Messianic Beliefs Research Articles

The Schlemiel and the Messianic in Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark

Abstract The Jewish diaspora of the United States views the historical sequence of Holocaust, known more accurately as the Shoah, and creation of the State of Israel as connected in an apocalyptic-redemptive narrative typology. The Nazi regime murdered six million Jews, including one and one-half million children, based on racial hatred and seven million others deemed undesirable. In 1949, four years after the defeat of the Nazi regime and liberation from the camps, the State of Israel was admitted into the United Nations as its 59th member. The belief in messianic redemption during times of great suffering has been a part of Jewish history for millennia. The first important surviving manuscripts expressing messianic beliefs are the Dead Sea Scrolls (300-100 BCE). The Book of Daniel (200 BCE) predicts the coming of a Son of Man. Jewish messianic beliefs suggest that the messiah is an earthly human being who will change earthly history. However, core Jewish writings through the centuries resist messianic movements and messianic dreams. This latter tradition of resistance shows up as a critique of the messianic typology of Holocaust-to-State of Israel in two works of contemporary authors, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (2007) and Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark (2017). At the same time, Chabon and Krauss maintain a strong Jewish self-identity and recognize continuing hatred by white supremacists and other global anti-Semitic movements. The resulting novels use parody as a form of gentle critique, Chabon with a story of alternate history and Krauss with a braided strategy of parallel narratives.

Melancholic Redemption and the Hopelessness of Hope

Abstract Since late antiquity, a connection was made between Jews and the psychological state of despondency based, in part, on the link between melancholy and Saturn, and the further association of the Hebrew name of that planet, Shabbetai, and the Sabbath. The melancholic predisposition has had important anthropological, cosmological, and theological repercussions. In this essay, I focus on various perspectives on melancholia in thinkers as diverse as Kafka, Levinas, Blanchot, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, Bloch, Scholem, and Derrida. A common thread that links these thinkers is the hopelessness of hope imparted by the messianic belief in a future that must be perpetually deferred.

Putin's Invasion of Ukraine: What's Religion Got To Do With It?

Summary As of February 24, 2022, as Russian air strikes, missiles, and tanks began pouring into an outmatched Ukraine, the Byzantine calculus of symphonia, of a mutually interdependent church and state, devolved into an unholy alliance joining at the hip a predatory Putin and a sycophantic Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill. Especially over the past decade Patriarch Kyrill has tied the fate of his church to that of his patron Putin, the same tragic mistake made by the same church in its defense of tsarist Russia in its death throes. Since his accession in 2009, and emphatically since Russia’s moves against Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk in 2014, Patriarch Kyrill has sought to enshrine the principle of “Russky mir,” the “Russian World,” which he understands to mean the spiritual and ecclesial union of the Eastern Slavs. Following the demise of Marxism, Russian Orthodoxy emerged as a substitute state ideology, not only giving the Russian Republic a sacred purpose for its existence, but also energizing the dream of the reconstitution of the old Russian/Soviet empire. Presuming an East-West spiritual and moral divide, Putin increasingly sees all things Western, including Catholicism and Protestantism on Russian soil, as a threat to Russian Orthodoxy, which is one of the underpinnings of his regime. In close proximity to notions of the “Russian World” and Orthodox triumphalism is the attendant messianic belief that Patriarch Kyrill and Putin are the world’s last best hope for the preservation of traditional Christian family values, and this in the face of their obscenely lavish lifestyles and out-sized hubris Tragically, the Russian Orthodox Church, far from being a check on Putin’s war against Chechnya, anti-Assad forces in Syria, and now Ukraine, supports the Russian autocrat wholeheartedly. On March 6, 2022, Orthodoxy’s Forgiveness Sunday, in Moscow’s palatial Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Patriarch Kyrill outdid himself going so far as to equate Ukraine with the Prodigal Son. On February 28, 2022, Kyrill declared in vain that a guarantee of “fraternal relations” would be “our united Orthodox Church represented in Ukraine by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Onuphry.” Yet four days prior, on the very day the Russian invasion began, Metropolitan Onuphry had already boldly condemned Russian aggression. For the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in communion with Moscow a Russian war against Ukrainians is “a repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his own brother out of envy.” On

