bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prediabetes Risk Assessment among Nurses Recruited in a Dubai Local Government Hospital: A Cross-Sectional Study
Authors: Abdullah Khadija , Jacob Susan , Hussain Hamid Y. , Salim Nezar Ahmed
Published: May 2019

Background: Nurses constitute half of the health workforce; their health could be at risk for chronic diseases, such as prediabetes and diabetes, as well as other occupational hazards, such as nurses’ stress. Health promotion, possibly workplace based, presents opportunities to safeguard the health of nurses. Using a prediabetes risk assessment tool for screening the nurses is important to ensure that they remain physically and mentally fit to perform their work and to comply with various health and safety regulations. Objective: The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of prediabetes and its risk among nurses in Dubai Hospital and to study risk factors associated with prediabetes status. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Dubai Hospital-Dubai Health Authority. A convenience sample was selected including 674 nurses estimated using OpenEpi software. Data was collected using a standardized diabetes risk assessment tool (The Finnish Diabetes Risk Score [FINDRISC]). Inclusion criteria were staff nurses working in Dubai Hospital in the age group from 25 to 64 years and nondiabetic staff in Dubai Hospital; an operational definition of prediabetes was used. The data were coded, and data entry and data analysis were made using SPSS 20 software version. The data were tested at a level of significance of 95%. Results: The study revealed that 42.7% of the participants had a low prediabetes risk, 38.4% had a slightly elevated prediabetes risk, 10.8% had a moderate prediabetes risk, 7.6% had a high prediabetes risk, and 0.5% had a very high prediabetes risk. Age, body mass index, waist circumference, history of antihypertensive drug treatment, history of high blood glucose, family history of diabetes, daily consumption of fruits, berries, or vegetables, and daily physical activity had a significant relationship with the prediabetes test (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Frequent testing is recommended to follow the risk score. Since we cannot control unmodifiable factors, such as age and family history, we can control modifiable factors, such as having a healthy lifestyle with healthy food and exercise to decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Health promotion and education can decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Nuo Altar Theatre on a Liminal/Liminoid Continuum: Reflections on the Shamanic Origins of Chinese Theatre
Authors: Zhao Xiaohuan
Published: May 2019

The rite of exorcism known as nuo lies at the very heart of the relationship between ritual and drama in Chinese theatre history. Nuo altar theatre exemplifies the relationship between ritual and drama as dynamic and interactive, with ritual engendering theatre and theatre enriching ritual.
Huan Nuoyuan: Exorcism and Transformation in Miao Ritual Drama
Authors: Riccio Thomas
Published: May 2019

Deep in the Wuling Mountains of southwest Hunan, China, a 3,000-year-old ritual, the huan nuoyuan, is performed by the Miao people. The elaborate event is the conclusion of many years of preparation; it evokes and embodies the mythical forces that are central to the worldview of the politically and ethnically marginalized Miao.
Proprioception of the Hand: Stelarc’s Object-Oriented Relations
Authors: Amiran Eyal
Published: May 2019

The performances of Australian body artist Stelarc have been read as part of the shift in new media towards radical materiality that rejects the traditional self. Stelarc’s art, instead, belongs in a philosophical tradition that affirms the proprioceptive self, one that can only know itself through touch.
Holot Legislative Theatre: Performing Refugees in Israel
Authors: Kuftinec Sonja Arsham
Published: May 2019

Holot Legislative Theatre (HLT) is a mixed group of African asylum seekers and Israeli allies. Through continuously evolving, modular, interactive performances, the ensemble presents social dilemmas created by Israeli state policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. Based on testimonies and personal stories, HLT offers a rereading of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Functional control of electrophysiological network architecture using direct neurostimulation in humans
Authors: Khambhati Ankit N. , Kahn Ari E. , Costantini Julia , Ezzyat Youssef , Solomon Ethan A. , Gross Robert E. , Jobst Barbara C. , Sheth Sameer A. , Zaghloul Kareem A. , Worrell Gregory , Seger Sarah , Lega Bradley C. , Weiss Shennan , Sperling Michael R. , Gorniak Richard , Das Sandhitsu R. , Stein Joel M. , Rizzuto Daniel S. , Kahana Michael J. , Lucas Timothy H. , Davis Kathryn A. , Tracy Joseph I. , Bassett Danielle S.
Published: May 2019

Chronically implantable neurostimulation devices are becoming a clinically viable option for treating patients with neurological disease and psychiatric disorders. Neurostimulation offers the ability to probe and manipulate distributed networks of interacting brain areas in dysfunctional circuits. Here, we use tools from network control theory to examine the dynamic reconfiguration of functionally interacting neuronal ensembles during targeted neurostimulation of cortical and subcortical brain structures. By integrating multimodal intracranial recordings and diffusion-weighted imaging from patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, we test hypothesized structural and functional rules that predict altered patterns of synchronized local field potentials. We demonstrate the ability to predictably reconfigure functional interactions depending on stimulation strength and location. Stimulation of areas with structurally weak connections largely modulates the functional hubness of downstream areas and concurrently propels the brain towards more difficult-to-reach dynamical states. By using focal perturbations to bridge large-scale structure, function, and markers of behavior, our findings suggest that stimulation may be tuned to influence different scales of network interactions driving cognition.
Shakespeare’s Prayers
Authors: Beauregard David
Published: May 2019

