This paper traces the reception of Babylonian astronomy into the history of science, beginning in early to mid twentieth century when cuneiform astronomical sources became available to the scholarly public. The dominant positivism in philosophy of science of this time influenced criteria employed in defining and demarcating science by historians, resulting in a persistently negative assessment of the nature of knowledge evidenced in cuneiform sources. Ancient Near Eastern astronomy was deemed pre- or non-scientific, and even taken to reflect a (...) stage in the evolution of thought before the emergence of science. Two principal objections are examined: first, that the Near East produced merely practical as opposed to theoretical knowledge and, second, that astronomy was in the service of astrology and religion. As the notion of a universal scientific method has been dismantled by post-positivists and constructivists of the second half of the twentieth century, an interest in varieties of intellectual and cultural contexts for science has provided a new ground for the re-consideration of Babylonian astronomical texts as science developed here.Author Keywords: Babylonian astronomy; Cuneiform texts; Epistemology; Hellenistic astronomy; Religion and science; Theory. (shrink)

This article describes the tripartite structure, a formative style used in the redaction of some sugyot in Tractate Eruvin. The attitude to the tripartite structure is portrayed here as reflected by commentators and researchers who mentioned this pattern, whether directly or indirectly. The purpose of the article is to present several select examples of the tripartite structure in some sugyot in Tractate Eruvin. This will have the significant effect of illuminating different literary forms worthy of exploration, such as the tripartite (...) structure here, as well as in other Talmudic sugyot whose focus is mainly halakhic. Sometimes the form utilized has a considerable effect on redaction of the contents, for example for understanding the sugya or solving various difficulties that it contains. These patterns are also evident in other additional sugyot and they constitute an important research foundation for examining their application in additional sugyot in the different tractates. (shrink)

The Hittites who were origin of Indo-European and came to Anatolia occupied the region of Halys in central Anatolian around 1650 BC building Hattusa as a capital city. Expanding their territories into an empire they founded one of the most powerful states in their times and world. Including different ethnic groups Hittites called themselves by the expression of “1000 Gods of Hatti”. Incorporating several local gods existed in the lands they conquered they have had a lot of gods or divines. (...) Among these gods are gods of Hatti, Luwi, Pala, Sumer, Hurri, Assyro- Babilonian and ancient Indian. Many temples discovered in the Hattusa excavations are an important clue for their paying great respect to the gods. In this article benefiting from the evidences of archaeological and philological sources Hittite beliefs as a state religion and general aspects of this religion, gods in the pantheon, temples built for these gods, festivals devoted to these gods, the place of gods and humans, magic rituals, oracles, omens, prayers and mythological stories will be evaluated. (shrink)

The ethics of the Egyptian religion, by S. A. B. Mercer.--The ethics of Confucianism, by H. P. Beach.--The ethics of the Babylonian and Assyrian religion, by G. A. Barton.--The history of Hindu ethics, by E. W. Hopkins.--The ethics of Zoroastrianism, by A. V. W. Jackson.--Early Hebrew ethics, by L. B. Paton.--The ethics of the Hebrew prophets - from Amos to the Deuteronomic reformation, by L. B. Paton.--The ethics of the Greek religion, by P. Shorey.--The ethics of (...) the Gospels, by E. F. Scott.--The ethics of the Pauline epistles, by C. H. Dodd.--Moslem ethics, by J. C. Archer.--The moral values of religion, by E. H. Sneath. (shrink)

The _Epic of Gilgamesh_, a 3600-year 12-tablet collection, was looted from an Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War, and fraudulently imported into the United States. In September, 2021, UNESCO facilitated its repatriation to Iraq, which is seen as an occasion to consolidate Iraq’s efforts to rebuild its legacy, since the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is of immense cultural, historical and religious value for Iraq The current study examines the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ in the light of the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian (...) traditions. This collection of tablets carries a great legacy of the contemporary Babylonian and Mesopotamian beliefs and socio-religious values, also evident in the use of cuneiform and clay tablets, being ancient forms of writings. The study made use of content analysis and historical and analytical approaches to retrieve data through a documentation research design. The study found that the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is not only a work of religious literature, but a treatise on civilization. On one hand it narrates the stories engrained in the Mesopotamian mythology, such as those of Ninsun, Shamash and Utnapishtim; on the other hand, owing to its content, literary style and tone, characterization and symbolism, this study would be a great contribution to relive the story of Gilgamesh from current literary, and socio-religious perspective and provide a comprehensive account of the legacy and inheritance that it brings in for the modern generation. (shrink)

