Arie Morgenstern
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305784
- eISBN:
- 9780199784820
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305787.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Offering a novel understanding of the origins of renewed Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in modern times, this book situates that settlement in the context of Jewish messianism and traces it ...
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Offering a novel understanding of the origins of renewed Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in modern times, this book situates that settlement in the context of Jewish messianism and traces it to a wave of messianic fervor that swept the Jewish world during the first half of the 19th century. Believing that the Messiah would appear in the year 5600 AM (1840 CE), thousands of Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel from throughout the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. This book focuses primarily on the immigration (“aliyah”) of the disciples of the Ga’on of Vilna, the Eastern European opponents of Hasidism (known in the Land of Israel as the Perushim) who, notwithstanding their vaunted rationalism, were characterized by a strong mystical and messianic bent. In recounting their story, the book describes their complex and changing relationships with the ruling Ottoman and Egyptian authorities, with the Anglican missionaries then active in Jerusalem (principally the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews), and with the Organization of Peqidim and Amarkalim (Clerk’s organization) in Amsterdam and its head, Zevi Hirsch Lehren. The book makes extensive use of the newly discovered archives of the Peqidim and Amarkalim, of the diaries and journals of the Anglican missionaries, of kabbalistic texts from throughout North Africa and the Near East, and of previously unavailable manuscripts by the disciples of the Vilna Ga’on. Finally, the book recounts the varied responses to the Messiah’s failure to appear in 1840, and the continued growth in the Jewish community, a precursor to the emergence of modern political Zionism in the late 19th century.Less
Offering a novel understanding of the origins of renewed Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in modern times, this book situates that settlement in the context of Jewish messianism and traces it to a wave of messianic fervor that swept the Jewish world during the first half of the 19th century. Believing that the Messiah would appear in the year 5600 AM (1840 CE), thousands of Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel from throughout the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. This book focuses primarily on the immigration (“aliyah”) of the disciples of the Ga’on of Vilna, the Eastern European opponents of Hasidism (known in the Land of Israel as the Perushim) who, notwithstanding their vaunted rationalism, were characterized by a strong mystical and messianic bent. In recounting their story, the book describes their complex and changing relationships with the ruling Ottoman and Egyptian authorities, with the Anglican missionaries then active in Jerusalem (principally the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews), and with the Organization of Peqidim and Amarkalim (Clerk’s organization) in Amsterdam and its head, Zevi Hirsch Lehren. The book makes extensive use of the newly discovered archives of the Peqidim and Amarkalim, of the diaries and journals of the Anglican missionaries, of kabbalistic texts from throughout North Africa and the Near East, and of previously unavailable manuscripts by the disciples of the Vilna Ga’on. Finally, the book recounts the varied responses to the Messiah’s failure to appear in 1840, and the continued growth in the Jewish community, a precursor to the emergence of modern political Zionism in the late 19th century.
Ronald Hutton
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205708
- eISBN:
- 9780191676758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205708.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter discusses the origins of Easter. As the execution and resurrection of its founder were the principal events upon which Christianity has based its claims in Messianism, it was inevitable ...
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This chapter discusses the origins of Easter. As the execution and resurrection of its founder were the principal events upon which Christianity has based its claims in Messianism, it was inevitable that the annual commemoration of them would be the principal festival of the Christian year. ‘Pesach’, the proper Hebrew name for that festival, forms the basis for most of the terms for the Christian Feast of the Resurrection used across Europe. The Council of Nicaea agreed upon a means of reckoning its date, compromising between the churches in Asia's custom of calculating it according to the phases of the moon, and the practice of the Church in Rome, of fixing it upon a particular Sunday in the calendar. Not until the eighth century were all these in the British Isles agreed upon the rule that was becoming standard in Western Europe, of the first Sunday after the moon had achieved its fullness.Less
This chapter discusses the origins of Easter. As the execution and resurrection of its founder were the principal events upon which Christianity has based its claims in Messianism, it was inevitable that the annual commemoration of them would be the principal festival of the Christian year. ‘Pesach’, the proper Hebrew name for that festival, forms the basis for most of the terms for the Christian Feast of the Resurrection used across Europe. The Council of Nicaea agreed upon a means of reckoning its date, compromising between the churches in Asia's custom of calculating it according to the phases of the moon, and the practice of the Church in Rome, of fixing it upon a particular Sunday in the calendar. Not until the eighth century were all these in the British Isles agreed upon the rule that was becoming standard in Western Europe, of the first Sunday after the moon had achieved its fullness.
