient Egypt, which makes for fascinating reading, and ends with a brief consideration of ancient Israel. Unfortunately he does not address the story in ancient Israel. Assmann makes rather dramatic claims about biblical monotheism, how it operated and what it meant, but without sufficient discussion or documentation. Chapter Five traces the path from tradition to Scripture: (1) codification of law; (2) the trauma experience of the exile; (3) the development of scribal collection of texts and a "culture of exegesis" in the Persian period; (4) the combination of "book culture" and "memory culture" in the Greco-Roman period; and (5) the biblical "concept of idolatry." In its recollection of an Israelite past, [End Page 152] the Bible commemorates a linkage between Israel's god and divine violence and raises it to the level of revelation. Chapter Six notes the proximity between Israelite monotheism and forms of monistic polytheism discussed in Chapter Three. He considers whether biblical monotheism is evolutionary or revolutionary. He states, "biblical monotheism may have slowly evolved out of polytheism" (p. 108), but he also characterizes...

A Curious Condition of Being: The City and the Grove in Chaucer's Knight's Tale

THE citizens of Chaucer's Knight's Tale?divine, semi-divine, human?occupy a curious universe.1 It is a place where the prin ciple of contradiction does not hold: Thebes is demolished by line 900 but is somehow reconstituted by line 1283; the grove is razed to make room for the amphitheater and razed again to provide place and material for Arcite's funeral. In this cosmos, the writ of the high god Jupiter does not run?at least not in the fundamental matter of resolving the strife in heaven between Venus and Mars. Both city and grove are crucial sites in the Tale's action, and their moving in and out of existence establishes the Tale's elastic ontology, while the displacing of Jupiter by Saturn unsettles the Tale's presumed theological hierarchy. The inhabitants of this universe find nothing remarkable in such physi cal, or metaphysical, eccentricities, for such are the conditions of their being. They are simply unaware of the heavenly friction. The audience, both Chaucer's contemporaries and ourselves, thus discover a situation in which the characters with whom we might identify are as ignorant of the fabric of the universe they inhabit as they are blind to the laby rinthine ways of the gods who, they suppose, rule it. This is, arguably, the impression that Chaucer wanted to achieve, since he changed his primary source?Giovanni Boccaccio's II Teseida delle nozze di Emilia?to create his characters' invincible ignorance. I look first at Thebes, then the grove, finally at Theseus's First Mover lecture and the circumstances surrounding it.

A Mahāyānist Movement in the Luohei Shan (Lahu Mountains) of Southwestern Yunnan

AbstractSome village communities of the mountain-dwelling, Tibeto-Burman speaking Lahu peoples support temples and an associated priesthood, whose principal purpose is to honour their creator-divinity G'ui sha. Neither temples nor ritual devotion to a High God are commonly present among the Lahu people's upland neighbours. Relatively small spirit shrines are the principal form of ritual architecture and high gods are typically seen as being unconcerned with human affairs; consequently, it can serve no useful purpose to “worship” them. This paper seeks to demonstrate that these peculiarities of Lahu custom and belief derive from a Mahayanist movement that swept through the Lahu mountain homelands in southwestern Yunnan, probably beginning in the late seventeenth to mid eighteenth centuries CE. The result was (a) the establishment of temples as the principal form of religious architecture among many (not all) Lahu communities and an identification of their high-god G'ui sha with the Buddha Śākyamuni and consequently–following Mahāyānist ideology – with transcendental Buddhahood.

The Evolutionary Forms of the Religious Life: A Cross‐Cultural, Quantitative Analysis

ABSTRACT Previous cross‐cultural studies of religion's evolution that employed Swanson's High Gods measure are plagued by methodological difficulties, especially the lack of proper statistical controls. Here, we attempted to rectify this, using the Standard Cross‐Cultural Sample to test five hypotheses employing multivariate statistical techniques. Results provided weak support for Swanson's Sovereign Groups hypothesis concerning High Gods and also limited support for a previously unexplored factor: writing and record keeping. In phase two of the study, we introduced a new measure, the Stage of Religious Evolution, based on Anthony Wallace's typology. When this new dependent variable was substituted for High Gods, much stronger results were obtained. The best predictors of Stage of Religious Evolution were mode of subsistence economy, writing and record keeping, and total population size. These findings allowed us to construct a new evolutionary interpretation of the development of different modes of religious life.