An extraordinary history of humanity's changing vision of the universe. In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He also provides vivid and judicious pen-portraits of a string of (...) great scientists and makes clear the role that political bias and unconscious prejudice played in their creativity. (shrink)

Inquiries about existence in Mesopotamia started with the Sumerians. They set an example for the civilizations established in this geography and affected them deeply. According to Sumerian mythology, they are cosmic forces identified with fresh water, salt water and mist that are eternal. With the combination of these cosmic elements, the sky and the earth, which are symbolized by the gods, were formed. The whole they formed was separated from each other by Enlil, who was identified with air, and celestial (...) bodies were formed with the expansion of air. The Semites continued this understanding with its main lines. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, the beginning of the cosmic process is based on the generational conflict between the gods and is explained with the sacrifice of Tiamat, one of the first cosmic forces. The Chief God Marduk shattered Tiamat and created the universe from her remains, and man from the remains of Kingsu. According to the Mesopotamian mythological tradition, gods were derived from the first cosmic elements, which were eternal, and then they created the universe and man from these cosmic remains. According to Egyptian mythology, the eternal is the ocean. The primary gods, who existed in the eternal ocean, created the universe and humans with their natural secretions. According to many mythological narratives, the dominant god has performed the act of creation by expressing his thoughts or the imagination of the heart. As in Mesopotamian mythology, gods and natural beings were identified with a symbolic language in Egyptian mythology. Greek mythological approaches are gathered in outlines in the works of Homer and Hesiod, who are considered to be the founders of religion. Homer stated that the eternal, the divine ocean, is the source of everything. According to Hesiod, in the beginning, chaos (emptiness) occurred, and then the universe, gods and human beings emerged from this chaos, respectively. These understandings of existence also contain a significant amount of philosophical content. There is a parallelism between the understanding of being in myths and those of philosophers. (shrink)

Le sacramentalisme qu’on s’accorde, depuis longtemps déjà, à reconnaître comme excessif à la fin du Moyen Âge devait conduire Luther puis les autres Réformateurs à dénoncer la « captivité babylonienne » de l’Eglise, notamment sous l’espèce d’une sorte d’emprisonnement de la « Parole de Dieu » dans l’institution sacramentelle, emprisonnement qui fut analogiquement dénoncé, à l’époque moderne, dans l’institution magistérielle de l’Eglise. Cette opposition entre Parole et Sacrement a en outre connu au XXe siècle une sorte de redoublement avec la (...) dichotomie entre la « foi » et la « religion », dichotomie qui a d’ailleurs traversé aussi bien le camp « catholique » que le camp « protestant », la foi étant mise du côté de la Parole, censée être nécessairement plus « pure » que les sacrements, lesquels relèveraient plutôt de la « religion » avec toutes les ambiguïtés que prend alors le terme devenu proche de la « magie ». La donne ayant aujourd’hui considérablement changé, il semble clair que l’on peut, dans la fidélité à la régulation dogmatique de la foi catholique, penser théologiquement les sacrements dans le sillage direct de la Parole.For a long time an agreement to recognize sacramentalism as excessive at the end of the Middle Ages would lead Luther and the other Reformers to denounce the “Babylonian captivity” of the Church, notably as a kind of imprisonment of the “Word of God” in the sacramental institution, imprisonment that was denounced analogically, in modern times, in the magisterial institution of the Church. This opposition between Word and Sacrament has moreover resurfaced in the 20th century, as a dichotomy between “faith” and “religion.” This dichotomy passed through both the “Catholic” and the “Protestant” camps. Faith was allied with the Word, because it was deemed to be necessarily “purer” than the sacraments, which were more a product of “religion” with all its ambiguities, which then takes on a connotation close to “magic.” Perspectives have considerably changed today, so it seems clear that it is possible to remain faithful to the dogmas of the Catholic faith and theologically view the sacraments as flowing directly from the Word. (shrink)