Michael S. Kogan
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195112597
- eISBN:
- 9780199872275
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112597.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explores the main disagreement that exists between Judaism and Christianity: whether Jesus of Nazareth was or was not (is or is not) the Messiah. before, during, and after the time of ...
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This chapter explores the main disagreement that exists between Judaism and Christianity: whether Jesus of Nazareth was or was not (is or is not) the Messiah. before, during, and after the time of Jesus. Today, Jesus' Jewishness and that of nearly all his original interpreters is acknowledged by all, yet many still fail to locate early christology within its Jewish context, or to inquire as to its relationship to other Jewish messianic formulations. It is argued that Christianity — as one of the Judaisms of the 1st century — must be considered within its proper intellectual and spiritual environment. Examined in this manner, its messianism, far from being alien to Jewish thought patterns, may be revealed as one expression of the varied world of historic hopes and mythic visions that is Israelite messianic speculation.Less
This chapter explores the main disagreement that exists between Judaism and Christianity: whether Jesus of Nazareth was or was not (is or is not) the Messiah. before, during, and after the time of Jesus. Today, Jesus' Jewishness and that of nearly all his original interpreters is acknowledged by all, yet many still fail to locate early christology within its Jewish context, or to inquire as to its relationship to other Jewish messianic formulations. It is argued that Christianity — as one of the Judaisms of the 1st century — must be considered within its proper intellectual and spiritual environment. Examined in this manner, its messianism, far from being alien to Jewish thought patterns, may be revealed as one expression of the varied world of historic hopes and mythic visions that is Israelite messianic speculation.
Raymond P. Scheindlin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195315424
- eISBN:
- 9780199872039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315424.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Halevi’s work is partly a reaction to the deteriorating political and intellectual conditions of the time, the former undermining the Jewish claim to a special covenant with God, and the latter ...
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Halevi’s work is partly a reaction to the deteriorating political and intellectual conditions of the time, the former undermining the Jewish claim to a special covenant with God, and the latter portraying individual religions as mere social contrivances. The Kuzari grounds Jewish claims to special status on their gift for prophecy. In Halevi’s poetry, this status is expressed in themes of competition with Christianity and Islam. (The claim of Israel’s superiority complicated Halevi’s attitude toward Arabic-style Hebrew poetry, which he came to see as debasing the holy tongue; he probably did not, however, vow to abstain from writing poetry.) Halevi wrote extensive poetry dealing with the messianic redemption. But his pilgrimage was not a messianic gesture; rather, it reflects his embrace of quietism, the national counterpart to the theme of trust in God so prominent in his personal poetry. The chapter concludes with three poems that exemplify these themes.Less
Halevi’s work is partly a reaction to the deteriorating political and intellectual conditions of the time, the former undermining the Jewish claim to a special covenant with God, and the latter portraying individual religions as mere social contrivances. The Kuzari grounds Jewish claims to special status on their gift for prophecy. In Halevi’s poetry, this status is expressed in themes of competition with Christianity and Islam. (The claim of Israel’s superiority complicated Halevi’s attitude toward Arabic-style Hebrew poetry, which he came to see as debasing the holy tongue; he probably did not, however, vow to abstain from writing poetry.) Halevi wrote extensive poetry dealing with the messianic redemption. But his pilgrimage was not a messianic gesture; rather, it reflects his embrace of quietism, the national counterpart to the theme of trust in God so prominent in his personal poetry. The chapter concludes with three poems that exemplify these themes.
Akiba J. Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823267910
- eISBN:
- 9780823272433
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823267910.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. This book also explores the ...
