3 research outputs found
Signs of the Spirit(s): Credibility and the Discernment of Truth in Christian Prophets and Other Ritual Experts of the Roman Empire
No full textThis dissertation is on the topic of spiritual discernment, and the sense of certainty that can accompany the interpretation of embodied signals. Early Christians authors demonstrate concern with differentiating the true from the false when it came to spirits. In a world filled with spirits, the Holy Spirit was the spirit who endowed the right gifts to Christ-followers, the one that would provide access to the gifts of the Jewish God. Yet differentiating between spirits was not a straightforward task and judging those who claimed to be filled with the right spirit seemed to be a matter of concern given the large number of early Christian texts that address this issue. If prophets are those who purport to communicate with the divine and/or are able to channel divine will, then their power derives from a credible claim to being a divine conduit or direct line of communication to the god. This thesis examines three sites that ancient literature assesses for the credibility of ritual experts (bodies, exchange practices, and the alterity of individuals), and the adaptively grounded, embodied signals used to communicate credibility of these sites.The question of how prophets were judged and their spirits discerned has been much discussed from the angle of what our textual sources say about spiritual discernment. What this project does differently is consider how our human adaptive biology affects how we make decisions about people and how this affects the cultural expression of prophetic assessment in the period of earliest Christianity. While we imagine ourselves to be excellent judges of character, the way that we profess to judge others is often a posthoc (and overly optimistic) rationalization of our cognitive processes, a tendency that becomes evident in our ancient materials when read through this lens. What we know about an individual matters less than what we think we know based on subtle, embodied cues that we read into behaviours, actions, and situations. Prophets who signaled trustworthiness and expertise through culturally diverse, but adaptively grounded, signals appeared credible to ancient audiences.Ph.D.2024-11-11 00:00:0
Letter Assignment
No full textDescription: RLG324F, Philosophy in the Age of the Internet, third-year undergraduate, less than 45 students. Learning Outcomes: - Demonstrate the conventions of ancient letter writing - Use footnotes to substantiate academic arguments - Adapt writing for different audiences - Show an awareness of the political stakes of historical scholarship (i.e., understand that scholarship is not neutral) in their writing - Assess and integrate scholarly arguments into an original argument. Other Notes: Submission includes the syllabus, assignment instructions, letter prompts for the Occasion, peer feedback instructions, and grading rubric for the letter drafts and final submissions.For this assignment, students write a letter to a historical figure, Paul of Tarsus (also known as Paul the Apostles). The assignment has four parts. For part one, the Occasion, students respond to a series of prompts to guide them in writing a short project proposal for their letter. For part two students write a first draft of the letter (400–500-words) using academic resources, which they must annotate. For part three students rewrite the letter in 500-800 words, create a bibliography and footnotes and implement the feedback they were given in part two. For part four students present their letter orally in class, and then use the feedback from their classmates and instructor to write their final letter submission