There was a time when science, myth, and religion were one. Our best theories of the world were a strange mixture of demons, gods, magic, and mathematics. The Babylonians believed in gods and a universe consisting of six disks. Early Christians believed that a single god created the universe in seven days. And Plato believed that the world we see is an imperfect shadow of the real world of forms and numbers.

The problems and the history of contacts between distant continents in bygone ages and long before the age of fast and easy travel, have always fascinated both professional scholars and the interested public. Was ancient history really nothing but the history of co-existing and isolated geographic, cultural and political “islands?” Already at school we learned too much about migrations of peoples, economic contacts, influences on art styles, conquests, and the rise, expansion and fall of empires to believe that. The (highly (...) improbable) theory that certain archaeological finds in America suggest, or even prove, Mediterranean influence (e.g., the arrival of Phoenician ships), or the alleged Viking discovery of America centuries before Columbus, or Thor Heyerdahl's adventurous journey to prove South American influence on remote Pacific islands did not fail to cause widespread interest and even excitement (although many scholars still feel that Heyerdahl's epic adventure, thrilling as it is, failed to prove what it set out to prove). The island of Madagascar is pretty close to the African continent, but its language exhibits more points of contact with Polynesian than with African tongues. And the blow-bellows used by Malagache smiths are similar to those used in Malaysia and unlike those known to African metalworkers. Clearly the Polynesians, those great ancient mariners, sailed further than originally seemed likely. Musicologists studying the cantillation of the Hebrew Bible in the liturgy of the ancient Jewish communities on the Malabar coast in India discovered to their surprise that it was similar to the cantillation not of the Babylonian but of the Yemenite Jews! This surprise was, of course, no surprise to those who knew anything about trade-winds and shipping routes between South Arabia and the Indian coast. Historians of religion, even more than general historians, studying the spread and expansion of religious ideas and movements have realised long ago that the beginning of all wisdom is a basic knowledge of economic geography. (shrink)

This paper deals with the concept of three eras, as brought to us firstly in the Babylonian Talmud, and later reshaped and reformulated by Christian theologians Joachim of Fiore, Amalric of Bène, and finally by Luce Irigaray. In the first part, we start with the idea of the three eras. This is followed by a critical approach to Sloterdijk’s You must change your life in which religion is substituted by the anthropotechnics. We argue that even in these secular (...) times, the salvation history still remains unfulfilled and that our world is in need of a new, post-Christian materially spiritual narrative. The second part is entirely dedicated to Amalricians and their teachings. Also by tackling strong Islamic influences, we try to find a new opening towards the post-Christian era beyond the mentioned anthropotechnics/atheism divide. In the third part, the Age of the Spirit is approached and defined as a future messianic-utopian era in which a hidden and forgotten inner spiritual core will be revealed to us and in which humanity will give itself a gift of becoming spiritually transformed and divinized. (shrink)

With the 1901 publication of his Les Mythes babyloniens et les premiers chapitres de la Genèse, the French Catholic scholar Alfred Loisy examined carefully parallels between Babylonian literature and the Book of Genesis. In German scholarship, this had been a growing fascination since at least the 1895 publication of Hermann Gunkel’s Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit. Loisy’s use of the concept of “Myth” provides an important window into the appropriation of German scholarship on religion and the (...) Bible into the French scholarly world. Through Loisy’s work, what had been primarily a German Protestant academic discussion became one of the matchsticks that ignited what would become known as the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis. This present article situates Loisy’s appropriation of “Myth” from the German scholarship he mastered within the proximate cultural, historical, and religious context that became Roman Catholic Modernism. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY CONSIDERS THE ROLE OF THE PROPHET IN CONTEMPORARY public policy debate. After identifying some problems that contemporary appeals to the prophets often encounter, the essay moves into an analysis of the Babylonian and Egyptian contexts out of which the Israelites and the Hebrew prophets emerged. A consideration of all three contexts shows that the central prophetic concern is a disruption of the divinely established social order that is most clearly indicated by the rich getting richer at the (...) expense of the poor. The essay then explores how this prophetic context can be understood in light of ethical appeals to the common good. Finally, the essay applies the notion of disruption in the social order to two issues of public policy: affordable housing and the stock market. (shrink)

