The Hebrew term kosher means ‘fit’ or ‘proper’ and it traditionally signifies foods that conform to Jewish dietary law. This article explores how kosher is understood, practised and contested in contemporary Denmark. In recent years, the rules regulating kosher consumption have been supplemented by elaborate rules concerning globalised mass production, which have had an impact on the way people handle questions of kashrut. During the same period, global markets for kosher have proliferated; this article explores the everyday kosher consumption (...) among Jews in Denmark in the light of these transformations. Everyday kosher consumption among a minority group such as Jews in Denmark is not well understood, and I argue that globalised forms of regulation increasingly condition this type of consumption. Even though Denmark is a small and relatively secular country and Jews comprise only about 7,000 individuals, kosher production and regulation have national economic significance. Methodologically, I build on ethnographic data from contemporary Denmark, that is, participant observation and interviews. (shrink)

The past century has seen various studies on the nature of Matthew’s community, and conclusions are still being debated. The study on which this article is based acknowledges the past studies, but further proposes that the nature of the Matthean community was one of coexistence. The Matthean community implied in the book of Matthew coexisted in three ways. Firstly, Jews and Gentiles coexisted within the community: the Jewish–Christian-centred community had started to accept Gentiles and became a community where Gentiles (...) and Jews lived together. Secondly, the community was in a state where both the Jewish law and the teachings of Jesus were followed. Finally, the community tended to set both Jews and Gentiles as targets for the mission. This means that there was missionary coexistence within the community. These three main reasons are the basis for the claim that the Matthean community maintained the nature of coexistence. (shrink)

Denmark is one of the only European countries that can speak of its involvement in the Holocaust with some sense of pride. In October of 1943, the Danes pulled off a substantial rescue mission during which they led the majority of the Danish Jews to safety in Sweden. Traditional representations of this event attribute its success to the outstanding moral character of the Danes. This paper challenges this popular view and explores a variety of factors which together facilitated (...) the rescue of the Danish Jews. (shrink)

This article examines two current debates in Denmark—assisted suicide and the prioritization of health resources—and proposes that such controversial bioethical issues call for distinct philosophical analyses: first-order examinations, or an applied philosophy approach, and second-order examinations, what might be called a political philosophical approach. The authors argue that although first-order examination plays an important role in teasing out different moral points of view, in contemporary democratic societies, few, if any, bioethical questions can be resolved satisfactorily by means of first-order (...) analyses alone, and that bioethics needs to engage more closely with second-order enquiries and the question of legitimacy in general. (shrink)

This reply to Martyn Evans's support for a cardiac-centered concept of death attempts to meet some objections to the brainstem definition of death. Evans's appeal to Wittgenstein's philosophy is also criticised.

Does it matter that the hearts of 'brainstem dead' patients may persist in beating spontaneously? Hostile reactions, to the Danish inclusion of cardiac criteria in the determination of death, betray reductionist views of human life at the core of 'brainstem' conceptions of death. Such views (whether centred on neurological function or on abstractions concerning 'personhood') supplant the richness of human life and death with the poverty of essentialism: and mask the lethal nature of beating-heart organ retrieval. The affirmation of cardiac (...) criteria for death is not an alternative form of essentialism as some critics suppose, but part of an understanding of human life and death which rejects essentialism altogether. The spontaneously persistent heartbeat does not constitute human life, but most certainly counts for it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 189-202 [Access article in PDF] Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772 John Christian Laursen * Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza was the arch-heretic of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was denounced in half a dozen languages from the time he began to publish until at least the 1780s, when Lessing's allegiance to Spinoza became the heart (...) of a literary scandal. 1 In time-honored fashion, some of these denunciations led to the burning of books and the imprisonment or banning of authors. The most spectacular case, however, led to the trial of a prime minister, the cutting off of his right hand and of his head, and the drawing and quartering of his body in full public ceremony. The year was 1772, the prime minister was Johann Friedrich Struensee, and the country was Denmark.Late eighteenth-century Denmark was not known for barbarities of the type represented by Struensee's execution. Previously disgraced prime ministers had merely been imprisoned, and other political enemies of the ruling powers had [End Page 189] merely been exiled. 2 Why such harshness with Struensee? What was at stake in the fall of Struensee?The answers to these questions are complex, but an important element of those answers lies in Struensee's public image, which made it seem both necessary and justifiable to treat him with such harshness. In turn, public opinion about Struensee was closely tied to the reputation of Spinoza. This essay will show that charges of Spinozism were part of the campaign that poisoned public opinion against Struensee. This was an unusually clear case of a theological and philosophical debate having direct political effects.Before getting to the role of Spinozism and anti-Spinozism in eighteenth-century Denmark, let us fill in important points of the story. The charge against Struensee was lèse majesté, for plotting the death of the King and for usurping power in violation of the constitution. Behind these charges was a further element which encouraged outrage: sleeping with Queen Caroline Matilda. That much was true, as both the Queen, a sister of George III of England, and Struensee admitted, each in order to save the other. The King knew about it all along but did not care. He did not care because he had become a libertine, going out to whorehouses most nights with rowdy friends, and he figured that what was good for the gander was good for the goose. He was also schizophrenic and easily manipulable by those around him, so that Struensee and the Queen encountered no disapproval from him until he fell under other people's influence. After Struensee and the Queen were taken into custody, the King was forced to divorce the Queen and she was sent to live in a Hannoverian castle in Celle because her brother did not want the embarrassment of having her back in England. She died there a few years later. 3It is an irony that we owe our knowledge of the state of public opinion in Denmark in this period to Struensee. Until shortly before the fatal events mentioned above, the Danish press had been subject to censorship that might have prevented the expression of many of the subsequent attacks on Struensee. But in September 1770 Struensee persuaded the king to declare freedom of the press in all his realms (consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the Duchies of Slesvig and Holsten [Schleswig and Holstein in German], Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and colonies in India, Africa, and the Caribbean). 4 It is not widely [End Page 190] known that Denmark was the first country to declare unlimited freedom of the press as official public policy. For much of the century England and the Netherlands had effective freedom of the press, but it had never been declared official policy. The next to do so was rebellious Virginia, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), followed by other colonies and then the Bill of Rights of the new... (shrink)

The history of Italian Jews from 1861 to 1938 is often viewed as the period in which they totally assimilated into the Italian nation. This article, however, argues that rather than their assimilation it was a period of their integration into Italian society. Various approaches to this question are presented, including a review of the literature, with a view to reconsidering the relationship between Jewish culture and Italian culture, or rather non-Jewish culture. Italian Jewish history is shown not to (...) be separated from, but to be “internal” to Italian social, cultural, and political history—part of the dynamic process of change that occurred during this period not only in Italy but throughout Europe. (shrink)

The philosophy of science discussion in Denmark has mainly concentrated on the problem of the external world, the problem of induction, the problem of dialectic in the Marxian sense and the strife between ontological viewpoints, originating in the philosophical tradition, and the analytical method emerging in modern mathematics and quantum mechanics. In this discussion Bohr's correspondence argument and his doctrine of language have functioned as tools of analysis and as objects of study as well. In general, Bohr and J. (...) Jørgensen were the creators of the intellectual climate in which the discussion took place. (shrink)

An extremely important Jewish writer and thinker of the first century AD, Philo of Alexandria exercised through his ideas and language a lasting influence on the development and growth of Christianity in the New Testament period and later. This book provides an introduction to the major themes and ideas in the religious and philosophical thinking of Philo and outlines the importance of his thought by means of introductory treatments and sections of freshly translated text and commentary. Dr Williamson illustrates in (...) his work the place and significance of Philo within Judaism and as part of the background to Christianity, and so provides a valuable resource for scholars and students in this area of study. (shrink)

The philosophy of science discussion in Denmark has mainly concentrated on the problem of the external world, the problem of induction, the problem of dialectic in the Marxian sense and the strife between ontological viewpoints, originating in the philosophical tradition, and the analytical method emerging in modern mathematics and quantum mechanics. In this discussion Bohr's correspondence argument and his doctrine of language have functioned as tools of analysis and as objects of study as well. In general, Bohr and J. (...) Jørgensen were the creators of the intellectual climate in which the discussion took place. (shrink)

Historians estimate that between 10 and 15 thousand Jews were hiding out in Warsaw before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. One of the aid organizations, the Jewish National Committee received a larger amount of money in late July but managed to distribute only some of it. Then rest went for various forms of aid during the fighting and after the uprising fall—for those who survived. The Varsovians’ attitude towards the Jews varied. The civilian authorities tried to help (...) all who found themselves in extreme conditions, Poles and Jews. Many Jews bravely fought in many battles in the city along with their Polish compatriots and their fate is presented in the article. (shrink)

Using pull and push factors inspired by the migration theory, this study explains Matthew's Sondergut concerning Jesus' flight to Egypt from the perspective of possible pull-push factors associated with Egypt and Palestine during the first century. Within early Christianity, two perception strands concerning Egypt existed: on the one hand, Jews such as Celsus depicted Egypt negatively as a place of magic and oppression. Yet another perspective portrays Egypt as a place of refuge, recuperation and recovery - a view reflected (...) in Luke-Acts, Matthew and some parts of Mark. Not disregarding views that read the story as Midrash or allegory, this study focuses on Matthew's Sondergut concerning Jesus' flight to Egypt as narrative explainable from a positive migration perspective, and argues that the prosperity of Egypt and possible political turmoil in Palestine during the first century give plausible reconstruct for Matthew's Sondergut regarding Jesus' flight to Egypt as a place of refuge and sustenance. (shrink)

Denmark is a constitutional monarchy resting on the founding Constitution of 1849 and later amendments. The 179 members of parliament are democratically elected, and the government is formed on the basis of parliamentary principles. The queen functions as head of state without any power to intervene in legislative or executive matters. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are part of the kingdom, but self-governing. In total, the population is around 5.6 million. The country is divided into five regions and 98 (...) municipalities. Members of both regional and municipal councils are democratically elected. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Protestant Responses to Darwinism in Denmark, 1859–1914Hans Henrik HjermitslevFrom the 1870s onwards, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, published in On the Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), was an important topic among the followers of the influential Danish theologian N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–1872). The Grundtvigians constituted a major faction within the Danish Evangelical-Lutheran Established Church, which included more than ninety percent of the population in the (...) period 1859–1914.This article demonstrates the influence of local contexts on the reception of scientific ideas by analyzing how specific aspects of Danish intellectual culture made the Grundtvigian reactions to Darwin’s theory different from Protestant denominations in America and Britain. Firstly, Grundtvig’s critique of Lutheran scriptural theology and his preference for the living word to the letters of the Bible legitimized liberal interpretations of Scripture. Secondly the philosophy of the Søren Kierkegaard protagonist, Rasmus Nielsen, made it possible for Grundtvigians to draw radical distinctions between science and faith. This specific “Danish Protestantism,” as the clergyman Frederik Jungersen phrased it in 1873, led the way for liberal Grundtvigians in coming to terms with Darwinism in the first decades of the twentieth century.1 [End Page 279]Protestant Responses to EvolutionIn recent decades historians have paid considerable attention to religious responses to Darwinism. Studies have revealed a variety of reactions to evolution depending on local contingencies, which has made it impossible to uphold any grand narrative of the dissemination of Darwinism.2 In his study of Calvinist attitudes toward Darwinism in Princeton, Belfast, and Edinburgh, David N. Livingstone thus emphasizes the importance of place in the reception of evolution.3 The historical complexities shaped by local contexts have been further demonstrated by scholars, who have explored the responses to Darwinism in a wide range of Protestant denominations in Britain and America.4 From the 1870s, when evolution was generally accepted among British and American scientists, liberal and even some orthodox theologians advocated various kinds of theistic evolutionism. It was not until the 1920s that creationists, who rejected evolution in general and human evolution in particular, took center stage in American Protestant answers to the Darwinian challenge. While many Protestant theologians in the decades around 1900 accepted that God had created the living world, including man, through evolution, very few embraced the specific Darwinian mechanism of natural selection that was often said to have atheistic implications. Instead liberal theologians, in line with many naturalists, often applied Lamarckian concepts of use-inheritance and teleological [End Page 280] development and prevalent ideas of progress that were seen as consistent with viewing evolution as a meaningful process and the unfolding of the Creator’s plan. According to James R. Moore, Peter J. Bowler, and Frederick Gregory this was the common way for liberal Christians to respond to organic evolution at least in the English-speaking world. It offered an acceptable compromise between science and faith. However, this article demonstrates that this strategy did not dominate in Denmark, where a separation model of science and faith was a more widespread approach when embracing the theory of evolution.5While studies by Jon H. Roberts and Ronald L. Numbers reveal considerable differences within the leading Protestant denominations such as Calvinists, Baptists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Methodists in their attitudes toward evolution, they detect no significant differences among the groups. Numbers notes however that “distinctive theological convictions sometimes influenced how people viewed Darwin’s theory.”6 This was especially the case when we move from the Protestant mainstream into distinctive groups such as the Seventh-day Adventists and the Pentecostals. In the case of the Adventists, their hyper-literalism and strong support for young-earth creationism owed much to the inspired writings of their founding prophetess Ellen G. White, while the relative indifference to evolution among Pentecostals can be explained by their Wesleyan-Methodist focus on religious experience over the study of Scripture.7 Likewise, in a study of attitudes toward evolution within the British Quaker community, Geoffrey Cantor has shown how discussions of Darwinism between evangelicals and moderates centred on the relative importance that should be paid to the Bible versus the doctrine of the Inner Light. Emphasizing... (shrink)