Download or read book Sacred Song from the Byzantine Pulpit written by Romanus (Melodes.) and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Romanos the Melodist, a sixth-century deacon in Constantinople, is regarded as the premier poet of the Greek-speaking Christian church. His kontakia are elaborate, dramatic hymns designed to be sung before a congregation on major feast days. Their brilliant rhetoric and imagery are the avenue for deft commentary on scriptural texts and moral instructions. This book is an introduction to, and selected translations of, seventeen sung sermons of Romanos. While R. J. Schork reviews Romanos's life and times, his emphasis is on the hymns themselves as inspired and inspirational pieces of religious poetry. In addition, Schork focuses special attention on the poet's pervasive and sensitive treatment of various women, including Eve, the Virgin Mary, Potiphar's Wife, and the Sinful Woman who anointed Christ's feet. The translations and commentary make these contemporary recreations accessible to general audience interested in literature, the history of the Christian church, ingenious interpretation of scripture, and, especially, Romano's unique poetic form.
Download or read book Liturgical Subjects written by Derek Krueger and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-09-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liturgical Subjects examines the history of the self in the Byzantine Empire, challenging narratives of Christian subjectivity that focus only on classical antiquity and the Western Middle Ages. As Derek Krueger demonstrates, Orthodox Christian interior life was profoundly shaped by patterns of worship introduced and disseminated by Byzantine clergy. Hymns, prayers, and sermons transmitted complex emotional responses to biblical stories, particularly during Lent. Religious services and religious art taught congregants who they were in relation to God and each other. Focusing on Christian practice in Constantinople from the sixth to eleventh centuries, Krueger charts the impact of the liturgical calendar, the eucharistic rite, hymns for vigils and festivals, and scenes from the life of Christ on the making of Christian selves. Exploring the verse of great Byzantine liturgical poets, including Romanos the Melodist, Andrew of Crete, Theodore the Stoudite, and Symeon the New Theologian, he demonstrates how their compositions offered templates for Christian self-regard and self-criticism, defining the Christian "I." Cantors, choirs, and congregations sang in the first person singular expressing guilt and repentence, while prayers and sermons defined the collective identity of the Christian community as sinners in need of salvation. By examining the way models of selfhood were formed, performed, and transmitted in the Byzantine Empire, Liturgical Subjects adds a vital dimension to the history of the self in Western culture.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Early Christianity written by Everett Ferguson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 1270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1997. What's new in the Second Edition: Some 250 new entries, twenty-five percent more than in the first edition, plus twenty-five new expert contributors. Bibliographies are greatly expanded and updated throughout; More focus on biblical books and philosophical schools, their influence on early Christianity and their use by patristic writers; More information about the Jewish and pagan environment of early Christianity; Greatly enlarged coverage of the eastern expansion of the faith throughout Asia, including persons and literature; More extensive treatment of saints, monasticism, worship practices, and modern scholars; Greater emphasis on social history and more theme articles; More illustrations, maps, and plans; Additional articles on geographical regions; Expanded chronological table; Also includes maps.
Download or read book New Perspectives on the Qur an written by Gabriel Said Reynolds and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book continues the work of The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, in which an international group of scholars address an expanded range of topics on the Qur’ān and its origins, looking beyond medieval Islamic traditions to present the Qur’ān’s own conversation with the religions and literatures of its day. Particular attention is paid to recent debates and controversies in the field, and to uncovering the Qur’ān’s relationship with Judaism and Christianity. After a foreword by Abdolkarim Soroush, chapters by renowned experts cover: method in Qur'ānic Studies analysis of material evidence, including inscriptions and ancient manuscripts, for what they show of the Qur'ān’s origins the language of the Qur'ān and proposed ways to emend our reading of the Qur'ān how our knowledge of the religious groups at the time of the Qur'ān’s emergence might contribute to a better understanding of the text the Qur'ān’s conversation with Biblical literature and traditions that challenge the standard understanding of the holy book. This debate of recent controversial proposals for new interpretations of the Qur'ān will shed new light on the Qur’anic passages that have been shrouded in mystery and debate. As such, it will be a valuable reference for scholars of Islam, the Qur’an, Christian-Muslim relations and the Middle East.
Download or read book Celebration of Living Theology written by Justin Mihoc and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peeler recognizes the inherent connection between the paternal identity of God, the filial identity of the Son, and the filial identity of the audience.
