Cosmos Chaos And The World To Come

Author : Norman Cohn,Professor Norman Cohn
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0300090889

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Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come by Norman Cohn,Professor Norman Cohn Pdf

All over the world people look forward to a perfect future, when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate, and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration, through the world-views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth. Until around 1500 B.C., it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods, it was in essence immutable. However, it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought, famine and plague, defeat in war, and death itself, demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C., the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view, reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster, the world was moving, through incessant conflict, toward a conflictless state--"cosmos without chaos." The time would come when, in a prodigious battle, the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever, and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups, notably the Jesus sect, with incalculable consequences. Deeply informed yet highly readable, this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.

Author : Norman Rufus Colin Cohn
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Cosmogony
ISBN : OCLC:861014307

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Cosmos-chaos and the World to Come by Norman Rufus Colin Cohn Pdf

Author : Matthew Buttsworth
Publisher : Matt Buttsworth
Page : 516 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Deep ecology
ISBN : 9780987062826

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Eden and the Fall by Matthew Buttsworth Pdf

Author : Ted Daniels
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1999-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780814719084

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A Doomsday Reader by Ted Daniels Pdf

Gathers apocalyptic writings from Communism, Nazism, the environmental movement, the Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinri Kyo, the Montana Freemen, and Aryan hate groups

Author : Karolyn Kinane,Michael A. Ryan
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786453597

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End of Days by Karolyn Kinane,Michael A. Ryan Pdf

The idea of the complete annihilation of all life is a powerful and culturally universal concept. As human societies around the globe have produced creation myths, so too have they created narratives concerning the apocalyptic destruction of their worlds. This book explores the idea of the apocalypse and its reception within culture and society, bringing together 17 essays that explore both the influence and innovation of apocalyptic ideas from classical Greek and Roman writings to the foreign policies of today’s United States.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Matt Buttsworth
Page : 51 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2024-05-18
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781471037122

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The Fatal Flaw – Nazism, Communism and the Apocalyptic Nature of Radical Ecological History by Anonim Pdf

Author : Ihab Khalil
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9781440117183

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Worlds Apart by Ihab Khalil Pdf

Combining meticulous research with thoughtful conclusion, this remarkable collection of essays explores ancient Egyptian and early Christian thought and leads to a better, more comprehensive understanding of these ancient peoples' key beliefs. Worlds Apart is composed of four well-written essays, each chosen with the purpose of engaging both the layperson and the researcher. Using literary, philosophical, historical, and psychological approaches, Ihab Khalil examines several important components of these two vastly different cultures. Topics include Dualism in ancient Egyptian thought The Myth of Osiris Early Christian Christology, both orthodox and heterodox Christian Mysticism Khalil includes an extensive bibliography of his sources conducive to further study and research. In addition, illustrations, footnotes, and tables complement Khalil's writing, leading to an even more thorough understanding of his subject. Insightful and deeply engaging, Worlds Apart is destined to become the definitive work on understanding the core beliefs of these two cultures.

Author : Karen Armstrong
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Page : 594 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2009-02-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780307371430

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The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong Pdf

From one of the world’s leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work: a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period – the ninth century BCE – the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanity’s spiritual development. Now, Karen Armstrong traces the rise and development of this transformative moment in history, examining the brilliant contributions to these traditions made by such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Ezekiel. Armstrong makes clear that despite some differences of emphasis, there was remarkable consensus among these religions and philosophies: each insisted on the primacy of compassion over hatred and violence. She illuminates what this “family” resemblance reveals about the religious impulse and quest of humankind. And she goes beyond spiritual archaeology, delving into the ways in which these Axial Age beliefs can present an instructive and thought-provoking challenge to the ways we think about and practice religion today. A revelation of humankind’s early shared imperatives, yearnings and inspired solutions – as salutary as it is fascinating. Excerpt from The Great Transformation: In our global world, we can no longer afford a parochial or exclusive vision. We must learn to live and behave as though people in remote parts of the globe were as important as ourselves. The sages of the Axial Age did not create their compassionate ethic in idyllic circumstances. Each tradition developed in societies like our own that were torn apart by violence and warfare as never before; indeed, the first catalyst of religious change was usually a visceral rejection of the aggression that the sages witnessed all around them. . . . All the great traditions that were created at this time are in agreement about the supreme importance of charity and benevolence, and this tells us something important about our humanity.

Author : John Howard Smith
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2021-02-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780197533765

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A Dream of the Judgment Day by John Howard Smith Pdf

The United States has long thought of itself as exceptional--a nation destined to lead the world into a bright and glorious future. These ideas go back to the Puritan belief that Massachusetts would be a "city on a hill," and in time that image came to define the United States and the American mentality. But what is at the root of these convictions? John Howard Smith's A Dream of the Judgment Day explores the origins of beliefs about the biblical end of the world as Americans have come to understand them, and how these beliefs led to a conception of the United States as an exceptional nation with a unique destiny to fulfill. However, these beliefs implicitly and explicitly excluded African Americans and American Indians because they didn't fit white Anglo-Saxon ideals. While these groups were influenced by these Christian ideas, their exclusion meant they had to craft their own versions of millenarian beliefs. Women and other marginalized groups also played a far larger role than usually acknowledged in this phenomenon, greatly influencing the developing notion of the United States as the "redeemer nation." Smith's comprehensive history of eschatological thought in early America encompasses traditional and non-traditional Christian beliefs in the end of the world. It reveals how millennialism and apocalypticism played a role in destructive and racist beliefs like "Manifest Destiny," while at the same time influencing the foundational idea of the United States as an "elect nation." Featuring a broadly diverse cast of historical figures, A Dream of the Judgment Day synthesizes more than forty years of scholarship into a compelling and challenging portrait of early America.

