bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Leaven and the Mustard Seed
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Explicates the message of another pair of parables, focusing in particular on the word holon, “all,” in the parable of the Leaven (“till it was all leavened”). The chapter argues that the parable conveys, in a somewhat veiled form, a hope, if not a promise, of universal salvation, and thus is not compatible with an idea of an everlasting objective “hell.” It is argued that part of the intended message can be formulated, in universal concepts, as follows:
God wants all people to live with God
many people think: this cannot happen
I say: it can happen, God wants it to happen
The chapter discusses the meaning of the images of hiddenness, transformation, smallness, and the promise of the final “victory of God.”
The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter, too, is devoted to two twin parables with an identical message, and it argues that the image of a God, searching tirelessly for every lost “sheep” or “coin” (that is, every individual, every lost human being), suggests a hope of universal salvation and is incompatible with the traditional notion of an eternal “hell.” The explication of the two parables’ message includes components like the following ones:God wants to do good things for all peopleGod wants all people to live with Godwhen a person doesn’t want to live with GodGod feels something bad because of thisGod does many things because of thisif afterwards this person wants to live with GodGod feels something very good because of this
The Prodigal Son
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe message of the parable of the Prodigal Son, which has been called “a gospel in miniature,” is related to that of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin, but it places a greater emphasis on the possibilities open to all sinners: all people can ‘live with God,” if only they want to. The parable illustrates the freedom of God's children, who are not forced to “live with God” if they don’t want to, and God's infinite patience and desire for every individual to want to live with him. In universal human concepts:God doesn’t want a person to think: “I have to live with God”God wants a person to think: “I want to live with God”The chapter discuss the issues of self‐judgment, repentance, self‐righteousness, and God's infinite forgiveness.
The Good Samaritan
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter supports, in essence, the traditional interpretation of the parable, while at the same time expressing its message in a new, simple and universal language. It rejects fanciful recent interpretations such as that proposed by the French research group Entrevernes (1978), Robert Funk (1982) or James Breech (1983). Drawing on Simone Weil's commentary on the parable, it traces throughout the Gospels Jesus’ emphasis on compassion and absolute inclusiveness, and it explicates the way of thinking encouraged by Jesus as follows:this person is someone like mesomething bad happened to this personthis person feels something bad because of thisI want to do something good for this person because of this
Implications for Theology; Christianity in a Nutshell
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter argues that theology needs a new language. It adduces quotes from various recent publications that show that after two millennia the meaning of Jesus’ words has become for many people in the West increasingly difficult to grasp, and it concurs with Raymond Brown's (1975) words referring not only to the Scriptures but also to the dogmas of the Church that since “God's revelation has been phrased by men” it requires constant rethinking. This rethinking must take into account the historical situation, the culture, the language, and the theological and philosophical limitations of those who wrote and those who interpreted the Bible. The chapter discusses the cultural underpinnings of the Nicene Creed, and offers an attempt at rethinking this Creed and restating it in a narrative form, in simple words available in all languages of the world. It argues that Christian faith must be expressible in all languages, including those that do not have the traditional Christian vocabulary and it formulates “Christian faith in a nutshell” in a radically new form, on the basis of empirical universals of language.
Language: A Key Issue in Understanding Jesus and Christianity
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter argues that in the past, the understanding of Jesus’ parables and other sayings, in particular, the eschatological ones, has suffered from a lack of cross‐cultural awareness. Readers who were unfamiliar with the cultural, literary, and linguistic traditions, which underlay Jesus’ speech, were disturbed by the contradictions between his images – e.g., those of a loving father and a merciless judge. Jesus’ hyperboles and symbolic images, belonging to the traditions of the Jewish prophetic “Drohrede” (the language of threats meant as warnings and appeal), were taken literally, e.g., his references to “the furnace of fire” or to the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” were interpreted as factual predictions of an everlasting “hell.” Drawing on historians like Jean Delumeau (1989), the chapter argues that the misinterpretation of the apocalyptic images of the Gospels (going back to St. Augustine) and the lack of attention to the Jewish cultural traditions, which had nourished Jesus’ ways of speaking, has contributed to the de‐Christianization of the West and must be overcome in the third millennium.
