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On God, Space, and Time
by Akiva VromanFor Akiva Jaap Vroman "a day in the infinite past" is nonsense. All the days that have elapsed belong to a past of countable days; they started on a first day a finite number of days ago. Time began this first day. It follows that an eternal past does not exist. Vroman bases his reasoning on a simple mathematical law: an infinite quantity remains the same infinite quantity if a finite quantity, however large, is subtracted from it. On God, Space, and Time devotes itself to this proof.On God, Space, and Time is rooted in the epistemological thinking of Immanuel Kant and Jean Piaget and the law of Leucippus, and draws from the somewhat disparate fields of psychology, physiology, mathematics, and physics.
On God, Space, and Time
by Akiva VromanFor Akiva Jaap Vroman "a day in the infinite past" is nonsense. All the days that have elapsed belong to a past of countable days; they started on a first day a finite number of days ago. Time began this first day. It follows that an eternal past does not exist. Vroman bases his reasoning on a simple mathematical law: an infinite quantity remains the same infinite quantity if a finite quantity, however large, is subtracted from it. On God, Space, and Time devotes itself to this proof.On God, Space, and Time is rooted in the epistemological thinking of Immanuel Kant and Jean Piaget and the law of Leucippus, and draws from the somewhat disparate fields of psychology, physiology, mathematics, and physics.
On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis On Faith, Family, And The Church In The Twenty-first Century
by Abraham Skorka Jorge Mario BergoglioOn Heaven and Earth is an open and expansive dialogue between Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, a Rabbi and biophysicist, in which they share their thoughts on religion, reason, and the challenges the world faces in the 21st Century. For years Cardinal Bergoglio (then Archbishop of Buenos Aires) and Rabbi Skorka were tenacious promoters of interreligious dialogues on faith and reason. They both sought to build bridges between Catholicism, Judaism and the world at large. On Heaven and Earth brings together a series of these dialogues where both men talk about various theological and world issues including God, fundamentalism, atheism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same sex marriage and globalization. From these personal and accessible dialogues comes a first-hand view of the man who is now Pope to 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.
On Heaven and Earth - Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the 21st Century
by Jorge Mario BergoglioOn Heaven and Earth is an open and expansive dialogue between Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, a Rabbi and biophysicist, in which they share their thoughts on religion, reason, and the challenges the world faces in the 21st Century. For years Cardinal Bergoglio (then Archbishop of Buenos Aires) and Rabbi Skorka were tenacious promoters of interreligious dialogues on faith and reason. They both sought to build bridges between Catholicism, Judaism and the world at large. On Heaven and Earth brings together a series of these dialogues where both men talk about various theological and world issues including God, fundamentalism, atheism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same sex marriage and globalization. From these personal and accessible dialogues comes a first-hand view of the man who is now Pope to 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.
On Hellenism, Judaism, Individualism, and Early Christian Theories of the Subject (Reading Augustine)
by Guillermo M. JodraThis first of a two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the beginning of something new: the paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview.In this volume, Jodra takes one of the most influential and pervasive commons experiments-Augustine's Rule-and gives us its Mediterranean backstory, with an eye to solving at last the riddle of socialism. In volume two, he will present his solution in full, as a kind of Augustinian communitarianism for today.These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world.
On Hellenism, Judaism, Individualism, and Early Christian Theories of the Subject (Reading Augustine)
by Guillermo M. JodraThis first of a two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the beginning of something new: the paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview.In this volume, Jodra takes one of the most influential and pervasive commons experiments-Augustine's Rule-and gives us its Mediterranean backstory, with an eye to solving at last the riddle of socialism. In volume two, he will present his solution in full, as a kind of Augustinian communitarianism for today.These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world.