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This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. This book also explores the dialectical tension between the need and dangers of redemptive hope narratives by bringing together secular liberal democratic thought—as found within the work of late neo-pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty—with religious liberal thinkers—such as Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch—for the purpose of exploring the contested intellectual history of redemptive hope narratives. This book begins by tracing the history of the tension between thinkers who have taken a theistic approach to hope by linking it to a transcendental signifier—usually God—versus those intellectuals who have striven to link hopes for redemption to our inter-subjective interactions with other human beings. Starting with Richard Rorty’s proposal for a postmetaphysical ideal of social hope, this book brings together modern Jewish thinkers—such as Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch—with debates over religion and liberalism in contemporary democratic culture. In the twenty-first century, secular liberal culture needs elements of religion to survive, and conversely religion cannot thrive without adopting insights from secular thought, particularly from thinkers like Rorty and Habermas. Bringing together these different thinkers and traditions allows us to better appreciate how maintaining rather than seeking to overcome the dialectical tensions between religious and liberal thought can actually provide a new redemptive narrative for the twenty-first century.Less
This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. This book also explores the dialectical tension between the need and dangers of redemptive hope narratives by bringing together secular liberal democratic thought—as found within the work of late neo-pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty—with religious liberal thinkers—such as Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch—for the purpose of exploring the contested intellectual history of redemptive hope narratives. This book begins by tracing the history of the tension between thinkers who have taken a theistic approach to hope by linking it to a transcendental signifier—usually God—versus those intellectuals who have striven to link hopes for redemption to our inter-subjective interactions with other human beings. Starting with Richard Rorty’s proposal for a postmetaphysical ideal of social hope, this book brings together modern Jewish thinkers—such as Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch—with debates over religion and liberalism in contemporary democratic culture. In the twenty-first century, secular liberal culture needs elements of religion to survive, and conversely religion cannot thrive without adopting insights from secular thought, particularly from thinkers like Rorty and Habermas. Bringing together these different thinkers and traditions allows us to better appreciate how maintaining rather than seeking to overcome the dialectical tensions between religious and liberal thought can actually provide a new redemptive narrative for the twenty-first century.
Virginia Garrard‐Burnett
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195379648
- eISBN:
- 9780199869176
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379648.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the language, images, and discourses that General Ríos Montt employed to promote his war of counterinsurgency. While the military’s war of counterinsurgency forcibly pacified ...
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This chapter examines the language, images, and discourses that General Ríos Montt employed to promote his war of counterinsurgency. While the military’s war of counterinsurgency forcibly pacified the largely indigenous highlands (a campaign that some sources claim produced nearly 50 percent of the civilian deaths that occurred over the course of Guatemala’s thirty‐six‐year armed struggle), Ríos Montt captivated much of Guatemala’s urban and nonindigenous population through his anticorruption campaign and his Sunday sermons — weekly broadcast messages that stressed anticommunism and government loyalty against a backdrop of evangelical language and imagery. This chapter provides an analysis of the sermons and offers an attempt to explain and contextualize Ríos Montt’s political popularity, as he sought to establish order and a fresh ideology for what he called the New Guatemala. This chapter is based almost exclusively on transcripts of Ríos Montt’s Sunday sermons and on newspaper clippings from the period.Less
This chapter examines the language, images, and discourses that General Ríos Montt employed to promote his war of counterinsurgency. While the military’s war of counterinsurgency forcibly pacified the largely indigenous highlands (a campaign that some sources claim produced nearly 50 percent of the civilian deaths that occurred over the course of Guatemala’s thirty‐six‐year armed struggle), Ríos Montt captivated much of Guatemala’s urban and nonindigenous population through his anticorruption campaign and his Sunday sermons — weekly broadcast messages that stressed anticommunism and government loyalty against a backdrop of evangelical language and imagery. This chapter provides an analysis of the sermons and offers an attempt to explain and contextualize Ríos Montt’s political popularity, as he sought to establish order and a fresh ideology for what he called the New Guatemala. This chapter is based almost exclusively on transcripts of Ríos Montt’s Sunday sermons and on newspaper clippings from the period.
Thomas O Beebee
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195339383
- eISBN:
- 9780199867097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195339383.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World ...
