Pub Date : 2022-05-23DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341664
Richard K. Payne
The syntactic analysis of ritual initiated by Frits Staal (1979) provides an effective means for the study of differences between rituals within a particular ritual culture, of changes to a ritual over time, and of changes as rituals are transmitted from one ritual culture to another. The utility of a syntactic approach continues to be obscured by Hans Penner’s critique (1985), which when examined in the first section of this article, “Clearing the Ground,” proves to be faulty. Despite Penner’s critique, some scholars have employed syntactic analyses, and the work of five of them is discussed in the second section, “Existing Constructive Projects.” The following section, “Foundations,” examines the methodological bases of ritual syntax – formalism and abstraction, the difference between production and analysis – and distinguishes three levels of syntactic analysis that parallel linguistic analyses of sentences and sentence structures. The final section, “Extending the Construction,” further develops the technical aspects of a syntactic analysis of ritual into new areas, including alternative diagramming of syntactic structures.
{"title":"Ritual Syntax Revisited","authors":"Richard K. Payne","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341664","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The syntactic analysis of ritual initiated by Frits Staal (1979) provides an effective means for the study of differences between rituals within a particular ritual culture, of changes to a ritual over time, and of changes as rituals are transmitted from one ritual culture to another. The utility of a syntactic approach continues to be obscured by Hans Penner’s critique (1985), which when examined in the first section of this article, “Clearing the Ground,” proves to be faulty. Despite Penner’s critique, some scholars have employed syntactic analyses, and the work of five of them is discussed in the second section, “Existing Constructive Projects.” The following section, “Foundations,” examines the methodological bases of ritual syntax – formalism and abstraction, the difference between production and analysis – and distinguishes three levels of syntactic analysis that parallel linguistic analyses of sentences and sentence structures. The final section, “Extending the Construction,” further develops the technical aspects of a syntactic analysis of ritual into new areas, including alternative diagramming of syntactic structures.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44128804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341652
Simone Wagner
Early modern cities often harbored several different religious communities. To date, few studies of religion and history have focused on the ranking of religious communities in premodern cities with special regard to social order and the concept of heterarchy. This article focuses on a conflict of precedence between the monasteries of Kreuzlingen and Petershausen in the 17th and 18th centuries, relating especially to religious processions in the city of Constance. Efforts by courts to rank the monasteries displayed hierarchical as well as heterarchical elements. The spatial conditions of the processions made it necessary that monastic communities processed successively. This gave the impression of a clear hierarchical monastic order in the city and stimulated competition between the different communities. However, as this article argues, based on an analysis of lawsuits and related materials, in practice a clear ranking could not be achieved. Courts made contradictory decisions regarding the ranking. The monasteries derived their authority from different conflicting sources such as constitutional status, customary rights, institutional history, and religious lifestyle. Urbanity helped create the need for monasteries to compete with each other and at the same time contributed to a situation characterized by both hierarchy and heterarchy simultaneously.
{"title":"Contested Hierarchies","authors":"Simone Wagner","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341652","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Early modern cities often harbored several different religious communities. To date, few studies of religion and history have focused on the ranking of religious communities in premodern cities with special regard to social order and the concept of heterarchy. This article focuses on a conflict of precedence between the monasteries of Kreuzlingen and Petershausen in the 17th and 18th centuries, relating especially to religious processions in the city of Constance. Efforts by courts to rank the monasteries displayed hierarchical as well as heterarchical elements. The spatial conditions of the processions made it necessary that monastic communities processed successively. This gave the impression of a clear hierarchical monastic order in the city and stimulated competition between the different communities. However, as this article argues, based on an analysis of lawsuits and related materials, in practice a clear ranking could not be achieved. Courts made contradictory decisions regarding the ranking. The monasteries derived their authority from different conflicting sources such as constitutional status, customary rights, institutional history, and religious lifestyle. Urbanity helped create the need for monasteries to compete with each other and at the same time contributed to a situation characterized by both hierarchy and heterarchy simultaneously.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47530276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341649
E. Urciuoli
Transferred from neurophysiology and cybernetics to the humanities and the social sciences by settlement archeologist Carole L. Crumley, the notion of heterarchy, in particular, and heterarchical thinking, in general, have contributed to changing the way in which power structures other than hierarchies are seen as patterns for order in complex societies. The very idea of social complexity has been transformed by challenging the conflation of order with ranked order. New models for cultural evolution also appear when hierarchy is uncoupled from complexity and heterarchical relations are observable all the way to the historical development of a society as well as at different levels of a system. Opening the special issue, this article aims to introduce the concept of heterarchy to specialists of religion by showing benefits and drawbacks of its application to the study of urban religion. Eventually, the purpose of the selected articles is to leverage this promising category to explore and deepen understanding of the millennia-long coevolution of religion and urbanity.
