scholarly journals The Eschatological Spirituality of “the Sons of Light” in Qumran

Verbum Vitae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-363
Author(s):  
Mirosław Stanisław Wróbel

One of the most important features of the members of the Qumran community, who referred to themselves by the name “the sons of light,” was aspiration to holiness by observing the Law, purity and cult. The spirituality of the Qumran community was founded on the New Covenant which would be fulfilled “at the end of the days”. This eschatological reality was stressed in the practical spirituality of the members of the Qumran community. In the present article, the spirituality of the Qumran community will be presented via three points: (1) The origin of the Qumran community; (2) The community of a New Covenant with God; and (3) Eschatological beliefs. Our accumulated knowledge about the spirituality of the Qumran community and its beliefs enables us to better understand many eschatological texts of the Old Testament and Intertestamental Literature. It also indicates to us certain similarities and differences with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

Vox Patrum ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 241-247
Author(s):  
Mirosław S. Wróbel

In the present article the author describes the problem of an old age in the Jewish apo­calyptic literature and in the Qumran texts. Old persons are presented in these texts like sages and teachers. The education given by them for children and grandchildren is based on moral and religious values. They call to observe God’s commandments and to avoid all acts which are against God and other persons. The respect and authority of the old persons described in the texts of intertestamental literature can take in consideration the biblical sources. In the Old Testament the elders of Israel are described as judges who decide about all important aspects of the life in Jewish community.


2013 ◽  
pp. 174-183
Author(s):  
Piotr Sadkowski

Throughout the centuries French and Francophone writers were relatively rarely inspired by the figure of Moses and the story of Exodus. However, since the second half of 20th c. the interest of the writers in this Old Testament story has been on the rise: by rewriting it they examine the question of identity dilemmas of contemporary men. One of the examples of this trend is Moïse Fiction, the 2001 novel by the French writer of Jewish origin, Gilles Rozier, analysed in the present article. The hypertextual techniques, which result in the proximisation of the figure of Moses to the reality of the contemporary reader, constitute literary profanation, but at the same time help place Rozier’s text in the Jewish tradition, in the spirit of talmudism understood as an exchange of views, commentaries, versions and additions related to the Torah. It is how the novel, a new “midrash”, avoids the simple antinomy of the concepts of the sacred and the profane. Rozier’s Moses, conscious of his complex identity, is simultaneously a Jew and an Egyptian, and faces, like many contemporary Jewish writers, language dilemmas, which constitute one of the major motifs analysed in the present article. Another key question is the ethics of the prophetism of the novelistic Moses, who seems to speak for contemporary people, doomed to in the world perceived as chaos unsupervised by an absolute being. Rozier’s agnostic Moses is a prophet not of God (who does not appear in the novel), but of humanism understood as the confrontation of a human being with the absurdity of his or her own finiteness, which produces compassion for the other, with whom the fate of a mortal is shared.


Numen ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-254
Author(s):  
Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati

AbstractThe present article focuses on the function of mythic journeys with regard to the problem of death and the transience of human life in two selected Mesopotamian literary sources: the Gilgamesh-Epic IX–XI and the Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld. The selected texts are analysed and compared from the perspective of a functionalist definition of religious symbol systems, with particular attention to the transformation involved in travelling through different cosmic regions. The structure of the journey, the characterisation of the different regions visited by the protagonist, and the changes provoked by the mythic travel evince similarities and differences in the strategies employed to produce a religious orientation dealing with the ineluctable limits of life.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Leonardo Nunes