On Helping One's Neighbor: Severe Poverty and the Religious Ethics of Obligation (New Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought)
by null Bharat RanganathanExploring what he calls 'the moral horror that is severe poverty,' Bharat Ranganathan develops a demanding account of the obligations that affluent people have to assist severely impoverished people. He argues that this is an immediate ethical as much as a social or structural imperative. Noting that developmental economists and moral and political philosophers have focused on wealth inequalities in increasingly sophisticated ways, Ranganathan observes that – within religious ethics – normative issues around severe poverty have nevertheless received insufficient attention. Bringing together general moral, religious, and philosophical principles with particular economic, social, and political realities, and engaging constructively with the writings of John Rawls and Peter Singer, this passionately argued book boldly challenges deleterious trends within ethics by unpacking, in a much more systematic way than hitherto, the pressing dilemmas around acute impoverishment. It will find an eager readership among scholars of religion, ethics, developmental studies, and theology.
"On Her Account": Reconfiguring Israel in Ruth, Esther, and Judith (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies #623)
by Anne-Mareike WetterAnne-Mareike Wetter investigates how the books of Ruth, Esther and Judith contribute to the discussion about Israel's ethnic and religious identity in the formative period following the Babylonian Exile. Although each of these narratives deals with variations of the theme of survival in a hostile world, the question underlying them is a different one: “Who are we, and who is our 'other'?” The narratives are presented as sequels to Israel's history as put forward in other (now biblical) texts, and presuppose God's continuing involvement with his people. However, they subtly modify the way in which Israel can or should relate to her God by suggesting alternatives for official Temple worship or bypassing the latter altogether. While older prophetic texts make use of metaphoric language portraying Israel as YHWH's unfaithful wife, grieving widow, or ravaged virgin, Ruth, Esther and Judith can be construed as embodiments of Israel of a different kind. Wetter argues for a revisioning of Israel in and through the bodies of the three female characters, as a community which is simultaneously vulnerable and inviolable, marginalized and empowered. Their tricksterism, in all its comicality, underlines the precarious situation in which the women and the community they represent are caught. Yet it also has the power to both defeat threats from outside and amend Israel's self-perception on the inside. Israel no longer has to perceive of itself as a battered wife but as one who can deploy her qualities – seductive and otherwise – for the survival of the community.
On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)
by Athalya Brenner-Idan Yehuda T. RaddayIn comparison with other literary aspects of the Old Testament, humour has suffered much scholarly neglect. The present collection of essays (by the editors and ten other authors) argues that humour is plentiful in biblical literature and that many passages, indeed even whole books, can be properly understood only when the humorous intention of the author is acknowledged. This collection is a particularly interesting, innovative and provocative one.
On Images, Visual Culture, Memory and the Play without a Script (Reading Augustine)
by Matthias SmalbruggeMatthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality, it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an increasingly visual culture, we are constantly confronted with images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality – but did this referential character really get lost over time? Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions: what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it be recovered?
On Images, Visual Culture, Memory and the Play without a Script (Reading Augustine)
by Matthias SmalbruggeMatthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality, it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an increasingly visual culture, we are constantly confronted with images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality – but did this referential character really get lost over time? Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions: what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it be recovered?
On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy; with a New Introduction (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
What is fair? How do rights join hands with generosity? How can punishment be justified? Is there recompense for human suffering? What sense can we make of immortality, or of the idea of a messianic age? In On Justice Lenn Goodman offers the first general theory of justice for more than a century to tap the riches of the Jewish tradition—biblical, rabbinic, and philosophical—and bring its texts into dialogue with the classic works of Western ethics and political philosophy. Against the backdrop of conversation he opens up—with Saadiah, Halevi, Maimonides, and Spinoza, with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rawls—Goodman develops a fresh, ontological approach to the core issues of ethics, politics, and the human condition. The original ideas of On Justice will engage both Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers and students of society and ethics.
On King Lear, The Confessions, and Human Experience and Nature (Reading Augustine)
by Kim PaffenrothAugustine's Confessions and Shakespeare's King Lear are two of the most influential and enduring works of the Western canon or world literature. But what does Stratford-upon-Avon have to do with Hippo, or the ascetical heretic-fighting polemicist with the author of some of the world's most beautiful love poetry? To answer these questions, Kim Paffenroth analyses the similarities and differences between the thinking of these two figures on the themes of love, language, nature and reason. Pairing and connecting the insights of Shakespeare's most nihilist tragedy with those of Augustine's most personal and sometimes self-condemnatory, sometimes triumphal work, challenges us to see their worldviews as more similar than they first seem, and as more relevant to our own fragmented and disillusioned world.
