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Book Centralizing the Cult

    Book Details:
  • Author : Julia Rhyder
  • Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
  • Release : 2019-10-16
  • ISBN : 3161576853
  • Pages : 506 pages

Download or read book Centralizing the Cult written by Julia Rhyder and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2019-10-16 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back cover: In this work, Julia Rhyder examines the Holiness legislation in Leviticus 17-26 and cultic centralization in the Persian period. Rather than presuming centralization as an established norm, Leviticus 17-26 forge a distinctive understanding of centralization around a central sanctuary, standardized ritual processes, and a hegemonic priesthood

Book The Legislative Themes of Centralization

Download or read book The Legislative Themes of Centralization written by Jeffrey G. Audirsch and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The centralization of the cult mandate in Deuteronomy has captivated scholars for over two centuries. Related to this mandate are five legislative themes--abrogation of idolatry, tithing, the Israelite festival calendar, judiciary officials, and the priesthood. Collectively, these themes are interwoven into the Deuteronomic social, political, and religious infrastructure. Interpreted through an exilic lens, this study examines the themes through the relevant literary strata in the Enneateuch. In doing so, the themes are identified as playing an instrumental role in the demise of the divided monarchy. It is through the demise of the divided monarchy that the book of Deuteronomy, especially the centralization mandate, takes on a new meaning--a utopian desire. Thus, the rhetorical strategy of centralization, once contrived to unify and purify the cult, actually leads to failure and serves as motivation for reform during the exilic period.

Book Mao Cult

    Book Details:
  • Author : Daniel Leese
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2011-10-31
  • ISBN : 1139498118
  • Pages : 323 pages

Download or read book Mao Cult written by Daniel Leese and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many books have explored Mao's posthumous legacy, none has scrutinized the massive worship that was fostered around him during the Cultural Revolution. This book is the first to do so. By analyzing secret archival documents, Daniel Leese traces the history of the cult within the Communist Party and at the grassroots level. The party leadership's original intention was to develop a prominent brand symbol, which would compete with the nationalists' elevation of Chiang Kai-shek. However, they did not anticipate that Mao would use this symbolic power to mobilize Chinese youth to rebel against party bureaucracy itself. The result was anarchy and when the army was called in it relied on mandatory rituals of worship such as daily reading of the Little Red Book to restore order. Such fascinating detail sheds light not only on the personality cult of Mao, but also on hero-worship in other traditions.

Book Cargo Cult

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lamont Lindstrom
  • Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
  • Release : 2019-03-31
  • ISBN : 0824878957
  • Pages : 236 pages

Download or read book Cargo Cult written by Lamont Lindstrom and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is not captivated by tales of Islanders earnestly scanning their watery horizons for great fleets of cargo ships bringing rice, radios and refrigerators - ships that will never arrive? Of all the stories spun about the island peoples of Melanesia, tales of cargo cult are among the most fascinating. The term cargo cult, Lamont Lindstrom contends, is one of anthropology's most successful conceptual offspring. Like culture, worldview and ethnicity, its usage has steadily proliferated, migrating into popular culture where today it is used to describe an astonishing roll-call of people. It's history makes for lively and compelling reading. The cargo cult story, Lindstrom shows, is more significant than it at first appears, for it recapitulates in summary form three generations of anthropological theory and Pacific studies. Although anthropologists' enthusiasm for the notion of cargo cult has waned, it now colors outsiders' understanding of Melanesian culture, and even Melanesians' perceptions of themselves. The repercussions for contemporary Islanders are significant: leaders of more than one political movement have felt the need to deny that they are any kind of cargo cultist. Of particular interest to this history is Lindstom's argument that accounts of cargo cult are at heart tragedies of thwarted desire, melancholy anticipation and crazy unrequited love. He makes a convincing case that these stories expose powerful Western scenarios of desire itself—giving cargo cult its combined titillation of the fascinating exotic and the comfortably familiar.

