Temple Images Research Articles

The status of the Jewish temple in modern Hebrew literature (1848–1948): A big-data analysis

Abstract Since its final destruction in antiquity, the memory of the temple in Jerusalem has served as the nexus of Jewish liturgy and messianic worldview. This article has sought to examine the ideological and cultural roles played by the image of the Jewish temple in the Hebrew literature of 1848–1948. Toward this end, I formulated a broad corpus comprised of homogeneous genres and authors, namely those which situate the temple as their main focus. The evidence arising from this corpus suggests that the conceptual role of the temple underwent no dramatic transformations; the temple in this literature, taken as a whole, is mostly indistinguishable from the historical, religious, and nationalistic symbol that featured in the Jewish tradition over nearly 2,000 years. The bulk of the present corpus places the temple in conceptual and historical contexts that are familiar and very similar to those of the historical temple in all its contexts, without removing it from the domains of Jewish nationalism or classical religiosity. These findings contravene my initial presupposition that the discourse of the temple had undergone a metamorphosis in the 19th and 20th centuries, the image of the temple had changed into an abstract symbol for world peace, moral perfection, and intellectual and scientific excellence.

THE CONCEPT OF THE “APPLE SAVIOR” IN THE NOVEL BY I. S. SHMELEV “THE SUMMER OF THE LORD”

The research study aims to reveal the ways in which the concept of “Apple Savior” is artistic embodiment in the novel by I. S. Shmelev “The Summer of the Lord.” The concept of “Apple Savior” is considered in the context of the writer’s value and semantic attitudes, which have undergone significant changes compared to his pre-Revolution creative period. In the author’s artistic consciousness, the image of the garden appears as the metaphorical source and beginning of human life. The narrative structure of the chapter is two-dimensional: it contains the discourse of the child hero and the mature narrator. Within the framework of children’s worldview, the image of the garden is inseparable from the image of the family house, the categories of love, beauty and God’s grace. The image of the garden is connected with the idea of Moscow as a garden and Holy Russia as a garden. In the novel “The Summer of the Lord” there is a generalized image — a symbol of the world transformed by God’s presence and the power of the author’s grateful love. The theme of transfiguration closely approaches the motifs of return and memories, which acquire a pronounced nostalgic tinge and lyrical tonality. The images of temples, the city of Moscow and Russia are associated with the motifs of transfiguration, sacralisation, spirituality, deification and eternity. In recreating the concept of the “Apple Savior” by I. S. Shmelev, the artistic method of “spiritual realism” fully manifested itself. The chronotope of the real world in the novel “The Summer of the Lord” appears in close connection with the existential sphere, is comprehended by God’s world. The theme of memory and grateful love establishes the discourse of a mature narrator. The world of childhood and Homeland is recognized as a lost biblical paradise, and becomes the subject of persistent thoughts and reflections of the author.

Chloe T. Sun. Conspicuous in His Absence: Studies in the Song of Songs and Esther

Chloe T. Sun. <i>Conspicuous in His Absence: Studies in the Song of Songs and Esther</i>

Digitalization of Hindu Temples in India in Google Cloud and SerpAPI Automation in Python

The study on scraping the Google Search Engine via the SerpAPI and automatically generating a dataset of the temple name, location of the temple, temple description, the state of India, longitude and latitude coordinates, and distance from the major cities in India is demonstrated. The workload orchestration is controlled by Google Composer in Apache Airflow. Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) categorizes applications into microservices under each container. The docker image is created in the GKE control plane, API scheduler segments the granular levels of microservices in the DevOps operation of GitHub, Jenkins. YAML provides the configuration of the pod, of GKE carrying multiple containers, of the main type of input for Kubernetes configurations. Python application creates the YAML for GKE configuration data to define the Kubernetes object and the business rule. The Google native artificial intelligence VertexAPI picks the keyword of the temple name and the location of every state in India. The SerpAPI application digitized the Hindu temples in India for the complete project life cycle for requirement gathering, design, development, and deployment in Google Cloud. The search parameters are designed for Google Search Engine for the collection of historians, and architectural details of the Hindu temples in India. The Google Search application uses the Google Compute Engine, Big Query, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Composer, and big data services of Data Fusion, Dataproc, and Dataflow. The solution uses Google cloud services of Web Hosting, Load balancing, Google Storage, and the compute engine performance tuning in Big Query optimization. The Google search results are in JSON format of every state in temple details and a python application parses the facts on the Search API algorithm. The temple images are visualized in Python Application and integrated for the data visualization of Google inbuilt Google Studio.