Download or read book Tasting Heaven on Earth written by Walter D. Ray and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Church at Worship is a new series of documentary case studies of specific worshiping communities from around the world and throughout Christian history. In this second volume, Tasting Heaven on Earth, Walter Ray provides vivid descriptions of Constantinople, its history, its people, and its worship practices, which set the stage for a rich selection of primary documents that present readers with a vibrant snapshot of Byzantine Christianity in the sixth century. Some of the primary materials included here: Photos of mosaics, liturgical vessels, icons, and manuscripts Drawings, diagrams, descriptions, and photographs of Hagia Sophia Firsthand accounts of worship by Maximus the Confessor, Eutychius, and Procopius Liturgical prayers and a reconstruction of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil
Download or read book Religious Stories in Transformation Conflict Revision and Reception written by Alberdina Houtman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception, the editors present a collection of essays that reveal both the many similarities and the poignant differences between ancient myths in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and modern secular culture and how these stories were incorporated and adapted over time. This rich multidisciplinary research demonstrates not only how stories in different religions and cultures are interesting in their own right, but also that the process of transformation in particular deserves scholarly interest. It is through the changes in the stories that the particular identity of each religion comes to the fore most strikingly.
Download or read book Greek Laughter and Tears written by Margaret Alexiou and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the range and complexity of human emotions and their transmission across cultural traditionsWhat makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, seemingly discrete and non-verbal modes of expression intersect in everyday life and ritual, and what range of emotions do they evoke? How may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art and music?Bringing together scholars from diverse periods and disciplines of Hellenic and Byzantine studies, this volume explores the shifting shapes and functions of laughter and tears. With a focus on the tragic, the comic and the tragicomic dimensions of laughter and tears in art, literature and performance, as well as on their emotional, socio-cultural and religious significance, it breaks new ground in the study of ancient and Byzantine affectivity.Key featuresIncludes an international cast of 25 distinguished contributors Prominence is given to performative arts and to interactions with other cultures Transitions from Late Antiquity to Byzantium, and from Byzantium to the Renaissance, form focal points from which contributors look backwards, forwards and sidewaysHighlights the variety, audacity and quality of the finest Byzantine works and the extent to which they anticipated the renaissance
Download or read book Mother of God written by Miri Rubin and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of the most powerful, influential and complex of all religious figures. The focus for women, the inspiration of faith, the subject of innumerable paintings, sculptures, pieces of music and churches, Mary is so entangled in our world that it is impossible to conceive of the history of Western culture and religion without her. Miri Rubin's Mother of God is a major work of cultural imagination. Mary's role in the Gospels is a relatively minor one, and yet in the centuries during which Christianity established itself she emerged as a powerful, strange and ungovernable force, endlessly remade and reimagined by wave after wave of devotees, ultimately becoming 'a sort of God', in ways that have always made some Christians uneasy. Whether talking about the vast public festivals celebrating Mary that sweep up entire communities or the intense private agony of individual devotion, Rubin's book is a triumph of sympathy and intelligence. Throughout Christianity's journey from mysterious origins to global religion, the Mother of God has been a profound presence in countless lives - Mother of God is the story of that presence and a book that raises profound questions about the human experience.
Download or read book The Roman Empire Divided written by John Moorhead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 400 the mighty Roman Empire was almost as large as it had ever been; within three centuries, advances by Germanic peoples in western Europe, Slavs in eastern Europe and Arabs around the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean had brought about the loss of most of its territory. Ranging from Britain to Mesopotamia, this book explores the changes that resulted from these movements. It shows the different paths away from the classical past that were taken, and how the relatively unified civilization of the ancient Mediterranean gave place to the very different civilizations that cluster around the sea today. This comprehensive and authoritative second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated line-by-line, and contains several new sections dealing for instance with the new evidence provided by recent finds like the Staffordshire Treasure and the widespread effects of the plague. As well as a completely new bibliographical essay, The Roman Empire Divided now also includes six maps and an expanded selection of illustrations fully integrated in the text.
Download or read book Liturgy and the Emotions in Byzantium written by Andrew Mellas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emotions in Byzantium came to life through hymnody, which invited the faithful to step into a liturgical world of compunction.
Download or read book A Vocabulary of Desire written by Laura S. Lieber and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Vocabulary of Desire, Laura Lieber offers a nuanced, multifaceted and highly original study of how the Song of Songs was understood and deployed by Jewish liturgical poets in Late Antiquity (ca. 4th-7th centuries CE). Through her examination of poems which embellish and even rewrite the Song of Songs, Lieber brings the creative spirit-liturgical, intellectual, and exegetical-of these poems vividly to the fore. All who are interested in the early interpretation of the Song of Songs, the ancient synagogue, early Jewish and Christian hymnography, and Judaism in Late Antiquity will find this volume both enriching and accessible. The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations. "The Hebrew text edition is accompanied by a lucid and poetic English translation with annotations and a commentary. In this excellent, scholarly text edition, the commentary is focused and to the point...This reviewer highly recommends this monograph to scholars interested in the early synagogue and its liturgy, late antique and medieval Hebrew poetry, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity. The book invites further comparative work in these areas." Rivka B. Ulmer, H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015.