The Indispensability of Mathematics
Authors: Colyvan Mark 
Published: October 2003

AbstractLooks at the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument in the philosophy of mathematics. This argument urges us to place mathematical entities on the same ontological footing as other theoretical entities indispensable to our best scientific theories. The indispensability argument has come under serious scrutiny in recent times, with many influential philosophers unconvinced of its cogency. This book outlines the indispensability argument in considerable detail, before defending it against various challenges.Although the focus is squarely on the indispensability argument, in order to appreciate the argument's full force, it is necessary to consider many other interesting and related topics. These include questions about ontological commitments and the applications of mathematics to physical theories. Of particular interest here is the Quinean backdrop from which the indispensability argument emerges. This backdrop consists of the doctrines of holism and naturalism. The latter is crucial to the whole indispensability debate, so a considerable portion of this work is spent discussing naturalism.
The Quinean Backdrop
Authors: Colyvan Mark 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe thesis that philosophy is continuous with science is defended and distinguished from another influential version of naturalism. Holism is then discussed with particular emphasis on the kind of holism the indispensability argument requires – namely, confirmational holism. It is then revealed how Quinean naturalism and confirmational holism combine to yield the crucial premise of the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument.
Field's Fictionalism
Authors: Colyvan Mark 
Published: October 2003

AbstractHartry Field has attacked the indispensability argument by arguing that mathematics is in fact dispensable to science. He does this by showing a way to dispense with quantification over mathematical entities in Newtonian gravitation theory. He, thus, advances a kind of fictionalism about mathematics. In this chapter, Field's program is outlined and the prospects for its success are evaluated. An important part of the task of assessing what is required of Field's program involves understanding how we should read the crucial term “indispensable” in Quine's argument.
The Empirical Nature of Mathematical Knowledge
Authors: Colyvan Mark 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAny version of mathematical realism motivated by Quinean indispensability arguments must yield a mathematics that is a posteriori and fallible. Such a consequence is considered unacceptable by many – mathematical realists and antirealists alike. For example, Musgrave and Sober find that such a conclusion sits rather uneasily with scientific practice, while Hale and Wright take issue with any account of mathematics that yields the contingent existence of mathematical objects. In this chapter, these and other related objections are addressed.
Vedic Philology
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter starts the analysis of the actual data concerning Indo-Aryan origins. By the mid-nineteenth century, one of the few things regarding the homeland that Western Indo-European scholars did agree on was that it could not have been India; wherever the original homeland might have been the Indo-Aryans at least must have come to the subcontinent from outside. While not the slightest bit concerned with the homeland obsession of European scholars in general, Indigenous Aryanists soon reacted to the corollary of the problem when it impinged on the origins of their own culture; it seemed unacceptable to consider that such an enormously speculative and seemingly inconclusive European undertaking should be entitled to make authoritative pronouncements on the early history of the Indian subcontinent. The first voices of opposition that attempted to utilize critical scholarship to counter the claim that the forefathers of the Vedic Indians hailed from outside the subcontinent are introduced. The initial objections concerned the philological evidence that had been brought forward as decisive by Western philologists. Since philology was a discipline that resonated with their own traditional Śruti epistemologies, and since it focused on texts in their own ancient language, Vedic Sanskrit, the philological evidence was the most easily accessible to Indigenous Aryan scrutiny; moreover, these texts that were suddenly of such interest to Western scholars happened to be their sacred ones and this fueled their concern.
Linguistic Substrata in Sanskrit Texts
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAn analysis is made of the evidence for a non-Indo-Aryan linguistic substratum in Sanskrit texts, which has remained perhaps the principal and (in the author’s view) the most persuasive reason brought forward in support of the Aryan invasions and migrations. The issue here is: Do the Vedic texts preserve linguistic evidence of languages preceding the Indo-Aryan presence on the Indian subcontinent? This is an essential aspect of the debate, but one that has been mostly ignored by Indigenous Aryanists. The different sections of the chapter look at linguistic (syntactical) innovations in Sanskrit, the existence of “loanwords” ascribed to either Dravidian, Munda, and/or unknown origins, terms for flora in Indic languages, and place names and river names. Finally the possibility (first raised by Bloch) is explored that it was Dravidian that intruded into an Indo-Aryan speaking area and not vice versa.
Linguistic Evidence from Outside of India
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter deals with the linguistic evidence from outside of India, particularly loanwords from the Finno-Ugric languages (which have been identified either as Indo-Iranian, Iranian, or Indo-Aryan) as well as the Mitanni and Avestan evidence, all of which have a direct bearing on the problem. Here, too, Indigenists have their own way of accounting for the evidence. The first section of the chapter looks at Semitic loans in Indo-European (Nichol’s model), Finno-Ugric, and other traces of Indo-Aryan (in the Caucasian and Ketic languages, on the borders of China and Korea, in the Kuban region north of the Black Sea, around the Caspian Sea, in Europe, in Afghanistan, and the Middle East). It then examines whether the Avesta (the body of texts preserving the ancient canon of the Iranian Zarathustran tradition) and the Mitanni (a kingdom in north Mesopotamia in the fourteenth century B.C.E.) treaties can throw any light on the Indo-Iranian homeland.
