Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1017/S0017816022000323
Silvana Kandel Lamdan
Abstract The French priest Paul Gauthier (1914–2002) was a former theology professor who, after a short period as a prêtre-ouvrier (worker-priest) in Marseille, decided in 1956 to settle in Nazareth and practice his working apostolate there. For the next eleven years, and until his abrupt departure shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel became Gauthier’s home. Some years after his arrival, Gauthier was invited to the Second Vatican Council by the archbishop of Galilee. There, Gauthier led the group the “Church of the Poor,” which aimed to bring the issue of poverty and pastoral service to the forefront of Council discussions. Gauthier spent his years in Israel between two physically close but culturally and politically distant worlds. On the one hand, he lived and worked with the vulnerable Arab population of Nazareth. On the other, he was in close contact with Israel’s new Jewish society, which greatly aroused his curiosity. In addition to his friendly contact with the Israeli civilian and military authorities, who would help him foster his cooperative for Arab housing, he was attracted by the kibbutz lifestyle and was especially moved by the philosophy of the Zionist thinker and pioneer Aaron David Gordon. Gauthier believed that his experience in Nazareth and Israel, where he saw an interchange of many worlds, could shed light on the worker-priest apostolate and provide a model for priestly spirituality in a working-class environment, in its various aspects. This article analyzes the influence of the “Israel experience” on Paul Gauthier’s thought.
{"title":"A Tembel Hat in the Streets of Nazareth: Paul Gauthier’s Israeli Experience","authors":"Silvana Kandel Lamdan","doi":"10.1017/S0017816022000323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816022000323","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The French priest Paul Gauthier (1914–2002) was a former theology professor who, after a short period as a prêtre-ouvrier (worker-priest) in Marseille, decided in 1956 to settle in Nazareth and practice his working apostolate there. For the next eleven years, and until his abrupt departure shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel became Gauthier’s home. Some years after his arrival, Gauthier was invited to the Second Vatican Council by the archbishop of Galilee. There, Gauthier led the group the “Church of the Poor,” which aimed to bring the issue of poverty and pastoral service to the forefront of Council discussions. Gauthier spent his years in Israel between two physically close but culturally and politically distant worlds. On the one hand, he lived and worked with the vulnerable Arab population of Nazareth. On the other, he was in close contact with Israel’s new Jewish society, which greatly aroused his curiosity. In addition to his friendly contact with the Israeli civilian and military authorities, who would help him foster his cooperative for Arab housing, he was attracted by the kibbutz lifestyle and was especially moved by the philosophy of the Zionist thinker and pioneer Aaron David Gordon. Gauthier believed that his experience in Nazareth and Israel, where he saw an interchange of many worlds, could shed light on the worker-priest apostolate and provide a model for priestly spirituality in a working-class environment, in its various aspects. This article analyzes the influence of the “Israel experience” on Paul Gauthier’s thought.","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"566 - 590"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47115723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1017/S0017816022000244
J. Stern
Abstract This paper analyzes two transformative conceptions of qedushah (holiness) in medieval Jewish thought, Moses Maimonides’s and Moses Nahmanides’s. Maimonides reduces qedushah to the Mosaic commandments which he reconceives as communal institutions to constrain bodily desires and promote intellectualist values and as training for perfected individuals to de-corporealize themselves in imitation of God. Nahmanides argues that Maimonides’s legal reduction of qedushah leads to the absurd conclusion that the perfectly scrupulous law-abiding scoundrel who exploits loopholes in the law is qadosh! He therefore reconceives qedushah as a complement to the Mosaic commandments intended to counter the problem of the scoundrel. Thus qedushah is re-born as a corrective to abuse of the Law. Nahmanides then proposes two ways to achieve this goal: i) by rabbinic enactment of more laws to fill in (loop) holes in the Law and ii) by cultivating a virtue-oriented, non-legal conception of holiness as a character-trait that leads agents to act properly and spontaneously without legislation. For Maimonides the ultimate state of qedushah is the dis-embodied state of the intellect, for Nahmanides it is a state in which the whole person, body and soul, clings to the deity.