UGA SUNDANESE AHMADIYYA: LOCALITY OF MAHDIISM IN WEST JAVA

Studies on Ahmadiyah have been very extensive both in their focuses and approaches. However, few scholars consider local culture as an important means of the Ahmadiyya movement. This study focuses on the use of local culture in the form of uga in the Sundanese Ahmadiyya tradition. Uga is an oral tradition of ancestor mystical prophecy in Sunda on the coming of an important change in a situation of crisis. This is an ethnographic study of the Sundanese uga among Ahmadiyya followers in Kuningan, Tasikmalaya, and Bandung. The uga of Ahmadiyya is then analyzed using an interpretive approach. This study shows that there are at least six ugas of Ahmadiyya in Bandung, Garut, Singaparna, Tasikmalaya, Ciamis, and Manislor Kuningan. These ugas represent a symbolic meeting point between the expectations of Sundanese on the change of a situation with the messianic beliefs in Ahmadiyya. Ugas can shape the experience, identity and strengthen the roots of mystical ideology of Ahmadiyya in Sundanese people. Hereby, the case of ugaSundanese Ahmadiyya is a strategy of acculturation of local culture which added other categorization in the context of Ahmadiyya movement in various countries around the world.

The Mahdi and the Last Roman Emperor: An Enquiry into the Significance of Inter-religious Polemics

The apocalyptic expectations of the medieval Muslims and Christians culminated in the belief in the impending appearance of the messianic figures known as the Mahdi and the Last Roman Emperor. Due to the occurrence of certain parallels, the comparative study of the Islamic and Christian messianic convictions has been the subject of certain scholarly endeavours. The evolution of the characters of these messianic redeemers in the Muslim and Christian tradition has been attributed by previous scholarship to the inter-religious polemics. This argument sounds nevertheless fallacious in a number of respects. The present study strives to show that the messianic belief of a nation may at times owe more to its own socio-religious concerns than to religious polemics contra other confessional communities. This would entail adopting a more judicious approach to Muslim-Christian relations than the simplistic theory that tends to overstate the actual role of polemics.

Светская иммиграция из Греции в Россию в конце XVI – первой половине XVII вв.

The article is devoted to the issue of migration in Russia in the Early-modern time the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire and its vassal States. It presents the dynamics of migration, the analysis of its causes, revealed the social origins of immigrants, studied the place which they received in Russian society. Found that the Russian government was interested in migration. The Greeks always were readily accepted in Russia and received Russian citizenship. The Russian government was guided by several motives. In the first place, the government proceeded from the doctrine of Moscow as the III Rome. The concept was laid on the Russian Tsar functions of the Byzantine Emperor. After the fall of Byzantium the mission the only Orthodox sovereign ruler – Moscow Tsar, was the defense of Orthodoxy and the salvation of believers. Using Greek migration was implemented a complex of Messianic beliefs about Holy Russia. In addition, the migration was allowed to expand the Russian privileged class for the former nobility of Byzantium, as well as to replenish the ranks of specialists in military affairs. The motives of the resettlement of the Greeks themselves in the first place were religious. The threat of Islamization sounded like the main reason for their desire to stay in Russia. The authorities have always responded to such requests. As a result, Russia moved more than 200 people. The most intensive migration was purchased in periods of close diplomatic relations between the Russian and Greek parties: when adopting an Imperial title, the establishment of the Patriarchate and preparation for the Smolensk war (1632–1634), the Church ritual reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Social origins of immigrants have varied greatly. It was the inhabitants of the Danubian principalities, who were captured by the Tartars; the military rank of the Ottoman army, merchants, artisans, members of the families of the Turkish authorities, landowners, representatives of Byzantine aristocratic dynasties, the relatives of the higher Greek clergy. They all had the opportunity to obtain a recommendation letter of the patriarchs of the Christian East. This document was created by the possibility to obtain the rank of Moscow nobleman. In the period under review, more than two dozen immigrants entered the Czar’s court; seven of them have confirmed the title of Prince. About ten immigrants have become translators of the Diplomatic department. Other immigrants enrolled in the Department for Foreigners serviceman, where from 1630 to 1654 was a special military Greek company. From 1641 to 1672 in Moscow there was a Greek settlement. Greek colonies appeared even in Siberia, for example, in Tomsk. Greek immigrants have influenced the development of Russian society

The ‘Deconversion’ of Arthur Koestler: A Study in Cognitive Dissonance

This article examines how the journalist and novelist Arthur Koestler (1905–1983), Hungarian-born Jew and a convert to Communism, became disillusioned by his messianic beliefs and decided to exit, resigning from the party in 1938. In order to review Koestler’s narrative, based mostly on his autobiography, the research behind this article uses psychological theories on the consequences of prophetic failure and the influence of cognitive dissonance on disillusionment and the abandonment of a belief system. Reflecting on the biography of Koestler, the research can offer some understanding of circumstances that can push a prophetic believer to renounce his faith.