The various prayers in King Lear, Hamlet, Henry V, Cymbeline, and The Tempest are complex. If Shakespeare inherited medieval Catholic forms of prayer he preserved them in altered form, with considerable ambiguity. They provided useful dramatic forms, although any explicit appeal to Catholics in the audience seems unlikely. Since the English Reformation was still in the process of transition, Shakespeare’s prayers would have appealed to his “Protestant” as well as Catholic audience. Against the overstated claim that to look for Shakespeare’s religious affiliation is an impossible task and finally futile, I argue that the various inadvertent allusions to Catholic forms of prayer, and their sometimes ambiguous expression, are precisely what we would expect of a Catholic working under the Elizabethan and Jacobean regimes.
Understanding Paintings
Authors: Rudd Anthony J.
Published: May 2019

Hans-Georg Gadamer has claimed, first, that in religious painting the image does not merely copy its prototype but is in “ontological communion” with it; and second, that in this respect the religious painting is exemplary for painting in general. I examine these claims with specific reference to Eastern Orthodox icons, drawing on both classical and modern Orthodox theological accounts of the icon to support and amplify Gadamer’s claim about “ontological communion.” I then consider accounts by Jean-Luc Marion and by the theologian Paul Evdokimov of how the icon can be exemplary for painting in general. I argue that Marion’s discussion leads to some unacceptable conclusions, and that Evdokimov provides a more convincing account. This commits him to a strong and controversial thesis that all art (consciously or otherwise, and whatever its explicit subject-matter) is in a sense religious.
The Metaphor of Religion and Art
Authors: Elwell J. Sage
Published: May 2019

This essay takes up the challenge of unpacking the nature of what Schleiermacher called the “inner affinity” between religion and art. Drawing on the work of philosophers of art such as Susanne Langer and Arthur Danto, and philosophers of religion like Loyal Rue and David Tracy, I suggest that religion and art have at their core a comparable metaphorical structure that lends them this common communion. From this shared structure, I deduce five principal conclusions that I take to be the key avenues of affiliation between religion and art.
Using Numbers to Comprehend the Cosmos: An Analysis of Liu Mu’s Yishu gouyin tu
Authors: Skonicki Douglas
Published: May 2019

This article examines the cosmological arguments advanced within Liu Mu’s 劉牧 (n.d.) Yishu gouyin tu 易數鉤隱圖, a short work composed in the 1030s that was dedicated to explaining the meaning of the Yijing. In the Yishu gouyin tu, Liu used combinations of diagrams and text to argue that numbers underlay, and provided the keys to understanding, the development of the cosmos and the creation of the myriad entities that inhabited it. He further asserted that the important role numbers played in the process of creation and transformation was revealed to the ancient sage Fu Xi 伏羲 via two important diagrams, the Hetu 河圖 and Luoshu 洛書. In addition to explicating Liu’s conception of how the numbers of the Hetu and Luoshu informed both cosmological development and the composition of the Yi, this article situates his views within the context of Northern Song thought in an effort to shed light on their larger significance and influence. It argues that Liu played a key role in promoting several ideas that would assume great importance in the mid-eleventh century, including the questioning of the received exegetical tradition, the claim that the dao had a cosmological foundation, and the use of diagrams and numbers to explicate cosmological process.
Explaining Perfection: Quanzhen and Thirteenth-century Chinese Literati
Authors: Halperin Mark
Published: May 2019

The Quanzhen Daoist order stands as the most dynamic religious element in north China of the tumultuous thirteenth century. Drawing on funeral epitaphs and abbey commemorations, this article illustrates how famous and obscure Confucian scholar-officials interpreted the order’s remarkable success in various ways. Some credited Quanzhen with pruning Daoism of its post-Han dynasty excrescences and reviving the heritage’s basic teachings. For others, Quanzhen marked simply the latest chapter in Daoism’s undimmed heroic history. A third group pointed to the order’s ascetic discipline, which as a matter of course attracted elite and mass devotion. Significantly, epitaphs and commemorations composed by Quanzhen writers sounded similar themes, suggesting that the learned laity and clergy shared a common discourse casting the order as a force for Han culture during foreign occupation.
Indigenous Traditions and Ecological Ethics in Earth's Insights
Authors: Grim John A.
Published: May 2019

Using the term, lifeway, this article emphasises the cosmology-cum-economy coherence of indigenous traditions. It explores the role of indigenous traditions in the formation of a global ecological ethic as put forward by J. Baird Callicott in his work, Earth's Insights. Recommending a cosmological approach, the article makes connections to advocacy issues. Finally, the significance of ordinary life in indigenous societies is foregrounded as the arena for teaching local ecological ethics.
Judaism and Christianity in Earth's Insights
Authors: Ruether Rosemary Radford
Published: May 2019

