Religion Commons^™

The Digital Humanities As Cultural Capital: Implications For Biblical And Religious Studies, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

Although the study of the Bible was central to early Humanities Computing efforts, now Biblical Studies and Religious Studies are marginal disciplines in the emerging field known as Digital Humanities (English, History, Library Science, for example, are much more influential in DH.) This paper explores two questions: First, what does it mean for Biblical Studies to be marginal to the Digital Humanities when DH is increasingly seen as the locus of as transformation in the humanities? Second, how can our expertise in Biblical Studies influence and shape Digital Humanities for the better? Digital Humanities, I argue, constitutes a powerful emerging …

Review Of Nicola Denzey, The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds Of Early Christian Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007), Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

No abstract provided.

Review Of Ewa Wipszycka, Moines Et Communautés Monastiques En Égypte (Ive-Viie Siècles), Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

No abstract provided.

Review Of Andrew T. Crislip, From Monastery To Hospital: Christian Monasticism And The Transformation Of Healthcare In Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, 2005), Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

No abstract provided.

Review Of Arietta Papaconstantinou And Alice-Mary Talbot, Ed., Becoming Byzantine: Children And Childhood In Byzantium, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

No abstract provided.

Raiders Of The Lost Corpus, Caroline T. Schroeder, Amir Zeldes

Caroline Schroeder

Coptic represents the last phase of the Egyptian language and is pivotal for a wide range of disciplines, such as linguistics, biblical studies, the history of Christianity, Egyptology, and ancient history. It was also essential for "cracking the code" of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Although digital humanities has been hailed as distinctly interdisciplinary, enabling new forms of knowledge by combining multiple forms of disciplinary investigation, technical obtacles exist for creating a resource useful to both linguists and historians, for example. The nature of the language (outside of the Indo-European family) also requires its own approach. This paper will present some of …

Prophecy And Porneia In Shenoute's Letters: The Rhetoric Of Sexuality In A Late Antique Egyptian Monastery, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

The writer examines the apparently ubiquitous sexual references in the first surviving letters of Shenoute. Shenoute's references to sexuality constitute one aspect of his self-representation as his community's prophet. His textual performance as a prophet in these texts indicates that his sexual rhetoric served not only to condemn sexual activity among ascetics but also to help construct a relationship between God and the monastic community that is based on the relationship between God and the people in the Christian Old Testament. The sins of the monastery, as understood by Shenoute, like those of Israel or the nations in the prophetic …

Computational Methods For Coptic: Developing And Using Part-Of-Speech Tagging For Digital Scholarship In The Humanities, Caroline T. Schroeder, Amir Zeldes

Caroline Schroeder

This article motivates and details the first implementation of a freely available part of speech tag set and tagger for Coptic. Coptic is the last phase of the Egyptian language family and a descendant of the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Unlike classical Greek and Latin, few resources for digital and computational work have existed for ancient Egyptian language and literature until now. We evaluate our tag set in an inter-annotator agreement experiment and examine some of the difficulties in tagging Coptic data. Using an existing digital lexicon and a small training corpus taken from several genres of literary Sahidic Coptic …

Conference Report On Cosmopolitan Alexandria: A Symposium, Cornell University, October 20-21, 2002, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

No abstract provided.

Child Sacrifice In Egyptian Monastic Culture: From Familial Renunciation To Jephthah's Lost Daughter, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

The Apophthegmata Patrum tells the story of a man who, wishing to join a monastery, reenacts Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac by proceeding to throw his son in the Nile River on the command of the monastic father. Like Isaac, the boy is spared. This account of extreme familial renunciation in the service of the ascetic life is not the only account of a child killing or attempted killing in monastic literature. Nor does the biblical prefigurement of ascetic renunciation exhaust these narratives' significance. This essay examines accounts of child killings in Egyptian monastic culture through the lens of various textual …

Ancient Egyptian Religion On The Silver Screen: Modern Anxieties About Race, Ethnicity, And Religion, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

This essay examines the depiction of religion, race, and ethnicity in four films: The Mummy, Stargate, The Ten Commandments, and Prince of Egypt. Each film - explicitly or implicitly, deliberately or not - uses ancient Egyptian religion as a foil to dramatize American concerns about race and ethnicity. The foil is the mysterious, and often false, religiosity of an often Orientalized religious and ethnic "other."

