intention Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 rev. ed.)
...an end. Such intention may be ‘actual’, if one wills with conscious attention; ‘virtual’, if one continues to will in virtue of an antecedent decision, though at the moment not consciously aware of it; ‘habitual’, if all voluntary action has ceased but without the original decision being revoked; and ‘interpretative’, if a certain intention is ascribed to a person who has no opportunity to confirm or deny the imputation. The intention influences the morality of an action. A good intention makes a morally indifferent action good and increases the worth of an...
Reader-Response Criticism Reference library
Kathy Reiko Maxwell
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation
...competent reader, the superreader, the composite reader, the average reader, the encoded reader, the actual reader, the flesh-and-blood reader” ( Fowler 1991 , p. 26), the ancient reader—including in that context the Jewish/gentile reader, the wealthy/poor reader, the male/female reader, the virginal reader, the jaded reader, the later reader, the modern reader, the virtual reader, the fit reader, the hearer, the audience, and so on. Psychological, social, and cultural factors in the reader’s experience are welcomed as essential components of the reading...
Clement, Letters of Reference library
Clayton N. Jefford
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible
...heritage of faith and raises the problem of the internal dissension that has occurred there in recent days (1.1—3.4). A virtual panegyric of the Christian lifestyle follows in which the writer notes the dangers that are inherent in jealousy and division, the importance of repentance, the virtues of obedience, faith, piety, hospitality, humility, and peace, and the promises of salvation that God offers for those who live a holy lifestyle (4.1—39.9). In response, specific attention is directed toward the need for divine regulation and universal love within...
Ezra and Nehemiah Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible
...it. However, scholars since Spinoza (seventeenth century) have credited Ezra, not Moses, with the final composing and/or editing of the Pentateuch. Recent analyses of the formation of the Pentateuch challenge crucial aspects of this view (note Grabbe's suggestive title: “The Law of Moses in the Ezra Tradition: More Virtual than Real?” Grabbe 2001b ). Some propose a considerably later date for the final form of the Pentateuch, with Ezra and the Persian period as a pivotal nexus at the beginning of a process that extended well into the Hellenistic period...
Japanese Interpretation Reference library
Tomohiro Omiya
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation
...Tagawa argued that Paul reversed actual facts and transformed them into virtual conceptions ( Hihanteki Shutai no Keisei 1980 ). Citing 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 , Tagawa suggested that Paul did not actually deny “the world” based on facts but only pretended to deny it. For example, Paul did not ask that his readers give up their possessions but only pretend to give them up. Furthermore, citing 1 Corinthians 7:21–22 , (freedom given by the Lord), Tagawa suggested that this freedom was acquired in a virtual sphere that willingly accepted slavery...
Rabbinic Literature Reference library
Alan J. Avery-Peck, Lieve M. Teugels, and Joshua Ezra Burns
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible
...though a worthy counterpoint to that of Strack and Billerbeck, was no less questionable in its method. The method of selective comparison conceived by Strack and Billerbeck and by Moore set the agenda for the great comparative project that would take hold of New Testament scholarship in the wake of the Holocaust. Its potential for theological controversy effectively neutralized, the notion that the literature of the Jewish sages took shape in the same general environment as the New Testament became a virtual axiom of both their studies. Vital contributions...
Job Reference library
Brennan W. Breed and C. Davis Hankins
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible
...daughters receive alongside their unnamed brothers ( 42:15 ) may in fact betray Job's commitment to creating a more just and egalitarian world. But this is at best only a hint; the author leaves the actual events of Job's remaining one hundred and forty years to our imagination ( 42:16–17 ). Reception. The book of Job's unusual diction and esoteric arguments are notoriously challenging to decipher. Yet its poetic beauty, bold questions, and the tantalizing possibility of insight into the problem of undeserved suffering have kept readers engaged for millennia....
Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Japanese Soto Zen Master Dogen Kigen (1200–1253) Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...– virtual treasures hidden in the air, in swamps, and in mountains. To Dogen, mountains are a dynamic practice (actualizing enlightenment according to the precise circumstances of the present moment), they are Buddhist reality (an interrelated “universe-as-the-Dharma” [Sanskrit: dharmadhatu ]), and they are Buddhas and ancestors teaching the unenlightened in each new moment in every way (“investigate the mountains hidden in ‘hiddenness’ ”). Dogen Kigen's Mountains and Rivers Sutra [excerpts] The mountains and waters of this very moment actualize the...
Winter, Paul (1939) Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...worship (Albanese 1990 ). By including actual echo and by using “echo” as trope in his music, Winter conjures a sacred antiphonal relationship with the land. This call and response and Winter's play of surfaces and sound evoke a sense of intimacy, a reciprocal love affair between the human and nonhuman world that imbues Winter's composition and performance. In many respects, Winter's commitment to the importance of so-called “natural music” or “Earth music” echoes David Abram 's argument in Spell of the Sensuous that in modernity cultures ultimately end up...
Ülken, Hilmi Ziya (1901–74) Reference library
The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Islamic Philosophy
...dyads and values; in the second the Absolute Being, namely God, who surrounds and surpasses the previous ones. Since the Absolute Being cannot be known but believed, then the method that leads to this belief is ‘virtual intuition’. Here Hilmi Ziya makes a distinction between actual and virtual intuition. The actual intuition acting within consciousness and time cannot apprehend the Absolute Being. However, virtual intuition conjoining the experienced with what is perceived and realities with the ideal may apprehend the Absolute Being at the same time and in the...