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New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World has no monopoly on hybridity, the sheer numbers of people brought together through conquest, enslavement, transportation, and voluntary immigration make hybridity an essential concept for understanding the history and culture of the Americas, and one that has stimulated some of its most powerful literary texts. As pointed out in the first chapter, millennial discourse is an eschatechnology inherent to structures of power in the Americas. When it confronts itself in hybridized form, paranoia and panic are inevitable and tend to get played out in the confusion between Messiah and Antichrist. Messiahs of the New World are painfully aware of themselves as simultaneously Self and Other, as I will show in this chapter, and their messianism seeks a symbolic resolution to this conflict. Melville’s Captain Ahab is presented as the archetype of the hybrid messiah, which then guides the chapter’s remaining study examples of Nat Turner, Louis Riel, Wovoka, Antônio Conselheiro, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, both as historical persons and as literary characters.Less
New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World has no monopoly on hybridity, the sheer numbers of people brought together through conquest, enslavement, transportation, and voluntary immigration make hybridity an essential concept for understanding the history and culture of the Americas, and one that has stimulated some of its most powerful literary texts. As pointed out in the first chapter, millennial discourse is an eschatechnology inherent to structures of power in the Americas. When it confronts itself in hybridized form, paranoia and panic are inevitable and tend to get played out in the confusion between Messiah and Antichrist. Messiahs of the New World are painfully aware of themselves as simultaneously Self and Other, as I will show in this chapter, and their messianism seeks a symbolic resolution to this conflict. Melville’s Captain Ahab is presented as the archetype of the hybrid messiah, which then guides the chapter’s remaining study examples of Nat Turner, Louis Riel, Wovoka, Antônio Conselheiro, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, both as historical persons and as literary characters.
Frank Graziano
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195124323
- eISBN:
- 9780199784561
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195124324.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The opening chapter of this book defines millennialism in its broadest sense, encompassing apocalypticism, messianism, and utopia. The subsequent chapters explore a wide range of colonial and modern ...
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The opening chapter of this book defines millennialism in its broadest sense, encompassing apocalypticism, messianism, and utopia. The subsequent chapters explore a wide range of colonial and modern movements, myths, and ideologies. as they pursue millennial themes through Latin American history. The study of Spanish messianic imperialism and perceptions of the New World as Eden and New Jerusalem provide European precedents. Extensive treatment of nativist and syncretic millennialism includes the Land-without-Evil, Taqui Onqoy, the Tzeltal Rebellion, the Caste War of the Yucatan, and the myths of Inkarrí and Quetzalcóatl, among many others. End-of-the-world sects and their messiahs are also considered, as are utopian communities, Pentecostalism, Liberation Theology, military messianism, and popular Catholicism. The discussion further encompasses the secular millennialism of revolutionaries and populists, including such figures as Lope de Aguirre, Túpac Amaru, Simón Bolívar, Augusto César Sandino, Juan and Evita Perón, Che Guevara, and Shining Path’s Abimael Guzmán.Less
The opening chapter of this book defines millennialism in its broadest sense, encompassing apocalypticism, messianism, and utopia. The subsequent chapters explore a wide range of colonial and modern movements, myths, and ideologies. as they pursue millennial themes through Latin American history. The study of Spanish messianic imperialism and perceptions of the New World as Eden and New Jerusalem provide European precedents. Extensive treatment of nativist and syncretic millennialism includes the Land-without-Evil, Taqui Onqoy, the Tzeltal Rebellion, the Caste War of the Yucatan, and the myths of Inkarrí and Quetzalcóatl, among many others. End-of-the-world sects and their messiahs are also considered, as are utopian communities, Pentecostalism, Liberation Theology, military messianism, and popular Catholicism. The discussion further encompasses the secular millennialism of revolutionaries and populists, including such figures as Lope de Aguirre, Túpac Amaru, Simón Bolívar, Augusto César Sandino, Juan and Evita Perón, Che Guevara, and Shining Path’s Abimael Guzmán.
Craig A. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199246120
- eISBN:
- 9780191600531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199246122.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Craig Evans argues that early Christian expressions of the deity of Jesus originated in the teaching and activity of Jesus himself, and not simply in later contact with the cult of the emperor. He ...
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Craig Evans argues that early Christian expressions of the deity of Jesus originated in the teaching and activity of Jesus himself, and not simply in later contact with the cult of the emperor. He contends that Jesus’ self‐identification as ‘the son of man’ of Daniel 7, where this figure approaches the divine throne and directly from God receives kingdom and authority, takes his messianism to a new level. It is this ingredient that evidently represents an innovation, which launches a messianic trajectory that will find its way to the more formalized expressions of trinitarian theology.Less
Craig Evans argues that early Christian expressions of the deity of Jesus originated in the teaching and activity of Jesus himself, and not simply in later contact with the cult of the emperor. He contends that Jesus’ self‐identification as ‘the son of man’ of Daniel 7, where this figure approaches the divine throne and directly from God receives kingdom and authority, takes his messianism to a new level. It is this ingredient that evidently represents an innovation, which launches a messianic trajectory that will find its way to the more formalized expressions of trinitarian theology.