In Earth's Insights, Baird Callicott argues that Hebrew scripture, because of its more communal and this-worldly standpoint, is more amenable to environmental ethics than the New Testament. I enumerate other insights from this tradition, portraying a three-way relation in which nature has its own autonomy, as well as reciprocal interrelation with the human and with God.
New observations on Miculenchus Andrássy, 1959 (Nematoda: Tylenchidae) with descriptions of two new and one known species from Iran
Authors: Panahandeh Yousef , Pourjam Ebrahim , Álvarez-Ortega Sergio , Jahanshahi Afshar Farahnaz , Pedram Majid
Published: May 2019

During nematological surveys in grasslands and natural forests of north and north-western Iran, three species of Miculenchus, including two new and one known species, were recovered and characterised based upon morphological and molecular approaches. Miculenchus brevisalvus n. sp., the first new species, is mainly characterised by its short females 334-388 μm long and with a short 6.0-7.5 μm long stylet, pyriform to pyriform-elongate pharyngeal bulb, 4-8 μm long post-uterine sac (PUS), offset rounded spermatheca filled with small spheroid sperm, elongate conoid tail 62-83 μm long with a sharp tip, and males with simple cloacal lips. Miculenchus muscus n. sp., the second new species, is characterised by a combination of the following features: body 401-467 μm long, well-developed protuberant labial plate at the anterior end under light microscopy, stylet 7-9 μm long, pyriform pharyngeal bulb, PUS 4-9 μm long, gradually narrowing conical tail 62-74 μm long with a finely pointed or sharp end and bearing several fine bristles at tip, and a male with projecting cloacal lips. Both newly described species were morphologically compared with four currently known species of the genus, viz., M. elegans, M. salmae, M. salvus, and M. tesselatus. Miculenchus salmae was also recovered and reported from Iran for the first time. It is mainly characterised by lacking a PUS and the characteristic vagina shape. Miculenchus muscus n. sp. and M. salmae were both characterised using scanning electron microscopic images, yielding new morphological observations for the genus. All three species are studied for their molecular phylogenetic characters using sequences of near-full length fragments of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) and the D2-D3 expansion segments of the large subunit ribosomal RNA gene (LSU rDNA D2-D3). In both SSU and LSU phylogenies, all currently sequenced species of Miculenchus formed a monophyletic group with maximal clade support in both Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood analysis.
Heidegger’s National-Humanism
Authors: Therezo Rodrigo Bueno
Published: May 2019

This paper is an attempt to think through Derrida’s newly discovered Geschlecht III, the third and missing installment of Derrida’s four part series on Heidegger and Geschlecht. I argue that Derrida’s reading of Heidegger in Geschlecht III needs to be situated within the philosophico-political context of Derrida’s 1984–85 seminar—given under the general title Philosophical Nationality and Nationalism—from which Geschlecht III is extracted. In the first part of the paper, I reconstruct Derrida’s general problematic of national-humanism as he lays it out in the opening sessions of the seminar, before arriving at his reading of Heidegger, who will be part of “a sequence of German national-philosophism,” as Derrida calls it. In the second part, the paper turns explicitly to Geschlecht III where, as I show, Derrida’s thoroughgoing denunciation of a national-humanism in Heidegger becomes all the more telling when seen through the theoretical matrix of the seminar.
Autoimmunities
Authors: Vardoulakis Dimitris
Published: May 2019

I argue that a distinction between three autoimmunities is implied in Derrida’s Rogues. These are the autoimmunities of democracy as a regime of power, of democracy to come and of sovereignty. I extrapolate the relations between three different autoimmunities using the figure of the internal enemy in order to argue for an agonistic conception of democracy.
Sense, Language, and Ontology in Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite
Authors: Apostolopoulos Dimitris
Published: May 2019

Hyppolite stresses his proximity to Merleau-Ponty, but the received interpretation of his “anti-humanist” reading of Hegel suggests a greater distance between their projects. This paper focuses on an under-explored dimension of their philosophical relationship. I argue that Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite are both committed to formulating a mode of philosophical expression that can avoid the pitfalls of purely formal or literal and purely aesthetic or creative modes of expression. Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to navigate this dichotomy, I suggest, closely resembles Hyppolite’s interpretation of Hegel’s “speculative” mode of expression. In particular, his emphasis on the “mediating” character of philosophical language, which moves between descriptive and creative expression, suggests a debt to Hyppolite. This reading provides more evidence to think that Hyppolite cannot be straightforwardly understood as an anti-humanist or post-phenomenological thinker, and paves the way for a rapprochement between his work and the broader phenomenological tradition.
Blanchot and Klossowski on the Eternal Return of Nietzsche
Authors: Keenan Dennis King
Published: May 2019