The present dissertation examines the function and nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple and its relationship to the earthly counterparts in the major passages of the New Testament (NT) Gospels, Acts, Pauline and General Epistles where the sanctuary/temple motif is found (a total of twenty-two passages). After the introductory chapter, chapters 2, 3, and 4 are devoted to the exegetical analysis of these major passages following canonical order and divisions of the NT. This exegetical analysis has detected the relevance of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif for NT studies, i.e., how its function, nature, and relationship to the earthly counterparts influence the understanding of important themes of the NT such as salvation, intercession, spiritual gifts, love, holiness, eradication of evil, among others. This investigation has identified that the heavenly sanctuary/temple in the NT function as God’s dwelling place. It is a place for reunion, reconciliation, and sending of the Holy Spirit, from where every spiritual blessing is bestowed upon the believers. In the heavenly sanctuary/temple Jesus is enthroned to exercise authority, power, sovereignty, and rulership; it is where judgment and vindication are made, the new covenant is ratified. It is a place to present praise and worship to God, celebrating Christ's victory over evil. The heavenly sanctuary/temple is where Christ presents His once-for-all sacrifice, "obtains eternal redemption," and intercedes in our behalf, giving assurance that God's salvific purpose and the heirs' hope will be fulfilled. The heavenly sanctuary/temple also functions as the motivation and ground for holy living, the driving force for sacrificial service and endurance of suffering for Christ. The heavenly sanctuary/temple is also the final destination of the Christian journey where all believers will gather together with the godhead and the angels in a festal assembly. Regarding the nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple in the NT, the passages surveyed show that architecture is not the main concern of the NT writers. However, in tune with the Old Testament (OT), they describe the heavenly sanctuary/temple in terms of a spatiotemporal reality where the corporeal resurrected Jesus is at work and the bodily resurrected believers will live. This NT ontological perspective safeguards the actuality of the heavenly sanctuary/temple many functions. The spatiotemporal nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple is strengthened when one looks at its relationship to the earthly counterparts. The NT passages examined demonstrate that there is structural and functional correspondence between OT and NT heavenly and earthly counterparts within a typological framework, as well as dynamic interaction among them. Chapter 5 offers a theological synthesis of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif presented in the previous chapters. A summary of the findings is first provided followed by inferences of theological implications in the three main areas of this dissertation (function, nature, and relationship). After these concluding remarks, an appendix is provided with a brief treatment of twenty-five NT passages not dealt with in the main text (including thirteen passages in the book of Revelation) in order to give the reader a more comprehensive perspective of the pervasiveness of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the NT. In conclusion, the study of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the NT seems to be needed in order to have a sound and balanced understanding of NT theology.


2020 ◽  
Vol nr specjalny 1(2020) ◽  
pp. 293-310
Author(s):  
Bernadetta Darska ◽  

In the present article I examine autobiographical works in which writers reveal their illnesses. I am interested not so much in the description of a given ailment, but rather in the embroilment resulting from being ill and from the persistent conflict between memory and forgetting. Becoming aware of the illness turns out to be a critical point, forcing the writers to re-evaluate their own lives. Consequently, memory and forgetting assume a new status. I also attempt to juxtapose the universal nature of being ill and the intimacy of this experience; I point out the similarities and differences involved in dealing with illnesses, the common denominator of which seems to be the necessity of confronting the limits of memory and the expansiveness of forgetting.


1950 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aage Bentzen
Keyword(s):  

No abstract available.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agu Uudelepp

The author argues in the present article that although propaganda is considered mostly a tool of ideological communication suitable for use during wars or in totalitarian states, it is still used in contemporary democratic societies at peacetime and there are no major differences between employing instruments of propaganda in the public or the private sectors. The present analysis is based on the similarities and differences between Estonian political television advertisements and modern television commercials with an emphasis on the application of propaganda instruments. The author employed content analysis when studying the sample in which were 100 non-political and 84 political advertisements. This research shows that Estonian political television advertisements and international non-political television advertisements share some significant similarities: cognitive propaganda instruments are more widely employed than social ortechnological ones. The role oftechnological propaganda instruments is diminishing and such instruments are replaced by structural ones. A major difference is that, on average, there are more propaganda instruments per advertisement in political television advertisements than in non-political television advertisements, and technological propaganda instruments are not employed in non-political television advertisements.


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