The book is designed as an introductory text in the history of pre-Christian religion. The religions are examined in their socio-historical context and are treated as religions in the broad sense in which they provided total frameworks of meaning for a particular culture. The religions treated are the standard ones: Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebraic, and Greek. Loew's technique is to examine in detail the literature of each culture and to reconstruct from it the sacred space in which the (...) people of that culture must have moved. His categories of myth, sacred history, and philosophy are meant to be more or less adequate characterizations of the shape of the expression of the sacred in the Sumero-Babylonian and Egyptian, Hebraic, and Greek cultures respectively. Of course there is overlap, e.g., the obviously mythic roots of Greek literature. Loew is best on the Sumero-Babylonian and Egyptian religions. When he comes to the Hebraic religions he oversimplifies the picture to a considerable degree, as is the case also with his treatment of the Greeks. But this is perhaps a justifiable procedure in an introductory text. Each chapter concludes with a brief but helpfully annotated bibliography.--E. A. R. (shrink)

A group of seven short late Old Babylonian texts, written in Akkadian, found in the early twentieth century in a grave in Susa, form the focus of this paper. The texts, which have attracted much scholarly attention since their publication in 1916 by Jean-Vincent Scheil, have until now not been collated. They are presented here with improved readings, a new translation, and extensive commentary. The mention in two of the texts of an alleged chthonic “weigher” is philologically disproved: psychostasia, (...) the weighing of souls, did not exist in ancient Mesopotamian religion. The suggestion of some scholars that these Old Babylonian Akkadian texts are witnesses to Elamite, or even Iranian, belief in the weighing of souls is methodically refuted. The nature of the seven so-called Susa Funerary Texts is discussed, demonstrating their close contacts to two other well-known Mesopotamian genres—personal prayers and reports of oracular or prophetic visions. Finally, the question of their unusual find spot, viz., in a grave, is discussed and the possibility raised that this peculiar location is a result of the texts’ magical function. (shrink)

Popular election from the Dynasty.—Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim.—Defeat of Necho at Carchemish.—Jeremiah’s Political Prophecies.—Babylonian invasions.—Firstdeportation of Jews to Babylon.—Rebellion of Zedekiah.—Destruction of Jerusalem.—Gedaliah the Babylonian Satrap.—Prophecies against Egypt.—Later School of Prophecy.—Function of the Jewish Nation.