Book Promoting the Saints

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ottó Gecser
  • Publisher : Central European University Press
  • Release : 2010-07-01
  • ISBN : 9639776947
  • Pages : 337 pages

Download or read book Promoting the Saints written by Ottó Gecser and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The studies in this volume concentrate on a complex set of socio-cultural phenomena, the cult of saints, in a variety of regions from Egypt to Poland, with a focus on Italy and Central Europe. The subjects of the contributions range in time from the fourth until the eighteenth century. The diversity of approaches adopted by the contributors—from literary analysis and historical anthropology to archaeology and art history—represents that open and multidisciplinary historical research that characterizes the work of Gábor Klaniczay to whom these essays are dedicated.

Book Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch

Download or read book Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch written by Christophe Nihan and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible contain a significant number of texts describing ritual practices. Yet it is often unclear how these sources would have been understood or used by ancient audiences in the actual performance of cult. This volume explores the processes of ritual textualization (the creation of a written version of a ritual) in ancient Israel by probing the main conceptual and methodological issues that inform the study of this topic in the Pentateuch. This systematic and comparative study of text and ritual in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible maps the main areas of consensus and disagreement among scholars engaged in articulating new models for understanding the relationship between text and ritual and explores the importance of comparative evidence for the study of pentateuchal rituals. Topics include ritual textualization in ancient Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia; the importance of archaeology and materiality for the study of text and ritual in ancient Israel; the relationship between ritual textualization and standardization in the Pentateuch; the reception of pentateuchal ritual texts in Second Temple writings and rabbinic literature; and the relationship between text and ritual in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Dorothea Erbele-Küster, Daniel K. Falk, Yitzhaq Feder, Christian Frevel, William K. Gilders, Dominique Jaillard, Giuseppina Lenzo, Lionel Marti, Patrick Michel, Rüdiger Schmitt, Jeremy D. Smoak, and James W. Watts.

Book The Cult of the Presidency

Download or read book The Cult of the Presidency written by Gene Healy and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2009 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intro -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1. Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers -- 2. "Progress" and the Presidency -- 3. The Age of the Heroic Presidency -- 4. Hero Takes a Fall -- 5. Superman Returns -- 6. War President -- 7. Omnipotence and Impotence -- 8. Why the Worst Get on Top ... and Get Worse -- 9. Toward Normalcy -- Afterword: Our Continuing Cult of the Presidency -- Notes -- About the Author -- Cato Institute

Book Bounded Choice

    Book Details:
  • Author : Janja A. Lalich
  • Publisher : University of California Press
  • Release : 2020-11-30
  • ISBN : 0520384024
  • Pages : 354 pages

Download or read book Bounded Choice written by Janja A. Lalich and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate "monks" awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives—and sometimes their very lives—to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970s and 1980s, Janja Lalich gives us a rare insider's look at these two cults and advances a new theoretical framework that will reshape our understanding of those who join such groups. Lalich's fascinating discussion includes her in-depth interviews with cult devotees as well as reflections gained from her own experience as a high-ranking member of the Democratic Workers Party. Incorporating classical sociological concepts such as "charisma" and "commitment" with more recent work on the social psychology of influence and control, she develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. She shows how members are led into a state of "bounded choice," in which they make seemingly irrational decisions within a context that makes perfect sense to them and is, in fact, consistent with their highest aspirations. In addition to illuminating the cult phenomenon in the United States and around the world, this important book also addresses our pressing need to know more about the mentality of those true believers who take extreme or violent measures in the name of a cause.

Book Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics

Download or read book Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics written by Joseph Sassoon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining the system of authoritarianism in eight Arab republics, Joseph Sassoon portrays life under these regimes and explores the mechanisms underpinning their resilience. How did the leadership in these countries create such enduring systems? What was the economic system that prolonged the regimes' longevity, but simultaneously led to their collapse? Why did these seemingly stable regimes begin to falter? This book seeks to answer these questions by utilizing the Iraqi archives and memoirs of those who were embedded in these republics: political leaders, ministers, generals, security agency chiefs, party members, and business people. Taking a thematic approach, the book begins in 1952 with the Egyptian Revolution and ends with the Arab uprisings of 2011. It seeks to deepen our understanding of the authoritarianism and coercive systems that prevailed in these countries and the difficult process of transition from authoritarianism that began after 2011.

Book Cult and Koinon in Hellenistic Thessaly

Download or read book Cult and Koinon in Hellenistic Thessaly written by Denver Graninger and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-07-27 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the territorial expansion of the Thessalian League ca. 196-27 BCE, the development of the state religion of the League, and the tension between regional political identity and local cult tradition.