What does it mean to say “Yes” to life? What does it mean to affirm life? What does it mean to not be nihilistic? One possible answer is the appropriation of finitude. But Klossowski argues that this amounts to a “voluntarist” fatalism. Though Klossowski draws attention to the temptation of “voluntarist” fatalism on the part of Nietzsche and readers of Nietzsche, he himself is tempted by redemption, i.e., by being redeemed from the weight of responsibility. Using the very “logic” of Klossowski’s own reading of the eternal return, Blanchot will call this possibility of redemption (on the part of Klossowski) into question. Blanchot’s reading of Nietzsche’s eternal return draws attention to that moment (within the work of Nietzsche) when death as possibility turns into death as impossibility. This weakening of the negative brings, according to Blanchot, not redemption from the burden of responsibility, but infinite responsibility.
Forward-Looking Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance: Empirical Evidence from Year 2013 Listed Firms in Ghana
Authors: Agyei-Mensah Ben K.
Published: May 2019

This study investigated the influence of corporate governance on the disclosure of forward looking information by firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. The forward-looking information used in this study were obtained from statements made for management in either the Managing Director or Board Chairman’s reports regarding future operating outcomes.

The results of the extent of disclosure of forward looking information, mean of 35%, indicate that most of the firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange did not disclose sufficient forward looking information in their annual reports. The low level (35%) of forward looking information disclosure will also make it very difficult for the firms’ stakeholders to determine future performance of the company. In a country where corruption, even within the judiciary, is high one way of hiding corrupt practices is to hide information from the users of the financial reports.

The results of the regression analysis indicate that board ownership concentration is the significant variable that explain the level of forward looking information disclosure.
Oral Transmission of the Sacred: Preaching in Christ Embassy and nasfat in Abuja
Authors: Ibrahim Murtala
Published: May 2019

This article1 compares and contrasts the practices of preaching between Christ Embassy and nasfat in the city of Abuja. The preaching of the two groups responds to the social situation of Abuja, which includes hard economic conditions and religious pluralism. The article analyses the preaching styles in Christ Embassy and nasfat within the framework of performance theory. It argues that preaching is an important instrument for empowering urban residents with the necessary mental resources for meeting the challenges of the urban environment. Moreover, the article argues that preaching is a practice of mediation that is facilitated by aspects such as stage design, dress, background music, eloquence, and preaching assistants. In Christ Embassy, one of the purposes of preaching is a total transformation of the individual mindset and the cultivation of new norms and values. Preaching in nasfat has the purpose of producing modern and pious Muslims who can live comfortably in pluralistic urban settings and project a positive image of Islam.
Salafi Aesthetics: Preaching Among the Sunnance in Niamey, Niger
Authors: Sounaye Abdoulaye
Published: May 2019

In their effort to contribute to Islamic reform in Niamey, young Salafi (Sunnance) have embraced preaching and have made it part of their religious practice. As preachers or audience members, they invest time and energy to imagine various ways to popularize the Sunna, the tradition of the prophet Muhammad. Because of the jokes, mimicry, and theatrics that characterize their preaching style, their critics have rejected their initiatives, claiming they are unqualified and therefore should not be allowed to preach. In response, Sunnance have argued that an effective sermon (wazu) requires art, skills, ingenuity and know-how (iyawa, hikma in Hausa). By examining how aesthetics are central to Sunnance popular and street preaching, this article invites a reexamination of Salafism through its aesthetic forms. Wazu is not just a gathering that seeks to deliver a message, be it divine; it is also a way to promote religiosity through particular cultural and aesthetic performances.
Book Market and Surveillance: The Distribution of Plantin’s Tridentine Liturgical Books in Sixteenth-Century Castile
Authors: Rial Costas Benito
Published: May 2019

This article studies the distribution of Christopher Plantin’s Tridentine liturgical Books between 1568 and 1572 through a Philip II’s royal ordinance of 1572 and the reports of a systematic visit to the bookshops of Castile that same year. This article analyses some of the formidable complexities, successes and failures of the clash between Crown, market and Church. It highlights Philip II’s lack of control over the Spanish book market and the fraudulent import of liturgical books from Antwerp to Castile and the unofficial distribution of them.
Glaubensbekenntnis oder Sklavengehorsam?—Petrus von Alexandrien zu einem christlichen Dilemma
Authors: Vaucher Daniel
Published: May 2019

The so-called Canonical letter (or περὶ Μετανοίας, “On Repentance”) of St. Peter of Alexandria, sheds light on a variety of means that Christians chose to avoid the sacrifice test under the Diocletian persecution. Canons 5-7 deal explicitly with slave- owners using their slaves as surrogates. St. Peter condemns these practices heavily, while at the same time he condemns servile obedience. In this, Peter is almost alone in early Christianity, when almost all Christians preached blind obedience. The article examines these canons, and contextualizes them with other Christian perceptions of ancient slavery. At the same time, the letter is important for the understanding of the Great persecution, its mechanisms, and the personal situation of St. Peter. Hence, the letter is discussed in regards to its transmission, and its context.
Virtue Ethics, Criminal Responsibility, and Dominic Ongwen
Authors: Souris Renée Nicole
Published: May 2019