Popular election from the Dynasty.—Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim.—Defeat of Necho at Carchemish.—Jeremiah’s Political Prophecies.—Babylonian invasions.—Firstdeportation of Jews to Babylon.—Rebellion of Zedekiah.—Destruction of Jerusalem.—Gedaliah the Babylonian Satrap.—Prophecies against Egypt.—Later School of Prophecy.—Function of the Jewish Nation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Wisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible by Paul LewisTherese LysaughtWisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible Paul Lewis MACON, GA: NURTURING FAITH, 2017. 99 pp. $18.00Paul Lewis invites us into a thought experiment: What can we discern about moral development from a "naive" reading of the Hebrew Scriptures as narrative, starting at Genesis and working our way through to Chronicles? If we remove (...) our presuppositions and eisegesis, ossified through centuries of familiarity, and read the stories at face value, what can we discern about character, virtue, and moral development via the human protagonists as well as God? In this book aimed at undergraduates and faith-seeking adults, Lewis provides an accessible introduction to both scripture and ethics, as well as a creative endeavor at the interface.Using an eclectic hermeneutical approach, Lewis offers a fresh reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Fundamental to his thesis are two points. First, even though the Hebrew Scriptures are made up of a variety of texts in different genres written by different authors over almost a millennium, at some point, they were collated into the canonical, three-part sequence (Law, Prophets, and Writings—the Tanakh, TNK) by redactors who shaped the collection with a particular directionality. Pivotal to this process was the Babylonian Exile, which Lewis considers a crucial lens for reading a narrative arc across the collection. Second, he reminds Christian readers that the structure and sequence of texts in the Christian "Old Testament" differs from that of the Jewish TNK. As a result, "TNK and Old Testament, by the way they order the documents that make them up, thus tell different stories" (9).Lewis walks the reader through a series of ordered reflections on the three main sections of the Hebrew Scriptures. From Genesis to Chronicles, he charts a shift toward increasing moral complexity, finding in this narrative "a story of moral development" that begins with the need for and establishment of rules or laws (Torah—chap. 2), moves to the discernment of principles at the heart of the laws (Prophets—chap. 3), and culminates with a vision of wisdom captured in the multifaceted and sometimes conflicting texts in the Writings (chap. 4), complete with a controversial yet intriguing interpretation of Job. Wisdom, in his reading of these texts, is the practical skill needed to interpret the laws, rules, and principles of the tradition with the nuance necessary for the ever-changing sociocultural context of the "hard, cruel world" in which the Jews of ancient Palestine found themselves. [End Page 204]The book culminates with chapter 5, titled "Wisdom Calls," where he brings the multilayered Wisdom tradition (chochmah, in Hebrew) into conversation with the Aristotelian tradition of virtue and practical wisdom (phronesis), finding the analog for Aristotle's endpoint of eudaimonia in the Hebraic vision of shalom. Shalom is "the goal toward which wisdom strives and the good that it seeks to achieve" (p. 73). In a short appendix, he also brings chochmah into conversation with contemporary developments in the moral psychology of wisdom, drawing on the work of Darcia Narvaez and scholars at the Max Planck Institute, among others.Lewis's reading brings the Hebrew Scriptures alive, reminding us how wonderfully messy, interesting, and complicated its characters and stories are. By way of critique, one might ask: Can one read a scriptural text too naively? At points, this reader wished for a bit more historical-critical interpretation as a way of enhancing the conclusions being drawn. Integration of the material on the moral psychology of wisdom into the final chapter, rather than as an appendix, would also have been welcome. In the end, Wisdom Calls provides an engaging starting point for students and congregations.Therese LysaughtLoyola University ChicagoCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Judaism is one of the oldest surviving religious traditions in the world. The Jews, who base their history on Abraham and his son Isaac, began to be called religion with Moses. The Jews, who lived their golden age in and around Jerusalem during the David and Solomon periods, also built the Temple, which was at the center of their religious life. The Jews, who rebuilt the Temple during the Babylonian exile and subsequently Ezra's reign, lived in these lands (...) until the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The statelessness that started after the destruction of the temple had an important place in the Jewish identity. The exile life, which continued for two thousand years, caused the Jews to go to different parts of the world and live there. In this period, which is expressed as the period of exile, Jews lived in many regions such as Africa, Anatolia, Europe and America. The arrival of the Jews in the Americas dates back to the Columbus era. Jews were present in South America and subsequently in the British colonies. Currently, most of the Jews in the world live in the USA. Among the Jews who went to the Americas, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews constitute the majority. However, in the Americas, Jews have formed different groups over time. These include groups such as Conservative, Orthodox, Reformist, and Reconstructionist. Jewish groups formed by African-Americans also have a special place among these formations. These African-American Jews in the USA, are discussed within the framework of this article. In the article, firstly, a piece of brief information about Judaism in America was given, and then the relations between Blacks and Jews were discussed. Afterward, the main features of these formations, which are of African origin and consider themselves the descendants of the Israelites, are emphasized. Finally, the Jewish groups established by Black Jews were contacted and if they had different practices and beliefs from the others, they were included. The research was carried out based on the literature review and information was given about the prominent black Jewish groups. (shrink)