Israel Knohl
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520215924
- eISBN:
- 9780520928749
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520215924.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
In a work that challenges notions that have dominated New Testament scholarship for more than a hundred years, this book gives startling evidence for a messianic precursor to Jesus who is described ...
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In a work that challenges notions that have dominated New Testament scholarship for more than a hundred years, this book gives startling evidence for a messianic precursor to Jesus who is described as the “Suffering Servant” in recently published fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book clarifies many formerly incomprehensible aspects of Jesus' life and confirms the story in the New Testament about his messianic awareness. The book shows that, around the time of Jesus' birth, there came into being a conception of “catastrophic” messianism in which the suffering, humiliation, and death of the messiah were regarded as an integral part of the redemptive process. Scholars have long argued that Jesus could not have foreseen his suffering, death, and resurrection because the concept of a slain savior who rises from the dead was alien to the Judaism of his time. But, on the basis of hymns found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the book argues that, one generation before Jesus, a messianic leader arose in the Qumran sect who was regarded by his followers as ushering in an era of redemption and forgiveness. This messianic leader was killed by Roman soldiers in the course of a revolt that broke out in Jerusalem in 4 bce. The Romans forbade his body to be buried and after the third day his disciples believed that he was resurrected and rose to heaven. The book argues that this formed the basis for Jesus' messianic consciousness; it was because of this model that Jesus anticipated he would suffer, die, and be resurrected after three days.Less
In a work that challenges notions that have dominated New Testament scholarship for more than a hundred years, this book gives startling evidence for a messianic precursor to Jesus who is described as the “Suffering Servant” in recently published fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book clarifies many formerly incomprehensible aspects of Jesus' life and confirms the story in the New Testament about his messianic awareness. The book shows that, around the time of Jesus' birth, there came into being a conception of “catastrophic” messianism in which the suffering, humiliation, and death of the messiah were regarded as an integral part of the redemptive process. Scholars have long argued that Jesus could not have foreseen his suffering, death, and resurrection because the concept of a slain savior who rises from the dead was alien to the Judaism of his time. But, on the basis of hymns found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the book argues that, one generation before Jesus, a messianic leader arose in the Qumran sect who was regarded by his followers as ushering in an era of redemption and forgiveness. This messianic leader was killed by Roman soldiers in the course of a revolt that broke out in Jerusalem in 4 bce. The Romans forbade his body to be buried and after the third day his disciples believed that he was resurrected and rose to heaven. The book argues that this formed the basis for Jesus' messianic consciousness; it was because of this model that Jesus anticipated he would suffer, die, and be resurrected after three days.
Norman Housley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199552283
- eISBN:
- 9780191716515
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552283.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This book describes and analyzes warfare that sprang from and was driven by religious belief, in the period from the Hussite wars to the first generation of the Reformation. The focus is on a number ...
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This book describes and analyzes warfare that sprang from and was driven by religious belief, in the period from the Hussite wars to the first generation of the Reformation. The focus is on a number of key theatres. At times warfare between national communities was shaped by convictions of ‘sacred patriotism’, either in defending God-given land or in the pursuit of messianic programmes abroad. Insurrectionary activity, especially when fuelled by apocalyptic expectations, was a second important type of religious war. In the 1420s and early 1430s the Hussites waged war successfully in defence of what they believed to be ‘God's Law’. And some frontier communities depicted their struggle against non-believers as religious war by reference to crusading ideas and habits of thought. The book explores what these conflicts had in common in the ways the combatants perceived their own role, their demonization of their opponents, and the ongoing critique of religious war in all its forms. The author assesses the interaction between crusade and religious war in the broader sense, and argues that the religious violence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was organic, to the extent that it sprang from deeply-rooted proclivities within European society.Less
This book describes and analyzes warfare that sprang from and was driven by religious belief, in the period from the Hussite wars to the first generation of the Reformation. The focus is on a number of key theatres. At times warfare between national communities was shaped by convictions of ‘sacred patriotism’, either in defending God-given land or in the pursuit of messianic programmes abroad. Insurrectionary activity, especially when fuelled by apocalyptic expectations, was a second important type of religious war. In the 1420s and early 1430s the Hussites waged war successfully in defence of what they believed to be ‘God's Law’. And some frontier communities depicted their struggle against non-believers as religious war by reference to crusading ideas and habits of thought. The book explores what these conflicts had in common in the ways the combatants perceived their own role, their demonization of their opponents, and the ongoing critique of religious war in all its forms. The author assesses the interaction between crusade and religious war in the broader sense, and argues that the religious violence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was organic, to the extent that it sprang from deeply-rooted proclivities within European society.