On King Lear, The Confessions, and Human Experience and Nature (Reading Augustine)
by Kim PaffenrothAugustine's Confessions and Shakespeare's King Lear are two of the most influential and enduring works of the Western canon or world literature. But what does Stratford-upon-Avon have to do with Hippo, or the ascetical heretic-fighting polemicist with the author of some of the world's most beautiful love poetry? To answer these questions, Kim Paffenroth analyses the similarities and differences between the thinking of these two figures on the themes of love, language, nature and reason. Pairing and connecting the insights of Shakespeare's most nihilist tragedy with those of Augustine's most personal and sometimes self-condemnatory, sometimes triumphal work, challenges us to see their worldviews as more similar than they first seem, and as more relevant to our own fragmented and disillusioned world.
On Living: Dancing More, Working Less and Other Last Thoughts
by Kerry EganA hospice chaplain's lessons on the meaning of life, from those who are leaving itWhat are the top regrets of the dying? That's what Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain, learned as she listened to her patients on their deathbeds, witnessing what she calls the "spiritual work of dying" - the work of finding or making meaning of one's life, the experiences it contained and the people who have touched it. In this book she recalls the stories she heard - stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation, and secrets held too long.This isn't a book about dying - it's a book about living. Each of Egan's patients taught her something; in this moving and beautiful book, she imparts their poignant and profound lessons on how to live a life without regrets.
On Loss and Living Onward: Collected Voices for the Grieving and Those Who Would Mourn with Them
by Melissa Dalton-BradfordAfter experiencing the loss of her first-born son, Melissa Dalton-Bradford thrust herself into literature searching for those who have experienced similar, devastating loss. What she found was comfort and guidance to help her overcome the pain of losing a loved one and the faith to face her own life without him. In On Loss and Living Onward, she has compiled the best resources that will guide the living through the process of grief. Superbly written essays by author and bereaved mother accompany each of five sections: Life at Death; Love at Death; Living After Death; Learning From Death; Life, Love, and Light Over Death. Quotes are from across history, geography and the philosophical spectrum. A substantial bibliography and suggested readings list is included.
On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self
by Ian ClausenThe Reading Augustine series presents concise, personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo from leading philosophers and religious scholars. Ian Clausen's On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self describes Augustine's central ideas on morality and how he arrived at them. Describing an intellectual journey that will resonate especially with readers at the beginning of their own journey, Clausen shows that Augustine's early writing career was an outworking of his own inner turmoil and discovery, and that both were to summit, triumphantly, on his monumental book Confessions (AD 386-401).On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self offers a way of looking at Augustine's early writing career as an on-going, developing process: a process whose chief result was to shape a conception of the moral self that has lasted and prospered to the present day.
On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self (Reading Augustine)
by Ian ClausenThe Reading Augustine series presents concise, personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo from leading philosophers and religious scholars. Ian Clausen's On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self describes Augustine's central ideas on morality and how he arrived at them. Describing an intellectual journey that will resonate especially with readers at the beginning of their own journey, Clausen shows that Augustine's early writing career was an outworking of his own inner turmoil and discovery, and that both were to summit, triumphantly, on his monumental book Confessions (AD 386-401).On Love, Confession, Surrender and the Moral Self offers a way of looking at Augustine's early writing career as an on-going, developing process: a process whose chief result was to shape a conception of the moral self that has lasted and prospered to the present day.