In this article, I contribute to the debate between two philosophical traditions—the Kantian and the Aristotelian—on the requirements of criminal responsibility and the grounds for excuse by taking this debate to a new context: international criminal law. After laying out broadly Kantian and Aristotelian conceptions of criminal responsibility, I defend a quasi-Aristotelian conception, which affords a central role to moral development, and especially to the development of moral perception, for international criminal law. I show than an implication of this view is that persons who are substantially and non-culpably limited in their capacity for ordinary moral perception warrant an excuse for engaging in unlawful conduct. I identify a particular set of conditions that trigger this excuse, and then I systematically examine it as applied to the controversial case of former-child-soldier-turned leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Dominic Ongwen, who is currently at trial at the International Criminal Court.
The Spooky Politics of Dark Truths
Authors: Newton Richard
Published: May 2019

As social theory garners cache in departments of Religious Studies, scholars find themselves unclear about how to address the notion of truth. This paper approaches truth as an opportunity to explain the role of truth-claims in erecting and razing social boundaries. It begins by reframing or “signifying on” Alan Race’s typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism in order to register social formations rather than soteriological criteria. Then it reviews moments in African American cultural history in order to explain the ways people mediate identity politics though truth-claims. Readers will visit three, race-centered debates over memorials on college campuses in the United States of America as case studies for demonstrating this perspectival shift. In so doing, the paper presents an alternative model for the kind of analytical social commentary Religious Studies scholars may provide their publics.
A Christian Response to the Conflicting Relationship Between Slave and Master in A Christian Household
Authors: Ip Alex Hon Ho
Published: May 2019

This paper seeks to investigate Paul’s response – based on his theological thoughts on love – on the conflicting relationship between Christian master and slave. With the aid of New Institutional Economics (NIE), two major characteristics of the relationship between a master and slave will be explained, namely objectifying and manipulating the relationship. Then, this paper will try to read Paul’s response to the conflicting relationship in the letter to Philemon – how he used different rhetoric to persuade Philemon to change his relationship with his slave in different levels, namely, theological perspective, core values and practical concern.
To Flee or Not to Flee? Matthew 10:23 and Third Century Flight in Persecution
Authors: Sutcliffe Ruth
Published: May 2019

When faced with persecution, Christians behaved in a range of ways, from confessing and accepting (or even provoking) martyrdom to apostasising. Another option was to flee. Tertullian’s perspective on flight varied with the rhetorical purposes of his writings. Other third century writers, notably Clement, Origen and Cyprian, argued that flight was a viable option in order to make life safer for those left behind, to avoid being complicit in the persecutors’ sin and for preservation in order to continue one’s work and witness. All four cited or alluded to Matthew 10:23 in support of their position. This paper explores the theological and contextual factors which informed their differing exegesis of this passage, concluding that theology was the primary influence for Clement and Origen, rhetorical aims for Tertullian, and for Cyprian, the role and duty of the bishop in changing circumstances.
The Protoevangelium of James and Its Reception in the Caucasus: Status Quaestionis
Authors: Horn Cornelia
Published: May 2019

This article examines the status quaestionis concerning the Protoevangelium of James in the Caucasus, focusing on evidence in Armenian and Georgian sources.
The Reception of “Slavonic Apocrypha”
Authors: Jovanović Ljubica
Published: May 2019

This paper examines the history of scholarship on medieval Slavonic religious literature. The bulk of these writings have been studied either by biblical scholars or by Slavicists under the name of “Slavonic Apocrypha.” The fifteenth century manuscript, Slav 29, typifies this scholarship. Slavonic translations of Hellenistic pseudepigrapha were used by textual critics for the reconstruction of biblical literature. Biblical scholars praise Slav 29 as the source of the best version of the Hellenistic romance, Joseph and Aseneth. Slavicists-medievalists celebrate it as the manuscript of the Serbian poetic masterpiece, Slovoljubve (A Homage to Love). They study Slav. 29 as part of national Slavic literature. As a representative of medieval Slavic literature Slav 29 also includes biblical passages, theological discourses, historiographies, hagiographies, sermons, erotapokriseis, fables, medical prescriptions, and folk tales.
Slavonic Apocrypha: New Discoveries, New Perusals
Authors: Miltenova Anissava
Published: May 2019

The mixed-content miscellanies could be defined as a unifying genre of the 'readable' type of unstable makeup and varied content. Manuscripts that reflect the nucleus of characteristic works in expanded or reduced form, providing they feature sufficient textological proof of common origin or typological similarity, could be classified with a certain type. The present study on the Dispute between Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Antichrist and on the The Story about beautiful Joseph has two objectives: 1) to introduce several so far unstudied South Slavonic manuscripts that contain mainly apocrypha, and 2) to reveal how the differences between initial translations and secondary editing of Slavonic apocrypha are indicative of the intervention of the Slavic writer.
The Dream of King Jehoash: A Textual Analysis
Authors: Mitani Keiko
Published: May 2019

