-PDF Download- Media And Monotheism EBOOK

Media and Monotheism

Author: Joachim Schaper

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2019-07-22

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 3161575105

'Symbolising' - i.e., representing through the use of media - is a more elementary, more foundational activity than the self-conscious use of the intellect. Its exploration is central to this investigation of the transformation of the pre-exilic Yahweh religion into the monotheism of the post-exilic period. That transformation was triggered by a new constellation of key media in the pre-exilic and exilic periods: writing, images, and money. The central objective is to understand how their use contributed to a decisive increase in abstraction in representation and led to changes in the conceptualisation of divine presence and its representation that ultimately resulted in the transition from monolatry to monotheism. In this study, Joachim Schaper explores neglected areas of Judahite material culture and contributes to an in-depth reconstruction of Judah's religious history in its most important epoch, and thus of one of the key developments in the religious history of humanity.

Moses and Monotheism

Author: Sigmund Freud

Publisher: Leonardo Paolo Lovari

Published: 2016-11-24

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 8898301790

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The book consists of three essays and is an extension of Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory as a means of generating hypotheses about historical events. Freud hypothesizes that Moses was not Hebrew, but actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was probably a follower of Akhenaten, an ancient Egyptian monotheist. Freud contradicts the biblical story of Moses with his own retelling of events, claiming that Moses only led his close followers into freedom during an unstable period in Egyptian history after Akhenaten (ca. 1350 BCE) and that they subsequently killed Moses in rebellion and later combined with another monotheistic tribe in Midian based on a volcanic God, Jahweh. Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels regretted their action, thus forming the concept of the Messiah as a hope for the return of Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. Freud said that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better.

Radical Monotheism and Western Culture

Author: Helmut Richard Niebuhr

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9780664253264

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This reissue of a classic work of H. Richard Niebuhr, one of the most influential and creative theological ethicists of the twentieth century, highlights his mature thinking. By using path-breaking interpretations of faith as a basic dimension of human life and culture as an arena of faith in conflict, Niebuhr encourages further thought. This volume should be required reading for anyone interested in recent perspectives on theology and ethics. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.

Freud and Monotheism

Author: Gilad Sharvit

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0823280047

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Over the last few decades, vibrant debates regarding post-secularism have found inspiration and provocation in the works of Sigmund Freud. A new interest in the interconnection of psychoanalysis, religion and political theory has emerged, allowing Freud’s illuminating examination of the religious and mystical practices in “Obsessive Neurosis and Religious Practices,” and the exegesis of the origins of ethics in religion in Totem and Taboo, to gain currency in recent debates on modernity. In that context, the pivotal role of Freud’s masterpiece, Moses and Monotheism, is widely recognized. Freud and Monotheism brings together fundamental new contributions to discourses on Freud and Moses, as well as new research at the intersections of theology, political theory, and history in Freud’s psychoanalytic work. Highlighting the broad impact of Moses and Monotheism across the humanities, the contributors hail from such diverse disciplines as philosophy, comparative literature, cultural studies, German studies, Jewish studies and psychoanalysis. Jan Assmann and Richard Bernstein, whose books pioneered the earlier debate that initiated the Freud and Moses discourse, seize the opportunity to revisit and revise their groundbreaking work. Gabriele Schwab, Gilad Sharvit, Karen Feldman, and Yael Segalovitz engage with the idiosyncratic, eccentric and fertile nature of the book as a Spӓtstil, and explore radical interpretations of Freud’s literary practice, theory of religion and therapeutic practice. Ronald Hendel offers an alternative history for the Mosaic discourse within the biblical text, Catherine Malabou reconnects Freud’s theory of psychic phylogenesis in Moses and Monotheism to new findings in modern biology and Willi Goetschel relocates Freud in the tradition of works on history that begins with Heine, while Joel Whitebook offers important criticisms of Freud’s main argument about the advance in intellectuality that Freud attributes to Judaism.

Beyond Monotheism

Author: Laurel Schneider

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-11-13

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1135947821

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Beyond Monotheism is an absorbing and lyrical exploration of the possibility of a new, living theology of multiplicity that is grounded in fluidity, change and incarnation.

One True God

Author: Rodney Stark

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2003-04-13

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780691115009

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Western history would be unrecognizable had it not been for people who believed in One True God. There would have been wars, but no religious wars. There would have been moral codes, but no Commandments. Had the Jews been polytheists, they would today be only another barely remembered people, less important, but just as extinct as the Babylonians. Had Christians presented Jesus to the Greco-Roman world as ''another'' God, their faith would long since have gone the way of Mithraism. And surely Islam would never have made it out of the desert had Muhammad not removed Allah from the context of Arab paganism and proclaimed him as the only God. The three great monotheisms changed everything. With his customary clarity and vigor, Rodney Stark explains how and why monotheism has such immense power both to unite and to divide. Why and how did Jews, Christians, and Muslims missionize, and when and why did their efforts falter? Why did both Christianity and Islam suddenly become less tolerant of Jews late in the eleventh century, prompting outbursts of mass murder? Why were the Jewish massacres by Christians concentrated in the cities along the Rhine River, and why did the pogroms by Muslims take place mainly in Granada? How could the Jews persist so long as a minority faith, able to withstand intense pressures to convert? Why did they sometimes assimilate? In the final chapter, Stark also examines the American experience to show that it is possible for committed monotheists to sustain norms of civility toward one another. A sweeping social history of religion, One True God shows how the great monotheisms shaped the past and created the modern world.