Unusual Sculptures of Buddhist Deities in Japan in the Halo of Legends and Historical Facts

Diverse, unusual images of Buddhist deities are ubiquitous in Japan. In a number of ways, they differ from traditional temple images, demonstrating a deviation from the canon, which dictates certain, centuries-old norms and rules regarding postures, position of feet, fingers, gestures, symbols. Simplification of expressive means, a stylized image become the predominant features in the image of extraordinary images. The appearance of unusual Buddhist sculptures in the plastic field of the country is often associated with the existence of legends, traditions, and also facts that took place throughout the history of Japan among the population. The iconography of unusual Buddhas is very diverse and encompasses both the Buddhas themselves and the bodhisattvas, Kings of Light, Heavenly Kings, and so on. Six-armed Jizō, Rope-tied Jizō, Yata Jizō, Child-giving Jizō are added to the familiar images of the Bodhisattva Jizō. Amida Buddha, who is habitually portrayed as sitting frontally, appears in a new form – standing and in profile or with his head bowed. A very colourful group is represented by deities sitting on zoomorphic thrones – lions, elephants, riding birds – knocked out of the canonical image. The traditional images of the Eleven-headed, Thousand-armed Bodhisattva Kannon always seemed unusual, although they became familiar. However, placing the bodhisattva on a mount bird – a four-legged, eight-headed raven gives reason to consider this sculpture unusual. In unusual sculptures, there is a deviation from the norm, an abstraction from the traditional image. Aesthetic ideals are not realized through a complex of canons, rather through a new figurative language, not yet fixed by tradition.

Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek (review)

Reviewed by: Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek Fredrick Douglass Dixon Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek, eds. Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century. Ohio State UP, 2020. 264p. Feminist Stand-Point theory continues to gain acceptance in academic circles amidst a burgeoning scholarly movement dedicated to the demands for inclusivity in higher education. This theory is mainly used to analyze inter-subjective discourse. The overarching premise centers on the thought that knowledge is socially situated, and the most marginalized voices are valuable locales of knowledge production. Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century parallels the Stand-Point theory in that it solicits the writings of one the most marginalized populations, black science fiction writers, to define and explain Afrofuturism through a critical black lens. Editors Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek employ a diverse assemblage of black science fiction writers to provide critical analysis of the systematic layered nuances of racism in the genre of Science Fiction (SF). They contend that: “This anthology is designed to introduce readers to Afrofuturism as an aesthetic practice that enables artists to communicate the experience of science, technology, and race across centuries, continents, and cultures” (1). Literary Afrofuturism offers two fundamental objectives: first, a means to widen the current scope of SF actors, accomplices, and allies; and second, a scathing examination of the historical marginalization of black authors’ ideas and accomplishments in SF. To define one’s identity remains a prerequisite for self-determination. Afrofuturism symbolizes the on-ramp for black authors to “reboot the black identity, challenge white supremacy, and imagine a range of futures in full color” (1). Wrought with an imaginative and exacting posture, Literary Afrofuturism takes on the task of re-defining Afrofuturism that challenges its mainstream definition and origin. Many SF consumers and critiques credit Mark Dey, a white cultural critic, with coining the term Afrofuturism in the early 1990s. According to Dey, “Afrofuturism is a process of signification that appropriates images of technology and the prosthetically-enhanced [End Page 121] future to address the concerns people of color face in contemporary culture” (3). This definition stands as the fundamental pillar of how a significant portion of white artists identify with Afrofuturism. The editors remind readers that a ubiquitous phobia exists within the industry’s central zone of power that believes black writers will ruin SF’s enjoyment by critically examining pressing social justice issues. This anthology underlines how Afrofuturism can become a remedy to disrupt the dominant narrative by embracing a more balanced and inclusive focus on black humanity when defined by progressive black artists. Literary Afrofuturism explores distressing concepts of white privilege in SF by taking readers on a comprehensive excursion by black SF writers who make empirical arguments about the lack of depth and veracity concerning Afrofuturism’s definition. From a medley of skillfully written narratives by prominent SF writers, a core group of notable themes emerges: (1) the current definition marginalizes the diverse paradigms, theories, and talents of black SF artists; (2) it is a filter that systematically excludes individuality; and (3) it does not possess the propensity to liberate the dominant pop-culture consciousness from its racist nature. Minister Faust provides an analysis that uncovers the lack of pragmatic utility of the term Afrofuturism, “much of Africentric fantasy is set in the past or the present, not in the future, which makes the term Afrofuturism a failure from the start” (27). Nisi Shawal finds the term a convenient marketing tool, while Nick Wood deems it a conceptual umbrella that encompasses the “African diaspora in North America” (28). Although Afrofuturism finds considerable public criticism from black SF practitioners, it directly holds value for black authors. It widens the customary roster of contributors by giving palpable agency to women writers. Andrea Hariston and others now wear the title “Dangerous Muses” due to their devotion to adding an all-important aesthetic lens that eradicates the traditional boundaries assigned to women SF authors. “They are dangerous to the status quo, destroying the old temple images of the golden past, and are stealthily building the world anew in their own remarkable image” (36). The thread that links the...

