1,720,961 research outputs found
Christianity Appears First as Itself: Alain Badiou and the Study of Christian Origins
Get PDFThis dissertation introduces the philosophy of Alain Badiou into conversation with the academic discourse known as “Christian Origins.” The dissertation functions on the assumption that Christianity is an event-based subjectivity and therefore benefits from an event-based philosophy to think through its conditions. In this way, I locate the emergence of Christianity directly with the proclamation of its primal event, and not with later institutional formulations, separating the topic of emergence from traditional patterns of belief.
While it is possible to study early Christianity without reference to exceptional events, I map out a relationship between Christianity’s primal event and the appearance of early Christianity as a distinct yet diverse political body. In doing this, the event may serve as a helpful organizing principle with which to map out the development of early Christianity as a distinct subjective group, providing greater insight into the diversity of Christ groups as they seek to maintain fidelity to an event they believe happened. Christ groups form, prophets compete, theologies develop or die—but not for nothing—they organize as a consequence of the event.
The dissertation begins with a history of scholarship, noting how the discourse of Christian Origins has been configured in two main strategies: Hegelian rationalism and Nietzschean genealogical method. Both methods diminish the category of the event in the study of Christian Origins, leaving the scholar to choose between Christian Apologetic accounts of origins, or deconstruction. The second chapter introduces the philosophy of Alain Badiou, as it pertains to the study of Christian Origins. Though not a Christian theologian, Badiou’s rigorous account of truth and its conditions (based on events) is found to be a helpful model from which to construct a theory of Christian Origins. Chapter three maps out the work of Badiou onto the book of Revelation, as a “case study” for the trajectory of an event. In this case study, I map out Badiou’s conceptual framework onto the book of Revelation, with interesting results. The conclusion chapter investigates trajectories for both the formal study of religion and also trajectories for theological studies, as they pertain to Badiou’s ontology.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD
Paul’s Transformation: A Cognitive Approach to the Contribution of Ritual and Experience to Paul’s Resurrection Theology
Get PDFThis thesis engages in the longstanding debate concerning Paul’s thought-development by arguing that ritual and experience contribute to the development of Paul’s resurrection ideas. Applying cognitive linguistic tools—image schema, conceptual metaphor, and conceptual blending—to resurrection ideas, I consider these ideas as fundamentally grounded in recurrent patterns of somatic experience. Thus, instead of considering ideas as only emergent from intellectual activities, I explore the way that ritual and experience can provide recurrent somatic patterns and, by these means, contribute to the formation and development of ideas. Specifically, I demonstrate three significant and related developments in Paul’s resurrection ideas. First, addressing the issue of the decomposition of the corpse, especially in death rites, Paul utilizes the reversal pattern observed in the sowing and growing of a seed to re-conceptualize resurrection (1 Cor 15). Consequently, an innovative idea of “bodily transformation occurring at resurrection” (rather than during heavenly ascent) emerges from the reversal pattern. This reversal pattern also coincides with the physical experience of baptism. Second, addressing the issue of community divisions, Paul utilizes the immersion pattern of baptism to reconceptualize the reception of the Spirit as being immersed into the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:13). He thus interprets the experience of baptism as being “bodily united with Christ” by being surrounded and pervaded by the Spirit. Third, the innovative idea of “dying and being buried together with Christ in baptism” (Rom 6:3-4) emerges since baptism provides both the immersion pattern of bodily union and the reversal pattern of death and resurrection. These two patterns would further generate the idea of “resurrection together with Christ in baptism” (Col 2:12) even though it is not Paul’s intention in Romans. By exploring the influence of ritual in thought-development, this study also contributes to a fuller picture of the early Christian movement.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD
“Keep Up Your Transformation within the Renewal of Your Mind”:Romans as a Therapeutic Letter
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Signs of the Spirit(s): Credibility and the Discernment of Truth in Christian Prophets and Other Ritual Experts of the Roman Empire
Get PDFThis 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
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