Frank Graziano
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195124323
- eISBN:
- 9780199784561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195124324.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter defines the key terms millennial, millennialism, messianism, messiah, apocalypse, apocalyptic, and apocalypticism, then provides an overview of the attributes of millennial thought and ...
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This chapter defines the key terms millennial, millennialism, messianism, messiah, apocalypse, apocalyptic, and apocalypticism, then provides an overview of the attributes of millennial thought and action. The overview introduces such themes as messianic responses to social crisis, charisma, legitimacy, fragmentation and unification, ritual and symbolic violence, symbolic inversion, and polarization.Less
This chapter defines the key terms millennial, millennialism, messianism, messiah, apocalypse, apocalyptic, and apocalypticism, then provides an overview of the attributes of millennial thought and action. The overview introduces such themes as messianic responses to social crisis, charisma, legitimacy, fragmentation and unification, ritual and symbolic violence, symbolic inversion, and polarization.
Israel Knohl
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520215924
- eISBN:
- 9780520928749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520215924.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
In 70 c.e., about forty years after Jesus' death, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. In the Jerusalem Talmud, there is a legend about something that took place on the day of the destruction, ...
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In 70 c.e., about forty years after Jesus' death, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. In the Jerusalem Talmud, there is a legend about something that took place on the day of the destruction, which is presented in this chapter. Here the Messiah is called Menahem, son of Hezekiah. The figure of Menahem in this story combines various elements known to us from the traditions concerning the Essene Messiah and Jesus of Nazareth. Menahem, the son of Hezekiah, resembles the Essene Messiah not only in his name but also in his destiny. The figure of Menahem, the hero of our book, was the foundation of the Jewish messianic myth, just as he served as the inspiration for the messianism of Jesus of Nazareth.Less
In 70 c.e., about forty years after Jesus' death, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. In the Jerusalem Talmud, there is a legend about something that took place on the day of the destruction, which is presented in this chapter. Here the Messiah is called Menahem, son of Hezekiah. The figure of Menahem in this story combines various elements known to us from the traditions concerning the Essene Messiah and Jesus of Nazareth. Menahem, the son of Hezekiah, resembles the Essene Messiah not only in his name but also in his destiny. The figure of Menahem, the hero of our book, was the foundation of the Jewish messianic myth, just as he served as the inspiration for the messianism of Jesus of Nazareth.
Norman Housley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199552283
- eISBN:
- 9780191716515
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552283.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter explores the historiographical and methodological context of the book. The various settings in which religious warfare occurred are outlined and compared. Ideas, images and rhetoric that ...
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This chapter explores the historiographical and methodological context of the book. The various settings in which religious warfare occurred are outlined and compared. Ideas, images and rhetoric that derived from Europe's experience of crusading, both past and contemporary, are evaluated.Less
This chapter explores the historiographical and methodological context of the book. The various settings in which religious warfare occurred are outlined and compared. Ideas, images and rhetoric that derived from Europe's experience of crusading, both past and contemporary, are evaluated.
Akiba J. Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823267910
- eISBN:
- 9780823272433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823267910.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. The story of the rise of ...
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This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. The story of the rise of secular redemptive hope narratives from the age of Enlightenment to the early part of the twenty-first century has been a story of the struggle between heightened expectations and post-utopian despair. The quasi-messianic expectations produced by the election of President Obama in 2008—followed by the diminution of these expectations—point to the stark reality that redemptive hope is seldom satisfactorily fulfilled. The redemptive narratives surrounding Obama’s elections are a reminder that we are still wrestling with what the neo-pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty considered to be one of the central intellectual challenges of our post-modern age, namely: Can solidarity with other people serve as a sufficient foundation for our social hopes, or do we need a transcendental force—like God—in order to maintain a grander vision of redemptive hope? This book engages this dilemma by bringing together Rorty’s neo-pragmatic version of social hope with the work of modern Jewish intellectuals, particularly that of Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch.Less
This is a book about our need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. The story of the rise of secular redemptive hope narratives from the age of Enlightenment to the early part of the twenty-first century has been a story of the struggle between heightened expectations and post-utopian despair. The quasi-messianic expectations produced by the election of President Obama in 2008—followed by the diminution of these expectations—point to the stark reality that redemptive hope is seldom satisfactorily fulfilled. The redemptive narratives surrounding Obama’s elections are a reminder that we are still wrestling with what the neo-pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty considered to be one of the central intellectual challenges of our post-modern age, namely: Can solidarity with other people serve as a sufficient foundation for our social hopes, or do we need a transcendental force—like God—in order to maintain a grander vision of redemptive hope? This book engages this dilemma by bringing together Rorty’s neo-pragmatic version of social hope with the work of modern Jewish intellectuals, particularly that of Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch.