{"title":"Two Moments in the Biography of Qedushah (a.k.a. Holiness)","authors":"J. Stern","doi":"10.1017/S0017816022000244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816022000244","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper analyzes two transformative conceptions of qedushah (holiness) in medieval Jewish thought, Moses Maimonides’s and Moses Nahmanides’s. Maimonides reduces qedushah to the Mosaic commandments which he reconceives as communal institutions to constrain bodily desires and promote intellectualist values and as training for perfected individuals to de-corporealize themselves in imitation of God. Nahmanides argues that Maimonides’s legal reduction of qedushah leads to the absurd conclusion that the perfectly scrupulous law-abiding scoundrel who exploits loopholes in the law is qadosh! He therefore reconceives qedushah as a complement to the Mosaic commandments intended to counter the problem of the scoundrel. Thus qedushah is re-born as a corrective to abuse of the Law. Nahmanides then proposes two ways to achieve this goal: i) by rabbinic enactment of more laws to fill in (loop) holes in the Law and ii) by cultivating a virtue-oriented, non-legal conception of holiness as a character-trait that leads agents to act properly and spontaneously without legislation. For Maimonides the ultimate state of qedushah is the dis-embodied state of the intellect, for Nahmanides it is a state in which the whole person, body and soul, clings to the deity.","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"387 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43445594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1017/S0017816022000232
Reyhan Durmaz
Abstract This article traces the diachronic uses of the literary motif of “relics coming from Constantinople to monasteries in the East” in Syriac hagiography. Although this motif was seen in Syriac literature as early as the sixth century, there seems to be an increase in the employment of these stories around the twelfth century in saints’ lives local to northern Mesopotamia. In light of two texts—the Life of Abḥay and the Life of Aḥā—the article argues that stories about Constantinopolitan relics (martyrs’ bones or pieces of the True Cross) were oriented toward different modes of remembering Byzantium in the Syriac Church in the Middle Ages. The article further argues that these stories also created space to reflect on the Syriac Church’s relations with the Armenian Church in the medieval Near East. The article thus shows the power of narrative in creating cultural memory, building communal identity, and catalyzing religious rivalry.
{"title":"Five Hundred Bones from Constantinople: Monks, Manuscripts, and Memory at the Eastern Borders of Byzantium","authors":"Reyhan Durmaz","doi":"10.1017/S0017816022000232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816022000232","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article traces the diachronic uses of the literary motif of “relics coming from Constantinople to monasteries in the East” in Syriac hagiography. Although this motif was seen in Syriac literature as early as the sixth century, there seems to be an increase in the employment of these stories around the twelfth century in saints’ lives local to northern Mesopotamia. In light of two texts—the Life of Abḥay and the Life of Aḥā—the article argues that stories about Constantinopolitan relics (martyrs’ bones or pieces of the True Cross) were oriented toward different modes of remembering Byzantium in the Syriac Church in the Middle Ages. The article further argues that these stories also created space to reflect on the Syriac Church’s relations with the Armenian Church in the medieval Near East. The article thus shows the power of narrative in creating cultural memory, building communal identity, and catalyzing religious rivalry.","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"363 - 386"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44243341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1017/s0017816022000220
M. Ben-Sasson
Abstract This article includes translation of a “new” Vision of Daniel as it survived, albeit incomplete. It reflects a “meeting point” between three monotheistic religions in the ninth and tenth centuries CE. A comparative study of the work enables the reconstruction of its missing parts. The Vision may have been composed in the area where al-Muʿtaṣim battled Theophilos in the 830s CE, namely, northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia. An “updated” appendix was added around 1000 CE. Towards the end of the Vision, exact times are replaced with “flexible times,” a moderate expression of the cosmic changes found in similar eschatological works. The two anti-messiahs described, constructed as integrations of Jewish-Christian-Muslim traditions of the apocalyptical devils, reflect the shifting identities of messianic figures, who will reveal themselves once again (Parousia), albeit as demonic antichrists. One of the two is an inversion of the Christian image of Moses/Jesus, whereas the second is Armilus.
