The Conceptualization Of Dress In Prophetic Metaphors

Jerusalem/Zion's metaphoric investiture/divestiture of dress is a central force to create new perspectives on reality and of a nation's selfhood in contexts of suffering and destruction, making dress in prophetic metaphors a crucial means of communication and perception management.

Built upon the flourishing study of costume, this book analyses sartorial evidence provided both by texts of the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. The essays within lend clarity to the link between material and ideological, examining the tradition of dress, the different types of literature that reference the tradition of garments, and the people for whom such literature was written. The contributors explore sources that illuminate the social, psychological, aesthetic, ideological and symbolic meanings of clothing. The topics covered range from the relationship between clothing, kingship and power, to the symbolic significance of the high priestly regalia and the concept of garments as deception and defiance, while also considering the tendency to omit or ignore descriptions of YHWH's clothing. Following a historical sequence, the essays cross-reference with each other to create a milestone in biblical sartorial study.

The Japanese Translations of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis tells the story of the translation of the Bible into Japanese against the background of the transplanting of Christianity in Japan. It includes a detailed inventory of Old Testament translations, with linguistic and theological analyses of choice verses.

According to a longstanding interpretation, book religions are agents of textuality and logocentrism. This volume inverts the traditional perspective: its focus is on the strong dependency between scripture and aesthetics, holy books and material artworks, sacred texts and ritual performances. The contributions, written by a group of international specialists in Western, Byzantine, Islamic and Jewish Art, are committed to a comparative and transcultural approach. The authors reflect upon the different strategies of »clothing« sacred texts with precious materials and elaborate forms. They show how the pretypographic cultures of the Middle Ages used book ornaments as media for building a close relation between the divine words and their human audience. By exploring how art shapes the religious practice of books, and how the religious use of books shapes the evolution of artistic practices this book contributes to a new understanding of the deep nexus between sacred scripture and art.

Explores the paradoxical symmetry between the divine and demonic in early Jewish mystical texts. Divine Scapegoats is a wide-ranging exploration of the parallels between the heavenly and the demonic in early Jewish apocalyptical accounts. In these materials, antagonists often mirror features of angelic figures, and even those of the Deity himself, an inverse correspondence that implies a belief that the demonic realm is maintained by imitating divine reality. Andrei A. Orlov examines the sacerdotal, messianic, and creational aspects of this mimetic imagery, focusing primarily on two texts from the Slavonic pseudepigrapha: 2 Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. These two works are part of a very special cluster of Jewish apocalyptic texts that exhibit features not only of the apocalyptic worldview but also of the symbolic universe of early Jewish mysticism. The Yom Kippur ritual in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the divine light and darkness of 2 Enoch, and the similarity of mimetic motifs to later developments in the Zohar are of particular importance in Orlov’s consideration.

Books on intercultural communication are rarely written with an intercultural readership in mind. In contrast, this multinational team of authors has put together an introduction to communicating across cultures that uses examples and case studies from around the world. The book further covers essential new topics, including international conflict, social networking, migration, and the effects technology and mass media play in the globalization of communication. Written to be accessible for international students too, this text situates communication theory in a truly global perspective. Each chapter brings to life the links between theory and practice and between the global and the local, introducing key theories and their practical applications. Along the way, you will be supported with first-rate learning resources, including: • theory corners with concise, boxed-out digests of key theoretical concepts • case illustrations putting the main points of each chapter into context • learning objectives, discussion questions, key terms and further reading framing each chapter and stimulating further discussion • a companion website containing resources for instructors, including multiple choice questions, presentation slides, exercises and activities, and teaching notes. This book will not merely guide you to success in your studies, but will teach you to become a more critical consumer of information and understand the influence of your own culture on how you view yourself and others.

Explores examples from several letters of Paul’s practice of quoting/using Scripture. Some of the topics explored are the question of written or oral sources; memorization; allusions vs. quotations; Paul’s understanding of “scripture”; his use of scripture in rhetorical argumentation (Jewish/Greco-Roman); eisegesis vs. exegesis; and what Paul’s use of Scripture might say to us today.