The term "apocryphal" has been applied to a broad range of medieval Slavonic texts. Many of them were composed in the Judeo-Hellenistic literary tradition and brought into the Slavic lands, forming a particular textual corpus abundant in a variety of contents and narrative styles. However, there is also a group of pieces regarded as Slavonic apocrypha but whose origin is unclear. The Dream of King Jehoash, a very short story written in Old Slavonic, is one of such texts, copies of which were mostly circulated from the 13th to the 18th century in Russia. This paper compares nine copies of the Dream, including the oldest one, analyzes linguistic and structural features of them, and presents the early transmission pattern of copies. Based on a particular expression reminiscent of the one found in The Song of Songs, the author concludes that the Dream was a Slavonic creation.
Slavonic Apocrypha: The Main Problems with Their Textual History (a Philological Perspective)
Authors: Navtanovich Liudmila
Published: May 2019

On one hand, Slavonic Apocrypha share the same characteristics with the other Old Slavonic Literature. But on the other, they had their own peculiarities in terms of the process of translating, editing and copying the text during its existence in Slavonic version.
The Representation of Literary Motifs in Visual Arts (in Connection with the Magic Belts of Job and His Daughters)
Authors: Osinkina Lyubov
Published: May 2019

Medieval literature and visual art provide one area of cross-fertilization. The current paper pays special attention to the analysis of the relations between the iconography of Job and its links with oral and written literary tradition. I examine interrelationship between the apocryphal tradition and iconography as illustrated by reference to the 'magic belts' of Job's daughters. I propose that the ability of Job's daughters to understand the language of angels may be linked with their wearing lor(os) which was part of the Byzantine imperial costume and also the angels' attire. In addition, the ribbons commonly found on the heads of angels may be linked with such glossolalia.
Neither Pseudo-Athanasius nor Palaea: Historia de Melchisedech as a Part of the Slavonic Abraham’s Cycle
Authors: Wittkowsky Vadim , Vitkovskaya Maria
Published: May 2019

The Story of Melchizedek (Historia de Melchisedech) has been handed down in various languages, especially in Greek and Old Slavonic, and there are already editions of several versions of this apocryphon. In the German edition by Christfried Böttrich (2010) three Slavonic versions have been also considered. These are the so-called Pseudo-Athanasius version, a section of the so-called Historical Palaea, and the short "prolog" version in the Eastern Slavonic tradition. However, it has gone unnoticed in the context of the Western debate that many Southern Slavonic miscellanies (sborniki) contain two versions which are different from all three of them. Both these versions form an integral part of the Slavonic Abraham Cycle, a collection of Jewish-Christian apocrypha, which has received too little attention in the Western scholarship. The article tries to make first steps towards a correct placement of these Southern Slavonic versions within the tradition of the Story of Melchizedek.
Affirming Divine Providence and Limiting the Powers of Saints: the Byzantine Debate about the Term of Life (6th-11th Centuries)
Authors: Krausmüller Dirk
Published: May 2019

One of the chief characteristics of Byzantine culture in the early Middle Age was the willingness to engage in sometimes fierce debates. The best known of these debates, the controversy about the veneration of images, has been studied by many scholars and is now well known. The same cannot be said about another contentious issue, the question of whether the time of one’s death was fixed from eternity or whether it could be changed. In the late 1970s Leendert Gerrit Westerink and Giuseppe Zanetto published critical editions of two major contributions to the debate, a disputation by Theophylact Simocatta and a dialogue by Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople. Yet this did not lead to sustained engagement with the texts. The only discussion is found in Wolfgang Lackner’s edition of a much later treatise by Nicephorus Blemmydes. In the introduction to his edition Lackner identified numerous relevant primary sources dating to the fourth to twelfth centuries, proposed a rough classification and discussed some of the arguments used by the authors. What is still missing is a reconstruction of the historical context of the debate. The present article seeks to fill this gap. It considers not only treatises about the term of life but also Biblical commentaries, homilies, hymns, letters and saints’ lives that can throw light on the debate.
Philoponus on the Nature of the Heavens and the Movement of Elements in Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World
Authors: Varlamova Maria
Published: May 2019

This paper deals with the John Philoponus' arguments against the eternity of the heavens in context of the dispute against the eternity of the world. The theory of eternity of the heavens was defended by Aristotle in his Physics and in the 1st book On the Heavens. In his treatise On Eternity of the World against Aristotle Philoponus attacks the arguments of Aristotle in order to prove the essential finititude of the heavens. The Philoponus' arguments are related to the nature and motion of elements and especially to the nature of fire. In order to explore the Philoponus' arguments against Aristotle I compare his doctrine with the Aristotle's theories of elemental nature and celestial motion.
Pietism and German Inter-Confessional Nationalism
Authors: Avraham Doron
Published: May 2019

