Sacred Texts

This paper offers a reinterpretation of the divine as embodied by the Semitic goddess Lilith, she who has been represented and misrepresented in a variety of sacred texts. Working with Lilith as both symbol and archetype, I will analyze texts in which she appears, tracing her historical development and metamorphosis from goddess to demon to symbol of independence and open sexuality. As part of this analysis, I will discuss how Lilith's demonization was designed to keep women alienated from their own 'original sources' of power and spiritual authority. The essay concludes with an appreciation of feminist texts, including the first midrash or reinterpretation of the Alphabet of Ben Sira, and more recent work. I also bring in feminist scholars' reclamation of the Sacred Feminine through poetic/liturgical responses to damaging canonical texts. My paper argues that this literature, too, should be regarded as 'sacred text,' since these women-centered writings have become texts of empowerment for contemporary women as well as part of their spiritual practice.

Judaism is, through its scholarly traditions, both inclusive and isolationist. In the Bavli Talmud, the rabbis discuss whether or not the Torah, or any other sacred writing, can be translated into the language of the 'goyim' (Hebrew for the nations) and have that translation continue to retain sacred qualities. In this paper, I argue that the rabbis were considering the Jewish diaspora seeing the problem of Jews assimilating into the world in which they lived or remaining a separate people. For them, the question was similar to that raised by W. E. B. DuBois who wrote of a middle alternative, acculturation. To acculturate means to know the world of the other while hanging fast to the world of the self and community, to exist in two worlds with the potential to live well in both.

This paper aims to understand the sacred text contextually with hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is a bundles of theories, philosophical methods that focus on the problem of understanding texts. Sacred texts becomes difficult to understand and complicated, therefore, it is necessary to have an explanation, translation, and interpretation in order to be easily understood. Textual understanding of the sacred text must be change to be contextual because textual methods of teaching can risk creating intolerant and exclusive religious attitudes. We know that all religions teach goodness and peace on earth, but, there are often erroneous overly literal interpretations supported by fanatical attitudes towards religion that make them consider their actions always right in the name of religion. An interpreter in this case, needs to pay attention to the context of the sacred text when it is revealed, not just to focus on text analysis. The sacred texts which served as guidelines for religious people naturally make the sacred texts as a guide to solve their problems. However, in this life, we find many problems that haven't actually happened in the past. Therefore, contextual adjusments to the sacred texts are needed in order to make the interpretation of the sacred texts relevant to current conditions.

My First Quran: Storybook is an adaptation of the holy book of Islam written specifically for children. The present dissertation aims to explore whether it can be categorised as a target-oriented translation that conforms to the norms of the intended target readership, rather than prioritising the language and culture of the original Arabic text like most, if not all other existing translations. This will be done by examining the text, using a descriptive-explanatory framework as advocated by Gideon Toury, and finding answers to the following questions: which strategies have been adopted by the translator of My First Quran: Storybook and how do these strategies conform to the expectations of the intended target readership? The typical translation strategies and norms in the translation of children’s literature are discussed. Toury’s notion of norms and more specifically his distinction of acceptability versus adequacy is used in order to establish which category My First Quran: Storybook belongs to.

The analysis shows that the strategies used in My First Quran: Storybook conform to the norms of translating for children rather than those of the source language and culture. Instead of replicating the original Arabic text, the translator manipulated the text in such a way that it meets the needs and expectations of the intended target readership. It can therefore be classified as a target-oriented translation. However the question of whether this is a unique case within the context of Quran translation, due to the low status of children’s literature within the literary polysystem remains unanswered and will be used to prompt further research in this area.

L iterary practice relates not only to the aesthetic and ideological themes of literature, but also to the production and management of emotional states that have ritual or political consequences in lived experience. One thinks of the way in which certain kinds of nationalist or Zionist literature-Bialik's poem "The City of Slaughter" is a good example-worked to promote and legitimize politically actionable sentiments like outrage against gentile violence, while also marginalizing traditional ritual ("quietistic") expressions of grief and lamentation. 1 One also thinks of the ways in which nineteenth-and early twentiethcentury autobiographers in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts struggled to articulate new relationships between gender, emotion, and modern individualism. 2 Because of their explicit interest in shaping the way people perceive and respond to the world (and their constant reinforcement through ritual), Jewish mystical texts provide one of the most powerful examples of how literature helps to shape and manage distinctive forms of human subjectivity. My article analyzes an early