Akiba J. Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823267910
- eISBN:
- 9780823272433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823267910.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Chapter 2 focuses on the recovery of messianic hope narratives by Jewish thinkers—particularly Martin Buber—who in the early part of the twentieth century perceived the failure of Marxist utopianism ...
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Chapter 2 focuses on the recovery of messianic hope narratives by Jewish thinkers—particularly Martin Buber—who in the early part of the twentieth century perceived the failure of Marxist utopianism and secular humanism to adequately address modern alienation. In response to the crisis of reason created by the technological devastation unleashed during the First World War, theologians and secular theorists generated new redemptive narratives in which they combined secular utopianism with pre-modern messianic narratives. Chapter 2 also presents a reinterpretation of Buber’s work on I-and-Thou encounters in relation to what Marcel referred to as a phenomenology of hope. Additionally, Buber’s reflections on messianism are contextualized in relation to other Jewish intellectuals during this same period, most notably Franz Rosenzweig and Gershom Scholem.Less
Chapter 2 focuses on the recovery of messianic hope narratives by Jewish thinkers—particularly Martin Buber—who in the early part of the twentieth century perceived the failure of Marxist utopianism and secular humanism to adequately address modern alienation. In response to the crisis of reason created by the technological devastation unleashed during the First World War, theologians and secular theorists generated new redemptive narratives in which they combined secular utopianism with pre-modern messianic narratives. Chapter 2 also presents a reinterpretation of Buber’s work on I-and-Thou encounters in relation to what Marcel referred to as a phenomenology of hope. Additionally, Buber’s reflections on messianism are contextualized in relation to other Jewish intellectuals during this same period, most notably Franz Rosenzweig and Gershom Scholem.
Akiba J. Lerner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823267910
- eISBN:
- 9780823272433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823267910.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Chapter 3 explores the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theordor Adorno, Jürgen Moltmann, Walter Capps, Paul Ricoeur, Eric Fromm, and Emil Fackenheim, all of whom contributed to the project of ...
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Chapter 3 explores the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theordor Adorno, Jürgen Moltmann, Walter Capps, Paul Ricoeur, Eric Fromm, and Emil Fackenheim, all of whom contributed to the project of reviving redemptive hope narratives as an answer to the failure of both religious and philosophical traditions to adequately address the modern breakdown of humanistic values and the catastrophes of mass extermination. The thinkers covered in this chapter all shared the concern that redemptive narratives remain indispensible for motivating social solidarity but are also no longer believable in the same way in a post-Holocaust era. The Jewish and Christian thinkers in this chapter provide an interesting historical antecedent and contrast to Rorty’s late-twentieth-century proposal for a postmetaphysical form of social hope.Less
Chapter 3 explores the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theordor Adorno, Jürgen Moltmann, Walter Capps, Paul Ricoeur, Eric Fromm, and Emil Fackenheim, all of whom contributed to the project of reviving redemptive hope narratives as an answer to the failure of both religious and philosophical traditions to adequately address the modern breakdown of humanistic values and the catastrophes of mass extermination. The thinkers covered in this chapter all shared the concern that redemptive narratives remain indispensible for motivating social solidarity but are also no longer believable in the same way in a post-Holocaust era. The Jewish and Christian thinkers in this chapter provide an interesting historical antecedent and contrast to Rorty’s late-twentieth-century proposal for a postmetaphysical form of social hope.
Susan James
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199698127
- eISBN:
- 9780191740558
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698127.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Spinoza's theological opponents agree that the core religious teaching of the Bible is the divine law revealed by the prophets, but disagree about the law's status and content. In order to show what ...