Beginning in the early nineteenth century, spokesmen for German nationalism invoked confessional reconciliation as a precondition for future unification. While the confessional divide between Catholics and Protestants seemed to hinder German unity, advocating ecumenical Christianity appeared to advance national consolidation. The article suggests that this endorsement of ecumenism was part of a tradition of confessional conciliation manifested in German Pietism since the seventeenth century. Early German Pietists sought ecumenical Christianity not merely in an eschatological sense, but also in a specific historical one. Nineteenth-century neo-Pietists nationalized and politicized these earlier ideas of interconfessional reconciliation.
Josephus, Publication, and Audiences: A Response
Authors: Mason Steve
Published: May 2019

In Zutot 6 (2009), Luuk Huitink and Jan Willem van Henten presented the journal’s readers with an effort to advance the discussion of Josephus’ ancient audiences, by challenging my interpretation of Josephus’ work, which has taken into account scholarship on book production in first-century Rome. Since they misreported my work, and ignored the only essay I have devoted to the subject, their essay misfired. I am grateful to the editors of Zutot for a chance to correct their misrepresentation.
Prayers to the God of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Tefillot Siyyum for Chapters of Book Δ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Authors: Halper Yehuda
Published: May 2019

In one incomplete manuscript of Aristotle’s Metaphysics with Averroes’ Long Commentary, a scribe has inserted short prayers, which seem to fit the genre of tefillot siyyum, to be read by the reader of the text upon completion of certain chapters of Book Δ of the Metaphysics. These prayers are thematically related to the content of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Averroes’ commentary and accordingly suggest a philosophical interpretation of Judaism, God and the creation of the world that has as its centre-point metaphysics, as understood by Aristotle and his most important commentator, Averroes.
Parallel Textual Tactics in the Jewish Anthologies of Edmond Fleg and Juda Leon Palache
Authors: Hagbi Yaniv
Published: May 2019

The following article compares two Jewish (Hebrew) anthologies which were published in Europe between the wars. Though essentially describing Hebrew literature, both works, Edmond Fleg’s L’Anthologie Juive: Des origines à nos jours (Paris 1924) and Juda Palache’s De Hebreeuwsche litteratuur van den na-Talmoedischen tijd tot op onze dagen in schetsen en vertalingen (Amsterdam 1935) were not published in Hebrew. The study of the parallels between the two anthologies describes some of the issues faced by the compilers and the manners by which they have addressed them.
Reading The Time of Trimming under the Desk of Religious Zionism: Haim Beʾer and National-Religious Identity
Authors: Shenker Yael
Published: May 2019

This article addresses Israeli novelist Haim Beʾer’s relation to national-religious identity and the rifts and the pain it causes him, as can be discerned from his fiction and journalism, and certainly from interviews with him. His relation to national-religious identity also reflects a sort of mirror image, at times inverted, of the relationship between religious and national identities. Beʾer’s movement between religious community and nation criticizes on the one hand prevalent conceptions of secularization and national identity in Zionist discourse, and, on the other hand, conceptions of redemption in religious discourse.
A Note on the Opening Sentence of Pirqei Avot in Two Eighteenth-Century Yiddish Editions of the Tract
Authors: Berger Shlomo
Published: May 2019

The opening sentence of Pirqei Avot evokes a history of Torah transmission which is also of particular importance in legitimizing the existence and roles of the Oral Torah as an integral section of Torah. Up to the end of the eighteenth century, Yiddish translators of the tract frequently expanded the original Hebrew text while following the strategy of Yiddish translations of the Bible known as Khumesh mit khiber, or ‘a Yiddish rendition with additions’: a Yiddish version of the Hebrew text aimed at providing its reading public a coherent text to understand in their Ashkenazi vernacular. As may be expected, the boundaries between translation and commentary were consequently blurred, but the Yiddish version was nevertheless considered as a translation of the original Hebrew text.
On the Burial of Spinoza’s Grandfather and Grandmother
Authors: Kaplan Yosef
Published: May 2019

Spinoza’s grandparents were Portuguese New Christians who continued living part of their time in Antwerp, even after coming to Amsterdam in 1605. They didn’t affiliate with any of the Sephardic congregations. When Henrique Garcês, Spinoza’s grandfather, died in 1619, he was buried outside the fence of the cemetery, and circumcised after death. He was then given his Jewish name Baruch Senior. His wife wanted to be buried next to him, but the parnasim decided to bury her in another place. Spinoza must have heard about this story, and his contempt about the ceremony of circumcision, as expressed in his ttp, was probably influenced by his family experience.
“The Study of Local Experience”: Reassessing the Role of the Central Committee Secretariat during the nep
Authors: Monty Christopher
Published: May 2019

This article examines one of the standardized procedures implemented by Stalin and his supporters during the New Economic Policy to professionalize policy processes in central party agencies. Stalin and his supporters in the Secretariat and Organization Bureau relied on informational studies generated by officials in the Organization-Assignment Department of the Central Committee Secretariat (Orgraspred) to assess both the results of major political campaigns and the quality of local party administration. This article draws attention to this practice by examining two case studies. The first was a 1924 investigation into the poor health of party activists and officials sponsored by the Orgraspred, which appeared to confirm opposition claims about the separation of the party leadership from the working class. The second recounts the findings reported by three of Stalin’s allies in the Organization Bureau – Molotov, Andrei Andreev, and Nikolai Antipov – following extended personal tours of Tambov, Tula, Kursk, Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East in support of the “Face to the Countryside” campaign. A careful review of the standard procedures these case studies exemplify suggests that common beliefs about the apolitical nature of the Stalin faction that formed during the years of factional struggle require revision.
Institutions and the Reversal of State Capture
Authors: Hulsey John
Published: May 2019