Applying The Canonical Text Services Model To The Coptic Scriptorium, Bridget Almas, Caroline T. Schroeder

Caroline Schroeder

Coptic SCRIPTORIUM is a platform for interdisciplinary and computational research in Coptic texts and linguistics. The purpose of this project was to research and implement a system of stable identification for the texts and linguistic data objects in Coptic SCRIPTORIUM to facilitate their citation and reuse. We began the project with a preferred solution, the Canonical Text Services URN model, which we validated for suitability for the corpus and compared it to other approaches, including HTTP URLs and Handles. The process of applying the CTS model to Coptic SCRIPTORIUM required an in-depth analysis that took into account the domain-specific scholarly …

A Descriptive Study Of The Personality, Attitudes, And Overseas Experience Of Seventh-Day Adventist College Students Who Served As Short-Term Volunteer Missionaries, Donna Habenicht

Donna Habenicht

Problem. During the last ten years there has been a surge of Interest among college students in short-term volunteer missionary service. It was the purpose of the present study to describe the personality, attitudes, and overseas experience of a group of 150 Seventh-day Adventist college students who served as short-term volunteer missionaries (student missionaries) during the 1975-76 school year. Method The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Form A), a series of semantic differential rating scales for selected religious, mission, cultural, and personal concepts, and a two-part questlonnaire were used to describe the personality, attitudes, and overseas experience of the student missionaries. …

Coste Prize Address.Docx, John E. Rybolt

John E Rybolt

Mimesis: Foot Washing From Luke To John, Keith L. Yoder

Keith L. Yoder

Open-Mindedness As A Christian Virtue?, Jason Baehr

Jason Baehr

No abstract provided.

An Historical Study Of Christian Cosmic, Ray Roennfeldt

Ray Roennfeldt

Cosmic dualism presented one of the most pervasive and challenging alternatives to Christian orthodoxy from early Christian times through to the Middle Ages. Manichaeism was the most prominent sect to purposefully promulgate dualism within the Christian Church, and its success can be measured by the fact that for centuries the Church tended to label anything that seemed to be dualistic as "Manichaean". The problem for the historian is to determine whether the sects on the fringe of the Church were indeed dualistic and whether they, in fact, had any common link with Manichaeism. Time and space preclude an exhaustive treatment …

Clark H. Pinnock's Shift In His Doctrine Of Biblical Authority And Reliability, An Analysis And Critique, Ray C. Roennfeldt

Ray Roennfeldt

This study investigates Clark H. Pinnock's shift in his doctrine of biblical authority and reliability. A brief introduction, delineating the objectives, method, and delimitations of the study, is followed by an historical survey of developments inregard to biblical authority and reliability from the sixteenth century onwards. There were few doubts regarding scriptural authority and veracity until the rise of English Deism, biblical criticism, and religious liberalism. The resulting demolition of the traditional view of Scripture was protested by Fundamentalism, then by evangelicalism. Contemporary evangelicals, however, reveal little uniformity in regard to the doctrine of Scripture. Pinnock's own role in the …

Intangible And Tangible Heritage In A Cross-Cultural Setting: Integrity Versus Profit, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

The paper explores the impact of cross-cultural integration on the intangible and tangible heritage and its sustainability. It argues that the processes of acculturation generate a distancing between the original creators of the heritage and the narratives attached to the cultural entities in a new setting. The named detachment demises the originality and uniqueness of the local heritage expressed in language, rites, dressing, greetings, music, folklore, religion, cultural monuments, and sites. More so detrimental to the original ‘spirit of the place,’ are the new cultural modes imposed by time and change. In the context of the named challenges, this study …

The Heart Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Health Message, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

The article explores the circumstances relating to the historical emergence of the Seventh-day Adventist Health Message. The author raises the question whether the vision given to Ellen White, during her opening Sabbath prayer on Friday evening, June 5, 1863, was simply a matter of coincidence? Or, in view of the prevailing views and practices was God’s choice to communicate at such a specific point of time, intentional? In this context, the author explores the heart of the heath message suggesting that the “Otsego Health” vision drew attention to what matters to God most, namely spiritual health. Secondly, it prompted an …

Cross-Cultural Sharing Of Spirituality, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

This paper explores the nature of the Australian Aborigine and Christian spirituality. It demonstrates that the indigenous spirituality shows a strong tie between the spiritual realm and life's journey. The cultural symbolism, which reflects cosmology, shows that the mystical nature of the spiritual journey is deeply immersed in the totality of the Aboriginal life and consciousness. The study recognizes that the Aboriginal and Christian worldviews are distinctly different. However, it argues that the Aboriginal Christian spirituality may be enhanced by the qualities embedded in its indigenous roots. The study demonstrates that, at the point where propositional creed-based structure of the …

A Search For New Meaning: Virtual Landscapes, Identity And The Cross-Cultural Nature Of Intangible Heritage, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