Autocratic diffusion and cooperation: the impact of interests vs. ideology

ABSTRACTThis introductory essay argues that patterns of diffusion and cooperation among non-democratic regimes differ significantly in goal, mode, impulse, and scope. Autocracies that are guided by a dynamic, missionary ideology, such as interwar fascism and, less fervently, the Bolivarianism of Hugo Chávez, actively promote their new credo in a wide range of countries. Moreover, these messianic belief systems stimulate diffusion processes across the globe. A wide range of political leaders take inspiration from these missionary ideologies and emulate their values and ideas to a greater or lesser extent. By contrast, most authoritarian regimes in the contemporary era lack an expansive ideology and are driven mostly by political interests. International diffusion and cooperation among these regimes reflects mainly the defensive goal of immunization against Western efforts at democracy promotion. To guarantee regime survival, authoritarian great powers in the post-Cold War world, such as Russia and China, concentrate on fortifying their regional sphere of influence. Thus, targeted, calculated collaboration and instrumental learning prevail.

The Double Death of Humanity in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

This article situates Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) within the tragic frame of post-apocalyptic narratives as they began to develop in the USA in response to the Bush administration’s messianic belief in 9/11 as a form of apocalyptic moment. Whereas the comic frame of the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic genres posits a catastrophe that could be prevented by human actions in the present, the tragic frame of the post-apocalyptic posits a situation in which the end of the world has provided no overarching meaning to human history. This leads to an intense focus on how individuals would survive, a minor eschatology that concentrates on the day-to-day struggle for life in a ruined world, in order to raise existentialist questions of why anyone would want to survive in a meaningless universe and what it means to be human when the civilization that structured our understanding of that term has passed away. However, the bleak pessimism of the narrative world and the disturbing suggestion that humanity has been wiped out not just as a species but as a moral quality is offset by McCarthy’s prose style, which encourages readers to reject nihilistic perspectives and accept the unlikely optimism that concludes the novel.

Socio-political Impacts of Messianic Beliefs on the Abu Muslim Revolution during the Umayyad Dynasty

Socio-political Impacts of Messianic Beliefs on the Abu Muslim Revolution during the Umayyad Dynasty

The Saint with Indra's Sword: Khruubaa Srivichai and Buddhist Millenarianism in Northern Thailand

AbstractDespite a growing literature revealing the presence of millenarian movements in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist societies, scholars have been remarkably reluctant to consider the role of messianic beliefs in Buddhist societies. Khruubaa Srivichai (1878–1938) is the most famous monk of northern Thailand and is widely revered as atonbun, or saint. Althoughtonbunhas been depoliticized in the modern context, the term also refers to a savior who is an incarnation of the coming Maitreya Buddha. In 1920 Srivichai was sent under arrest to the capital city of Bangkok to face eight charges. This essay focuses on the charge that he claimed to possess the god Indra's sword. Although this charge has been widely ignored, it was in fact a charge of treason. In this essay, I argue that the treason charge should be understood within the context of Buddhist millenarianism. I note the saint/savior tropes in Srivichai's mytho-biography, describe the prevalence of millenarianism in the region, and detail the political economy of the decade of the 1910s prior to Srivichai's detention. I present evidence to show that the decade was characterized by famine, dislocation, disease, and other disasters of both natural and social causes. Such hardships would have been consistent with apocalyptic omens in the Buddhist repertoire portending the advent of Maitreya. Understanding Srivichai in this millenarian context helps to explain both the hopes of the populace and the fears of the state during that tumultuous decade.