This paper examines explanations for corruption and state capture in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to evaluate the importance of regional factors related to the transition from communism to liberal democracy and country-specific factors related to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The paper shows that the overall level of state capture is best explained by regional factors, while the specific structure of corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina is closely related to the way the war was fought and the peace treaty that brought it to an end. Reform efforts face steep and powerful opposition in the form of political and economic elites who have shifted from a focus on extracting wealth from the state to using state resources in order to maintain control and stymy political competition.
Medicine in Practice: European Influences on the Ottoman Medical Habitat
Authors: Boyar Ebru
Published: May 2019

This article considers the transfer of medical knowledge from Europe to the Ottoman empire and argues that what was significant in such transfer was medical practice rather than textual transfer, that the Ottomans were open to adopting medical knowledge from the non-Islamic world, the deciding factor being not the origin but the successful nature of the treatment, and that if there was a border which medical knowledge did not traverse, it was one created by everyday custom not by any Muslim/Christian divide or rejection of knowledge from outside.
Vital New Matters: The Speculative Turn in the Study of Religion and Gender
Authors: Reid-Bowen Paul
Published: May 2019

This article provides an introduction to a new trend in continental philosophy, the turn toward metaphysics, realism and speculative philosophy. This stands in sharp contrast with the antirealist and correlationist traditions that have held sway since Kant’s Copernican Revolution in 1781. It is claimed that the study of religion and gender has been shaped by the antirealist legacy of Kant, but there are good reasons for taking account of the new ‘speculative turn’. Two examples from the leading exponent of this turn, speculative realism, are introduced, and some provisional notes toward applying these to the gender-critical turn in the study of religion are considered. Research notes on the current state of the Goddess movement serve as a test case for the introduction of an object-oriented ontology into religious and gender studies.
Masculinities and Religion in Kaduna, Nigeria: A Struggle for Continuity at a Time of Change
Authors: Harris Colette
Published: May 2019

This paper addresses coping strategies used by men in Kaduna to ward off chaos resulting from economic instability, situating them within the global context and national policies on gender and religion. They include upholding a set of gender norms in which adult masculinity’s most crucial traits are control over women and children, and breadwinning. These norms were introduced into Nigeria under colonialism and through Islam and Christianity, yet today they are considered to represent local traditions. Religion is also important for coping strategies, especially the newer Pentecostal churches and reformist mosques, characterized by emphasis on literalist interpretations of the scriptures and notions of male superiority. Poor men have particularly welcomed the levels of certainty, moral and material support they provide as well as the legitimization of their gender power positions, especially those struggling to perform appropriate masculinity, while at the same time these establishments have facilitated sectarian violence.
‘This is Not the Holy Land’: Gendered Filipino Migrants in Israel and the Intersectional Diversity of Religious Belonging
Authors: Jackson Vivienne
Published: May 2019

Social research has highlighted the positive outcomes of religious faith and practice for integration and belonging amongst migrants of different genders. However narratives of Filipino migrants in Israel suggest that religion, gender and belonging may not go hand-in-hand. By applying Anthias’ intersectional framework of ‘translocational positionality’, a wider range of religious faith can be taken into account beyond gendered patterns amongst participants and activists in religious communities. Religious belief and gender intersect with other social locations, leading to the expression of complex orientations to belonging: where people believe they fit into the social order. Going beyond the categories of religion and gender to take in other intersections is essential in understanding the experiences of “non-organised” believers – and non-believers – as well as active religious participants.
Politics as a Vocation: Prayer, Civic Engagement and the Gendered Re-enchantment of the City
Authors: Duffuor Amy , Harris Alana
Published: May 2019

Drawing upon extensive oral history interviews and long scale participant observation in two London churches, an ethnically diverse Catholic parish in Canning Town and a predominantly West-African Pentecostal congregation in Peckham, this article compares and contrasts differing Christian expressions and understandings of ‘civic engagement’ and gendered articulations of lay social ‘ministry’ through prayer, religious praxis and local politics. Through community organizing and involvement in the third sector, but also through spiritual activities like the ‘Catholic Prayer Ministry’ and ‘deliverance’, Catholics and Pentecostals are shown to be re-mapping London – a city ripe for reverse mission – through contesting ‘secularist’ and implicitly gendered distinctions between the public and private/domestic, and the spiritual and political. Greater scholarly appreciation of these subjective understandings of civic engagement and social activism is important for fully recognizing the agency of lay people, and particularly women often marginalized in church-based and institutional hierarchies, in articulating and actuating their call to Christian citizenship and the (re)sacralization of the city.