The Viability of a South Asian Homeland
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter addresses other linguistic issues often utilized in the Indo-European homeland quest and in examining Indo-Aryan origins. It looks at the center of origin method (the arguments of Robert Latham, Lachhmi Dhar, and others), dialectical subgroupings of the various cognate languages and their implications (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s model and Koenraad Elst’s co-option of this), and Johanna Nichol’s Bactria-Sogdiana (east of the Caspian Sea) model. The basic thrust of this chapter and the previous two has been to demonstrate some of the problems that have arisen in an attempt to pinpoint the origins of the Indo-Europeans and their offshoot Indo-Aryans through linguistic methods. The next three chapters look at the archaeological evidence.
Aryans in the Archaeological Record
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAn outline is given of some of the archaeological evidence that has received attention in attempting to trace the trans-Asiatic exodus of the Indo-Aryans on their proposed route to India, across central Asia. The first section of the chapter discusses what we are looking for in the archaeological record that might correspond to the speakers of an Indo-European language. The next sections look at this issue from the perspective of the two assumed overland routes of the Indo-Aryans--the northern route and the southern route. The last section discusses the two-wave (or multiple-wave) theory of incursion into India.
Aryans in the Archaeological Record
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAn examination is made of the problems associated with identifying the Indo-Aryans in the archaeological record within the subcontinent of India. This is done through a consideration of the regional cultures that have been typically connected with intruding Indo-Aryan elements-- the Gandhara Grave culture, the Jhukar cultures, the Cemetery H culture, and the Painted Gray Ware culture. The ways in which these cultures have been related to the Indo-Aryans are discussed and interpretative options outlined. The last two sections of the chapter look at the lack of evidence of Aryans in the skeletal record and at the aspects of continuity and innovation in the archaeological record. The opinion of the majority of professional archaeologists interviewed in India (and also working outside South Asia) seems to be that there is no archaeological evidence to support external Indo-Aryan origins.
Aryan Origins and Modern Nationalist Discourse
Authors: Bryant Edwin 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis final chapter discusses some of the more modern ideological underpinnings of the Indo-Aryan origin debate in India as different forces compete over the construction of national identity. Other concerns motivating some of the participants on both sides of the Indigenous Aryan debate are also considered, showing how the same theme of Aryan origins has been used to support a variety of agendas on the Indian subcontinent. It is suggested that although the promotion of Indigenous Aryanism is undoubtedly extremely important to notions of identity and to the politics of legitimacy among certain Hindu nationalists, such concerns are not representative of all the scholars who have supported this point of view. Unfortunately, however, the whole Indigenous Aryan position is often simplistically stereotyped and conveniently demonized, both in India and in the West, as a discourse exclusively determined by such agendas. This bypasses other concerns also motivating such reconsideration of history: the desire of many Indian scholars to reclaim control over the reconstruction of the religious and cultural history of their country from the legacy of imperial and colonial scholarship. The manifold concerns that the author perceives as motivating Indigenous Aryanists to undertake a reconsideration of this issue are discussed, and it is argued that although there are doubtlessly nationalistic and, in some quarters, communal agendas lurking behind some of this scholarship, a principal feature is anticolonial/imperial.
Transgressing the Bounds
Authors: Breen Louise A. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This book examines the divisions in Massachusetts over the colony's social and religious boundaries and its relationship to the transatlantic world in the period 1638–92. Central actors are leading men who congregated in the Artillery Company of Massachusetts, an organization that attracted a heterogeneous yet prominent membership – a membership whose diversity and cosmopolitanism contrasted with the social and religious ideals of the cultural majority. Focusing on elite men – not marginalized outsiders – who endeavored to stretch the intellectual and social bounds of orthodoxy, the book demonstrates that the dangers posed by the outside world and various sorts of “others” were perceived in very similar terms over the course of the seventeenth century. The tendency to form opposing factions, insisting both on isolation from that world and involvement in its growing diversity, also remained relatively constant, from the antinomian controversy of the 1630s through the witchcraft epidemic of 1692. The old declension model suggested that Massachusetts fell away from its original purity as alien outside forces impinged ever more heavily on its residents. This study argues rather that dueling versions of the good life, which pitted localism against cosmopolitanism and homogeneity against heterogeneity, competed with one another persistently throughout the century and beyond.