1855–1911

AbstractThis article explores one of the oldest controversies over Slavophile thought: the question of whether it is a form of liberalism or conservatism. The author reassesses understudied neo-Slavophile ideologists through the prism of the debates on the public sphere. The paper focuses on the popular journalist S. F. Sharapov (1855-1911) and his utopias. Sharapov and the plethora of the Slavophile intellectuals, such as N. P. Aksakov, A. A. Kireev, D. A. Khomiakov, I. F. Romanov, A. G. Shcherbatov, and A. V. Vasil'ev, worked out a project of autocracy based upon local self-government. Their project featured such elements of liberalism as humanism, freedom of conscience and the press, and toleration of the non-Russian and non-Orthodox subjects of the Empire. One of the central themes of the neo-Slavophile project was criticism of the bureaucratic imperial regime and offering proposals of comprehensive reforms. At the same time, neo-Slavophilism embraced anti-Semitism and a deep-rooted aversion to the West and Western political practices. The distinctiveness of the neo-Slavophiles consisted of the Messianic belief in Russia's uniqueness and ability to develop a 'truly liberal' political regime, in which rigorously observed Christian morality would be present alongside civil rights and freedoms. The paper argues that Slavophilism is not a repository of ready-made illiberal ideas, but a practice of social criticism, which comes up when attempts at political modernization in Russia are half-hearted or have failed.

Hayrettin Yücesoy, . Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century. Studies in Comparative Religion. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. xvi+212 pp. $39.95 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewHayrettin Yücesoy, . Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century. Studies in Comparative Religion. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. xvi+212 pp. $39.95 (cloth).Luke YarbroughLuke YarbroughPrinceton University. Search for more articles by this author Princeton University.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 90, Number 4October 2010 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/656657 Views: 12Total views on this site © 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Notion of “Chosen People” in Georgian Hagiography

For the study of religious factor’s influence on shaping a national identity during the medieval period Georgian hagiographic texts of 10th-11th c. are of special interest. We shall refer to three texts: the long version of the “Life of Hilarion the Georgian” by an anonymous author (10th-11th c.), the “Life of John and Euthymios” by George the Athonite (11th c.) and the “Life of George the Athonite” by George the Hieromonachos (11th c.). All of them contain information about Georgian messianic belief and they were composed outside Georgia. This is quite logical because such a belief needs special environment. The role of such an environment played the Georgian Monastery of Iviron on Mount Athos.

Lords of the Land: The War over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967–2007 (review)

Lords of the Land: The War over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar. New York: Nation Books, 2007. 531 pp. $29.95. Within days of the end of the fighting in 1967, the IDFs Intelligence Division surveyed the attitudes of the Palestinians in the territories. The report of the Mossad officers who carried this out, dated June 14, 1967, concluded that establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was the best way of ensuring Israeli security. The uncovering of this report provides the profound sense of missed opportunity that frames the basic question pursued by Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories. If the answer to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was already evident forty years ago, why has nothing changed? Why has Israel behaved irrationally with regard to the territories? Why have Israeli governments continued to divert many millions of shekels to the territories, even after the Oslo Accords and in the face of dire budget shortfalls at home? The answer, according to the historian Idith Zertal and the veteran journalist Akiva Eldar, is the political sophistication of the settler movement and the complicity of the state of Israel. Driven by the messianic belief that universal redemption and the survival of the Jewish people depended on settling the whole land of Israel, the settlement movement subordinated all other considerations - religious, legal, moral, and economic - to this goal. Lords of the Land provides detailed and repeated (if not quite systematic) examples of the single-minded devotion, willingness to use any means necessary (including violence and the threat of violence), and take-no-prisoners political tactics that enabled the settlers to manipulate the state into engaging in irrational (from the authors' perspective) policies. The book argues that, faced with feckless, confused, ambivalent, and short-sighted (if not openly supportive) politicians, bureaucrats, and generals, the settlers became not just king-makers, bur the lords of the land. On their own, the settlers' tremendous political power, willingness to engage in illegal operations, and cunning (if not quite kosher) ractics, would not have been enough to achieve their aims. At times they benefited from the open support of the state, especially when it was led by a right-wing government. They were also nurtured, however, by the complicity of the left, including that of venerated dovish icons and liberal bastions like the Supreme Court. This complicity extended beyond the provision of the infrastructure - land, roads, electricity, water, military protection, and budgets - that made life in the settlements possible in the first place. It includes the shockingly widespread failure to enforce the rule of law in the territories and a repeated pattet ? of putting the settlers, or their open sympathizers, in charge of the proverbial henhouse. At best. Lords of the Land shows that one hand of the Israeli state did not know what the other was doing. Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of the rabbis who made refusing an order to evacuate settlements a religious obligation even as they were (and remain) salaried employees of the state against which they urged mutiny. …

The New World Order: Messianic Rhetoric and Dreams of the Senior Bush Administration

George Bush, Sr. and his speech writers had their creative pens on the pulse of popular Judeo-Christian American Messianic beliefs. With skillful wit and apocalyptic religio-political rhetoric they successfully employed and combined Messianic myths with social failings in order to rationalize, gain support, and sustain the Persian War in the Gulf. Americans were glued to their televisions. George Bush, Sr.'s grandiose aims included nothing less than economic and military world domination. From his nominating speech in New Orleans to the final days of Desert Storm, he planned to create a New World Order. He began his acceptance of the nomination speech in New Orleans with a hint that something new was dawning in America. He would move the country forward toward "an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light."