Download or read book Gateway to Heaven written by Brian Reynolds and published by New City Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first volume lays out all the Marian doctrines and their evolution in a clear and easy-to-follow format as well as providing two chapters on patristic and medieval devotion.
Download or read book What Christians Ought to Believe written by Michael F. Bird and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Apostles' Creed is a treasure trove of basic Christian beliefs and wisdom that helps ensure the integrity and orthodoxy of our faith. Sadly, modern churches have often hesitated to embrace the ancient creeds because of our "nothing but the Bible" tradition. In What Christians Ought to Believe Michael Bird will open your eyes to the possibilities of the Apostles' Creed as a way to explore and understand the essential teachings of the Christian faith. Bringing together theological commentary, tips for application, and memorable illustrations, What Christians Ought to Believe summarizes the basic tenets of the Christian faith using the Apostles' Creed as its entryway. After first emphasizing the importance of creeds for the formation of the Christian faith, each chapter, following the Creed's outline, introduces the Father, the Son, and the Spirit and the Church. An appendix includes the Apostles' Creed in the original Latin and Greek. What Christians Ought to Believe is ideally suited for both the classroom and the church setting to teach beginning students and laypersons the basics of what Christians ought to affirm if they are to be called Christians.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian written by Michael Maas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-18 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the Age of Justinian, the last Roman century and the first flowering of Byzantine culture. Dominated by the policies and personality of emperor Justinian I (527–565), this period of grand achievements and far-reaching failures witnessed the transformation of the Mediterranean world. In this volume, twenty specialists explore the most important aspects of the age including the mechanics and theory of empire, warfare, urbanism, and economy. It also discusses the impact of the great plague, the codification of Roman law, and the many religious upheavals taking place at the time. Consideration is given to imperial relations with the papacy, northern barbarians, the Persians, and other eastern peoples, shedding new light on a dramatic and highly significant historical period.
Download or read book Approaches to Genre in the Ancient World written by Michelle Borg and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No less than their modern counterparts, ancient genres were contested, hybrid and ambiguous. This volume, the result of a conference at the University of Sydney, is a collection dealing with some of the many issues around ancient understandings of genre. It presents a series of case studies, some concerned with texts that have loomed large in discussions of ancient genre (such as the works of Ovid), and others, in particular late-antique works, that have received less attention. Ranging from Rome and Greece to Gaza and Syria, Approaches to Genre in the Ancient World makes a unique contribution to the study of ancient genre and to the understanding of the specific texts discussed.
Download or read book Bastards and Believers written by Theodor Dunkelgrün and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A formidable collection of studies on religious conversion and converts in Jewish history Theodor Dunkelgrün and Pawel Maciejko observe that the term "conversion" is profoundly polysemous. It can refer to Jews who turn to religions other than Judaism and non-Jews who tie their fates to that of Jewish people. It can be used to talk about Christians becoming Muslim (or vice versa), Christians "born again," or premodern efforts to Christianize (or Islamize) indigenous populations of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It can even describe how modern, secular people discover spiritual creeds and join religious communities. Viewing Jewish history from the perspective of conversion across a broad chronological and conceptual frame, Bastards and Believers highlights how the concepts of the convert and of conversion have histories of their own. The volume begins with Sara Japhet's study of conversion in the Hebrew Bible and ends with Netanel Fisher's essay on conversion to Judaism in contemporary Israel. In between, Andrew S. Jacobs writes about the allure of becoming an "other" in late Antiquity; Ephraim Kanarfogel considers Rabbinic attitudes and approaches toward conversion to Judaism in the Middles Ages; and Paola Tartakoff ponders the relationship between conversion and poverty in medieval Iberia. Three case studies, by Javier Castaño, Claude Stuczynski, and Anne Oravetz Albert, focus on different aspects of the experience of Spanish-Portuguese conversos. Michela Andreatta and Sarah Gracombe discuss conversion narratives; and Elliott Horowitz and Ellie Shainker analyze Eastern European converts' encounters with missionaries of different persuasions. Despite the differences between periods, contexts, and sources, two fundamental and mutually exclusive notions of human life thread the essays together: the conviction that one can choose one's destiny and the conviction that one cannot escapes one's past. The history of converts presented by Bastards and Believers speaks to the possibility, or impossibility, of changing one's life. Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Javier Castaño, Theodor Dunkelgrün, Netanel Fisher, Sarah Gracombe, Elliott Horowitz, Andrew S. Jacobs, Sara Japhet, Ephraim Kanarfogel, Pawel Maciejko, Anne Oravetz Albert, Ellie Shainker, Claude Stuczynski, Paola Tartakoff.