Migration and Vodou (review)

Reviewed by: Migration and Vodou Brian Brazeal Karen Richman , Migration and Vodou. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005. 368 pp. The African-derived religions of Haiti have a long and checkered bibliography in academia and in the popular press, but until now there has been no book-length study that relates the beliefs and practices of Vodou to the social and economic history of the troubled island of Haiti. Karen Richman's Migration and Vodou eschews lurid descriptions of zombies and cannibals as well as platitudes about Vodou's African origins and timeless reconstructions of its theology. Instead she offers a textured social history of religious practice that combines analyses of labor migration and land tenure, ethnographies of performance and ritual practice and a poignant biography of Ti Chini, The Little Caterpillar. The Little Caterpillar is a Haitian man who traveled to the United States in a sailing canoe in the first wave of semi-legal Haitian migration. He worked in the agricultural labor camps of Virginia, Florida and the vast swath of the Southeastern United States known to Haitians as Mayami (Miami). He communicated with his family in Léogane though ritual songs recorded on audio cassettes. His remittances built their homes and sustained their cult of the Lwa, the high gods of Haiti's Afro-Catholic popular religion. His life story opens a window onto the history of the relationship [End Page 499] between Haiti and the United States and the dialectical relationship between the Lwa and Pwen in the ideology of contemporary Vodou. Richman's book, founded on three decades of ethnographic, quantitative and historical research, explores these two interrelated themes The Lwa are the focus of a devotional religious cult that brings together descent groups and legitimates land claims through the authoritative articulation of ritual genealogies. Although the Lwa descend to possess (or ride) the bodies of their earthly servants, they remain remote from the quotidian concerns of Haitian peasants and agricultural proletarians. They offer no aid to their devotees other than a sort of passive protection and they consume an enormous proportion of their meager resources in communal sacrificial rituals called feedings (manje Lwa). In these ceremonies the Lwa behave like the French colonials of pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue and the tourists of Haiti's Belle Époque. They drink fine rum and eat imported delicacies. They exploit the labor of their impoverished servants, who render them untold luxuries as selfless gifts. The Lwa are the guardians of Haiti's moral community but they launder the earnings of an immoral economy. This economy focuses on wage labor and the manipulation of Pwen spirits. If the Lwa are effete and voracious consumers of surplus value, the Pwen are gritty and dangerous proletarian producers. The Pwen are made, bought and sold rather than inherited through family lines like the Lwa. Pwen spirits are propitiated with the coarsest, but most nutritious staples of the Haitian peasant diet. They produce wealth for their owners, but their power is fraught with risk. If they are not adequately propitiated, they will afflict their recalcitrant masters and their families with acute sickness and even death. Pwen are physical objects, packets of sacred substances bound with cords. They are constructed for specific earthly ends, especially success in employment. It is only through the labor of the Pwen that impoverished Haitians may assemble the resources they need to worship the exalted and demanding Lwa. Pwen and Lwa stand in dialectical relationships of production and consumption, of wage labor economies and reciprocal gift prestations, of evil individualism and the kin-based moral community. According to Karen Richman, the relationship between Lwa and Pwen is a model of and a model for the relationship between Haitian labor migrants abroad and their kin on the island. Migrants' wage labor "Over There" is indispensable for the reproduction of families ostensibly dedicated to peasant agriculture in Léogane. Wage labor (as opposed to peasant [End Page 500] agriculture) is seen as inherently shameful and morally wrong. However, it is only through the proceeds of evil wage labor that moral, family-based peasant agriculture can sustain itself. Workers launder their wages by sending remittances to be consumed or invested on the...