On Marriage: On Birth; On Marriage; On Death (How To Find God Ser. #2)
by Timothy KellerThere are few events as significant and life-altering as birth, marriage, and death. These are the moments in which we experience our greatest happiness and our deepest grief. And so it is profoundly important to understand these events and their religious and spiritual significance in the course of our lives. In On Marriage, Timothy Keller and his wife, Kathy, take us on a journey into the Christian meaning of marriage. With wisdom, joy and compassion, the Kellers teach us to understand marriage through the lessons embedded within the Bible. The perfect gift for anyone thinking about marriage, On Marriage is a short, powerful book that gives us the tools to understand its meaning within God's vision of life.'A Christian intellectual who takes on the likes of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud.' The Wall Street Journal
On Memory, Marriage, Tears and Meditation (Reading Augustine)
by Margaret R. MilesOn Memory, Marriage, Tears, and Meditation offers readers the tools for reading Augustine's journey to human emotions through his writings on feeling, marriage, conversion, and meditation. Augustine understood that feeling, not rationality, gathers and reveals the deep longing of the whole person. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he discussed marriage in sermons, letters, and treatises from the perspective of his own experience. Miles examines Augustine's prototypes for conversion – reading and conversion; sacrifice and conversion; and the importance of friends in what might be considered a subjective and private process. Meditation was central to Augustine's Christian life and Miles argues that his practice of meditation suggests that penitence included a rich range of feeling leading to gratitude, peace, wonder, and love.
On Memory, Marriage, Tears and Meditation (Reading Augustine)
by Margaret R. MilesOn Memory, Marriage, Tears, and Meditation offers readers the tools for reading Augustine's journey to human emotions through his writings on feeling, marriage, conversion, and meditation. Augustine understood that feeling, not rationality, gathers and reveals the deep longing of the whole person. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he discussed marriage in sermons, letters, and treatises from the perspective of his own experience. Miles examines Augustine's prototypes for conversion – reading and conversion; sacrifice and conversion; and the importance of friends in what might be considered a subjective and private process. Meditation was central to Augustine's Christian life and Miles argues that his practice of meditation suggests that penitence included a rich range of feeling leading to gratitude, peace, wonder, and love.
On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore
by Eric L. Goldstein Deborah R. WeinerIn 1938, Gustav Brunn and his family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Baltimore. Brunn found a job at McCormick;€™s Spice Company but was fired after three days when, according to family legend, the manager discovered he was Jewish. He started his own successful business using a spice mill he brought over from Germany and developed a blend especially for the seafood purveyors across the street. Before long, his Old Bay spice blend would grace kitchen cabinets in virtually every home in Maryland. The Brunns sold the business in 1986. Four years later, Old Bay was again sold;¢;‚¬;€?to McCormick. In On Middle Ground, the first truly comprehensive history of Baltimore;€™s Jewish community, Eric L. Goldstein and Deborah R. Weiner describe not only the formal institutions of Jewish life but also the everyday experiences of families like the Brunns and of a diverse Jewish population that included immigrants and natives, factory workers and department store owners, traditionalists and reformers. The story of Baltimore Jews;¢;‚¬;€?full of absorbing characters and marked by dramas of immigration, acculturation, and assimilation;¢;‚¬;€?is the story of American Jews in microcosm. But its contours also reflect the city;€™s unique culture.Goldstein and Weiner argue that Baltimore;€™s distinctive setting as both a border city and an immigrant port offered opportunities for advancement that made it a magnet for successive waves of Jewish settlers. The authors detail how the city began to attract enterprising merchants during the American Revolution, when it thrived as one of the few ports remaining free of British blockade. They trace Baltimore;€™s meteoric rise as a commercial center, which drew Jewish newcomers who helped the upstart town surpass Philadelphia as the second-largest American city. They explore the important role of Jewish entrepreneurs as Baltimore became a commercial gateway to the South and later developed a thriving industrial scene.Readers learn how, in the twentieth century, the growth of suburbia and the redevelopment of downtown offered scope to civic leaders, business owners, and real estate developers. From symphony benefactor Joseph Meyerhoff to Governor Marvin Mandel and trailblazing state senator Rosalie Abrams, Jews joined the ranks of Baltimore;€™s most influential cultural, philanthropic, and political leaders while working on the grassroots level to reshape a metro area confronted with the challenges of modern urban life. Accessibly written and enriched by more than 130 illustrations, On Middle Ground reveals that local Jewish life was profoundly shaped by Baltimore;€™s "middleness";¢;‚¬;€?its hybrid identity as a meeting point between North and South, a major industrial center with a legacy of slavery, and a large city with a small-town feel.