This paper deals with the concept of three eras, as brought to us firstly in the Babylonian Talmud, and later reshaped and reformulated by Christian theologians Joachim of Fiore, Amalric of Bène, and finally by Luce Irigaray. In the first part, we start with the idea of the three eras. This is followed by a critical approach to Sloterdijk’s You must change your life in which religion is substituted by the anthropotechnics. We argue that even in these secular (...) times, the salvation history still remains unfulfilled and that our world is in need of a new, post-Christian materially spiritual narrative. The second part is entirely dedicated to Amalricians and their teachings. Also by tackling strong Islamic influences, we try to find a new opening towards the post-Christian era beyond the mentioned anthropotechnics/atheism divide. In the third part, the Age of the Spirit is approached and defined as a future messianic-utopian era in which a hidden and forgotten inner spiritual core will be revealed to us and in which humanity will give itself a gift of becoming spiritually transformed and divinized. (shrink)

In the present paper, the meanings the term “Chaldeans” acquired during the Antiquity and the early Middle Ages are presented, but mainly the role the Chaldean Oracles played inside the movement of Neo-Platonism is emphasized. The stratification of Being according to the theology of the Chaldean Oracles, suggests a reformation of the ancient Chaldean dogmas by the Neo-Platonists. The kernel of this paper is the demonstration of the similarity between the name “En” that the ancient Babylonians used as the first (...) part of many compound words for their gods, with the One (Ἕν=En), the first theological principle in the Neo-Platonic system. Yet, a comparison between the Chaldean theology and the Neo-platonic views on Mysticism and religiosity follows. As it is well known, the later Neo-Platonism will be led to the creation of a way of thought and practice as impacts from the ancient tradition. (shrink)

The book is designed as an introductory text in the history of pre-Christian religion. The religions are examined in their socio-historical context and are treated as religions in the broad sense in which they provided total frameworks of meaning for a particular culture. The religions treated are the standard ones: Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebraic, and Greek. Loew's technique is to examine in detail the literature of each culture and to reconstruct from it the sacred space in which the (...) people of that culture must have moved. His categories of myth, sacred history, and philosophy are meant to be more or less adequate characterizations of the shape of the expression of the sacred in the Sumero-Babylonian and Egyptian, Hebraic, and Greek cultures respectively. Of course there is overlap, e.g., the obviously mythic roots of Greek literature. Loew is best on the Sumero-Babylonian and Egyptian religions. When he comes to the Hebraic religions he oversimplifies the picture to a considerable degree, as is the case also with his treatment of the Greeks. But this is perhaps a justifiable procedure in an introductory text. Each chapter concludes with a brief but helpfully annotated bibliography.--E. A. R. (shrink)

Given the unprecedented scope and stakes of contemporary environmental crisis, ethicists have raised critical questions about whether traditional religious texts can speak in a meaningful way to climate change and other environmental risks in the anthropocene. Building on the ethical urgency of the environmental justice movement, this essay offers a feminist reading of Jewish narratives from the Babylonian Talmud that centers attention on issues of power, privilege, and social inequality in the midst of disaster. Talmudic tales of the destruction (...) of Jerusalem critique the moral oblivion of wealthy residents who failed to act in response to crisis. Articulating a Jewish feminist reconstituative ethics, the author uses these tales to trace the ethical costs of epistemologies of ignorance—the complex strategies and social processes through which privileged communities cultivate ignorance of environmental suffering, maintain social distance from environmental risk, and disown moral culpability for environmental injustice. (shrink)

Rabbinic Talmudic tradition is marked by chains of tradition, integrating written Scripture and oral Traditions. The interrelation of word, voice, and instruction is paramount. Levinas’s reading of Talmudic texts follows this format and continues this tradition, by superimposing his voice and philosophical concerns. I have chosen his reading of Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Makkot 10a as an exemplum. In the process, Levinas’s style and method can be seen as a contemporary meta-commentary on the ancient rabbinic source.