This paper explores the role virtual landscapes play in the formation of the cross-cultural quality of the intangible heritage. Research suggests that the highly poignant global blending of cultures generates a field of new forms of expressions and gives birth to new contrasting cultural identities. The variety of cultural backgrounds immersed in the framework of globalized varieties reflects the “multiple dimensions that compose it” (Salzman & Matathia, 2006,134). Besides, the avalanche of technological advancements and the age of digitized communication transitions cultural expressions away from the accepted forms of the new unexplored landscapes. It also argues that the virtual spaces …

Conversion And Identity In The Context Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Faith Tradition, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

This paper explores the relationship between conversion and identityformation in the context of the Seventh-day Adventist faith tradition. It argues that the lack of a clearly-defined and contextualised contemporary identity, coined with the organisational expectations for conformity to ethical and cultural standards, rather than the liberating qualities of the gospel, lead to the demise of Christian identity. Further, empirical research demonstrates that a relationally-internalised faith leads to a positive and secure Christian identity, which enables believers to communicate faith in God in a language, which flows from the heart, and speaks to the heart.

Cultural Heritage: Transformational And Inspiriational Framework For Future Education, John Skrzypaszek

John Skrzypaszek

This paper explores the connection between cultural heritage and its pedagogical value for future generations. Research unfolds a plethora of discussions being designed to demonstrate the close connection between cultural heritage and its significance in contemporary life. The attempts to connect the past with the present underline the need for contextualized meanings. Concurrently, it unfolds the challenges associated with the adaptation of cultural heritage to the progressive spread of globalization and advancement in technology. The demands for contextualized adaptability in the framework of universality create what this study refers to as a pathway of cultural progress with a misplaced focus. …

The Interior Landscape: Metaphors For Faith And Belief In The Religious Paintings Of Colin Mccahon, Richard Morris

Richard Morris

For artist Colin McCahon, the dynamic interplay of light and form he witnessed in the New Zealand landscape provided inspiration for the development of a pictorial language the artist has used to communicate the dynamics of his own Christian experience. Through an abstract visual vocabulary of shape, tone, and line which he largely distilled from the natural environment, and painted words and passages taken from the Bible, McCahon presents the viewer with paintings which chronicle his experiences of Christian faith and belief. What is fascinating about his work is that it seems to project such profound content through such minimal …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Discipleship In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Responses To A Global And Regional Survey, Sherene Hattingh, Lindsay Morton, Rick Ferret, Kevin Petrie, Julie-Anne Heise, Kayle De Waal

Julie-Anne Heise

No abstract provided.

The Black Church : Responding To The Drug-Related Mass Incarceration Of Young Black Males : "If You Had Been Here My Brother Would Not Have Died!", Sharon E. Moore, A. Christson Adedoyin, Michael A. Robinson, Daniel A. Boamah

Sharon E. Moore

The mass incarceration of young Black males for drug-related offences is a social issue that has broad implications. Some scholars have described this as a new form of racism that needs to be addressed through the concerted effort of various institutions, including the Black Church. In this paper the authors will elucidate the past and current roles of the Black Church, discuss the utilization of the social work Theory of Empowerment and Black Church theology to address the disproportionality of drug-related mass incarceration of young Black males, focus on initiatives undertaken by the Black Church to address this issue and …

When, Where, And Why Did The Change From Sabbath To Sunday Worship Take Place In The Early Church?, Robert K. Mciver

Robert McIver

It is evident that Jesus and his earliest followers all observed the seventh-day Sabbath. After all, the earliest followers of Jesus were all pious Jews. That Luke observes – almost in passing – that it was Jesus’ custom to attend synagogue on Sabbaths (Luke 4:16) is only to be expected. Yet, today, most Christians observe Sunday as the day of worship, not the Sabbath. This article traces the evidence that has been used to answer the key questions, “When, where and why did the change in the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday take place.”

A few writers attempt …

Twentieth-Century Approaches To The Matthean Community, Robert Mciver

Robert McIver

While extended research into the Matthean Community is a relatively recent phenomenon in NT scholarship, most twentieth-century scholars working on the Gospel of Matthew have had either an explicit or implicit understanding of the Matthean Community against which they interpret the Gospel. This might be characterized as their understanding of the historical matrix out of which the Gospel arose, and their interest in this matrix grows out of the importance attached to reading the Gospel against its historical background. This article will examine the various ways this historical matrix has been understood.

The Sabbath In The Gospel Of Matthew: A Paradigm For Understanding The Law In Matthew?, Robert K. Mciver

Robert McIver

No abstract provided.