Ethnobotany of Hawaiian figure sculpture

Anecdotal theories about traditional uses of Polynesian woods in relation to social and religious practices were tested using comparative wood identification. The woods used to make 135 figure carvings from the Hawaiian archipelago were identified and compared with 23 figure carvings from elsewhere in Polynesia (especially Tahiti and the Marquesas). Prior to this study, the majority of Hawaiian images were believed to have been made from wood of Metrosideros polymorpha, the commonest forest tree on the archipelago. The results confirm that Metrosideros was relatively popular in Hawaii (13% of Hawaiian carvings, compared with 4% in central and south-eastern Polynesia). However, more unexpectedly, over 18 different genera were utilized for figure carvings in Hawaii. The genus Cordia accounted for 20% of Hawaiian figure carvings identified here, compared with 26% elsewhere in Polynesia, and Thespesia for 4%, compared with 30% in Marquesas. Use of some woods, such as species of Acacia, was not previously recorded for this purpose, including the first record of Artocarpus wood for large Hawaiian temple images. Many species—especially those that were less popular for ritual figure carving—were also used for various other purposes, including food, canoe building and medicines. This study demonstrates that the early Polynesian settlers brought with them traditions of using certain trees, but also took advantage of elements of the extensive indigenous flora.

Continuity of Traditions in the Theotokos Shroud Images Creation: From Royal Craftwork Rooms — to Modern Russian Workshops

In modern practices of Russian Orthodoxy, the feast of the Virgin Mary Dormition is so­lemnized with great splendor. During these celebrations in large and small religious centers, a liturgical image, in the Russian Orthodox Church called “The Theotokos Holy Shroud”, becomes the central temple image. This article, for the first time, makes an attempt to track down a continuity in the Dormition Shroud images creation — from royal craftwork rooms of medieval Russia to modern workshops. Learning on previous masterpieces, present-day apprentices contribute to preservation and deve­lopment of the unique traditions of national culture. The article introduces into scientific circulation a number of rare artifacts that become a subject of research for the first time. The study provides facts refuting the nowadays-widespread opinions that, in the alleged absence of material evidence (preserved monuments) of an earlier time, the period in which these images originated dates back to the late 19th century. This determines the relevance of the study. The author comes to the conclusion that, however brief and undescriptive the data recorded in documentary sources are, they make it clear that these relics already existed in the late Middle Ages, though questions of authorship and artistic value of the works still remain to be answered. This analysis becomes possible through studying the Synodal era images discovered in vestiaries of churches in the Moscow region, as well as those reported in some historical descriptions. Modern masters recreate works of high artistic le­vel, applying a combination of the ancient heritage and the modern variety of materials and innovative technologies. The data presented in the article contribute to further studying of the issues embra­cing emergence and spread of the liturgical images of the Theotokos Shroud in the practices of Russian Orthodoxy. It is also important to trace back the historical background of those selected artifacts first mentioned in this paper.