Hosea's (In)Fertility God

AbstractThis paper challenges the prevailing view of Hosea's concept of God as a deity wholly other than and opposed to the fertility deities of Canaan. This view depends upon the dominant reading of Hosea's sexual metaphors in which "adultery" with the baalim is understood as a critique of popular fertility religious practices. This paper argues that the theological conflict Hosea addresses is not one of fertility religion verses faith in a "God of History," but rather of localized and/or nationalized concepts of deity verses the prophet's vision of YHWH as a high god who incorporates into Himself all the powers of all the gods, including the powers of fertility.

The Heavenly Council and its Type-scene

This article proposes that the visual descriptions of the outlook, the process and the location of the members are particular characteristics of the ‘heavenly council’ in the Mesopotamian, Ugaritic and ancient Israelite texts. Generally, the heavenly council descriptions include ‘the high god at the centre of the council, surrounded by its members’. This type-scene employs common phrases, such as ‘to sit down’ and ‘to stand’, which are widely attested in the ancient Near Eastern texts. Accordingly 1 Kgs 22.19-23; Isaiah 6; Job 1 and 2; Psalm 82; Zechariah 3, and Dan. 7.9-14 are to be categorized as the major type-scenes of the heavenly council in the Hebrew Bible.

Writ In Blood: John Brown’s Charter of Humanity, The Tribunal of History, and the Thick Link of American Political Protest

Writ In Blood:John Brown’s Charter of Humanity, The Tribunal of History, and the Thick Link of American Political Protest Zoe Trodd All the great charters of humanity have been writ in blood. I once hoped that American democracy would be engrossed in less costly ink. —Theodore Parker, 1859 I leave it to an impartial tribunal to decide whether the world has been the worse or the better of my living and dying in it. —John Brown, 1859 If General Tubman is the Mother of Our Country and Frederick Douglass the Father . . . then bloody old Shenandoah Brown . . . is some kind of Godfather. Blood may be thicker than water, but politics is thicker than either. —Terry Bisson, 1988 Sketching the Charter of Blood [Brown] has struck the bottom line of the philosophy which underlies the abolition movement . . . Slavery is a system of brute force . . . It must be met with its own weapons. —Frederick Douglass, 1859 If you commence, make sure work," advised David Walker in his protest pamphlet, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829). Addressing all blacks who might rebel, he continued: "Do not trifle, for they will not trifle with [End Page 1] you—they want us for their slaves, and think nothing of murdering us in order to subject us to that wretched condition—therefore, if there is an attempt made by us, kill or be killed." The pamphlet prophesied millennial violence if slavery was not abolished: "The Americans may be as vigilant as they please," warned Walker, "but they cannot be vigilant enough for the Lord, neither can they hide themselves, where he will not find and bring them out." He called blacks to action, to "go to work and prepare the way of the Lord," explaining: "There is a great work for you to do."1 In 1848, John Brown helped republish Walker's pamphlet (alongside an oration by the militant black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet). Two years after this republication, the Fugitive Slave Law passed. Black abolitionists advocated responses to the law ranging from nonviolent civil disobedience to violent resistance. One, Joshua B. Smith, circulated weapons at an abolitionist meeting, and another, William P. Newman, wrote to Frederick Douglass: "I am frank to declare that it is my fixed and changeless purpose to kill any so-called man who attempts to enslave me or mine, if possible . . . To do this . . . would be an act of the highest virtue, and white Americans must be real hypocrites if they say not to it—amen!" At a meeting in Philadelphia, on October 14, 1850, several hundred free blacks passed a resolution that concluded: "In full view of the unheard of atrociousness of the provisions of this infernal fugitive slave bill, we solemnly declare before the Most High God, and the world, to resist to the death any attempt to enforce it upon our persons." The following year, when fugitives fought slave catchers trying to re-enslave them in Pennsylvania, the black radical James McCune Smith proclaimed: "Our white brethren cannot understand us unless we speak to them in their own language; they recognize only force. They will never recognize our manhood until we knock them down a time or two; they will then hug us as men and brethren." Echoing Smith, Mr. Culver in Martin Delaney's Blake: or, the Hut of America (1859) tells the black rebel Blake: "If you want white man to love you, you must fight im!" Blake sets out to incite a slave rebellion, Culver's words ringing in his ears: "Go on young man, go on!" John Brown's soon-to-be infamous strategies of violent resistance had a bloodline, traceable through the history of black abolitionism from Walker to Blake.2 Brown himself responded to the Fugitive Slave Law by forming the League of Gileadites, a black self-defense unit named after the Biblical army tested by God before battle. He wrote a document entitled "Words of Advice," and 44 black residents of Springfield, Massachusetts, signed an "Agreement" on January 15, 1851. Brown's advice included a range of guerilla tactics: "A lasso might possibly be applied to a slave-catcher," he suggested, or recommended...

