Hagler, Owning Disaster (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Owning Disaster
Coping with Catastrophe in Abrahamic Narrative Traditions

By Aaron M. Hagler
Copyright 2024

Hardback £104.00
eBook £31.19

ISBN 9781032454740
242 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
Published December 18, 2023 by Routledge

Description

Delving into the intertwined tapestry of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sacred texts, exegesis, philosophy, theology, and historiography, this book explores the similar coping mechanisms across Abrahamic communities in reconciling the implications of disasters without abandoning their faith.

Belief in a single, omnipotent God carries with it the challenge of explaining and contextualizing disasters that seem to contravene God’s supposed will. Through explorations of Jewish responses to the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, Christian responses to the Arab Muslim conquests, Muslim responses to the Crusades, and a variety of responses to the Mongol conquests, Aaron M. Hagler unveils the shared patterns and responses that emerge within these communities when confronted by calamity. Initial responses come in the forms of horrified lamentations, but as the initial shock dissipates, a complex dance of self-blame and collective introspection unfolds, as writers and theologians seek to contextualize the tragedy and guide their communities toward hope, resilience, and renewal.

Of interest to scholars, theologians, and individuals seeking to explore interconnected notions of resilience within Abrahamic communities, Owning Disaster will resonate with readers eager to contemplate the intricate relationship between religious dogma, human resilience, and the profound questions that emerge when confronted with calamity.

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Minets & Nowakowski (eds.), Shaping Letters, Shaping Communities (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Shaping Letters, Shaping Communities: Multilingualism and Linguistic Practice in the Late Antique Near East and Egypt

Series:
Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, Volume: 33

Volume Editors: Yuliya Minets and Paweł Nowakowski

The volume explores linguistic practices and choices in the late antique Eastern Mediterranean. It investigates how linguistic diversity and change influenced the social dimension of human interaction, affected group dynamics, the expression and negotiation of various communal identities, such as professional groups of mosaic-makers, stonecutters, or their supervisors in North Syria, bilingual monastic communities in Palestine, elusive producers of Coptic ritual texts in Egypt, or Jewish communities in Dura Europos and Palmyra. The key question is: what do we learn about social groups and human individuals by studying their multilingualism and language practices reflected in epigraphic and other written sources?

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68233-7
Publication: 11 Dec 2023
EUR €149.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68230-6
Publication: 20 Dec 2023
EUR €149.00

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Semi-hiatus

YES, I know I haven't been posting much. Bear with me. I will get back to regular posting as soon as I can. Soon, I hope.

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Popa, The Making of Syriac Jerusalem (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

The Making of Syriac Jerusalem
Representations of the Holy City in Syriac Literature of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

By Catalin-Stefan Popa
Copyright 2023

Hardback £96.00
eBook £31.19

ISBN 9781032470993
324 Pages
Published May 31, 2023 by Routledge

Description

This book discusses hagiographic, historiographical, hymnological, and theological sources that contributed to the formation of the sacred picture of the physical as well as metaphysical Jerusalem in the literature of two Eastern Christian denominations, East and West Syrians.

Popa analyses the question of Syrian beliefs about the Holy City, their interaction with holy places, and how they travelled in the Holy Land. He also explores how they imagined and reflected the theology of this itinerary through literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, set alongside a well-defined local tradition that was at times at odds with Jerusalem. Even though the image of Jerusalem as a land of sacred spaces is unanimously accepted in the history of Christianity, there were also various competing positions and attitudes. This often promoted the attempt at mitigating and replacing Jerusalem’s sacred centrality to the Christian experience with local sacred heritage, which is also explored in this study. Popa argues that despite this rhetoric of artificial boundaries, the general picture epitomises a fluid and animated intersection of Syriac Christians with the Holy City especially in the medieval era and the subsequent period, through a standardised process of pilgrimage, well-integrated in the custom of advanced Christian life and monastic canon.

The Making of Syriac Jerusalem is suitable for students and scholars working on the history, literature, and theology of Syriac Christianity in the late antique and medieval periods.

HT Bibliographia Iranica. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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