Jeffrey Alexander’s social theory about trauma provides a theoretical framework to explore Matthew’s Gospel’s two first chapters as a trauma narrative that wrestles in a creative way with at least two significant issues for its orig...
The spirituality of Jesus, embedded within the literary contours of the Johannine narrative, is primarily grounded in a relationship of affiliation and friendship. It is a spirituality of abiding whose origins and goal lie in the unity of heart and m...
While the origin and etymology of the name Beelzebul have received some scholarly attention, very little attention has been given to the more basic question of why the scribes would choose this particular name for their accusations, or why Jesus woul...
Images of Jesus Christ played an important role in the emergence of Christian spirituality in Ming and Qing China. Of the great many images that we know from this period, this paper introduces five of them: Jesus as infant, criminal, gate, brother, a...
The book Lidai Shenxian Tongjian (The Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Throughout the Dynasties), a compilation of Taoist narratives from the early Qing dynasty, contains a dedicated section on “The Life of Jesus,” accompanied by two ima...
This article briefly presents what the science of letters and alchemy meant for Ibn ʿArabī and explains why this Sufi mystic attributes the highest degree of these sciences to Jesus. We will see how the science of letters is a knowledge of...
The Society of Jesus is a clerical religious order, but it has incorporated non-sacred members, in different degrees of membership, although not from the beginning. The priests professed members constitute the nucleus of the Society of Jesus, and in...
To explore Christian origins, we need to explore Christology, and to study early Christology, Paul’s Corinthian letters are indispensable. In these letters, Paul spoke of Jesus in various ways: fundamentally as a human who died and rose again;...
This essay introduces the concept of “carceral hermeneutics,” the art of interpreting Scripture from within prisons as, or alongside, incarcerated persons. Reading the Bible in prison reframes the Bible as a whole, highlighting how the or...
In Galatians 1–2, Paul mentions several times that the apostles’ leadership is situated in Jerusalem. In Gal 2:1–2, he even designates it simply as “Jerusalem”. Paul acknowledges the centrality of the apostles in Jerusal...
Paul’s gospel has been the subject of numerous scholarly discussions since the start of the twentieth century. Beginning with Adolf Harnack and ending with Matthew Bates, this article provides insights into the gospel from biblical scholars who...
Religion has become an increasingly pronounced force in American politics, most notably among White evangelicals, nearly two-thirds of whom identify with Christian nationalism. This group contends that conservative, biblically rooted Christian values...
This article is an interdisciplinary study. The authors (a canon lawyer and a biblical theologian) endeavour to examine the text of the Book of Deuteronomy 24:1 through both canonical and exegetical lenses. They look at whether and to what extent it...
Mandaeism is the only ancient Gnostic religion surviving to the present day from antiquity. ‘Gnosticism’ was a block of creative religious activity mostly responding to the early Christian teachings in unusual ways of cosmicizing Jesus, a...
This study was carried out on a crucifix located inside the church of St. Mary Major in Acri. The story of this crucifix is not very clear, and its dating is still uncertain, as well; however, it ranges between the 15th and the 14th century. The wood...
The article aims to examine and compare the evangelic title of Jesus the Way (John 14:6) in two Christian authors who belonged to two opposing theological traditions, namely, Origen of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra. This comparison, based on ori...
In the early years of the Christian Church, it was difficult to reach a consensus on the relationship between God, the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ. One focus of the discussions was the pre-established relationship between God and his wisdom, as...
This study examines the Thomas/twin motif in the Gospels of John and Thomas, which plays a significant role in each. By analyzing the motif’s meaning, deployment, and development in the two Gospels against Mesopotamian models, this study brings...
Christianity emerged valuing horizontal socio-political relations, which it inherited from Jesus Christ, and which resonated with the ideals of ancient Greek and Roman republicanism. As the church engaged with the Roman Empire, its republican roots f...
Given the centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith, the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus to his disciples continue to be a central topic in historical inquiry regarding the origins of the Christian faith. While a number of hypothese...
On 6 April 1830 Joseph Smith Jr. legally established what he claimed to be the restored Church of Jesus Christ that had existed previously during the New Testament times. This bold claim was bolstered by stories of angelic visitations in the hemlock&...
This study examines the renewal of Ignatian spirituality from the Spanish school, emphasizing the contributions of General Pedro Arrupe during his eighteen-year tenure leading the Society of Jesus. Arrupe’s vision prioritized deep interior expe...
From its inception, Chinese Christianity has involved speaking in “tongues”, across cultures, about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This article presents a contextual original-language exegesis of the Apostle Paul’s use of the...
This article investigates the period of the origin of Christianity, namely that of the first century, the phase in which the emerging “Christianity” was being formed. It is a phase that has been much studied from many angles. The angle ad...
Interpretation of Ephesians and Colossians has often proceeded on the basis that the stance of the original authors and recipients towards Israel is supersessionist, i.e., that the church has entirely replaced or superseded Israel as the locus of div...
Some studies have pointed to the Jewish background of the prayer that, according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus taught his disciples. However, the formulations of LP’s words do not necessarily presuppose the conclusion of the formati...
This paper brings together two different communities, Kabyles (Amazighs) and Syrian Christians, who are nevertheless marked by some commonalities: a strong diasporic dispersal as a historical experience, political, cultural and linguistic marginaliza...
On both sides of the Veil of Manoppello, made with very thin linen, translucent linen threads, probably starched, a Holy Face of Jesus Christ is visible. During the centuries, the yellowing of the linen threads has changed the aspect of the original...
The new religious movements (NRMs) initially emerged in the regional societies of East Asia in the middle nineteenth and early twentieth centuries including Joseon (Korea). The socio-political transformation from feudalism to modernisation emaciated...
This article addresses a gap in the literature by offering the first structured reconstruction of the origins, motivations, and development of Ignatian Leadership, connecting its spiritual roots, conceptual foundations, and institutional applications...
Quakers became the first group in history to develop a consciousness about slavery and spearheaded the early movement in America and Britain that led to its abolition. Why did they develop this consciousness? What was the spiritual matrix that moved...
Music has played a central role in Indian religious experience for millennia. The origins of Indian music include the recitation of the sacred syllable OM and Sanskrit Mantras in ancient Vedic fire sacrifices. The notion of Sound Absolute, first in t...
In this paper, two different objects from the ethnographic collection of the museum of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Rome), a Polynesian barkcloth (tapa) and a Polynesian headdress in feathers (pa’e ku’a), were...
The reflection on sacred places continues to assume significant relevance today in urban space production. The public value of sacred buildings has consolidated over time an aggregating sense of community, representing spaces for meeting and sharing....
21 December 2020
This case study focuses on the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 outbreak, its impacts and the measures South Korea undertook during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first case was confirmed on 20 January 2020, South Korea h...
The aim of this paper is to show the presence of religion and the particular evolution of lyrical matrixes connected to religion in the Polish poems of female poets. There is a particular presence of women in the roots of the Polish literary and lyri...