Hizballah and Israel: Strategic Threat on the Northern Border

During the three years following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hizballah evolved from a militant radical organization into a mini-military empire with its own territory, Hizballahland, in the south of the country along Israel's northern border. Hizballah is a radical, militant, irresponsible organization, drunk with power and supported by Iran, which lies thousands of kilometres away and therefore remains unscathed by the conflagration it has helped to create. Armed with military power, an undying hatred of Israel, and a messianic belief that victory is near, Hizballah holds the key to future peace and stability in the region. While Israel once perceived Hizballah as merely a nuisance along its border, more recently it has come to view the group as a serious strategic threat, equal to that posed by Syria, Iraq and Iran. The view that any future war with Hizballah will be existential in nature is also increasingly common. This article will examine how this radical and militant terrorist group, once merely an annoyance, has become such a strategic challenge to Israel?

The Septuagint and Messianism

question of the extent to which the Septuagint reflects an evolution in messianic belief in comparison with the Masoretic Text has come into prominence in recent years, and in view of the role played by messianism in Jewish belief of the late Second Temple period and in early Christianity it seemed very appropriate that The Septuagint and Messianism should be chosen as the theme of the 2004 Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense. This volume contains the papers given at the Colloquium, which are concerned both with methodological issues and with the interpretation of specific texts (in practice the majority of the texts in the Septuagint for which a messianic interpretation has been claimed). papers are very far from all reflecting the same approach, and it has frequently happened that the same texts have been treated by different contributors from very different viewpoints. But the fact such different viewpoints are expressed is a proper reflection of the complexity of the issues involved in the question of the extent of messianic belief in the Septuagint, and of the fact that the question requires a nuanced answer. It is in any case hoped that the varied approaches reflected in the papers will serve to make clear the underlying reasons for the differences between those who take a minimalist and those who take a maximalist view on the subject of the Septuagint and Messianism.

The Dialectics of Religious Rationalization and Secularization: Max Weber and Ernst Bloch

Ernst Bloch stood in intellectual opposition to Max Weber, yet they have a similar framework through which they both analyzed religion. Both Weber and Bloch engaged in a class analysis of the Bible. In Ancient Judaism, Weber provides the historical, political, and socio-economic context in which we can understand the origins of the belief in the Messiah. Bloch's dialectical theory of secularization of Judeo-Christian Messianism into Marxism has a parallel structure to Weber's theory of religious rationalization in Ancient Judaism. For Weber, ancient Judaism experienced a process of religious rationalization that is marked by a dialectic between the charisma of the prophet and the tradition of the priest, between value and substantive rationality, between disaster and salvation. Bloch's dialectical theory of secularization, which takes place from Moses through the prophets to Jesus and from Feuerbach to Marx, views the process of secularization as being driven by a contradiction between faith in God and faith in man. Bloch, who embraced Jewish Messianic beliefs, had hope in the resolution of this dialectical conflict while Weber, who was far more pessimistic, did not. Combining elements from Weber's theory of religious rationalization and Bloch's theory of secularization, provides the basis for a dialectical theory of secularization in which the tensions between the sacred and profane, while driving the process of secularization forward, remain unresolved.

MESSIANIC JEWS AND JEWISH IDENTITY

In recent years Messianic Judaism has grown considerably worldwide and has caused much concern within the contemporary Jewish community. Messianic Jews claim they are completely Jewish, but they are considered by the majority of the Jewish community to be Christian apostates. This paper considers the practices and beliefs of the Messianic community, explores the issue of their identity and reflects on this in relation to Jewish identity throughout the universal Jewish community. It explores the question of placing Messianic Jews outside the Jewish fold, given that the various branches of contemporary Judaism are deeply divided over central tenets of faith and practice. It considers the Messianic belief in Jesus as the Messiah in the light of normative Jewish approaches to aspects of Halakhic teaching.