Search results for ""Author Istvan Czachesz""
Peeters Publishers Commission Narratives: A Comparative Study of the Canonical and Apocryphal Acts
Commission Narratives is based on the author's doctoral dissertation in Groningen (2002). The monograph offers the first overarching, comparative treatment of commission narratives in the canonical and apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, analysing them in their ancient literary setting. Following a survey of this widespread narrative theme in the cultural environment of early Christianity, Czachesz establishes a threefold social typology of divine commission (institutional, prophetic and philosophical) and explores the occurences of the three types in the canonical and apocryphal Acts. The central chapters of the book provide a close reading of the textual evidence, investigating intertextual relations, the function of commission in the narrative structure, and the biographical models of self-definition that commission stories offered to the ancient readers in their changing social and ecclesiastical environments. Based on this textual analysis, Czachesz makes new proposals about the reconstruction, Sitz im Leben and dating of several apocryphal Acts. Finally, he examines the synchronic structure of commission, showing that the variety of commission narratives emerges from a constant set of motifs that are generated by interactions among the characters.
£55.45
Peeters Publishers Changing Minds: Religion and Cognition Through the Ages
This volume addresses the problem of change and continuity in religious traditions from the perspective of cognitive science. Relying on the rapidly growing body of scientific knowledge about the human mind, the authors examine cross-culturally recurrent religious phenomena and specific religious traditions, in an attempt to explain why religions change dynamically whilst still exhibiting high degrees of continuity. The volume contributes to our understanding of how social and cultural phenomena emerge from mental processes taking place in the brains of many individuals.The cognitive turn in the humanities entails not only a new, biologically grounded view of human phenomena, but also novel questions and methods. Some of the chapters, written by philosophers and linguists, discuss what the study of religion can learn from other disciplines that have already undertaken the cognitive turn. Anthropologists and psychologists of religion build bridges from different areas within the cognitive sciences to very specific issues of religion; they thus pave the way for Biblical scholars and theologians who are embracing the new cognitive method.This volume is the result of the International Workshop on Religion and Cognition, co-organised by the Cultural Change programme and the Centre for Religion and Cognition at the University of Groningen in 2006.
£67.51
Peeters Publishers The Visio Pauli and the Gnostic Apocalypse of Paul
The "Visio Pauli" and the Gnostic "Apocalypse of Paul" is the first modern collection of studies on the most important aspects of the "Visio Pauli", the most popular early Christian apocalypse in the Middle Ages. The volume starts with a short study of the textual traditions of the "Visio Pauli", its Jewish and early Christian traditions as well as its influence on later literature, such as Dante. This is followed by studies of the Prologue, the four rivers of Eden, the place of the Ocean, the relation between body and soul, the image of hell and its punishments, and the connection with fantastic literature. Finally, a codicological, comparative, and textual re-evaluation of the Coptic translation attempts to correct earlier errors and to rehabilitate the value and interest of this long neglected version of the "Visio Pauli". The book is concluded with a study of the earthly tribunal in the fourth heaven of the Gnostic "Apocalypse of Paul". As has become customary, the volume is rounded off by an extensive bibliography of the "Visio Pauli" and the Gnostic "Apocalypse of Paul" and a detailed index.
£58.50