Abstract Commentators on John 11:45–53 have understood John’s account of Caiaphas’s unintended prophecy within a strictly Jewish context. Either it is claimed that prophetic power was understood as fundamentally tied to the Jewish priesthood, or it is compared to similar instances of prophecy discussed in rabbinic tradition. In this article, the author shows the inadequacy of these attempts at providing a meaningful context for Caiaphas’s prophecy and argues instead that Greek κληδόνες and Roman omina offer the most strikingly comparable material. The author concludes by suggesting that the influence of Greek culture occasioned a development to the Jewish and Christian concept of prophecy.

The practice of members of various sections of society using coats of arms is recorded in most regions of Europe in the late Middle Ages, including in the east, in the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Written and visual sources, and especially sphragistic works, allow us to trace the gradual rooting of the heraldic tradition in the Lithuanian state, both among the upper echelons of society and among semi-privileged groups, in the second half of the 14th and the 15th century, with a particularly significant growth in the 16th century. Among the inhabitants of the Grand Duchy with semi-privileged status, a special place was occupied by Lithuanian Jews, whose communities existed in various cities in the state. They were especially numerous in the Lithuanian lands (the Vilnius and Trakai voivodeships), and in Volyn and Podlasie. In terms of their legal status, Lithuanian Jews were close to the urban population of communities that applied self-government based on Magdeburg Law. In the event of conversion to Christianity, people from a Jewish background could receive ennoblement, which meant being elevated to the nobility, to which they were accepted by members of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian nobility, and along with that they received the right to use noble coats of arms. This is why the coats of arms of neophyte Jews are mostly unrelated to Jewish heraldry itself. Purely Jewish heraldic practices are instead presented on monuments associated with people who followed the Old Law. First of all, we are talking about the impressions of heraldic seals, with which Lithuanian Jews certified various private acts in the 16th to the mid-17th century. The heraldic nature of the images on contemporary Jewish seals is indicated by the content of the relevant documents, which interpret these iconographic features precisely as coats of arms. Most of them are reproduced in heraldic shields on the corresponding sphragis. Among the various subjects present on sphragistic works, the most numerous are depictions of religious symbols indicating the ethno-confessional affiliation of the respective person. A special place among them is occupied by the figure of a six-point star, one of the most important signs of the Jewish community at that time throughout Europe. A subject which indicated not only the ethno-confessional affiliation but also the origins of the owner of the seal was the depiction of two hands. It reproduced the gesture of blessing by Jewish priests, the cohens, which is called the ‘raising of the hands’. Depictions of various heraldic figures, animals, plants, household items and weapons were common in the heraldry of Lithuanian Jews. They are also abundantly present in the family heraldry of the nobility and burghers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The most obvious evidence of the influence of local heraldic traditions on the heraldry of Lithuanian Jews was their use in their coats of arms of iconic figures, which formed the basis of Lithuanian-Ruthenian heraldry from the second half of the 14th to the 18th century.

The phenomenon of commercialization of Islam has apparently occurred since the beginning of Islamic civilization, where the Qur’an, hadith and sharia law were exploited by individuals who justified any means to achieve their goals, namely worldly gain. This study is to answer the questions: (1) What are the verses in the Qur’an that explain the prohibition of commercialization of religion?, (2) How do the interpreters interpret the verses that prohibit commercialization of religion?, (3) What are the forms of commercialization of Islam throughout the exploration of the verses of the Qur’an?, (4) How is the relevance of the phenomenon of commercialization of religion to the lives of today’s people?. Several of these problems are discussed through library research with the maudhui interpretation method approach. The data sources in this study are the Qur’an as the primary source and interpretation books. All data are analyzed using a descriptive analysis approach. The results that the researchers found showed that there are nine verses in the Qur’an that seriously discuss the prohibition of commercialization of religion in the keyword tsamanan qoliilaa, be it changing, selling, exchanging the verses of Allah, false oaths, manipulating the truth and misleading the people. These actions will receive the same punishment as the Children of Israel and the Jewish priests, namely severe torture, humiliation and swallowing the embers of hellfire. Currently, this behavior can be carried out by ordinary people, money politics, manipulative influencers, businessmen who label sharia, academics and su’ scholars.

Abstract This is a review essay of Fernando Bermejo-Rubio’s book, They Suffered under Pontius Pilate: Jewish Anti-Roman Resistance (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2023). The starting point for the book is the crucifixion of Jesus at Golgotha with him at the center and two bandits crucified on both sides of him. Since crucifixion was the Roman punishment for rebellion, Bermejo-Rubio conjectures that Jesus was the leader of a rebellion and that he must have had some connection with the two bandits. Bermejo-Rubio does this to counteract the predominant narrative in the Gospels that it was the priests, elders, and the scribes who were responsible for Jesus’ execution, in other words, that the Jews killed Jesus. This article argues that Bermejo-Rubio absolves the responsibility of the Jewish priest class and that it was most likely both them and the Romans who were responsible for Jesus’ death.

ABSTRACT Ignaz Maybaum, a leading Reform rabbi and theologian, made significant contributions to Holocaust theology. After fleeing to Britain following Kristallnacht, his philosophy evolved through three stages: pre-WWII, early war years, and post-Holocaust. In *Man and Catastrophe* (1941), Maybaum rejected the notion of Jewish passivity, portraying Jews as moral agents awakening global conscience. He saw WWII as a Christian struggle against Hitler, with Jews playing a marginal yet vital role as bearers of divine truth, echoing Rosenzweig's concept of Jewish priesthood. Advocating Judeo-Christian fraternity, he supported Jewish cultural integration in Britain while maintaining distinct identity. He emphasized acculturation over assimilation, warning that losing Jewish uniqueness would harm global spirituality. Maybaum's thought during this period balanced integration with boundary preservation, highlighting Judaism's enduring role in world morality.

In response to Mahmoud Abu Rayyah's accusations against Ka'b al-Ahbār, this study attempts to address the claims that he was the ‘first Jewish’ in Islam, that deceit and hypocrisy led to his conversion to Islam, and that he was the first to support the Jewish people's movement in Jerusalem. This study uses qualitative methods with a type of literature analysis supplemented by analysis of content to analyze to understand Abu Rayyah's thoughts on his criticism of the relationship between Abu Hurairah and Ka'b al-ahbar. In this case the author also analyzes the criticism with the method of criticism of Abu Rayyah's thoughts. In response, the following was said: Regarding the Islamic conversion of al-Ahbār: There is universal agreement among historians regarding the validity of al-Ahbār’s conversion to Islam, having previously served as a Jewish priest. Ka'b was among the wisest Jews in his generation. He addressed Arabic with ease and had extensive knowledge of both the Prophet's Sunnah and the Holy Qur'an. As a result, Ka’b al-Ahbār 's conversion to Islam helped Muslims gain a thorough understanding of Judaism and played a significant role in converting Jews to Islam. Considering the connection between Abu Hurairah and Ka'b al-Ahbār, all historians concur that Abu Hurairah used to obtain numerous hadiths from al-Ahbār, who was one of his narrators. The Israeli hadiths and their attribution to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, were not transmitted to Abu Hurairah by al-Ahbār, albeit these claims are unsupported. The hadiths from Ka'b al-Ahbār were verified by other sources, according to evidence that Abu Hurairah once collected. On the authority of the Prophet, regarding the hadiths recounted by Abu Hurairah.

Abstract This paper argues that Nietzsche is deliberately imprecise in his characterization of what he calls the slave revolt in morality. In particular, none of the people or groups he nominates as instigators of the slave revolt, namely, Jewish priests, the Jewish people, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul, were literally slaves. Analysis of Nietzsche's texts, including his usage of the term “slaves,” and his sources concerning those he nominates as the instigators of the slave revolt, make clear that Nietzsche knew none of these were literally slaves. He calls it a slave revolt because he means that the propagators of that revolt preached what he takes to be the slavish values, including, humility, compassion, obedience, and lack of egoism. He uses the high loaded term “slave” both to disparage those values and, most importantly, to bring home to his readers the message that they, as inheritors of Judeo‐Christian values, actual adhere to and practice the debased slavish values preached, but not necessarily practiced, by the original instigators of the slave revolt. For Nietzsche, his readers are strangers to themselves, thus he notes “slavery is everywhere visible, although it does not call itself as such.”

The Rol of The Jewish Priesthood in the Wars of Ancient Israel

Cultural Encounter, Race, and a Humanist Ideology of Empire in the Art of Trecento Venice

This study discusses the story of Ashab al-Kahf in the book of Fadhâ’il al-Khamsah min al-Shihahi al-Sittah by As-Sayyid Murtadha Al-Huseiny Fairuzabadi in which there are interesting and intelligent dialogues between Ali bin Abi Talib and a Jewish priest. Ali bin Abi Talib was one of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions who was smart and very trusted. The story of Ashabul-Kahf contains many lessons and life’s wisdom for humans who consistently maintain their faith and stay away from the power oppressive center to their people. The formal object of this research is the story of Ashabul-Kahf which is very popular in Islamic society, both in the Arab world and outside the Arab world. The material object uses Fadhâ’il al-Khamsah min al-Shihahi al-Sittah Book. This study uses the naturalistic hermeneutic theory by Mantzavinos. The results showed that the actions of seven young men who fled to the cave due to they were being chased by the tyrannical King Dikyanus and they did not feel like sleeping in the cave for 309 years. This research reveals a series of material events since they fled from the kingdom and were chased by King Dikyanu’s army and finally they fell asleep in the cave for more than three centuries until they woke up from their long sleep and were again killed by God. Between one event material with others each other has a relationship of interrelated meaning. In this study, it is proven that the use of naturalistic hermeneutic theory can guide researchers in revealing the hidden actions meaning of the seven young men from the pursuit of King Dikyanus in the cave. The meaning revealed is that there is a causal relationship between the story of Ashabul-Kahf text and its readers (researchers). The story complexity in the story’s text is later explained through the nexus concept, which essentially looks for material that occurs in the historical reality area and expresses it through an exclusive causal relationship. Therefore, through this nexus, the problematic meaning of Ashabul-Kahf story can be revealed.

The modern Christianity that has been going on in the world for many centuries is not the initial Christianity that was brought by the Prophet Jesus (PBUH). Now it consisted on a pretended and mixed faith, which St. Paul's was invented for his popularity. In the life of Hazrat Eesa bin Maryam (PBUH), Paul was his staunch opponent and he had never met him. After Jesus was taken up to heaven, this man suddenly began to sing in sympathy and harmony, and began to show excessive devotion to Jesus. In order to spread his beliefs widely, Paul made a mixture of the fanatical beliefs of the Greeks, Christians and Sun-worshipers and declared it to be true Christianity. The fact is that after Jesus (PBUH) his twelve disciples began to spread the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) on the planet with great zeal, and with great speed people began to abandon the outdated traditions of Judaism and started to join Christianity. The Jewish priests of that time were disturbed to see that their glory was in danger because of Christianity. To prevent this, St. Paul from Judaism announced that he had converted from Judaism to Christianity. And he gains the sympathy of other disciples by telling the story of Jesus descent upon himself. And he engages in the preaching of Christianity and shows such zeal that, he pushes the rest of the disciples into the background and even proclaims Prophecy in the name of revelation. He severely persecuted the followers of Christ in the enmity of Jesus and even martyred some. As a Jew, he used to go to his synagogue, a place of worship. Gradually he stopped going to Sina Gag too. He told his Christian followers that one day, fourteen years after Jesus, he came to him in a dream and demanded that he renounce violence against his followers. Paul said that after that incident his world changed and he repented of all his oppression. This article will provide a critical overview of St. Paul's personality in the light of the Bible and his impact in the modern Christianity.

Abstract Although the Visions of Levi (so-called Aramaic Levi Document) is a Jewish priestly composition written in the second or third century BCE, the largest part of its text comes from the trove of Jewish medieval manuscripts found in the Genizah of the Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo. Among the Genizah scrolls housed at the University of Manchester Library, Gideon Bohak found a new fragment (P 1185) of the pseudepigraphic document dedicated to Levi and his life. The present study contains a new edition of P 1185, including its paleographic description, notes on the readings, comments and photographs of the manuscript.

The lid of an Anglo-Saxon burial found in St Mary the Virgin at Wirksworth (Derbyshire, England) displays scenes of the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary that reflect a hope for eternal salvation; many of these scenes have eastern models. Going beyond a quest for iconographic models, however, this study examines the scenes featuring the Virgin, particularly her Funeral and Assumption, in the context of interchanging ideas, beliefs, and artifacts between the eastern Mediterranean Basin, continental Western Europe, and Anglo-Saxon Britain in the seventh and eighth centuries. This conjunction resulted in a funerary monument on which the Virgin’s supernatural transition from earth to heaven was memorialised despite being underpinned only by current beliefs, rather than by Scripture or theology. Analysis of the scenes featuring the Virgin aims not only to contextualise them in the visual and religious cultures of the Mediterranean and beyond, but also - since they are the earliest in the West - to draw attention to their novelty. The connections with the eastern Mediterranean may also help to better define the stone’s chronology. Referring to the figure of the Jewish priest lying below the Virgin’s bier with hands “dried up” as a consequence of his sacrilege in attempting at overturn her body, the study contends that the scene of her Funeral is a vivid reminder that the mystery of her transition into heaven lies beyond human grasp and can only be apprehended through a mystical approach that transcends the senses.

Reviewed by: Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa by Noah Tamarkin Kimberly A. Arkin Noah Tamarkin, Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. 280 pp. Noah Tamarkin's Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa is a fascinating exploration of why and how the Lemba of South Africa became interested in and engaged with genetic studies of Jewishness. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lemba leaders—most particularly the entrepreneurial, unrecognized traditional Lemba leader Kgoshi Mpaketsane and members of the Lemba Cultural Association (LCA)—eagerly agreed to and facilitated testing of male elders. They also celebrated the results of these studies, which documented high incidences of the so-called "Cohen Modal Haplotype" on the Y chromosomes of Lemba test subjects. The high frequency of this haplotype, which got its name from its relative frequency in the genomes of men who claim descent from Cohanim, or the Jewish priestly class, offered a particularly useful kind of "proof" for many Lemba of what they had always already known: they were black Jews. Unlike much of the flourishing anthropological literature on DNA science, Tamarkin is not interested in what happens in genetics labs or in the ways that scientists involved in this kind of research (sometimes inadvertently) naturalize certain kinds of social categories. Instead, he traces out what he calls "genetic afterlives," by which he means the production and circulation of genetic knowledge that happens outside of laboratories and peer-reviewed journals. In particular, he asks how subjects of genetic research make sense of and produce their own stories with genetic research. He writes: [End Page 187] My contention is that there are multiple worlds in play in this kind of genetic research that are not necessarily shared among all actors, and if we focus on the knowledge politics of scientists exclusively, it is at the expense of other, less powerful actors who ultimately must continue to live with genetic ancestry's implications in ways that geneticists are not subjected to (25). And indeed, without attending to these "afterlives," the Lemba's voluntary participation in Jewish genetic research might look like support for the racializing logics behind long-standing European interest in Lemba as Jews. For late 19th and early 20th century colonial researchers who conflated race, place, and culture, Lemba Jewishness solved a particular kind of categorical problem: the existence of a Bantu population with "non-Bantu" cultural practices, including a refusal to eat pork, the practice of endogamy, and a commitment to early circumcision. Jewishness solved this problem by giving the Lemba "extra-African" origins. For late 20th and early 21st century scientists interested in "Jewish DNA," genetic ancestry testing has been a way to document not only the relatedness of (predominantly white) Jewish populations all over the globe, but also the difference between Jews and other "Semitic" populations, most notably Palestinians. Much like its antecedent in the colonial period, this project also seeks to solve a particular kind of problem by offering genetic "proof" of Jewish indigeneity in Israel, exile from Israel, and persistent, distinctive peoplehood in diaspora. But Mpaketsane and other members of the LCA firmly rejected the foundational premises of both of these projects. For many Lemba, genetic Jewishness is not a sign of non-Africanness. Instead, Tamarkin's interlocutors insisted in a whole range of ways that all Jews were originally African and that therefore they were the original Jews. As a result, many Lemba argued against the idea that they were a "lost" tribe with residual Jewish practices. They were also not a victimized population in need of being "rescued" and "returned" to an Israeli homeland. Nor did they need to stop being Christian in order to be Jewish. Furthermore, Lemba cultural leaders insisted that they had always known they were Jewish and had not needed a test to provide this information. So why, exactly, were they eager participants in this research? Tamarkin shows why through a masterful ethnographic exploration of the way scale and context matter in the production of genetic meaning. His first chapter attends to the apartheid history of Lemba engagement [End Page 188] with questions of Jewishness and ancestry. The second chapter...

The article focuses on one of the most painful experiences in intimate relationships and unveils a hitherto unexplored type of human right infringement, namely the right to establish a family in Israel, purported to be a democratic state. Thousands of couples are proscribed from marrying each other every year in Israel. This paper focuses on Jewish couples consisting of male Cohanim (descendants of Jewish priests) and female divorcées, as one among other types of forbidden marriages. Four themes emerged from data analysis of narratives of 26 interviewees, which converged to a common motif of liminality of Cohen-divorcée couples. Based on empirical data, I describe the predicament attendant to this human rights violation which is transmitted to offspring of these couples. The article argues that this liminality undermines the basic rationale of the prevailing millet (personal law) system and discusses the implications of this liminality for human rights and religion-state relations.

This article uses a feminist human rights approach and focusses on one of the most painful experiences in intimate relationships, unveiling a hitherto unexplored type of human rights infringement for divorced women, namely the right to establish a family in Israel, purported to be a democratic state. This phenomenon is based on religious marriage rules and prohibitions that include, inter alia, the classification of Jews into 10 hierarchical pedigrees, which are partially equivalent to Indian castes. Owing to this caste-like classification, thousands of couples are proscribed from marrying each other every year in Israel. This article focusses on couples that disobeyed the prohibitions on couples consisting of male Cohanim (descendants of Jewish priests) and divorced women, as one type of forbidden marriage. Four themes emerged from data analysis of narratives of 26 interviewees, which converge to a common motif of the liminality of Cohen-divorcee couples. The article argues that this liminality undermines the basic rationale of the prevailing millet (personal law) system and discusses the implications of this liminality for women’s human rights and religion-state relations.

The article calls international attention to the need to augment the right to marry, which is the focus of Article 23 of ICCPR. While the current content of Article 23 refers only to the positive right to marry, it fails to acknowledge an important negative right regarding marriage. Specifically, there are many cases divorced women who are proscribed from marrying their partners. As a case study, I use the forbidden marriage of a divorced woman and a Cohen (a descendant of Jewish Priests) in Israel. In order to illustrate the plight experienced by women who wish to marry their beloved spouses and are restricted by law, I provide an auto-ethnography and share my own experience as a formerly divorcée who was not allowed to marry a Cohen. I conclude with sociological and philosophical insights into marital transgressions and offer suggestions for future advancement of women's marital and familial human rights.

Julius A. Goldwater’s career as a Buddhist priest at the Los Angeles Hompa Hongwanji Temple, 1934–1945, serves as a vehicle for identifying pre-war orthodoxy and tolerance for universalism and measures the LAHH’s shift to ethnic orthodoxy after the Nikkei return from wartime incarceration. The article traces Goldwater’s path to conversion, his service as a priest at LAHH, his wartime stewardship of the temple, and the temple’s lawsuit against him in the resettlement period. The trial also brought out issues of temple leadership, race, doctrinal differences, and finances.

This article argues that Luke’s characterisation of Zechariah and the other ordinary priests in Acts 6:7 represents the most striking characterisation of the priesthood in the Gospels. This positive depiction, seen against the generally stereotypical image of chief priests in the Gospels, makes Zechariah’s image that of a model priest. Such characterisation demonstrates that despite Jewish hostility towards early Christianity, not all Jewish priests were against early Christianity. Through this, the article presents a fascinating and obscure dimension of the Jewish priesthood and, therefore, helps uncover the hidden voices in the gospels’ representation of Jewish priesthood.

This paper examines how Franciscan apologetics and polemics over the status of St. Francis and the Rule of 1223 created a climate of inquisitorial suspicion over prophecy and prophetic claims.