{"title":"“The Vision of Daniel” from the St. Petersburg Genizah","authors":"M. Ben-Sasson","doi":"10.1017/s0017816022000220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0017816022000220","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article includes translation of a “new” Vision of Daniel as it survived, albeit incomplete. It reflects a “meeting point” between three monotheistic religions in the ninth and tenth centuries CE. A comparative study of the work enables the reconstruction of its missing parts. The Vision may have been composed in the area where al-Muʿtaṣim battled Theophilos in the 830s CE, namely, northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia. An “updated” appendix was added around 1000 CE. Towards the end of the Vision, exact times are replaced with “flexible times,” a moderate expression of the cosmic changes found in similar eschatological works. The two anti-messiahs described, constructed as integrations of Jewish-Christian-Muslim traditions of the apocalyptical devils, reflect the shifting identities of messianic figures, who will reveal themselves once again (Parousia), albeit as demonic antichrists. One of the two is an inversion of the Christian image of Moses/Jesus, whereas the second is Armilus.","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"331 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45767293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1017/s001781602200027x
V. Grasso
of the Qur’ān. which more than five hundred the essentials of what you need to know about and philosophy.”
《古兰经》。其中500多条是你需要了解的基本知识和哲学。”
{"title":"The Qu’rān through the Lens of Late Antiquity, Late Antiquity through the Lens of the Qu’rān: Approaches, Perspectives and Possibilities","authors":"V. Grasso","doi":"10.1017/s001781602200027x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s001781602200027x","url":null,"abstract":"of the Qur’ān. which more than five hundred the essentials of what you need to know about and philosophy.”","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"466 - 476"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43794494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-01DOI: 10.1017/S0017816022000268
B. Brown
Abstract Rabbi Ḥayim (Chaim) Hirschensohn (1857–1935) was one of only a handful of Jewish thinkers to work out a Jewish political theology, and on account of his progressive stances he became a favorite of liberal circles within contemporary Judaism. Therefore, a passage in his book Malki Bakodesh, in which he expresses clear opposition to universal suffrage, “invited” mitigating interpretations. Yet, a survey of Hirschensohn’s various writings reveals that they contain a trend of political elitism. Is this surprising? Hirschensohn’s progressiveness notwithstanding, the article argues that his elitist sentiments are rooted in three major intellectual trends within modern Judaism: Mitnagdism, Haskalah, and Zionism. In the writings of seminal thinkers in each of these movements, we find political elitism and reservations about government “by the people.” Hirschensohn’s personal history positioned him at the confluence of these trends, and so his elitist opinions should be viewed as the outgrowth of these intellectual traditions.
{"title":"“The People Do Not Understand”: R. Ḥayim Hirschensohn and Political Elitism in Modern Judaism (The Vilna Gaon, Rabbi N.Ts.Y. Berlin, I. B. Levinsohn, and Herzl)","authors":"B. Brown","doi":"10.1017/S0017816022000268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816022000268","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Rabbi Ḥayim (Chaim) Hirschensohn (1857–1935) was one of only a handful of Jewish thinkers to work out a Jewish political theology, and on account of his progressive stances he became a favorite of liberal circles within contemporary Judaism. Therefore, a passage in his book Malki Bakodesh, in which he expresses clear opposition to universal suffrage, “invited” mitigating interpretations. Yet, a survey of Hirschensohn’s various writings reveals that they contain a trend of political elitism. Is this surprising? Hirschensohn’s progressiveness notwithstanding, the article argues that his elitist sentiments are rooted in three major intellectual trends within modern Judaism: Mitnagdism, Haskalah, and Zionism. In the writings of seminal thinkers in each of these movements, we find political elitism and reservations about government “by the people.” Hirschensohn’s personal history positioned him at the confluence of these trends, and so his elitist opinions should be viewed as the outgrowth of these intellectual traditions.","PeriodicalId":46365,"journal":{"name":"HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW","volume":"115 1","pages":"441 - 465"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41855167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}