On the Identity of Shang Di and the Origin of the Concept of a Celestial Mandate (TIAN MING)

This article reexamines the hypotheses of Guo Moruo and H.G. Creel that Shang Di was the high god of the Shang and Tian, that of the Zhou. It proposes that Shang Di was originally the spirit of the pole star. As such, it was the one celestial body which was higher than the ten suns, with whom the Shang ancestors were identified. Tian was not a high god, but quite literally, the sky. The sky was the location of the Shang Di and the other ancestral spirits, so it came to serve as a euphemism for Shang Di or, more broadly, for Shang Di and all the celestial phenomena and spirits who were under his aegis. The primary distinction between the Shang and Zhou was not that Shang Di was particular to the Shang, but that the Shang rulers identified themselves with the ten suns. Shang Di, as the pole star, was acknowledged by both Shang and Zhou as the highest of the spirits. Tian, as the sky, was understood primarily as the celestial bodies that inhabit it. As in later time, the sky was a spiritual force associated with patterns of time, which were revealed in the movements of the celestial bodies. Thus, the original tian ming (“celestial mandate” or “mandate of heaven”) was, quite literally, an astronomical sign, a “command” seen in the sky during the reign of Wen, whose son Wu founded the Zhou Dynasty.

Chief Justice Taft and Dissents: Down with the Brandeis Briefs!

Chief Justice Taft and Dissents: Down with the Brandeis Briefs! JONATHAN LURIE Introduction In 2007, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of William Taft’s birth, and thus it is especially appropriate to reconsider some aspects of his career and contributions to this Court, which he revered over all others. Although they may not be aware of it, any visitor to the Supreme Court and to the “Great Hall,” replete with its majesty and grandeur, immediately comes into contact with an example of these contributions: the building itself. Chief Justice Taft planned for it, pushed for it, persuaded the congressional leadership of its necessity, and personally selected its architect, Cass Gilbert. As his health failed in the late 1920s, he wrote to his daughter Helen on July 27, 1927, that “[w]hat I am praying for is that I can live and be on the Court until we move in. But that is a good deal to hope for.”1 Indeed it was: Taft did not live even to see ground broken for the building’s construction. Yet, in a very real sense, the Court’s majestic home is his most enduring monument. This paper does not propose to dwell ex­ tensively on Taft’s life and career, although that remains remarkable in scope: trialjudge, solic­ itor general, circuitjudge, Governor General of the Philippines, Secretary of War, President, professor of law (Taft declined the presidency ofhis alma mater, Yale University, because he felt that it was not yet ready to welcome a Uni­ tarian who declined to accept the divinity of Christ), and Chief Justice.2 Nor will it detail his fascinating actuarial agonies as President, when he considered whom to appoint as Chief Justice in 1910. For the first time in our his­ tory, a President reached within the Court to appoint a sitting Justice as Chief.3 Taft se­ lected a Democrat and former Confederate sol­ dier, Edward D. White. One high court Jus­ tice, Charles Evans Hughes, wasjusttoo young and too healthy! On the other hand, White— like Hughes, a current member ofthe Court— was seventeen years older than Hughes and a dozen years older than Taft himself. Given the CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT AND DISSENTS 179 vicissitudes of time, Taft hoped against hope that he might yet become Chief Justice. With a Republican sweep in 1920, what had seemed impossible became quite probable. And when President Harding appointed him in 1921, Taft might have recalled what he had said earlier about the judiciary: “I love judges and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.”I * * 4 Indeed, as Chief Justice, noted one observer, he seemed to be “one ofthe high gods of the world, a smiling Buddha, placid, wise, gentle, sweet.”5 Norwill this essay spend much time onthe well-known fact that Taft was exceedingly am­ ple in girth as well as intellect. Thus, there will be minimal recounting ofthe many comments about his size. One may note, however, per­ haps the most famous line in Secretary ofState Elihu Root’s response to Taft’s report from the Philippines that his health was much improved and he had been able to ride on horseback for some twenty miles. In reply, Root telegraphed, “How is the horse?”6 Taft’s response is less well known and reflects the self-deprecating nature of the man: “Your cable inquiry about the condition ofthe horse... was too good to keep, so I published the dispatch and have been made the subject ofjoke in the local newspa­ pers ever since.”7 Many contemporaries com­ mented on the kindly and genial nature that Taft radiated. He was, quoted one ofhis closest confidants, Gus Karger, “America’s best liked and best lickedpresident.”8 EvenJustice David Brewer could not resist observing that he had been informed that “Taft is the politest man alive. I heard thatrecently he rose in a street car and gave his seat to three ladies.”9 He looked, wrote another observer, “like an American bi­ son, [albeit] a gentle kind one.”10 I But beneath this exterior amiability, Taft re­ vealed perceptive insights on men and...

