Recent scholarship on modern Jewish thought has sought to overcome the field’s Germanocentrism by recovering diverse visions of Jewish life across eastern and western Europe. While studies typically emphasize either striking differences or surprising affinities between these settings, I use the neglected eastern European philosopher Nachman Krochmal to highlight a strategy of creative appropriation and redirection—an eastern European strategy of breaking with German-Jewish philosophy precisely by deploying that tradition’s own resources. One of modern Jewish philosophy’s early episodes, I argue, is a politically charged engagement with biblical exegesis involving Krochmal and the German-Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn. Implicitly drawing on yet revising the treatment of biblical interpretation in Mendelssohn’s Hebrew writings, Krochmal seeks to retrieve what he sees as a vital element of Jewish politics: possessing neither a shared land nor military strength, he insists, Jews have long sustained their diasporic collective through hermeneutical endeavors such as rabbinic midrash, and they should continue to do so by launching a transnational project of historically sensitive exegesis. The resulting image of a transnational Jewish collective whose fate is separate from that of non-Jewish polities breaks with Mendelssohn’s political vision, pointing to an east-west dynamic of creative repurposing—an instance of an eastern European thinker drawing on a German-Jewish predecessor to develop a sharply contrasting philosophical vision.

It has become commonplace to contrast Plotinus’s spirituality with Christian spirituality by portraying the former as solipsistic and the latter as communal. In particular, this critique has centred around Plotinus’s description of mystical ascent as a “flight of the alone to the alone” and his presentation of Plato’s Phaedrus as an exhortation to “work on your own statue.” Yet, should one understand the One as a supreme unity, it would appear that the Plotinian unio mystica renders the mystic supremely unified with the rest of being. Accordingly, this article emphasizes Plotinus’s “inclusive monotheism” in order to argue that the “flight of the alone to the alone” should be understood as a movement towards the supreme unity that underlies reality. The unificatory effects of this ascent are emphasized by the way in which Plotinus, in both his life and works, depicts teaching as a common response to henosis. This didactic turn, it is argued, is a response to glimpsing the deep unity of reality, which expands the mystic’s sphere of concern to include the “other” as another self.

Administrators in ancient Judah used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year alongside other annual frameworks. This year was never practiced as a “calendar” for any cultic or administrative purpose, but rather served as a convenient framework for long-term planning, as well as for literary accounts that were not anchored to a concrete calendar year. Examples for such a usage are attested here from Mesopotamian texts. Material evidence for the 360-day year in Judah comes forth from a series of small perforated bone plaques from various sites in Iron Age Judah. One such item was recently unearthed in the city of David. These objects can reasonably be understood as reflecting a schematic 360-day year, serving as desk calendars for Judahite administrators. Several priestly pentateuchal texts are best understood against this background, such as the dating of some festivals and most notably the dates in the Flood narrative (Gen 7–8). The original dating system is best represented in LXX Gen 7:11, while the reading of MT is a late modification, inserted later, when calendar debates took a central place in the religious discourse. MT is thus a link in a chain of later reworking of this narrative in Second Temple literature. The 360-day year is thus a unique case where material culture dovetails with literary evidence, and may shed light on the material culture of priestly sources. This insight is significant for future studies of biblical time reckoning.

The place of interfaith dialogue in Orthodox Judaism has been the subject of extensive discussion. This article offers a reading of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's and Rabbi Irving Greenberg's stances on interfaith dialogue that situates them in a Jewish philosophical context. Some scholars have argued that Soloveitchik's refusal to engage in Jewish-Christian theological dialogue must be understood historically; others have argued that his opposition to such dialogue must be understood halakhically. This article, building upon the view articulated by Daniel Rynhold in his 2003 article that Soloveitchik's stance on interfaith dialogue must be understood philosophically, posits that in order for Soloveitchik's stance on interfaith dialogue to be fully understood, it should be studied bearing in mind the influence of Hermann Cohen upon Soloveitchik's religious philosophy. This article, which demonstrates the direct influence of Franz Rosenzweig upon aspects of Greenberg's thought, further argues that in order for Greenberg's stance on interfaith dialogue—as well as his interfaith theology—to be completely grasped, his positions upon these theological matters must be studied with the awareness of Franz Rosenzweig's influence upon his thought. The reading offered in this article of Cohen and Soloveitchik and of Rosenzweig and Greenberg does not purport to minimize the irreconcilable differences between these thinkers; nonetheless, it believes that the substantial resemblances—and, in the case of Rosenzweig and Greenberg, the direct influence—between the views of Christianity held by these pairs of figures are significant and suggest a reconsideration of the role of philosophy in the story of American Jewish theology.