Although most would categorize them as sacred texts, mantras have been suspected of being meaningless. Indeed, their textual content has been shown to play only a minor role in ancient South Asian ritual, where they were first used – a fact that has a influenced both their reception and their performativity. In this talk, I present my research on a popular mantra whose meaning as a text has almost always been ignored in its ritual applications. This mantra, widely known as both Gāyatrī and Sāvitrī, belongs to the most frequently recited texts of mankind. Composed in the 2nd millennium BCE in Vedic Sanskrit, it originally expressed the desire to attain the splendour of a god known as the “Impeller” (Savitṛ). Its history is marked by three key developments: (1) in the mid-1st millennium BCE, it became the most important initiation mantra of Early Hinduism, and subsequently evolved into an “epitome” of the Vedas, the oldest collections of religious texts from South Asia. Ever since, generations of people have recited or chanted it daily, often repeating it more than a hundred times in a row. (2) From the beginning of the 1st millennium CE at the latest, the mantra was personified as the “mother of the Vedas”, and even worshipped as a goddess itself. (3) Towards the end of the 2nd millennium CE, it-along with its deified form-became part of alternative religious currents in and outside South Asia, and consequently gained global popularity (nowadays, for example, there are over a dozen YouTube videos in which the mantra is repeated over 100 times, each of which have already been viewed several millions of times). In my talk, I discuss the many manifestations of the Gāyatrī mantra and put the most important developments in its long biography into historical context.

In Blood Meridian McCarthy shows us a disturbing portrait of the generation who lived to experience the final expansion of the West. The novel focuses in particular on the area South of the US border in the late nineteenth century. The novel is rather consistent with history in that it dramatizes the deeds of infamous scalp hunters like Kirker and John Joel Glanton who are historical figures.
History is central to a reading of Blood Meridian, but in this case, the novel is read metaphorically and a search for ideas about religion and faith and references to the Bible and other texts is central. Certain passages from the Revelation in the Bible seem to match the language and themes of Blood Meridian. In particular, the conflict between the kid and the judge in Blood Meridian has a counterpart in the Revelation.
The suggested metaphorical reading focuses on the identity of one of the main characters of the novel the judge. The premise of this metaphorical reading is the parallel between the judge and the Biblical Devil. The metaphor has to do with the way the judge seems to be a devil that influences mankind and causes an apocalypse on earth. There are references in the language of Blood Meridian that seem to hint at the Apocalyptic Riders, Armageddon and the second death from the Biblical Revelation.
The entire human race with few exceptions is presented as violent and evil in Blood Meridian. The judge is by far the most intelligent and seems to be a source of evil. It is suggested that he might be the protagonist, and that his aim is the complete seduction of humanity. It is argued that the judge in many ways shares personal traits with the Biblical Devil in that he is presented as attractive and persuasive in spite of his evil nature. The character of the judge is also a sexual being in a way that repels most readers,
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and he is described as the uncensored extreme of the male sex, but a perverted extreme due to his interest in children and torture.
In the judge, McCarthy has created the worst anti hero ever, and it can be argued that he is present even when he is not visible. McCarthy has given his judge or devil super natural abilities and everlasting life, and his snake-like appearance is another trait that he shares with the Biblical Devil. But the truly frightening part of the novel might be that God or the values that a Christ-figure carries seem to be absent.
The kid is a character that is in great conflict between traits that belong to childhood; innocence and faith and a terrible tendency to violence. In the course of the novel, he seems to give up violence and give into “clemency” to use the expression of the judge. The first sign of this humane attitude is when he demonstrates kindness towards the other scalp hunters. By the end of the day, he refuses to kill the judge even when it seems right to do so. Throughout the novel, the kid demonstrates a tendency to hesitate and an unwillingness to make important decisions. He appears to be a victim by destination and it is possible that he suffers a terrible death by the hand of the judge. In a certain way he defies the judge in his refusal to dedicate himself fully to violence, but still he cannot escape his final.
Blood Meridian seems apocalyptic in many ways, and one apocalyptic trait is that nobody cares about the next generation. Children are objects of consumption in a frightening way, and they are molested and killed in cold blood on many occasions. Along the way, it seems that the violence commit the gang members more and more to the gang and this is seen metaphorically to represent the history of war and violence and consumerism.
Whenever there is a church in Blood Meridian, there are also signs that bloodshed has taken place, and the buildings have not protected the people in them. The Christ figures made from stone or wood and other symbols appear invalid, pathetic and depraved of meaning. The question of interest is if the appearance of religious institutions is representative of the author’s feelings about faith and religion.
Blood Meridian does not seem to present a single romantic scene, and love is as absent as God. Yet, sex is everywhere. There are whores, sodomizers, child molesters, homosexuals, ritual castrations, raping of scalped and dying women and other examples of sexual torture. The only kind of sex that does not seem interesting to the perverted generation in Blood Meridian is the kind that may result in offspring. It seems symbolic for the general apocalyptic atmosphere in the novel.
There are episodes in Blood Meridian where the character of the judge seems to represent God as he acts in certain passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the conclusion is that he is a complex character, and that much depends on the reading. In this context, it has been attempted to point out his similarity with the Devil.
In Blood Meridian we read prophesies, and later, we read of their fulfillment. We also read about super natural events and occultism. These particular traits cooperate to create a text that seems to aspire to a sacred text and the initiator or driving force is always the judge. If he represents the Devil, Blood Meridian seems to be a twisted antithetical counterpart to the Bible.
It is not easily discovered what the central story in Blood Meridian is. In the last chapters, it becomes clearer, and it seems that it is all in the relationship between the kid and the judge. The kid’s refusal to develop exactly according to the wishes of the judge is the central conflict that seems to cost him his life by the end of the day.
Some passages are pointed out as metafictional in that they do not contribute to the unfolding of the drama, and the reader may get the impression that McCarthy preaches. It is rather clear that he does not preach a hope or a God-given way out of the environmental problems or mankind’s lack of wisdom. It seems more likely that McCarthy presents his reader to a nihilistic rejection of faith. Rather than presenting his reader to a new faith, he presents the absolute loss of faith, hope and love.
According to this metaphorical reading, Blood Meridian is a picture of a world in the hands of a devil. Many other readings are possible, and the potential of Blood Meridian cannot easily be exhausted. No final judgment upon the values of the novel or its author is intended.