Monotheism and Its Complexities

Author: Lucinda Mosher

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2018-06-01

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1626165858

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Conventional wisdom would have it that believing in one God is straightforward; that Muslims are expert at monotheism, but that Christians complicate it, weaken it, or perhaps even abandon it altogether by speaking of the Trinity. In this book, Muslim and Christian scholars challenge that opinion. Examining together scripture texts and theological reflections from both traditions, they show that the oneness of God is taken as axiomatic in both, and also that affirming God's unity has raised complex theological questions for both. The two faiths are not identical, but what divides them is not the number of gods they believe in. The latest volume of proceedings of The Building Bridges Seminar—a gathering of scholar-practitioners of Islam and Christianity that meets annually for the purpose of deep study of scripture and other texts carefully selected for their pertinence to the year’s chosen theme—this book begins with a retrospective on the seminar’s first fifteen years and concludes with an account of deliberations and discussions among participants, thereby providing insight into the model of vigorous and respectful dialogue that characterizes this initiative. Contributors include Richard Bauckham, Sidney Griffith, Christoph Schwöbel, Janet Soskice, Asma Afsaruddin, Maria Dakake, Martin Nguyen, and Sajjad Rizvi. To encourage further dialogical study, the volume includes those scripture passages and other texts on which their essays comment. A unique resource for scholars, students, and professors of Christianity and Islam.

Ubuntu and Western Monotheism

Author: Kirk Lougheed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-05

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1000435423

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book offers a unique comparative study of ubuntu, a dominant ethical theory in African philosophy, and western monotheism. It is the first book to bring ubuntu to bear on the axiology of theism debate in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. A large motivating force behind this book is to explore the extent to which there is intersubjective ethical agreement and disagreement between ubuntu and Western worldviews like monotheism and naturalism. First, the author assesses the various arguments for anti-theism and pro-theism on the assumption that ubuntu is true. Ubuntu’s communitarian focus might be so different from the Western tradition that it completely changes how we evaluate theism and atheism. Second, the author assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the truth of ubuntu for the world. Third and finally, he assesses the axiological status of faith for both monotheism and ubuntu. Ubuntu and Western Monotheism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students specializing in philosophy of religion, African religion and philosophy, and religious ethics.

Hindutva as Political Monotheism

Author: Anustup Basu

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2020-08-17

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1478012498

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In Hindutva as Political Monotheism, Anustup Basu offers a genealogical study of Hindutva—Hindu right-wing nationalism—to illustrate the significance of Western anthropology and political theory to the idea of India as a Hindu nation. Connecting Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion of political theology to traditional theorems of Hindu sovereignty and nationhood, Basu demonstrates how Western and Indian theorists subsumed a vast array of polytheistic, pantheistic, and henotheistic cults featuring millions of gods into a singular edifice of faith. Basu exposes the purported “Hindu Nation” as itself an orientalist vision by analyzing three crucial moments: European anthropologists’ and Indian intellectuals’ invention of a unified Hinduism during the long nineteenth century; Indian ideologues’ adoption of ethnoreligious nationalism in pursuit of a single Hindu way of life in the twentieth century; and the transformations of this project in the era of finance capital, Bollywood, and new media. Arguing that Hindutva aligns with Enlightenment notions of nationalism, Basu foregrounds its significance not just to Narendra Modi's right-wing, anti-Muslim government but also to mainstream Indian nationalism and its credo of secularism and tolerance.

The Idea of Semitic Monotheism

Author: Guy G. Stroumsa

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 019289868X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Idea of Semitic Monotheism examines some major aspects of the scholarly study of religion in the long nineteenth century--from the Enlightenment to the First World War. It aims to understand the new status of Judaism and Islam in the formative period of the new discipline. Guy G. Stroumsa focuses on the concept of Semitic monotheism, a concept developed by Ernest Renan around the mid-nineteenth century on the basis of the postulated and highly problematic contradistinction between Aryan and Semitic families of peoples, cultures, and religions. This contradistinction grew from the Western discovery of Sanskrit and its relationship with European languages, at the time of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Together with the rise of scholarly Orientalism, this discovery offered new perspectives on the East, as a consequence of which the Near East was demoted from its traditional status as the locus of the Biblical revelations. This innovative work studies a central issue in the modern study of religion. Doing so, however, it emphasizes the new dualistic taxonomy of religions had major consequences and sheds new light on the roots of European attitudes to Jews and Muslims in the twentieth century, up to the present day.