Bede's Temple: An Image and Its Interpretation by Conor O'Brien

Reviewed by: Bede's Temple: An Image and Its Interpretationby Conor O'Brien Dana M. Polanichka Bede's Temple: An Image and Its Interpretation. By Conor O'Brien. [ Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. xx, 242. $100.00. ISBN 978–0–19–874708–6.) In Bede's Temple, Conor O'Brien presents an "extensive tour of Bede's thinking on the temple" (p. 5). He tackles the entirety of Bede's exegesis on that iconic structure, not only his main trilogy— On the Tabernacle, On the Temple, and On Ezra and Nehemiah—but also all other Bedan works referencing the temple. Moreover, O'Brien engages with contemporary, comparative representations of the temple image, namely, those in the Codex Amiatinus, adding visual components to his largely textual study. This monograph is well written and easy to read, engaging as subtly with complex primary texts as with the broad historiographical field. It offers a much-needed and successful exploration of Bede's interpretation of the temple that breathes life and color into these early medieval exegetical works. After three black-and-white figures from the Codex Amiatinus, Bede's Templeopens with a helpful "Possible Chronology of Bede's works" (pp. xix–xx). O'Brien then evenly divides the monograph into eight chapters. The first serves as an introduction in which he explains the term dominating his study—the temple image. Where templealone would narrowly refer only to the physical building, temple image"combine[s] the static architecture of the temple with the dynamic ritual of its priests, thus allowing Bede to speak about both the eternal reality of the Church and the living experience of its members through a single divinely sanctioned image" (p. 5). Rounding out his introduction, O'Brien offers a concise literature review and a sweeping, though brief, historical overview of Bede's world. The second chapter then explores the intellectual context of Bede's vision of the temple, including both resources available at his monastery and the Christian exegetical tradition. Chapters three through seven are the heart of the book. They embrace a thematic organization that moves through Bede's many interpretations and fully lays out O'Brien's central argument "that Bede's temple is a multifaceted image which, nonetheless, teaches us much about the structure of Bede's thought" (p. 6). Here one shifts in scale, from Bede's largest interpretations of the temple as history (chap. 3) and cosmos (chap. 4), to his middle-level vision of the temple as body of Christ (chap. 5) and as Church (chap. 6), and finally narrowing to his understanding of the temple as individual (chap. 7). At one end, the temple image provided the keystone for Bede's sweeping vision of history, connecting Old Testament and New; linking Jewish past and Christian present; and representing "a harmonious vision of salvation history" (p. 72). At the other end, the temple image represents the individual soul, just as it referred to the entire Church. Together these chapters drive home O'Brien's argument for "the consistent importance of unity to Bede's world view and the theological importance of Christ as the guarantor and enabler of that unity" (p. 7). However Bede interpreted it, the temple image served to unify disparate entities—Jew and Christian, earth and heaven, God and man. [End Page 564] O'Brien's eighth and final chapter serves as a conclusion. First, he undertakes a diachronic approach to Bede's writing, and then he discusses Bede within the context of his monastery. Here O'Brien can return to the final portion of his argument, that while Bede's thinking on the temple reveals much about the individual, it also speaks to more than this one exceptional man's ideas. Placing Bede at Wear-mouth-Jarrow, O'Brien demonstrates how Bede's temple emerged out of both a significant Christian tradition and his particular historical context, that is, the intellectual environment at his monastery. This concise and focused monograph thus forcefully illuminates not only Bede's thinking on the temple image, but also the man himself as well as monastic life and theological writing in the eighth century...

Seeing is believing: miniature and gigantic architectural models of second temple

ABSTRACTMiniature architectural models are often used as signs or markers, which frame a touristic site as a place worth visiting. In this paper I explore the relations of such models to the ‘real’ sites, as well as to other copies and representations. The article examines the Holyland Model, a miniature model showing Jerusalem in the year 66 AD, which has become a tourist site in its own right. The central building in this model is the miniature Jewish Temple, which was later replicated in both miniature and gigantic copies. I follow the transformation of this Temple image, from a secular-cultural symbol of Israeli national identity to a represention of different Orthodox Jewish and Christian evangelical agendas. I argue that the large-scale buildings in fact replicate the miniature models, inverting both sign relation and scale relation between original and copy. The use and manipulation of the image of a building, produced initially at the Holyland Model, has become an essential device for the production of meaning and affect.