Book Jewish Ethical Idealism

Download or read book Jewish Ethical Idealism written by Frank Harris Ridgley and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Cult in Context

    Book Details:
  • Author : Caroline Malone
  • Publisher : Oxbow Books
  • Release : 2010-04-01
  • ISBN : 1782974962
  • Pages : 1043 pages

Download or read book Cult in Context written by Caroline Malone and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 1043 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gods, deities, symbolism, deposition, cosmology and intentionality are all features of the study of early ritual and cult. Archaeology has great difficulties in providing satisfactory interpretation or recognition of these elusive but important parts of ancient society, and methodologies are often poorly equipped to explore the evidence. This collection of papers explores a wide range of prehistoric and early historic archaeological contexts from Britain, Europe and beyond, where monuments, architectural structures, megaliths, art, caves, ritual activity and symbolic remains offer exciting glimpses into ancient belief systems and cult behaviour. Different theoretical and practical approaches are demonstrated, offering both new directions and considered conclusions to the many problems of studying the archaeology of cult and ritual. Central to the volume is an exploration of early Malta and its intriguing Temple Culture, set in a broad perspective by the discussion and theoretical approaches presented in different geographical and chronological contexts.

Book Review of Biblical Literature  2023

Download or read book Review of Biblical Literature 2023 written by Alicia J. Batton and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The annual Review of Biblical Literature presents a selection of reviews of the most recent books in biblical studies and related fields, including topical monographs, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, and dictionaries. RBL reviews German, French, Italian, and English books and offers reviews in those languages.

Book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Download or read book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind written by Julian Jaynes and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000-08-15 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Book Blood of the Provinces

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ian Haynes
  • Publisher : OUP Oxford
  • Release : 2013-10-03
  • ISBN : 0191627232
  • Pages : 448 pages

Download or read book Blood of the Provinces written by Ian Haynes and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood of the Provinces is the first fully comprehensive study of the largest part of the Roman army, the auxilia. This non-citizen force constituted more than half of Rome's celebrated armies and was often the military presence in some of its territories. Diverse in origins, character, and culture, they played an essential role in building the empire, sustaining the unequal peace celebrated as the pax Romana, and enacting the emperor's writ. Drawing upon the latest historical and archaeological research to examine recruitment, belief, daily routine, language, tactics, and dress, this volume offers an examination of the Empire and its soldiers in a radical new way. Blood of the Provinces demonstrates how the Roman state addressed a crucial and enduring challenge both on and off the battlefield - retaining control of the miscellaneous auxiliaries upon whom its very existence depended. Crucially, this was not simply achieved by pay and punishment, but also by a very particular set of cultural attributes that characterized provincial society under the Roman Empire. Focusing on the soldiers themselves, and encompassing the disparate military communities of which they were a part, it offers a vital source of information on how individuals and communities were incorporated into provincial society under the Empire, and how the character of that society evolved as a result.

Book Rewriting and Revision as Amendment in the Laws of Deuteronomy

Download or read book Rewriting and Revision as Amendment in the Laws of Deuteronomy written by Kevin Mattison and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: La 4e de couverture indique : "Kevin Mattison argues that Deuteronomy was designed to amend the Covenant Code (Exod 20:22-23:19). He proposes a model of amendment, which draws on existing models of replacement and supplementation to provide a more complete explanation of Deuteronomy's rewriting of the Covenant Code."

Book The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets

Download or read book The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets written by Ward-Lev, Nahum and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2019-05-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book examines the liberation journey that is the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures. The work begins with a careful reading of narrative, prophetic and legal texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. All of these texts reveal exodus, the journey from constriction, as a fundamental biblical concern. After showing how the message of the Hebrew Prophets represents a consistent theme throughout Scripture, the author traces the further refinement of these liberation themes in contemporary writers and prophets such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, Paulo Freire, Gustavo Guttiérez, Erich Fromm, Martin Luther King, Beverly Harrison, Maya Angelou, Robin Wall Kimmerer and bell hooks. The book shows how the insights of these prophets, ancient and modern, offer guidance for confronting current challenges for readers of all faiths and backgrounds"--Provided by publisher.