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Spinoza's theological opponents agree that the core religious teaching of the Bible is the divine law revealed by the prophets, but disagree about the law's status and content. In order to show what is superstitious in their opinions, Spinoza must confront these disputes. His first step is to establish that the divine law is universal. The claim that the law was ordained for the Jews, as the Old Testament seems to claim, thus rests on a misinterpretation. This chapter examines Spinoza's philosophical argument for this conclusion. It shows how his view threatens Calvinist providentialism, and constitutes an attack on two flourishing seventeenth‐century movements, Christian millenarianism and Jewish Messianism. The argument is therefore not merely about the proper interpretation of the Bible. It is also a theologico‐political intervention in Dutch affairs.Less
Spinoza's theological opponents agree that the core religious teaching of the Bible is the divine law revealed by the prophets, but disagree about the law's status and content. In order to show what is superstitious in their opinions, Spinoza must confront these disputes. His first step is to establish that the divine law is universal. The claim that the law was ordained for the Jews, as the Old Testament seems to claim, thus rests on a misinterpretation. This chapter examines Spinoza's philosophical argument for this conclusion. It shows how his view threatens Calvinist providentialism, and constitutes an attack on two flourishing seventeenth‐century movements, Christian millenarianism and Jewish Messianism. The argument is therefore not merely about the proper interpretation of the Bible. It is also a theologico‐political intervention in Dutch affairs.
Joseph V Femia
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279211
- eISBN:
- 9780191713842
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279213.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The central thesis of this chapter is that Communist despotism was a logical consequence of Marxist theory. This ‘genetic’ explanation is contrasted with the ‘environmental’ explanation, which views ...
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The central thesis of this chapter is that Communist despotism was a logical consequence of Marxist theory. This ‘genetic’ explanation is contrasted with the ‘environmental’ explanation, which views the totalitarian degeneration of communism as the contingent result of unfavourable circumstances. The genetic explanation can take several different forms. Some commentators argue that Marxism's inherent flaw is its consequentialism; others focus on its ‘messianism’ or its contempt for private property. This chapter lays the blame on Marxism's holistic conception of human nature.Less
The central thesis of this chapter is that Communist despotism was a logical consequence of Marxist theory. This ‘genetic’ explanation is contrasted with the ‘environmental’ explanation, which views the totalitarian degeneration of communism as the contingent result of unfavourable circumstances. The genetic explanation can take several different forms. Some commentators argue that Marxism's inherent flaw is its consequentialism; others focus on its ‘messianism’ or its contempt for private property. This chapter lays the blame on Marxism's holistic conception of human nature.
Alexander Gelley
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262564
- eISBN:
- 9780823266562
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262564.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In transposing the Freudian dream work from the individual subject to the collective, Walter Benjamin projected a “macroscosmic journey” of the individual sleeper to “the dreaming collective, which, ...
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In transposing the Freudian dream work from the individual subject to the collective, Walter Benjamin projected a “macroscosmic journey” of the individual sleeper to “the dreaming collective, which, through the arcades, communes with its own insides.” This book examines the figurative status of sleeping and awakening within the allegorical structure of The Arcades Project and in Benjamin’s thought more broadly. For Benjamin, memory is not antiquarian: it functions as a solicitation, a call to a collectivity to come. The motif of awakening involves a qualified but crucial performative intention that was central to Benjamin’s undertaking. Benjamin’s passages are not just the Paris arcades: they refer also to Benjamin’s effort to negotiate the labyrinth of his writings. In tracing these corridors of thought, the book treats many of Benjamin’s most important works and examines important critical questions: the interplay of aesthetics and politics, the genre of The Arcades Project, citation, language, messianism, aura and image, and the motifs of memory, the crowd, and awakening.Less
In transposing the Freudian dream work from the individual subject to the collective, Walter Benjamin projected a “macroscosmic journey” of the individual sleeper to “the dreaming collective, which, through the arcades, communes with its own insides.” This book examines the figurative status of sleeping and awakening within the allegorical structure of The Arcades Project and in Benjamin’s thought more broadly. For Benjamin, memory is not antiquarian: it functions as a solicitation, a call to a collectivity to come. The motif of awakening involves a qualified but crucial performative intention that was central to Benjamin’s undertaking. Benjamin’s passages are not just the Paris arcades: they refer also to Benjamin’s effort to negotiate the labyrinth of his writings. In tracing these corridors of thought, the book treats many of Benjamin’s most important works and examines important critical questions: the interplay of aesthetics and politics, the genre of The Arcades Project, citation, language, messianism, aura and image, and the motifs of memory, the crowd, and awakening.