Dead Sea Scrolls Reference library
Norman Golb
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics
...Sea Scrolls With the virtual ending of basic publication of the Judaean Desert scrolls, it has become possible in recent years to consider, with some degree of rational perception, various genres of texts created by the ancient authors of these manuscripts. The genres include such categories as lists of sequestered valuables, hymns of thanksgiving, descriptions of imaginary battles between good and evil forces, commentaries and expansions on writings of the biblical literature, apocryphal writings featuring patriarchal figures, calendaric disquisitions,...
Hoogstraeten, Jacob van (1460–1527) Reference library
Arnoud Visser
The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine
...This is reflected in the selection of mostly exegetical and doctrinal works, and in the virtual absence of the Confessions , or De civitate Dei . Secondly, the perspective on Aug. is to a large extent dictated by H.'s main opponents, Evangelicals and humanists. For example, the strong focus on anti-Pelagian, rather than anti-Donatist, works in the Colloquia may seem surprising in view of H.'s emphasis on obedience to the Church and the sacraments. In doing so tried to...
A Religio-Ecological Perspective on Religion and Nature Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...connections with a mythicized “pioneer” past and wilderness onto which is projected a sacred aura of pristine purity. In the post-industrial world, where virtual reality is increasingly replacing normative reality, the traditional real world is becoming transformed into a realm of fantasy, and experience in nature qua nature is being replaced by actual (e.g., dirt bikes and “personal water craft”) and vicarious thrills. Animals become valued with no understanding of their life cycles and ecological situations and are understood to be utterly divorced from...
Cobb, John B., Jr. (1925) Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...part by the breakdown of the earlier deism and in part by the rejection of metaphysics in the extremely influential philosophy of Immanuel Kant . This move entailed the virtual disappearance of the natural world from consideration. Where it did appear, as in Albrecht Ritschl, it represented the sphere over which human beings were to exercise their mastery. Popular Protestant piety and its conservative theological expressions did not go so far in this anthropocentric direction. The deistic argument from the order and beauty of the world to God as supreme...
Zhuangzi Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...Chinese equivalent to the Western term “nature” (“nature” commonly understood as the material, nonhumanmade elements on Earth). Yet the text makes constant lyrical use of actual plant, animal, meteorological, and geographical phenomena, sometimes as virtual beings, often as metaphorical devices. Usually the obvious linkage or equivalence is made by the reader between Western “nature” and Zhuangzi's concept of dao (the “Way” or “flow” of reality). Many readers also “read into” Zhuangzi's dao the entire conceptual structure of Laozi's Daode-jing ( dao,...
Ethnoarchaeology Reference library
Thomas W. Davis
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology
...parks and specialized tourist itineraries emphasizing religious and/or historical events have been created. Experimental archaeology, which comes under the rubric of ethnoarchaeology, is a particularly valuable tool in the public presentation of archaeological remains. On occasion, excavation at a site or monument is halted to allow for the preservation and presentation of a particular historical moment in the history of the occupation of the site, despite unanswered questions. Interpretive re-creation of such a site, whether in virtual or in actual reality,...
Israel and Environmentalism Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...as pesticide registration, drinking water, and auto-emission standard setting and oversight. Politically, the position of Environmental Minister has had low prestige, with some eight Ministers filling the position during its first fourteen years. Yet, the Ministry's competent professional staff boast impressive achievements in several important areas. In response to the severity of the environmental insults, a virtual explosion of new environmental organizations has emerged at both the local and national level. Life and Environment, the umbrella group for...
Natural History as Natural Religion Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...Greek and other forms of European paganism as nature-friendly, but the Olympic religion of ancient Greece (and copycat Rome) was long dead – whether nature-friendly or not is of course moot. The Greco-Roman legacy that shaped modern Western civilization is the legacy of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and proto-science, the legacy of Plato and Aristotle, of Democritus and Lucretius. A virtual cottage industry of critical environmental philosophy sprang up almost overnight. In addition to Plato and Aristotle, Descartes was routinely hacked and flayed, as...
Evidence Reference library
Chaya T. Halberstam
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law
...as witnesses, even though Josephus and the early rabbis do disqualify them. The story of Naboth’s vineyard indicates that providing more than one witness may have been a common practice in ancient Israel and/or constituted a virtual assurance of winning one’s case. Moreover, it reveals the susceptibility of such a practice in evidentiary law to corruption: “The two scoundrels … brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, ‘Naboth cursed God and the king.’ So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death” ( 1 Kgs 21:13 )....
Antioch on the Orontes Reference library
Andrea U. De Giorgi
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology
...to identify the ways by which Antiochene Jews contributed to the forging of a unique city and to the heightening of its profile; one should not neglect that by the third century c.e. the small, unassuming Seleucid city on the Orontes had become the virtual capital of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world). Jewish communities had been instrumental in the building and evolution of the city since its inception, when Seleucid veterans and captives settled in the region and participated in the construction of the city. Babylonian Jews who had gained distinction...