{"title":"Heterarchy","authors":"E. Urciuoli","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341649","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Transferred from neurophysiology and cybernetics to the humanities and the social sciences by settlement archeologist Carole L. Crumley, the notion of heterarchy, in particular, and heterarchical thinking, in general, have contributed to changing the way in which power structures other than hierarchies are seen as patterns for order in complex societies. The very idea of social complexity has been transformed by challenging the conflation of order with ranked order. New models for cultural evolution also appear when hierarchy is uncoupled from complexity and heterarchical relations are observable all the way to the historical development of a society as well as at different levels of a system. Opening the special issue, this article aims to introduce the concept of heterarchy to specialists of religion by showing benefits and drawbacks of its application to the study of urban religion. Eventually, the purpose of the selected articles is to leverage this promising category to explore and deepen understanding of the millennia-long coevolution of religion and urbanity.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48527520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341650
E. Urciuoli
Initially, the article concentrates on a major change in ancient Mediterranean religions that can be understood as an “intellectualization of religion.” Focusing on the text-based practices of early Christian religious specialists, it looks at this phenomenon as a facet of an urban religion rather than an inherent quality of early Christ religion. The article goes on to address heterarchy, i.e., the tendency toward a nonhierarchical arrangement of power, as a further element that characterizes city life as well as relations among cities. Not linearly ranked and topographically fractionated, the first urban Christ groups also constituted heterarchical formations shaped by the assorted types of power coalescing in urban environments. Zooming in on the imperial city of Carthage in the mid-3rd century, the article then analyzes the intersection of the two phenomena. It demonstrates the effects that the enforcement of a textually designed and conceptually sophisticated project of Church order produced on the Christ networks by arguing that, in urban contexts characterized by a host of powers, authority claims, and forms of capital, Cyprian’s intellectualized religion contributed to breaking apart existing coalescences of people united by religion.
{"title":"A Divisive Intellectualist Leader","authors":"E. Urciuoli","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341650","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Initially, the article concentrates on a major change in ancient Mediterranean religions that can be understood as an “intellectualization of religion.” Focusing on the text-based practices of early Christian religious specialists, it looks at this phenomenon as a facet of an urban religion rather than an inherent quality of early Christ religion. The article goes on to address heterarchy, i.e., the tendency toward a nonhierarchical arrangement of power, as a further element that characterizes city life as well as relations among cities. Not linearly ranked and topographically fractionated, the first urban Christ groups also constituted heterarchical formations shaped by the assorted types of power coalescing in urban environments. Zooming in on the imperial city of Carthage in the mid-3rd century, the article then analyzes the intersection of the two phenomena. It demonstrates the effects that the enforcement of a textually designed and conceptually sophisticated project of Church order produced on the Christ networks by arguing that, in urban contexts characterized by a host of powers, authority claims, and forms of capital, Cyprian’s intellectualized religion contributed to breaking apart existing coalescences of people united by religion.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44484539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341651
Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler
In 1103 C.E. the newly elected Coptic patriarch Abā Maqāra rode in a procession to the residence of the Fatimid vizier al-Afḍal in al-Qāhira, where a ceremonial reception took place. Both men represented entangled political groups of interest, and this moment can be taken as an equilibrium of power between the city’s Muslims and Christians. At least, the main document about the event evokes this impression: being part of the official historiography of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, this text is an element of political negotiations and semantics too. Carole Crumley’s approach of a dynamic interplay between hierarchy and heterarchy can be a tool for better understanding this historic moment and for illuminating its complex sociocultural and spatial constructions. On the one hand, the Christians’ status was shaped by the strict ranking of the ḏimma-law. On the other hand, Cairo was like other urban settlements under Muslim rule: at least in some aspects an heir of the antique polis representing several groups of interest.
{"title":"A Muslim-Christian Heterarchy in 12th-Century Cairo","authors":"Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341651","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 1103 C.E. the newly elected Coptic patriarch Abā Maqāra rode in a procession to the residence of the Fatimid vizier al-Afḍal in al-Qāhira, where a ceremonial reception took place. Both men represented entangled political groups of interest, and this moment can be taken as an equilibrium of power between the city’s Muslims and Christians. At least, the main document about the event evokes this impression: being part of the official historiography of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, this text is an element of political negotiations and semantics too. Carole Crumley’s approach of a dynamic interplay between hierarchy and heterarchy can be a tool for better understanding this historic moment and for illuminating its complex sociocultural and spatial constructions. On the one hand, the Christians’ status was shaped by the strict ranking of the ḏimma-law. On the other hand, Cairo was like other urban settlements under Muslim rule: at least in some aspects an heir of the antique polis representing several groups of interest.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41507555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341653
Nimrod Luz
This article explores the ways in which religion(s) and religious groups are increasingly contributing to changes in the politics of planning of cities and challenge the hierarchical modern planning order. Following the notion of heterarchy as suggesting a diversity of relationships among elements in a system, the argument is made that the religious-cum-ethnic component is becoming part of an urban habitus that influences and redefines modern urban planning. Taking the case of a recently developed gentrified religious Jewish neighborhood in Acre, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious town in northern Israel, the article follows the ways in which urban planning is being shaped by three interrelated processes: the production of space driven by forms of capitalism intertwined with local heterarchical projects of space and power; a set of social struggles over urban space; and the framing of religious and ethnic urban identity.