부여 대조사 석조미륵보살입상 연구

The Stone Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya of Daejosa Temple, Buyeo is a symbolic Buddhist statue representing the gigantic stone images of Goryeo Dynasty(918-1392), along with the neighbouring Stone Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya of Gwanchoksa Temple, Nonsan. In addition to the newly discovered contents through a series of surveys, this paper intends to analyze the forms and images closely and to clarify the time, the background, and the significance of the Daejosa Temple image.BR It is impossible to trace the history of the Daejosa Temple image and the period of its erection based on existing written sources alone. However, it is possible to assume that the Daejosa Temple image was built later than at the same time as the foundation of the temple. The statue is said to be renovated in the latter half of the 13th century, by a monk of Muryangsa Temple called Jinjeon Jangno. The existing Buddhist eyes appear to have been inserted in the period from the end of the 13th century to the beginning of the 15th century, and the repair work of iron ornaments is thought to be done in the Joseon Dynasty. However, the situation of the temple seems to be rapidly fallen around the mid-18th century, before being renovated to the present scale in the Japanese occupation period as part of the revival of Buyeo area.BR The Daejosa Temple image is often referred to only as a statue of the local style established in the same period as the Gwanchoksa Temple image. It is true that the two statues have a significant similarity: the huge size, the cylindrical Bodhisattva crown, the double-layered chattra and the wearing of samghati. However, there is no detailed discussion of the stylistic difference between the Daejosa Temple image and the Gwanchoksa Temple image. The detailed expressions of the former, such as the hair flowing down on the shoulders, the elaborate ornaments on the chest, the pins attached to the Bodhisattva crown, and the samghati variation that covers left shoulder, do not appear in the latter. All these distinctions can be seen in the Buddhist art of Northern Song, Liao, and Late Goryeo. Thus, the Daejosa Temple image is the result of selecting and combining different stylistic features in various periods and regions.BR The Daejosa Temple image and the Gwanchoksa Temple image share a common iconography rather than a style. The iconography of the Gwanchoksa Temple image seems to the visualization of Maitreya receiving the samghati of the Buddha, which is depicted in Foshuo mile dachengfo jing (hereafter the Chengfo jing ). Meanwhile, the Daejosa Temple image is produced upon the same body ratio of the Maitreya, which is mentioned in the Chengfo jing ; it can be said that the statue is also built referring to the sutra. With the rapid growth of the Beopsang order as a major denomination in Goryeo as well as the establishment of several outdoor Buddhist memorials related to the Maitreya, the demand for the gigantic Maitreya statue was brought to the formation of another Maitreya Bodhisattva in the vicinity of Gwanchoksa Temple.BR As a result, the Daejosa Temple image seems to have been created after the late 11th century when Buddhist interchange with Liao dynasty is activated, compared to the Gwanchoksa Temple image created from the end of the 10th century to the beginning of the 11th century. The Daejosa Temple image shows the primitive form of the Buddhist sculpture appearing in the Late Goryeo Buddhist statue. It has been proven as the samghati variation that covers left shoulder became the typical style of the late Goryeo Buddhist statue, including the Wooden Seated Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara of Bhagwangsa Temple, Andong.