God's punishment and public goods : A test of the supernatural punishment hypothesis in 186 world cultures.

Cooperation towards public goods relies on credible threats of punishment to deter cheats. However, punishing is costly, so it remains unclear who incurred the costs of enforcement in our evolutionary past. Theoretical work suggests that human cooperation may be promoted if people believe in supernatural punishment for moral transgressions. This theory is supported by new work in cognitive psychology and by anecdotal ethnographic evidence, but formal quantitative tests remain to be done. Using data from 186 societies around the globe, I test whether the likelihood of supernatural punishment-indexed by the importance of moralizing "high gods"-is associated with cooperation.

Whose Unkulunkulu?

AbstractUNkulunkulu was a term taken up by certain missionaries in Natal as synonymous with the Christian God. Though the idea of uNkulunkulu is now well entrenched in African as well as missionary Christian theology, historically the concept of uNkulunkulu, as the High God of all, is inaccurate. This paper will argue that there was actually a multiplicity of oNkulunkulu (plural of uNkulunkulu) in the early nineteenth century – including females. UNkulunkulu was simply a generic name for particular significant Zulu ancestors – family, chiefly or ‘national’. The development of the concept of uNkulunkulu, as the High God of all, obscures important aspects of the relationship that formerly obtained between chiefs and their departed ancestors. The attainment of Zulu political ascendancy, which has so often been viewed in purely secular terms, had a critical religious dimension.

Who Was Sitting in the Theatre at Miletos? An Epigraphical Application of a Novel Theory

AbstractStephen Mitchell has proposed a broad view of the cult of the Most High God (Theos Hypsistos) in which the followers describe themselves as theosebes. This provides a robust identity for these God-fearers and allows for a wider local context for theosebes (and other God-fearer) inscriptions. Mitchell's view is applied to the famous seating inscription for Jews and God-fearers in the theatre in Miletos. Here a quiet Jewish community is associated with a community of followers of the Most High God which included prominent members. The inscription should be read as, "The place of the Jews [real Jews], who are called [are part of] the group of theosebioi [followers of the Most High God]."