This is the first in a series of articles that addresses what is necessary for the development of a new community of the Grail, a spiritual knighthood such as that pointed to by both Rudolf Steiner and Valentin Tomberg. Such a community would be the guardians of modern grail wisdom both protecting and sharing such knowledge under the guidance of the modern time spirit. This article seeks to enumerate the prerequisites for spiritual knighthood exploring the idea that its members must "remain true to the spirit" remaining independent of teachers and teachings, of groups and organizations by rising to independent thinking that is social nevertheless and based on a profound inner knowledge of the Christ.

"A cultural critique of the phenomenon of sacred text translation, centering on the enormous global Bible translation project, but also including comparative references to the Qur’an, and to sacred texts of religions other than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is framed by a general discussion of the triangular relationship of language, religion, and nationalism.

In a previous article, Part I of Archangel Michael: How Can We Know Him, we examined various aspects of the being sometimes called The Fiery Thought King of the Universe, in an attempt to grasp his nature and know him ourselves. Our discussions were aimed at bringing abstract definitions and descriptions down to earth showing how we might recognize the working of this lofty being in everyday life. In Part II we will continue our investigation with the question: why is it in our time that Archangel Michael remains silent?  We will be inquiring into what we might call the word-less aspect of the activity of the being of Michael. Contrary to what we might think, addressing the word-less requires a rather convoluted path of words since we must overcome what is ordinary in our language, a language that is best suited to the sense world around us, to arrive at a spiritual understanding. Although a more direct path can be taken through Art—such as what can be expressed succinctly in a poem, for instance, in taking a scientific approach to what typically defies definition one must deal with the convolutions of the human thinking process, in order to become aware of and by-pass the many obstacles that lie on the path to spiritual knowledge, so that we may reach our goal.

This paper is a case study of three online Shī'ī religious ritual English-language majālis that explores assumptions and consequences of the perpetuation of gendered stereotypes and the operationalizing of the sacred Qur’ānic text to perpetuate gender tropes.  Majālis, Shī'ī Muslim gatherings where the recitation of the story of Karbala is delivered in evocative, emotional ways, serve as a central component of ritual devotion and piety that uses hagiography as a means to teach religious rights and obligations.  The deployment of the Qur’ānic Yusuf narrative is explored in how it serves to underscore the gender binary and the pejorative, antagonistic view of women’s “inherent” nafsī, beguiling, sexually aggressive state.  The key figure represented in these samples of majālis is‘Abbās ibn Alī, half-brother to Husain, the protector, warrior-hero of Karbala representing normative masculinity. The hagiography is used to promote a religion-based socializing process centered on an idealized self that is essential and hierarchically gendered. This study presents a number of questions:  to what extent do these repetitions of patriarchal masculinity have an impact on sexual ethics and familial relationships, how do these rituals perpetuate the trope of woman as a dangerous body, and how do these online rituals perpetuate gender binaries?

RITA D. SHERMA:
The Hindu religion, in continuity with a nearly 4,000-year old living tradition of thought and practice offers, arguably, the only extant, widely-accepted systematic theological tradition of God the Mother as the Supreme Divine.