Author : Jason M. Silverman
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567244468

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Persepolis and Jerusalem by Jason M. Silverman Pdf

Persepolis and Jerusalem reconsiders Iranian influence upon Jewish apocalyptic, and offers grounds upon which such study may proceed. After describing the history of scholarship on the question of Iranian influence and on Jewish apocalyptic, Jason M. Silverman reformulates the methodology for understanding apocalyptic and influence. Two chapters set the discussion firmly in the Achaemenid Empire, describing the sources for Iranian religion, the issues involved in attempting a historical reconstruction, the methodology by which one can date the various texts and ideas, and the potential loci for Iranian-Judaean interaction. The historical context is expanded through media-contextualization, particularly Oral Theory, and critiques the standard text-centric method of current Biblical Scholarship. With this background, pericopes from Ezekiel, Daniel, and 1 Enoch are analyzed for Iranian influence. The study then brings together the contexts and analyses to argue for an 'Apocalyptic Hermeneutic' which relates the phenomena of apocalypticism, apocalypse, and millenarianism-seeing the hermeneutic as a dialectical thread holding them all together as well as apart- and posits this as the best place to understand Iranian influences.

Author : Vicente Dobroruka
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567705280

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Persian Influence on Daniel and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature by Vicente Dobroruka Pdf

Vicente Dobroruka explores Iranian influence on Second Temple Judaism, providing a new explanation of Persian culture and history in the context of biblical accounts by focusing on the spread of Zoroastrian ideas in the period c.300 BCE–200 CE. Dobroruka begins his investigation with an overview of the problems posed by a dualistic worldview-he examines the Indo-European origins of Zarathushtra and his ideas, explores the long-term implications for the notion of free-will, and clarifies the lightness/darkness paradigm that originated in Persia. Following this, Dobroruka discusses a variety of concepts that illustrate this influence, such as the role of matter and the material world, aspects of dualism and the cosmic struggle, the perspectives on the rewards for the just and the opposing punishments for the wicked, the idea of an 'Anointed One', shamanistic visionary experience, the resurrection, and the concepts of Sheol and Paradise.

Author : Andrew Angel
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006-08-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0567030989

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Chaos and the Son of Man by Andrew Angel Pdf

Andrew Angel briefly reviews the work of Old Testament scholars on the mythological motif of God's battle with the dragon and the chaos waters. He also reviews works that touch on the existence of the motif in the period 515 BCE to 200 CE, noting the need for thorough survey of the motif in Hebrew literature of this period. There follows a study of forty-two Jewish and Christian texts (in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin), which establishes the fact that this mythological motif was well known in this period. Angel makes suggestions as to how this might offer fresh insights into the meaning of apocalyptic visions and texts that appear to refer to a 'son of man' figure in this period.

Author : Safwat Marzouk
Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2015-06-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 3161532457

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Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel by Safwat Marzouk Pdf

Appealing to Monster Theory and the ancient Near Eastern motif of "Chaoskampf," Safwat Marzouk argues that the paradoxical character of the category of the monster is what prompts the portrayal of Egypt as a monster in the book of Ezekiel. While on the surface the monster seems to embody utter difference, underlying its otherness there is a disturbing sameness. Though the monster may be defeated and its body dismembered, it is never completely annihilated. Egypt is portrayed as a monster in the book of Ezekiel because Egypt represents the threat of religious assimilation. Although initially the monstrosity of Egypt is constructed because of the shared elements of identity between Egypt and Israel, the prophet flips this imagery of monster in order to embody Egypt as a monstrous Other. In a combat myth, YHWH defeats the monster and dismembers its body. Despite its near annihilation, Egypt, in Ezekiel's rhetoric, is not entirely obliterated. Rather, it is kept at bay, hovering at the periphery, questioning Israel's identity.

Author : Michael D. Nichols
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2019-02-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781438473215

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Malleable Mara by Michael D. Nichols Pdf

Analyzes the breadth of representations of the mythic figure of M?ra in Buddhism to reveal how closely tied such narratives are to the social and historical concerns of Buddhist communities. This is the first book to examine the development of the figure of M?ra, who appears across Buddhist traditions as a personification of death and desire. Portrayed as a combination of god and demon, M?ra serves as a key antagonist to the Buddha, his followers, and Buddhist teaching in general. From ancient India to later Buddhist thought in East Asia to more recent representations in Western culture and media, M?ra has been used to satirize Hindu divinities, taken the form of wrathful Tibetan gods, communicated psychoanalytic tropes, and appeared as a villain in episodes of Doctor Who. Michael D. Nichols details and surveys the historical transformations of the M?ra figure and demonstrates how different Buddhist communities at different times have used this symbol to react to changing social and historical circumstances. Employing literary and cultural theory, Nichols argues that the representation of M?ra closely parallels and reflects the social concerns and anxieties of the particular Buddhist community producing it. “This book is an original and engaging exploration of the various forms myths about M?ra have taken across Buddhist history.” — Maria Heim, author of Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words

Author : Paul Fitzpatrick
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781666786910

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The Disarmament of God by Paul Fitzpatrick Pdf