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The Book of Revelation's legacy of visual imagery is evaluated here, from the 11th century to the end of World War 2 illuminated manuscripts, books, prints and drawings of apocalyptic phases are examined.
First published in 1933, "The Shape of Things to Come" is science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. Within it, world events between 1933 and 2106 are speculated with a single superstate representing the solution to all humanity's problems. A classic example of Wellsian prophesy, this volume is highly recommended for fans of his work and of the science fiction genre. Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.
Utilizes material from the award-winning Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible to introduce theological interpretation through a book-by-book survey of the New Testament.
The artist and entrepreneur Albrecht Dürer lived in Germany in the early 1500s, when two storms were threatening the Holy Roman Empire. First, Suleiman the Magnificent and his army of Ottoman Turks were expanding from Constantinople to Vienna, the doorstep of Europe. Second, Martin Luther, a German monk and professor, wrote his Ninety-Five Theses identifying corruption within the Roman Catholic Church. This challenged the authority of both Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X, who responded by accusing Luther of heresy. Albrecht Dürer influenced art and media throughout Europe as strongly as Martin Luther influenced people’s views of life, death, and their relationship with God. Dürer's art and writing reveal how this creative and thoughtful man responded to the changes offered by Luther. Why was Dürer so attracted to Luther’s writings? Why would he risk being accused of being a heretic? Both of these men inspired changes in art, religion, and politics that still underlie the foundation of today’s social structures and Western culture.
The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War, and the lasting impact it had on Christianity and world religions more extensively in the century that followed. The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. A steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was served to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Philip Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels, apparitions, and the supernatural, was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism. Connecting remarkable incidents and characters - from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide - Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis. We cannot understand our present religious, political, and cultural climate without understanding the dramatic changes initiated by the First World War. The war created the world's religious map as we know it today.
The Book of Revelation has fired the imaginations of theologians, preachers, artists, and ordinary Christians across the centuries. The resulting number of commentaries on the book is enormous, and most studies can only touch upon, at most, a representative sample of this vast literature. As a consequence, many focus largely on the interpretation of the Apocalypse only within specific periods, such as the patristic period or during the Reformation. One result of this severe limitation given the vast literary corpus is how historical interpretations in critical commentaries of the Book of Revelations tend to prioritize authors from the modern period. In The Book of Revelation and Its Interpreters: Short Studies and an Annotated Bibliography, editors Richard Tresley and Ian Boxall fill a significant gap in the scholarly literature. At its heart is an extensive annotated bibliography, covering commentaries on the book up to 1700, including most of the early illuminated Apocalypses. Supporting the presentation of this survey of the historical interpretations of the Book of Revelation is an extended overview of Revelation’s often-colorful reception history by Christopher Rowland, together with a number of short studies on various aspects of the book. These include discussions of specific commentators, such as Sean Michael Ryan’s look at Tyconius and Francis X. Gumerlock exploration of Chromatius of Aquileia, alongside a more general treatment of Revelation’s impact on the figure of John of Patmos in an essay by Ian Boxall and the visual reception of Revelation in Natasha O’Hear’s article. The Book of Revelation and Its Interpreters provides a valuable bibliographical resource for those working in the field of Biblical Studies, history of Christianity, eschatology and apocalyptic studies. The accompanying essays orient the authors recorded in the bibliography within a larger context, offering specific examples of the Apocalypse’s capacity to speak in fresh and often surprising ways to diverse audiences throughout history.
This text evaluates the biblical commentaries of St Thomas Aquinas for the modern age with each commentary examined by an expert. Each chapter focuses on the two or three major themes of its particular commentary and also relates the themes of the commentaries to Aquinas' 'Summa Contra Gentiles' and especially to his 'Suma Theologica'.
Apocalypticism arose in ancient Judaism in the last centuries BCE and played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity. It is not only of historical interest: there has been a growing awareness, especially since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, of the prevalence of apocalyptic beliefs in the contemporary world. To understand these beliefs, it is necessary to appreciate their complex roots in the ancient world, and the multi-faceted character of the phenomenon of apocalypticism. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature is a thematic and phenomenological exploration of apocalypticism in the Judaic and Christian traditions. Most of the volume is devoted to the apocalyptic literature of antiquity. Essays explore the relationship between apocalypticism and prophecy, wisdom and mysticism; the social function of apocalypticism and its role as resistance literature; apocalyptic rhetoric from both historical and postmodern perspectives; and apocalyptic theology, focusing on phenomena of determinism and dualism and exploring apocalyptic theology's role in ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. The final chapters of the volume are devoted to the appropriation of apocalypticism in the modern world, reviewing the role of apocalypticism in contemporary Judaism and Christianity, and more broadly in popular culture, addressing the increasingly studied relation between apocalypticism and violence, and discussing the relationship between apocalypticism and trauma, which speaks to the underlying causes of the popularity of apocalyptic beliefs. This volume will further the understanding of a vital religious phenomenon too often dismissed as alien and irrational by secular western society.
Allan McNicol examines the 'Conversion of the Nations' in the book of Revelation together with the author's vision for final redemption. Allan McNicol examines the longstanding tension between the author of Revelation 's description of the destruction of unrepentant nations early in the book in contrast with their final experience of salvation in Rev 21.24-26. McNicol examines how the author of Revelation interprets and refashions both scripture and the myths of the age in order to lay out his vision of redemption - leading to his ultimate conclusion that human political power (Rome) will crumble before the influence of the crucified Jesus. Through careful attention to references to the 'pilgrimage to the Gentiles' in prophetic literature, McNicol is able to draw valuable conclusions as to how the core tension examined may be resolved. This exegesis is in turn able show how the author of Revelation's alternative voice to Rome's power emerged among a small minority community in the Eastern Roman Empire and gained plausibility. This voice not only could articulate a construct of its own vindication (thus empowering its own converts) but it also construed a new destiny for the nations themselves separate and apart from Rome.
This collection of research explores the interaction of religious awareness and literary expression in English poetry in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many different types of poetics may be seen to be at work in the period 1875 to 2005, along with various kinds of religious awareness and poetic expression. Religious experience has a crucial influence on literary language, and the latter is renewed by religious culture. The religious dimension has been a decisive factor of modern English poetic expression of the last hundred years or so. The religious and mystical dimension of poetry of the period is borne out by the focus on, among other things, grace and purgation, the tension between time and eternity, redemption and the demands of eschatology, immanence and transcendence, and conversion and martyrdom. Chapters also explore how church practice and ritual, architecture and liturgy, play into the poetry of the period. This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of this important but often overlooked aspect of modern English poetry.