Piercing the Veil of Language: How to Achieve Intuitive Knowledge in Meditative Reading, Part I, is the first of two articles, in which a groundwork is laid upon which intuitive knowledge may be achieved.

Two prerequisites are discussed: a courage to face ambiguity, paradoxes and the like; and the ability to make a distinction between merely abstract ideas, what often masquerades as higher perception, and the "real thing."

Following this, eight suggestions are offered towards understanding what meditative reading involves.

Introductory study I Remarks concerning the critical edition The present text has been critically edited by Kei Kataoka (Kataoka 2004a). While working on this translation, some minor changes to the edition have been proposed and discussed in the endnotes. On the basis of such emendations, Kei Kataoka plans to publish on-line a revised critical edition of the text at this address: http://www2.lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~kkataoka/Kataoka/NMaprR.pdf In general, many changes consist in preferring the readings offered by the manuscript identified in Kataoka 2004a as K 1 , i.e.

Na atual sura 19 do Corão muçulmano se identificam inúmeros nexos intertextuais com produtos literários surgidos entre grupos vinculados a Jesus nos primeiros cinco ou seis séculos de nossa era, basicamente no mundo médio-oriental, que desafiam a mera transformação do mito muçulmano a respeito da origem divina do Corão em narrativa historiográfica. Aqui eu a abordo como testemunha privilegiada, porque expressão de sujeitos neles atuantes, de espaços de polêmicas e controvérsias a respeito da identidade de Jesus que sacudiram o incipiente movimento cristão por muitas gerações.

An analysis of historical understanding of how anatomy was used or appropriated in the Qur'an. Classical scholars of the Qur'an understood the anatomical terms in terms of faith, imagery, poetry, and other figurative ways to ensure the faithful would comprehend the rich diversity of usage.

The article analyzes philosophically meaningful concepts (terms) in the first and second chapters of the Bhagavad-Gītā. The fragments of the Gīta commentaries, written by Śrī Śaṅkara (9th c.), Śrī Rāmānujācārya (11th c.), Śrī Madhvācārya (13–14th c.), Śrī Śrīdhara (14–15th c.), Śrī Rāghavendra Swāmī (16–17th c.) and Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda (20th c.), are also included in the analysis. It is concluded that the language of Kṛṣṇa in the Gīta is metaphysical. The article also features a comparison of explanations of the Gīta concepts (terminology) in the aforementioned commentaries as well as those supplied by M. Monier-Williams and J. Grimes.

The biblical tale of Genesis 4:1-16 narrates the murder of Abel by his brother Caïn. This fratricidal story, set by the text in the earliest times of human existence, both affirms the existence of violence at the heart of human relationships, and offers a framework for its symbolic interpretation. In supermodernity, and in a secular society, this religious metanarrative loses its efficiency. This, in turn, questions the way our contemporary society deals with the interpretation of violence.

Le récit biblique de Genèse 4,1-16, raconte le meurtre d'Abel par son frère Caïn. Ce récit de fratricide, intervenant selon le récit dès les premiers temps de l'existence humaine, à la fois affirme l'existence de la violence au cœur de la relation humaine, et en offre un cadre d'interprétation symbolique. En surmodernité, et dans une société sécularisée, ce métarécit religieux perd sa capacité performative, ce qui interroge sur les modalités contemporaines d'interprétation de la violence.

The Death of Sacred Texts draws attention to a much neglected topic in the study of sacred texts: the religious and ritual attitudes towards texts which have become old and damaged and can no longer be used for reading practices or in religious worship. This book approaches religious texts and scriptures by focusing on their physical properties and the dynamic interactions of devices and habits that lie beneath and within a given text. In the last decades a growing body of research studies has directed attention to the multiple uses and ways people encounter written texts and how they make them alive, even as social actors, in different times and cultures.

Considering religious people seem to have all the motives for giving their sacred texts a respectful symbolic treatment, scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the ritual procedures of disposing and renovating old texts. This book fills this gap, providing empirical data and theoretical analyses of historical and contemporary religious attitudes towards, and practices of text disposals within, seven world religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Exploring the cultural and historical variations of rituals for religious scriptures and texts (such as burials, cremations and immersion into rivers) and the underlying beliefs within the religious traditions, this book investigates how these religious practices and stances respond to modernization and globalization processes when new technologies have made it possible to mass-produce and publish religious texts on the Internet.