Pluralism
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Crucial to the apologist's task is an awareness of the pluralism that marks North American culture. Three different types of pluralism may helpfully be distinguished: pluralism as mere plurality; pluralism as preference; and pluralism as relativism, which may take the various forms of naïve relativism, pseudorelativism, skepticism, or nihilism. Especially relevant to apologetical conversation is an awareness of the plurality of ideologies and cognitive styles that characterizes the intellectual landscape, since this is the domain in which religious decisions are made. A more detailed exploration of three cognitive styles prevalent in the modern mindset follows, namely, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Process. This chapter notes that while these may be traced consecutively through an intellectual history of the modern West, they do not supplant one another but rather accumulate.
Defining Conversion
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Because apologetics is located within the larger context of Christian mission and conversion, a proper understanding of the nature of conversion is the first crucial step toward defining apologetics. Contrary to the prevalent model of conversion among evangelicals that concentrates on determining whether a person is a Christian or not and then to evangelize him or her accordingly, a new model of Christian mission and conversion is commended in which the goal is the much more comprehensive one of bringing shalom to the whole world. Thus, the mission to individuals is to help him or her become fully converted into all that God wants him or her to be. Conversion therefore is defined as, first, having the binary aspect of being saved or not saved, while acknowledging that only God knows finally who is in which category; and second, conversion involves the whole person and is a life‐long process of discipleship. Given the prevalent power of sin and the radical nature of conversion, the Holy Spirit alone has the power to convert a human being. Thus, the apologist can only bear witness and offer all he or she can to serve his or her neighbor in love, thus transcending the limitations of the stereotypical evangelical mission to get people saved or the liberal mission to do them good.
Deciding About Religion
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Investigates principles of epistemology that guide all decision making and, more specifically, religious decisions. Epistemological principles discussed include hypothetical thinking (human thoughts are provisional guesses); graduated assent (we ought to proportion our assent to the apparent grounds and importance of what is to be believed); truth as understood in terms of coherence, correspondence, and pragmatic value; and of faith as an act of commitment anchored in, yet going beyond, what we think we know. The chapter goes on to offer both substantive and functional definitions of religion and recommends a method of deciding among religious options. Having come to the best conclusion possible, one must take a step of trust and commitment: an act of faith. Beneath and within all this human effort is the reality that because religious decision is not just intellectual but an act of the will, the Holy Spirit must turn a person away from sin to love God.
Defining, Directing, and Defending Apologetics
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Apologetics is defined as dealing not only with the question of the truthfulness of Christianity but also with its virtues of beauty and goodness, thus extending the realm of apologetics to include anything that makes Christianity more plausible. This chapter distinguishes between two modes of apologetics, namely, defensive apologetics (responding to challenges) and offensive apologetics (provoking interest). Two objectives of apologetics are clarified: the internal goal, to strengthen and mature Christian faith; and the external goal, to remove obstacles, clarify issues, and offer winsome inducements to those who do not identify themselves as Christians. Finally, Stackhouse defines apologetics as a necessary and worthy engagement in spite of reasons for resistance both from within and without Christian circles.
Principles of Christian Communication
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
As a form of Christian discourse, apologetical conversation ought to follow principles of communication patterned after the ministry of Jesus Christ. First, the apologist has to offer both verbal proclamation (message) and living testimony (life) to his or her neighbor. Second, communication must always be full of both grace and truth, rather than emphasizing one at the expense of the other. Third, apologetics should be undertaken as an act of love both to God and to one's neighbor; all other purposes, whether to win the argument, try out new success tactics, and so on, must never compromise the love to God and neighbor as one's foremost concern. Fourth, keeping love to God and neighbor central means the apologist will always take an audience seriously on its own terms and seek out common ground between herself and her audience – which requires a cultivation of the art of listening.
Audience‐Specific Apologetics
Authors: Stackhouse John G. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
One's apologetic approach ought to be matched appropriately to the audience one is addressing – the sort of audience it is, and particularly its openness to the Christian message. While recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, the apologist may appeal to subjective experiences, to evidences and reasons, or to the Christian worldview as a whole. All that the apologist can do is hope to present a clear‐enough picture of the Christian religion that the Holy Spirit may find it useful in his dialog with our neighbor's heart.