In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient's exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive (...) to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:For the Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis by William GreenwayRyan JuskusFor the Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis William Greenway GRAND RAPIDS, MI: EERDMANS, 2015. 178 PP. $18.00The morning I started reading William Greenway's For the Love of All Creatures, my toddler stumbled into my bedroom holding an injured cockroach. After my startled response caused him to drop it, (...) I trapped and threw the cockroach outside. Had no children been present, I probably would have killed it. Later, I read Greenway's injunction to "love the cockroach," for "we reflect the image of God when we are wholly and without qualification seized by love for the cockroach and for every creature" (102). Did I love that injured cockroach, I wondered; was I seized in a "transcendent moment," my love "absolute and unqualified" (102)? Unpreoccupied by such quotidian dilemmas, Greenway instead proposes a spirituality of grace, of awakening to having been seized by love for all creatures. The moral and spiritual genius of "the primeval history" of Genesis 1–11, he argues, is its holding together the "knowing, insightful idealism" of the seven-day Creation narrative with the "hyperrealism" of the Flood narrative (140). Together they proclaim the "decisive, life-affirming asymmetry" that gracious love is more primordial and ultimate than evil (144). Greenway's book joins a growing body of literature reclaiming biblical texts from overly anthropocentric readings. Asserting the priority of moral sensibility to ethical reasoning, Greenway does not help me know whether I loved that cockroach—beyond mourning that in a fallen world, we "choose the lesser of two evils" (103)—but his Creation spirituality contributes a distinctive approach to animal ethics.Greenway contrasts his creature-loving reading with both materialist and anthropocentric interpretations, against which he argues that the redactors skillfully wove together the Genesis 1–11 narratives to bear a "spiritual truth" that awakens readers to love for all creatures (4). Contrasting this spiritual wisdom to two other influential Creation narratives—the Babylonian Enuma Elish and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, the latter carried to completion by Charles Darwin—Greenway draws out the interconnections between politics, cosmology, anthropology, God, and evil that each narrative renders.A provocative but carefully developed reading of the Flood as the "birth of the God of grace" and an interpretation of the seven-day Creation through the lens of exiled, suffering Israel, follow (67). The latter, Greenway argues, cultivates a life-affirming spirituality with an "infinite sensitivity to every other [End Page 205] being" (105). The both/and character of the primeval history's spirituality is summed up in Greenway's oft-repeated phrases "seized by love for all creatures" (i.e., idealism) yet "with eyes wide open to injustice and suffering" (i.e., realism). For a criterion to evaluate Creation narratives, Greenway distinguishes between a "logic of domination" and a "logic of dominion." He concludes that whereas the Hobbesian-Darwinian narrative recognizes fallenness and the Enuma Elish promotes realism, both fail to testify to the asymmetry between good and evil that Greenway thinks essential to a creature-loving spirituality of dominion. Gracious love is the most primordial and ultimate reality. The ethic of daily life, lived along the continuum between domination and dominion, is to "maximize dominion" (121).Regardless of whether one accepts Greenway's premises regarding authority, epistemology, and biblical interpretation, his argument is insightful and thought provoking. Engaging the oppressed communities highlighted by feminist, womanist, and postcolonial thinkers would have complicated his story of "the modern West" and his assessments of sacrifice, hierarchy, sin, and imago Dei. Also, a number of ambiguities—such as claiming to value multiple religious traditions while arguing for the superiority of Genesis—beg for further clarity. However, Greenway's contribution to a life-affirming spirituality in harmony with biblical testimony is laudatory. He may not help me know how to love a cockroach, but he successfully accounts for why such an ethical dilemma coheres with a Genesis-cultivated spirituality. The book would have wide appeal in undergraduate, seminary, or ecclesial contexts. [End Page 206]Ryan JuskusDuke UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set (...) the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)