Wisdom Has Built Her House: Studies on the Figure of Sophia in the Bible

Has Built Her House: Studies on the Figure of Sophia in the Bible, by Silvia Schroer. Translated by Linda Maloney and William McDonough. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Pp. x + 175. $24.95. Has Built Her House is a collection of essays written by Sylvia Schroer over a period of ten years, which are all connected by, the theme of Divine Wisdom, (Hokrui or Sophia) as it appears in the different texts of both the First and Second Testaments and some apocryphal books. The author addresses a rarely treated topic (particularly in feminist circles)-the figure of Divine from a feminist perspective. She aims at showing that there have been moments in the Judeo-Christian tradition when God was appropriated as Female (cf. personified/depicted as a woman or clothed in female imagery), an exercise that, in her view, was not in any way regarded as a threat to Israelite monotheism. In this regard Schroer makes this important remark, which forms the basis of her arguments in the essays of the book: Personified Hokmah is no attack on the ancient Israelite conviction-never fundamentally questioned in the tradition-that YHWH is the God of Israel. Nor do we find any attack on the belief, explicitly formulated since the exile, that absolutely no other gods exist beside YHWH. The writers appear not to have regarded it as in any way necessary to defend a correct monotheistic idea of Hokmah. Personified is instead the completely non-polemical attempt to set a feminine image of God in place of and alongside a masculine image, linking the God of Israel to the experience and the lives especially of the women in Israel, the Most High God to the realm of household religion, and beyond that to the images and roles of the Ancient Near Eastern goddesses. (p. 30; italics added) The author thus explores this mysterious figure-a slippery figure indeed, as Personified is sometimes depicted as a companion of God, and at times is portrayed as God, and at still other times is portrayed as being subject to God (particularly in a misogynist text such as the book of Sirach)-to give us another picture of Israelite religion. Israelites, particularly in moments of crisis (e.g., the exilic and the postexilic eras), could view their God also in female terms and also freely borrowed metaphors from the neighboring religions (cf the similarities with the ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic goddesses) without any embarrassment. Schroer (borrowing from Claudia Camp in her ground-breaking publication and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs [Sheffield: Almond, 1985]) argues that the literary portrayal of the God of Israel in female terms cannot have arisen out of a vacuum, but is an indication of the status of the women of Israel at the time. As in many moments/periods of crisis, the exilic and postexilic periods in Israel witnessed the elevation in the status of women. As builders of houses, women took it upon their shoulders to join the males in the rebuilding of Yehud in the postexilic period. Schroer argues that it is no wonder that it was precisely in this era that the Priestly author portrays both male and female as being created in the image of God (Gen 1:26). It is in this postmonarchic era that the locus of divine revelation had shifted from the king as mediator of the covenant between the people of Israel and YHWH to the family or the household (the sphere of women). Women as managers of households (cf. the eset hayil of Prov 31:10-31), household builders, and meal preparers feature significantly in this period. It is therefore no wonder that it is in this same period that YHWH is personified as a woman-God in female imagery! In her attempt to achieve her main objective, Schroer addresses different topics. In Wisdom on the Path of Righteousness (Proverbs 8:20), she shows that the Israelite faith in the connection between action and consequence (cf. also the African mentality in this regard) is not uniquely Israelite, but ancient Near Eastern. …