On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore
by Eric L. Goldstein Deborah R. WeinerIn 1938, Gustav Brunn and his family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Baltimore. Brunn found a job at McCormick;€™s Spice Company but was fired after three days when, according to family legend, the manager discovered he was Jewish. He started his own successful business using a spice mill he brought over from Germany and developed a blend especially for the seafood purveyors across the street. Before long, his Old Bay spice blend would grace kitchen cabinets in virtually every home in Maryland. The Brunns sold the business in 1986. Four years later, Old Bay was again sold;¢;‚¬;€?to McCormick. In On Middle Ground, the first truly comprehensive history of Baltimore;€™s Jewish community, Eric L. Goldstein and Deborah R. Weiner describe not only the formal institutions of Jewish life but also the everyday experiences of families like the Brunns and of a diverse Jewish population that included immigrants and natives, factory workers and department store owners, traditionalists and reformers. The story of Baltimore Jews;¢;‚¬;€?full of absorbing characters and marked by dramas of immigration, acculturation, and assimilation;¢;‚¬;€?is the story of American Jews in microcosm. But its contours also reflect the city;€™s unique culture.Goldstein and Weiner argue that Baltimore;€™s distinctive setting as both a border city and an immigrant port offered opportunities for advancement that made it a magnet for successive waves of Jewish settlers. The authors detail how the city began to attract enterprising merchants during the American Revolution, when it thrived as one of the few ports remaining free of British blockade. They trace Baltimore;€™s meteoric rise as a commercial center, which drew Jewish newcomers who helped the upstart town surpass Philadelphia as the second-largest American city. They explore the important role of Jewish entrepreneurs as Baltimore became a commercial gateway to the South and later developed a thriving industrial scene.Readers learn how, in the twentieth century, the growth of suburbia and the redevelopment of downtown offered scope to civic leaders, business owners, and real estate developers. From symphony benefactor Joseph Meyerhoff to Governor Marvin Mandel and trailblazing state senator Rosalie Abrams, Jews joined the ranks of Baltimore;€™s most influential cultural, philanthropic, and political leaders while working on the grassroots level to reshape a metro area confronted with the challenges of modern urban life. Accessibly written and enriched by more than 130 illustrations, On Middle Ground reveals that local Jewish life was profoundly shaped by Baltimore;€™s "middleness";¢;‚¬;€?its hybrid identity as a meeting point between North and South, a major industrial center with a legacy of slavery, and a large city with a small-town feel.
On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears
by Stephen T. AsmaHailed as "a feast" (Washington Post) and "a modern-day bestiary" (The New Yorker), Stephen Asma's On Monsters is a wide-ranging cultural and conceptual history of monsters--how they have evolved over time, what functions they have served for us, and what shapes they are likely to take in the future. Beginning at the time of Alexander the Great, the monsters come fast and furious--Behemoth and Leviathan, Gog and Magog, Satan and his demons, Grendel and Frankenstein, circus freaks and headless children, right up to the serial killers and terrorists of today and the post-human cyborgs of tomorrow. Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring sources as diverse as philosophical treatises, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unravels traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era's fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated.
On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears
by Stephen T. AsmaHailed as "a feast" (Washington Post) and "a modern-day bestiary" (The New Yorker), Stephen Asma's On Monsters is a wide-ranging cultural and conceptual history of monsters--how they have evolved over time, what functions they have served for us, and what shapes they are likely to take in the future. Beginning at the time of Alexander the Great, the monsters come fast and furious--Behemoth and Leviathan, Gog and Magog, Satan and his demons, Grendel and Frankenstein, circus freaks and headless children, right up to the serial killers and terrorists of today and the post-human cyborgs of tomorrow. Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring sources as diverse as philosophical treatises, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unravels traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era's fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated.