In this article, the author explores one of the avenues through which the experiences of the European biblical studies were implemented in the Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the first time, the critical bibliographic reviews of biblical research works written by foreign scholars are being examined as a genre. In the comments and reviews made by the KTA professors, we observe a critical analysis of the experiences related to rationalistic and (...) orthodox apologetic trends as represented in foreign biblical studies, as well as a quest for conceptual and methodological allies in support of the Orthodox biblical apologetic perspective. These critical reviews represent a valuable asset indicating that the Kyiv theological academic studies had been incorporated in the global dimension of academic biblical studies. The broad range of subjects addressed in the reviews as well as their regularity and frequency testify to intensive professional communication within the theological academic community. In addition, the texts demonstrate the degree the Kyiv academics perceived the global issues and trends, the responses of scholars to methodological and conceptual challenges, and their perception of various hermeneutical models. The article specifies the stages in which the genre of review evolved from 1860s to early 1900s. From the key structural elements of the entire body of reviews and critical articles, the author distinguishes reviews of the Old Testament and New Testament studies in such thematic areas as isagogics, theology, exegesis, historical criticism, textual criticism, study of biblical languages, geography, archeology, history, chronology, and comparative studies of religion and culture. The subject areas of the reviews and critical articles specifically indicate significant development in the European biblical studies. (shrink)

In this article, the author carries on his research into critical bibliographic reviews of foreign biblical studies made by professors of Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In his analysis of the structure and topics of those reviews, the author spotlights how the European experience of biblical studies played a role in shaping of the Orthodox Biblical discourse in Kyiv Theological Academy. The European biblical studies of that period increasingly promoted the biblical (...) knowledge. Several leading intellectual centers were emerging as conceptual and methodological ‘camps’, including rationalistic, apologetic, and ‘moderate’ ones. Structurally, the foreign studies of Bible have been focusing on the origin, authorship, historicity, and authenticity of biblical books. Critical and apologetic interpretation strategies have been compared. The catalyzing effect was brought about by the text studies based on new critical editions of the Hebraic, Old Greek, and Greek New Testaments as well as new dictionaries and grammar books. Biblical studies were in pursuit of their proper place at the crossroads of theology and a wide range of historical, humanitarian and social sciences. Biblical studies were increasingly linked to current social and cognitive issues debated in the West. Remarkably, various biblical and non-biblical sources have been compared more and more frequently. Against this background, the sprouts of religious comparativism and early efforts of historical religious reconstructions have emerged. Finally, the comparison of historical and mythological elements in the Bible was the focal point of debates in the West for researchers of both the Old and the New Testaments. Critical bibliographic publications, in particular the large annual reviews of foreign literature, strongly illustrate that the Kyiv spiritual and academic biblical studies had been increasingly integrating in the global academic and theological dimension. (shrink)

Аналізуючи твори низки професорів та вихованців Київської духовної академії другої половини ХІХ – початку ХХ ст., автор висвітлює важливий етап актуалізації у київському православному біблієзнавстві загальноєвропейської полеміки щодо визнання історичності надприродного й чудесного в біблійному наративі. Означену проблему розглянуто в її догматично-богословському та герменевтичному аспектах. Встановлено, що в раціоналістичному дискурсі європейських біблієзнавчих студій критика ідеї надприродного поставала передусім як проблема співвідношення історичного та міфологічного елементів у старо- та новозавітній оповідях. Апологія надприродного ґрунтувалася, своєю чергою, на визнанні історичної реальності чуда в (...) Біблії. Таке визнання ставало наріжним каменем біблійної апологетики незалежно від її конфесійного спрямування. Показано, що київські біблієзнавці-академісти у своїх бібліографічних публікаціях та авторських розвідках підтримали спільні європейські й світові тренди полеміки щодо проблеми надприродного в Біблії. Вони заперечували десакралізацію біблійного наративу, критикуючи як міфологічні, так і натуралістичні його інтерпретації. Київські апологети підтвердили сутнісний зв’язок віроповчального, догматичного та герменевтичного аспектів проблеми історичності надприродного в Біблії: визнання реальності чуда є підтвердженням достовірності самого Святого Письма, його істинності та надійності як образу священної історії, джерела віри та практик життя. (shrink)

In this article, the author carries on his research into works by Dmytro Bohdashevskyi, the famous Professor and Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the early 20th century. The paper covers Dmytro Bohdashevskyi’s theological apologetics of the miracle and the supernatural in biblical narrative. It was established that Kyiv researcher realized the synthesis of epistemological, hermeneutic, dogmatic and religious-practical components in his position. Great attention is paid to his peculiar religious phenomenology, epistemology and praxeology of the Gospel miracles. Bohdashevskyi (...) proposed a phenomenological representation of wonderful events in the acts of life experience. Religious structures such as experiencing the miraculous and experiencing the meeting the Absolute play the most important role. The epistemological basis of Bohdashevskyi ‘s reasoning about miracle in the Bible is the affirmation of its coherence with the human mind. This coherence is based on the act of religious faith in which a sacred rationalization of a miracle takes place. This way of rationalizing Gospel miracles objectively opposes both the primitive magical and the modern rationalistic interpretations of the miraculous. However, the Kyiv apologist sometimes finds himself vulnerable to denying the significance of the act of faith and moving beyond the theological discursiveness to which his rationalist-minded opponents resort. The researcher objectively describes the assumption of the miracle as an intrinsically problematic cognitive act, demonstrating the complexity of human cognition as one of the underlying reasons for the emergence and existence of religion. In this way, D. Bohdashevskyi came very close to the comparison of scientific and extra-scientific knowledge, rational and extra-rational components of cognitive process. Article received 15.08.2019. (shrink)

The article demonstrates the experience of religious reading of the iconic work of the prominent Kyiv bibliologist and academician of the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century V. Rybinskyi. The need for such a reading is determined by the fact that the Biblical texts contain a lot of empirical material relevant from the point of view of the history and theory of religious studies. Therefore, a kind of reconstruction of the field of theoretical positions important for (...) the formation of the “science of religion” in the domestic intellectual tradition is actualized. At the same time, given the weak systematization, a certain theoretical amorphousness and the need to carefully “read” such provisions, it would be correct to say that Rybinskyi’s work has only the motives of “proto-religious studies.” The article proposes relevant provisions that characterize the position of the Kyiv researcher in the field of the source and methodological problems of religion research; in matters of the origin and historical development of religious phenomena; in evaluation of the socio-cultural and political dimensions of religious institutions. The arguments given by V. Rybinskyi on the structural components of a religious ritual or religious institution in general, both in its evolution and in functional connections, are valuable for religious studies. It is shown how the Kyiv Biblical scholar in his own research hypostasis and apologetic intention closely approaches the formulation of “protoreligious” provisions. The eloquent example once again traces the complexity of disciplinary formation in the na­tional culture of the “science of religion” and the complexity of rational knowledge of this phenomenon as a specific way of spiritual and practical development of reality.Manuscript received 07.08.2020. (shrink)

Стаття продовжує цикл розвідок, які демонструють досвід релігієзнавчого прочитання значущих праць видатних київських професорів-академістів останньої третини ХІХ – початку ХХ століття. У цих працях нагромаджувався потужний масив емпіричного матеріалу, релевантного з погляду історії та теорії релігієзнавчих досліджень. Відповідно, нині актуалізується реконструкція поля теоретичних положень, важливих для становлення «науки про релігію» у вітчизняній інтелектуальній традиції. Репрезентовано творчість гебраїста та біблієзнавця Якима Олесницького. Цей дослідник одним із перших у вітчизняній гуманітарній науці проаналізував агадичний шар талмудичної писемності крізь призму порівняльно-релігієзнавчого та релігійно-історичного підходів. (...) Було виявлено метаморфози біблійних образів та сюжетів, подій давньої історії єврейського народу, що виникли під впливами різних міфологічних, філософських, фольклорних традицій. Відбувалася реальна деміфологізація агади з позицій історичної та літературної критики. На підставі релігієзнавчого прочитання тексту Я. Олесницького у цій статті простежено деякі метаморфози власне теїстичних уявлень у процесі постання талмудичного юдаїзму. Вони проаналізовані під кутом зору актуальних для філософії й феноменології релігії категорій: релігійного досвіду, надприродного, Іншої реальності як священної, Абсолюту. Визначено низку ініційованих Олесницьким пізнавальних ситуацій, цінних із погляду ширшого кола дисциплін: філософії й феноменології релігії, історії релігії, соціології та психології релігії, релігійної компаративістики. Цей досвід буде застосовано в подальших розвідках за матеріалами означеного твору знаного київського академіста. (shrink)

The article continues and develops the experience of actual reading of one of the significant, but littlestudied works of the prominent Kyiv Hebrew scholar and biblical scholar of the last third of the XIX – early XX century, professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy Yakym Olesnytsky. Through the religious study reinterpretation of the structural elements of Talmudic mythology discovered by Olesnytsky, the peculiarities of the evolution of the agadic picture of the world were revealed. Being quite structurally heterogeneous, this phenomenon (...) is characterized by “human dimension”, which is the leitmotif of universal natural harmony, social order, moral balance of good and evil. Both the actions of God, and the elements of nature, and the norms and requirements of society are full of mental, psycho-emotional tension, placed in a situation of moral choice and action, appear in fact anthropological projections, the image of human abilities. Therefore, the anthropological aspects of the transformations of agadic consciousness have been studied from the standpoint of religious studies. The transformation of psychological and anthropological motives in agadic angel and demonology and ideas about the human soul is singled out; revealed dimensions of the sacred symbolization of the unity of man with nature, humanity and the universe in the agadic doctrine of metempsychosis; anthropological and socio-political projections of agadic sacred geography and ritualized practices of contact with the afterlife as with the “Other Reality” are demonstrated; the sacred dimensions of ethno-, cultural- and religious-genesis engraved in the agada are traced. (shrink)

The article analyzes the cultural and civilizational consequences of a long experience of Ukrainians' perception of the biblical picture of the world and the corresponding principles of its development. The author's reasoning is based on the thesis that the very acquisition of the Bible as a sacred text created the space of a common language - the language of values and the language of symbols. The present "European world", even as a globalized phenomenon, has historically emerged as the embodiment of (...) an ideal, symbolic "biblical world". In turn, the over-millennial affiliation of Christianized Ukraine to the "biblical world" has become an extremely important symbolic marker and cultural and ideological factor of civilization. Adopting the principle of biblical historicism coupled with the idea of biblical history as a universal, universal Holy History of Salvation, our ancestors, along with other Christianized peoples, were given the chance to see themselves as full participants in world historical drama. The same universal principle led to the formation of a new model of interpersonal communication - communication, which united families and tribes in nations, and nations into international unity. We still know this unity as Europe - either staying in it or seeking to rebuild and strengthen its ties with it. And, despite the fact that this unity always seemed to be a political, cultural, civilizational unity, it was basically a spiritual and mental unity. The “biblical world”, as a center of norms and symbols, was embodied in the various social and cultural forms of the great Europe. The author outlines a panorama of common cultural ideas and values that have been learned by our ancestors over a thousand years ago, the source of which is the biblical worldview. In particular, the idea of indisputable and unceasing progress is analyzed — as the idea of historical progress in the development of each individual, each local society, as well as humanity as a whole. It is shown that the possibility of such progress is justified by the affirmation of the value of personal creative effort in the transformation of the world — an effort that involves creativity and initiative. The basis for the creative world transformation for the human development is the value of rational knowledge of the world. However, it has been shown that the ideas of progressism, personal creative activism, rationalism and pragmatism in the European mentality are substantially counterbalanced by several important values, which are also of biblical origin. In this context, the idea of personal and collective responsibility for what humans is being done in the world is emphasized. This value — as the maxim of socially significant behavior — in our culture is a powerful safeguard for personal or group selfishness and particularism.These values can be realized in a system of constantly updating communities. Community, communication is the basis of a a fulfilling personal and collective life, both religious and secular. On the concrete examples of the analysis of the reception of the European biblical experience by the figures of the Kiev theological tradition of the late XIX - early XX centuries, the author demonstrates the perception by the Kiev authors of this period of polyphonic unity of the European world, the normative and symbolic core of which was the Bible. The author reasonably argues that by comparing the foreign experience of mastering and applying the Bible with the domestic, "home" situation, Kiev theologian researchers objectively strengthened the idea of a universal "biblical world". The "biblical world" - as the unity of the spiritual-symbolic and ethno-geographical principles, is, to put it now, the "geopolitical phenomenon" - has been globalized and modernized. As a result, there were also challenges to Ukrainian culture and society. These challenges remain relevant every time we attempt modern Ukrainian state and national-cultural construction. The author's current conclusion is that even now our self-awareness as Europeans, as full members of the global community of nations, requires us to read the Bible as a source of meaning shared with the rest of the world, with the experience of other nations. (shrink)