The Theory of the Soul

If human being came to the belief that living after death is nothing but an illusion or superstition, would it not ruin part of his or her life? The Great Tiding i.e. the verity of the Resurrection, which is announced in Quran, was not an already unknown belief among other religions. Zoroastrianism and other pre-Islamic religions had announced the facticity of Judgment Day and the belief in reckoning and in Paradise and the Hell was held on to during ancient times. But a subject that had not been mentioned in pre-Islamic religions, was Islam's new theory regarding the idea of spirit. During the history of civilization of various societies, human being has tried to embody his beliefs in the life after death. By incorporating the idea of the existence of spirit into the daily life of the living people and by representing it in ancient carvings, in practicing religious ceremonies, in coronation, in victory or in the images of temples and tombs, man registered his belief for the future generation. The contemporary human being also represents his impression of the life after death via art and technology. Making movies with scenarios about ghosts and phantoms and showing the presence and influence of spirits in the life of the living people are all signs of ancient beliefs. Formulating the theory of the soul is an attempt to discover the Quranic outlook on human being. The aforementioned theory is the expression of a truth which is found out via a new methodology named the method of Sending Down (Revelation).

Architectures of Fear and Spaces of Hope in Banaras

Identity of Banaras was once again back in the limelight with the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) Prime Ministerial candidate Mr. Narendra Modi choosing to represent the city. Known also as Kashi and Varanasi, Banaras indeed played a strategic role in representing the politics the incumbent party believed in. With the overwhelming majority to Modi, the city of Banaras is further idealized as an archetypal city of the Brahminical Hinduism with the spectacular images of temples and ghats that remain teeming with Pandas and devotees. This particular Hindu identity of the city has been constructed through the selective images over time from the colonial period onwards in the 19th century. Identity formation, whether of a community or a city, social or symbolic is spatially situated process and spatial centrality is important in understanding the identity of a city in general and Banaras in particular. We in this paper argue that how in case of Banaras some spaces were mobilized and centralized to create this hindutva identity. In this representational mobilization of identity, the city of Banaras represents a spectacular space removed from its own spatiality. Proclaimed space of Banaras seems not to be a product of social practices rather it is symbolic spaces generated through the trajectories of ideologies of certain groups. This process of formation of identity is not a radical departure, rather it as a culmination of re-emerging Hindu nationalist movement during 19th and 20th century. In this paper, we bring forth the celebration of Ravidas Jyanti as the performance of possibilities and we try to identity the spaces of hope amidst the overarching outcry. Thinking through the categories of space and performance and their interpolations in Banaras, this article attempts to reconfigure the identity of this city beyond the Hindu right-wing rhetoric and pretension.

After the Event: Video and Its Potential for Uncovering Information

This article is based on research among potters in Tamilnadu, south India, who make and enliven clay images of gods for worship in Hindu temples. It explores the ways in which the showing of a DVD of a ritual event to participants at one such temple image consecration opened up new understandings and new lines of enquiry for the author. Key among these is the way in which the craftsman both cuts himself out of a project when his work is done while nevertheless seeking to keep open channels for new projects. This in turn reveals the way in which craftsmen work with and understand competition from other kinds of expert with different skills and competencies. I suggest that controversies that may not be visible during a ritual event may reveal themselves at other moments when people are engaging with visual depictions of such events and retrospectively comment on them or describe choices they have made after the event.

From the World’s Fair to Disneyland: Pavilions as Temples

From the World’s Fair to Disneyland: Pavilions as Temples

Temple, Community, and Sacred Narrative in the Dura-Europos Synagogue

The painted decoration in the Dura-Europos synagogue (Syria, 244–245 CE) is the most extensive surviving example of Jewish pictorial narrative in the ancient world. In its final stage, the decoration consisted of three bands of narrative panels that surrounded all four walls of the synagogue's assembly hall and led up to the Torah shrine at the center of the west wall (Figure 1). Imagery related to the Jerusalem Temple, including a symbolic image of the Temple on the Torah shrine, made up a significant part of the decoration of the Dura synagogue. There is, however, considerable scholarly disagreement as to how this imagery should be interpreted, particularly as part of a “programmatic” structure. Because the Temple image on the Torah shrine was positioned at the liturgical focal point of the synagogue and was created before the other surrounding narrative panels, the function of this image is a key component of the synagogue's decoration as a whole. Two contextualizing factors would have informed the function and meaning of the image: the reception of the image as part of the liturgical activity carried out by the congregation, and the place of the image as the conclusion to the middle level of surrounding narrative panels that depicted the journey of the Ark of the Covenant from Sinai to Zion. This narrative helped to situate the members of the congregation in relation to the Temple image, defining the community's active role as a part of the narrative itself.