The Jewish Manumission Inscriptions of the Bosporus Kingdom

The Jewish Manumission Inscriptions of Bosporus Kingdom, by E. Leigh Gibson. TSAJ 75. Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1999. Pp. x + 201. DM 128.00. The Bosporus Kingdom on north coast of Black Sea was home to an apparently substantial Jewish community, knowledge of which depends entirely on inscriptions. These have mainly been made accessible to English-speaking readers through work of Irina Levinskaya, particularly The Book of Acts in Its Diaspora Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). Now Gibson has provided a new publication that puts them into a fuller context than has previously been possible. She concentrates on that involve manumission of slaves in prayer-house or with Jewish community as guardian or (in some sense) beneficiary. She seeks to do this by exploring background of manumission written in Greek, as well as Jewish attitudes to manumission before moving on to look at Bosporan themselves. She argues convincingly that nothing particularly Jewish is in underlying manumission process or its record in inscriptions: the Jewish manumissions of Bosporus fit readily within models and possibilities demonstrated by a wide range of Greek manumission inscriptions (p. 11). Archaeological evidence shows that there was widespread hellenization in area, and presence of a Jewish community was presumably a result of that hellenization. Gibson believes that practice of recording manumissions in was in interests of owners more than of slaves. The were not motivated by affection, and they did not take opportunity of depicting manumission as reward for slaves' good behavior. Instead, owners were willing to incur expense in order to promote their own social standing. Gibson argues that Jewish attitudes to slavery were not as liberal as has sometimes been claimed. She sees Philo as interpreting Jewish law on slavery in light of GrecoRoman norms, and in a Jewish setting where biblical instructions about slaves were not widely observed. She sums up his attitude this way: Slaves were essential, but they should come from other nations, not from kinsmen (p. 75)-a view with which Aristotle would certainly have agreed. However, she makes important point that Jews who were redeemed from slavery to Gentiles by their fellow-Jews would still be kept in some form of servitude. She treats rabbinic discussions of slavery as evidence for aspects of slave-owning that were of concern to Jews. There is an interesting summary of texts on Tabi, slave of Rabban Gamaliel and only slave mentioned by name in Mishnah. His story, even if not to be taken literally, illustrates that learning in Torah did not necessarily lead to manumission. She detects an increasing concern with ritual purification of slaves in later rabbinic writing, perhaps arising from a fear that slaves would manipulate procedures in order to secure their manumission against their owners' wishes. In chs. 5-6, manumissions from Bosporus are discussed which took place in context of apparent paganism or of worship of most high god. …

The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High GodUstinovaYulia The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God BrillLeiden, 1999, x, 372, Nlg215.96/$120.00

The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High GodUstinovaYulia <i>The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom: Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God</i> BrillLeiden, 1999, x, 372, Nlg215.96/$120.00

Conversion to Catholicism in Zambia: 1891-1924

Following Robin Horton's theory of religious change in Africa, the author argues that major social change facilitated initial Catholic conversion in Zambia. Prior to Catholic evangelization, local cosmologies began to center on the High God and a more universal worldview. However, the emergence ofa deep conversion demanded by Catholic missionaries depended on a catechetical and school system that often entailed impersonal memorization of catechism answers and strict observance of Catholic rubrics. Missionaries devoted little attention to indigenization ofthe Catholic message, even though they frequently became fluent in the local languages and familiar with indigenous traditions. Converts thus received a new and essentially foreign religious message. Such conversion formed a separate layer of consciousness that rarely touched the deeper levels of the Zambian psyche.

Christian and Aboriginal Interface in Australia

The author situates his topic within the ancient culture of Australian Aborigines and the current debate regarding the benefits in the exchange between anthropology and theology. He examines models of the theology/anthropology interface in Australia, noting some of its principal positive outcomes. He then explores several theological issues such as continuity with the gospel, High Gods, a sense of time, sacramentality, and inculturated liturgy. The developing mutual exchange offers both rich opportunities and notable challenges.

First-Century Jewish Monotheism

In recent scholarship there has been considerable discussion over whether first-century Jewish religion can be described meaningfully as 'monotheistic', and, if so, how this affects our understanding of the rise of early 'high' Christology. This essay offers refinements in our approach to the question and concludes that we can attribute 'monotheism' to first-century Judaism, provided that we build our understanding of the term inductively. Ancient Jewish monotheism was a distinctive version of the ancient 'high god' pattern. The distinctives were in beliefs and practice. The key distinctive beliefs were (1) the high god is known and is the God of Israel, (2) this God presides over a heavenly host of other heavenly beings but is distinguished from them as creator of all and as ruler of all. In addition, and most importantly, there was a distinction in religious practice: This God is to be worshipped exclusively. First-century Jewish monotheism was, thus, an exclusivist, monarchical view of God, manifested particularly in 'orthopraxy' in cultic/liturgical matters.