{"title":"Religious Gentrification as Heterarchies of Urban Planning","authors":"Nimrod Luz","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341653","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article explores the ways in which religion(s) and religious groups are increasingly contributing to changes in the politics of planning of cities and challenge the hierarchical modern planning order. Following the notion of heterarchy as suggesting a diversity of relationships among elements in a system, the argument is made that the religious-cum-ethnic component is becoming part of an urban habitus that influences and redefines modern urban planning. Taking the case of a recently developed gentrified religious Jewish neighborhood in Acre, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious town in northern Israel, the article follows the ways in which urban planning is being shaped by three interrelated processes: the production of space driven by forms of capitalism intertwined with local heterarchical projects of space and power; a set of social struggles over urban space; and the framing of religious and ethnic urban identity.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41538967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341655
Alessia Bellusci
After a brief methodological introduction, the article reconstructs invisibility magic, its uses and rationale in medieval and early modern Jewish culture, based on a rich selection of manuscript texts, many of which remain unpublished. In contrast to other treatments of invisibility magic, it argues that in this specific cultural context the desire of going unseen was often motivated by contingent purposes such as protection on the road and self-defense. Some techniques of Jewish invisibility magic exhibit a marked Jewish character, some were inspired by the observation of nature, others were modulated on popular motifs shared cross-culturally. This study demonstrates that, regardless to their nature, most of these techniques were reworked according to a Jewish taste, proving that invisibility magic was not an extravagant import from foreign traditions, but an integral part of a magical culture shared by many Jews during the Middle Ages and early modern period.
{"title":"Going Unseen in the Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Magical Tradition","authors":"Alessia Bellusci","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341655","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 After a brief methodological introduction, the article reconstructs invisibility magic, its uses and rationale in medieval and early modern Jewish culture, based on a rich selection of manuscript texts, many of which remain unpublished. In contrast to other treatments of invisibility magic, it argues that in this specific cultural context the desire of going unseen was often motivated by contingent purposes such as protection on the road and self-defense. Some techniques of Jewish invisibility magic exhibit a marked Jewish character, some were inspired by the observation of nature, others were modulated on popular motifs shared cross-culturally. This study demonstrates that, regardless to their nature, most of these techniques were reworked according to a Jewish taste, proving that invisibility magic was not an extravagant import from foreign traditions, but an integral part of a magical culture shared by many Jews during the Middle Ages and early modern period.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45669051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341656
Andrea Nicolas
The article discusses Booranticha, a sacrificial ritual among Oromo and some Amhara for the well-being of the family, its herds, and possessions, which is performed once a year by husband and wife in many farming households of central Ethiopia. During the ritual, food offerings are made and a higher spiritual being, also called Booranticha, is addressed in prayer. Contestation through monotheism, particularly by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, however, has led to some major linguistic and performative shifts concerning which divinity is being addressed in the offering, and how the ritual is performed. The article suggests that competition in religiously pluralist settings may constitute a major initializing and catalyzing factor for new exegetical propositions about the nature of the divine. Such conceptualization of contestation as a “trigger” for change invites a closer look at the relationship between religiously pluralist settings, the shaping of moral discourses and the evolvement of new hermeneutic interpretations in sacrificial performances.
{"title":"To Whom to Pray?","authors":"Andrea Nicolas","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341656","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article discusses Booranticha, a sacrificial ritual among Oromo and some Amhara for the well-being of the family, its herds, and possessions, which is performed once a year by husband and wife in many farming households of central Ethiopia. During the ritual, food offerings are made and a higher spiritual being, also called Booranticha, is addressed in prayer. Contestation through monotheism, particularly by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, however, has led to some major linguistic and performative shifts concerning which divinity is being addressed in the offering, and how the ritual is performed. The article suggests that competition in religiously pluralist settings may constitute a major initializing and catalyzing factor for new exegetical propositions about the nature of the divine. Such conceptualization of contestation as a “trigger” for change invites a closer look at the relationship between religiously pluralist settings, the shaping of moral discourses and the evolvement of new hermeneutic interpretations in sacrificial performances.","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45958065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341657
F. Benyah
{"title":"Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, Volume 8: Pentecostals and the Body, edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse","authors":"F. Benyah","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341657","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48578623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341658
L. Dirven
{"title":"“Mon cher Mithra …” La Correspondance entre Franz Cumont et Alfred Loisy, written by Annelies Lannoy, Corinne Bonnet, and Danny Praet","authors":"L. Dirven","doi":"10.1163/15685276-12341658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341658","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45187,"journal":{"name":"NUMEN-INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47724343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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