Beautiful and efficacious statues: magic, commodities, agency and the production of sacred objects in popular religion in vietnam

ABSTRACTIn his provocative rethink of the anthropology of art, Alfred Gell offers the radical suggestion that people commonly abduct agency—acts of thought, will or intention—to things and suggests that the relationship between people and things be studied in the manner that anthropologists analyze other kinds of human relationships. In Gell's terms, the relationship between people and temple images, as sacred objects, follows the “the rules laid down for idols as co-present others.” We will explore how one such a relationship fares in the accelerated market economy of Vietnam where workshops have rationalized the production of “idols,” wooden temple statues, making them more like commodities and where a global market in Asian antiquities encourages theft. Tim Ingold critiques studies of “agency” and “materiality” for too often ignoring the tangible materials and methods of production, but we suggest that in the marketplace for sacred objects, attention to both object agency and artisanal process can be mutually enriching. To do this, we first describe how popular religion in Vietnam renders statues as animated, sacred and agentive and how devotees experience and describe statue agency in and through their own relationships with divine images. We then show how production methods are implicated in the creation of agentive images and consider how these understandings and processes have and have not been compromised since the opening and acceleration of the market from the late 1980s. We argue that a sophisticated market permits a hierarchy of value and a range of consumer choice in the production and consumption of sacred objects.

Juan Bautista Villalpando and the Nature and Science of Architectural Drawing

In 1604, Jesuit priest and architect Juan Bautista Villalpando published In Ezechielem Explanationes, a massive three-volume scriptural exegesis on the Book of Ezekiel. Volume Two was dedicated to the reconstruction of Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple of Solomon and consists of five books: on the prophecy on the Temple; its plan and reconstruction; the justification of the reconstruction; its bronzes and ornamentation, and an entire book on the nature and science of architectural drawing. Initially the latter appears out of place in a Scriptural exegesis but he explained that the purpose of this book was to provide a guide for theologians so that they can form a mental idea or image of Temple, for their understanding and enlightenment of the entire Temple. However, throughout the text he points to the utility of the book to architects. For Villalpando the laws of optics were essential to the norms of perspective. Moreover, the sense and structure of seeing was a crucial element to the norms of mathematic and architecture, it is also a central theme in his theology. This paper examines his theory and his proposal of perspective for architecture drawing.

Households of Faith (Jn 4:46–54; 11:1–44): A Metaphor for the Johannine Community

This article proposes that the image of “the household of God” provides the best metaphor of the Johannine community. Within the text itself we are able to see traces of this community in the issues confronting the households at Capernaum and Bethany. The article draws on a previous study of the Temple as the “House of God” and the transferral of this image to the community as the “Household” of God. Where the image of Temple is applied to Jesus in the Gospel narrative, the community is reflected in the different households of faith.

The glorious Kiev shrine - the miraculous icon of Mykola Mokrogo and its place in the East Slavic culture

The glorious Sophia image of Nikolai Mokrogo, now completely forgotten, was the oldest national shrine and one of the first miraculous icons of Kievan Rus known to us. The name of the icon is associated with the "Miracle of the Infant in Kiev", which dates from the researchers no later than 1090. The legend tells about the marriage, which went to the pilgrimage to the relics of Boris and Gleb in Vyshgorod. They returned to Kyiv by the Dnipro in a boat. In the road, a tired woman was asleep and dropped into the water a baby, which immediately drowned. Parents of the child turned to despair in despair. Mykola "having a great faith in him", asking for help. Indeed, the next morning the child of a bud was found undisturbed on the outside of the chambers of Sophia of Kiev: "... the child is lying wet in front of the image of St. Nikolai "[Leonid, Archimandrite. Life and miracles of St. Nikolai Mirlykysky and praise him. Investigation of two monuments of ancient Russian writing of the XI century. - St. Petersburg, 1881. - P. 90.] The icon of the saint, under which was found miraculously saved sv. Nicholas is a child in wet diapers, nicknamed Nikolay Mokrogo. For centuries it was located on the choirs of the St. Sophia Cathedral in the iconostasis of the Mykolaiv altar, on the right of the royal gates, occupying the place of the temple image