Na atual sura 19 do Corão muçulmano se identificam inúmeros nexos intertextuais com produtos literários surgidos entre grupos vinculados a Jesus nos primeiros cinco ou seis séculos de nossa era, basicamente no mundo médio-oriental, que desafiam a mera transformação do mito muçulmano a respeito da origem divina do Corão em narrativa historiográfica. Aqui eu a abordo como testemunha privilegiada, porque expressão de sujeitos neles atuantes, de espaços de polêmicas e controvérsias a respeito da identidade de Jesus que sacudiram o incipiente movimento cristão por muitas gerações.

A practical-theological approach to the interpretation of Sacred Scripture in the Christian tradition, available for contemporary scholars, may be found in the lives and sayings of the desert elders of 4 th and 5 th century Egypt. Like many approaches to the study of practical theology, the Scriptural hermeneutic of the desert elders is rooted in a tradition-constituted community, its formative practices, and its practical wisdom. This practical-theological approach to sacred texts in the desert is illuminated by the following story. When some young monks went to Abba Felix and asked "for a word of salvation," he told them:

(Η χριστιανική απάντηση στους “Κώδικες της Βίβλου” – Μπούμερανγκ για την εβραϊκή προπαγάνδα το πολύκροτο θέμα – Αλλά “κώδικες” υπάρχουν …)
(The Christian response to the “Bible Code” – The much acclaimed issue became a boomerang for the Jewish propaganda – However, “codes” exist …)

Γιατί ενοχλούν οι “Κώδικες της Βίβλου” – Why the Bible code upsets many
Τα ιερά κείμενα και η θεοπνευστία τους – The sacred texts and their plenary inspiration
Σημιτικές γλώσσες και οι γραφές τους – The Semitic languages and their writing systems
Μπορεί μια γλώσσα να αποδώσει μια άλλη; – Can one language be forthrightly rendered in another?
Η ύπαρξη κωδικοποιημένων κειμένων – The existence of codified texts

Άρθρο του Μουχάμαντ Σαμσαντίν Μεγαλομμάτη στο περιοδικό Τρίτο Μάτι, 68 (Μάρτιος 1998), σελ. 24-26
Article by Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis in the monthly review Trito Mati (Third Eye), 68 (March 1998), p. 24-26

First published online on 17th June 2021 here:
https://profmegalommatistextsingreek.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/κώδικες-της-βίβλου-the-bible-code/

Religions, like the individuals who practice them, seem to be utterly singular. Indeed, the attraction of identifying with and practicing any particular religion seems to be its promise of uniqueness, its being completely unlike any other. Yet, from its beginnings, the academic study of religion has proceeded as if there were some universal essence that all religions share: “the holy,” “the sacred,” “ideology,” “society,” “the unconscious,” “common sense,” “power,” or “culture.” But in recent decades, many scholars have challenged the view that there is any single, generalizable essence that might serve as a basis for comparison across the ways of life that have been called “religious.” Instead, these thinkers have tried to turn our attention to the specific technologies that persons and communities use to mediate their relationships to some transcendent reality, the present world, individuals and groups in and outside of their religion, and their very selves, and it is these relationships that sometimes can form the building blocks for what might be identified as “religion.” In this course, we will analyze a variety of these technologies: objects, images, texts, places (both “real” and “virtual”), practices of everyday life, and popular culture. We will discuss how these technologies have been used by particular people and communities to make sense of and interact with the complex world in which they live. Ultimately, this course will not only force us to listen to those religious “others,” whose beliefs and practices might seem strange, fantastical, or even sacrilegious, but it will also ask us to risk becoming objects of inquiry too, being seen as “other” by our fellow classmates and, potentially, ourselves. Hopefully, by the course’s end, greater self- and mutual understanding will be the rich, hard-won gain of such open, honest, and respectful disclosure.

This chapter investigates Adomeit Miniature Islamic Manuscript C12, a Safavid Qur’an preserved in the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Measuring 6.3 by 5.7 centimeters, the manuscript imbricates the amuletic function inherent to the Qur’an with a prognostic capacity through inclusion of a falnama (Book of Divination) attributed to the sixth Shi’i Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (d. 765). This chapter contextualizes the small-scale manuscript within Safavid bibliomantic practices, which reached their apogee during the reign of Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524-76). In so doing, it contrasts a miniaturized specimen against alternate manuscript formats of Safavid falnamas, thereby assessing the impact of drastically reduced scale on the user’s divinatory experience.

The authority that has been accepted as a sacred phenomenon by many The problem of relationship between sacred texts and authority is generally explored within two seemingly opposite approaches: Genetic and historical. However, the essential problem, which can be grasped within these approaches, reveals itself when interpretive traditions or strategies of interpretation of sacred texts transform themselves into an authoritarian character which hides itself behind the politics of turning sacred texts to an image or mask under the label of 'sacred authority'.