The language of Qoheleth is characterized by an awkward style and an unusual vocabulary. Past studies have assigned these peculiarities to linguistic factors, assuming that the book reflects an underrepresented dialect or register. The current study aims to expand the boundaries of this discourse by introducing extra-linguistic considerations into the discussion. Qoheleth is the only biblical book that is purely philosophical, focusing on abstract issues such as the purpose of life and the problem of free will. Such philosophical discussions require the use of an abstract terminology. The basic toolkit of any philosopher consists of conceptual phrases such as “time,” “space,” “cosmos,” “humanity,” “meaning,” etc. Yet abstract vocabulary was meager in the Hebrew at the author’s disposal. Paving a pioneering way in the realm of thought, Qoheleth’s author had to create a terminological system capable of expressing his new ideas. This article traces the ways in which the need for a personally-customized philosophical idiom shaped Qoheleth’s language. Exploring the origins of eleven key-terms in the book, this article reveals the dynamics that gave rise to Qoheleth’s personal lexicon. These include generalization and conceptualization of the extant semantic fields of certain terms in order to re-invent them as personal expressions reflecting the author’s philosophy. The author takes advantage of the “linguistic availability” of certain terms, that is, their foreignness or rareness that makes them better-suited, in his view, to bear newly created meanings. Taken together, Qoheleth’s neologisms constitute a personal idiolect, carefully designed to convey the author’s unique thought.

The claim that article four of Thomas Aquinas’s De unione verbi incarnati is a reversal of his consistently held single esse position is challenged in this paper. The article argues that reading all five articles of the De unione as a single-structured argument discloses a single esse understanding of the Incarnate Word. The very nature of the radically hypostatic union between God and man in Christ is at stake in this dispute. According to Thomas, positing a second esse in Christ not only contradicts the tradition, especially of the Christian East, that he appropriates, but it would also compromise the reality of the hypostatic union itself.

This article examines the way one nineteenth-century clergyman of the Church of England in Australia, William Gore, was influenced by the Oxford Movement. Gore was the incumbent of the parish of All Saints Church, North Parramatta in Sydney. He implemented liturgical practices valued by the Oxford Movement, including wearing a surplice to preach rather than a Geneva gown, reading the Offertory sentences in the service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer, celebrating the Holy Communion on the saints days set in the Prayer Book and placing a cross on the holy table. He was supported by his bishop, William Grant Broughton. The reaction from parishioners was surprise, shock and opposition and he was branded as a ‘Puseyite’. This article uses local primary material, including press reports of parish meetings, to describe the reactions of parishioners in parish meetings against Gore’s liturgical uses. Gore’s activities are assessed as an important early example of the Oxford Movement’s influence in the Church of England in Australia. Gore’s practices, discussed in the public domain, provide evidence that the Oxford Movement was beginning to transform the nineteenth-century liturgical worship of the Church of England in Australia.

The process of creating a Safe and Inclusive Church (SIC) Commission within the Anglican Church of the Province of SouthernAfrica (ACSA) is not unique in the Communion. This article seeks to explore ACSA’s specific journey to date, with a view to engaging the Communion in a learning partnership. While some of the process of establishing this ministry may be unique, there are places of commonality as we jointly grapple with the call of our Lord Jesus to continue to build the Kingdom of God in contemporary times. Most specifically, this process has highlighted a need for renewal of the Church in both our theological understanding and how we organize to best serve our call to preach the Good News. These theological and structural dimensions of ‘doing church’ speak deeply into our ‘being church’ and are at the heart of why dialogue is needed as a Communion. We offer this article as an invitation to continue discerning together how best to follow and serve our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by being His Body to a broken and wounded world.

The papers in this forum offer an interdisciplinary assessment of the state of the field of Anglican Studies and perspectives on future trajectories. The first three papers, on liturgy, history, and world Anglicanism, offer an assessment of the respective state of these areas of Anglican Studies. The second set, on theology, sociology of religion, and biblical studies, stake out positions on how these disciplines inform the work of Anglican Studies. A concluding essay offers a synthesis of these papers, focusing on the themes of local contexts for Anglicanism, a further complexification of decolonizing processes in Anglicanism, and the critical role of conversation in Anglican Studies regarding disciplines, languages, and power dynamics.