A number of scholars in this century have noticed the image of God or Jesus as mother in the spiritual writings of the high Middle Ages. The image has in general been seen as part of a “feminine” or “affective” spirituality, and neither of these adjectives is incorrect. The idea of God as mother is part of a widespread use, in twelfth-century spiritual writing, of woman, mother, characteristics agreed to be “feminine,”and the sexual union of male and female as images to express spiritual truths; the most familiar manifestation of this interest in the “female” is the new emphasis on the Virgin in doctrinal discussions and especially spirituality. And the frequency of references to “mother Jesus” is also part of a new tendency in twelfth-century writing to use human relationships (friendship, fatherhood or motherhood, erotic love) in addition to metaphysical or psychological entities to explain doctrinal positions or exhort to spiritual growth.

In the wake of Kant's critique of speculative metaphysics, many students of religion and theology have sought immediate access to the real and a foundation for doctrine and belief in religious experience. It was thought by some that a mode of experience might be discovered that was unscathed by the activity of the imagination in the construction of the forms and categories, and that would be broader than Kant's exclusively moral account of religion. It is not accidental, then, that the phrase “religious experience” has come to be reserved almost exclusively for aspects of experience that are allegedly prereflective, that transcend the verbal, or are in some way free of the structures of thought and judgment that language represents. The search has been for some channel of cognitive immediacy, whether the chosen mode of experience was volitional or affective.

Pauvreté des moyens d'expression, richesse des effets: parmi tous les écrits du Nouveau Testament, c'est dans le quatrième évangile que cette réussite est la plus visible. Comment en rendre compte? Par le génie de l'évangéliste qui, ne disposant que d'un instrument linguistique sommaire, s'en est servi habilement. Discernement des temps, emploi du verbe au début de la phrase, casus pendens, répétitions adversatives, chiasmes: ces particularités ont été signalées, en fonction du problème relatif à la langue originaire du livre, grecque ou araméenne, et conséquemment du milieu culturel (Mutterboden) où il vit le jour.

Es muß in der griechischen Kirche und einigen ihrer Nachbarn vom 15. Jh. an ein lebendiges, paränetisch gerichtetes Interesse an Joseph und Aseneth gegeben haben.l 11 der 16 bekannten altgriechischen Handschriften stammen aus dem 15.–17. Jh., dazu eine von 1802 (die übrigen vier aus dem 10.–12. Jh.). Zwei davon, Bukarest, Bibl. Acad. Rom., Gr. 966, 17. Jh. (Sigel F oder 171) und Sinai, Gr. 1976, 17. Jh. (Woder 174)2 vertreten eine paränetisch interpolierte Form, zu der auch die rumänische Übersetzung gehört. Aus dem 15. Jh. stammen die beiden Handschriften der serbisch-kirchenslawischen Übersetzung, aus dem 15.–18. die Hauptmasse der armenischen Textzeugen. Das genannte Interesse bezeugen nun auch die Spuren von JA im Neugriechischen:3 der sekundäre Schluß der altgriechischen Gruppe c (III), Einschläge in der altgriechischen Handschrift McKell, 16. Jh. (G oder 162) (II) und vor allem eine Übertragung (Ngr) des ganzen Textes (I).

Several recent publications have presented collections of various types of evidence for the Egyptian cults in the Greco-Roman World. Although valuable, they do not give sufficient critical analysis of the evidence through detailed study of particular sites. The present article attempts to provide for Corinth a more substantial picture of the Egyptian cults than has previously been available.

Can the existence of God be rationally demonstrated? This question has occupied philosophers and theologians for centuries and in a particular way since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This essay will examine the question of the knowledge of God as it is met by two contemporary Catholic theologians, Bernard Lonergan and Hans Küng. These two scholars are not chosen arbitrarily for comparison. Not only is each of them on the forefront of current theological development, but I shall argue that on the question of God the ambitious, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts of the former are significantly complemented by the latter.

In a recent publication a scholar suggests that the Talmud preserves teachings only against astrology, and claims that astrology never obtained a foothold within Judaism, remaining only a sectarian phenomenon “at variance with normative Judaism.” The suggestion and claim should not go unchallenged. The present paper looks at the debates over astrology preserved in the Talmud, scans the major relevant sections in the Pseudepigrapha—with an introduction of a Jewish astrological document which should become a new addition to the Pseudepigrapha—reviews the astrological documents found in Cave 4 near Khirbet Qumran, and points again to the abundant evidence of zodiacal wheels and other astrological symbols in early Palestinian synagogues. The necessary breadth precludes exhaustive discussion in any area.

The Old Testament citations have offered a fertile field for study and investigation because of their interesting text forms. In particular, the surprising fact that over half of the Old Testament citations attributed to Jesus completely conform to the LXX text has led investigators to seek an explanation for this phenomenon. Some have tried to show that the original citations in Hebrew or Aramaic have been assimilated to the LXX in the course of tradition, while others have attributed this phenomenon to the Gospel writers who used the LXX text familiar to them.

For the diction of this Treatise has not been chosen at haphazard, but with great exactness and exceeding precision (Maimonides, Introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed, p. 15).

In 2.32 of The Guide of the Perplexed, at the very outset of his section on prophecy, Maimonides states: “The opinions of people concerning prophecy are like their opinions concerning the eternity of the world or its creation in time” (p. 360).

Despite the relative neglect shown the First Epistle of Peter, few NT books are more relevant for a study of the use of the OT in the NT. Like the Epistle to the Hebrews, I Peter quotes frequently from various sections of the OT, and like the Book of Revelation its thought is frequently framed with OT expressions. Especially because of the unique collection of stone testimonia and the use of other OT quotations, I Peter ii. 1–10 is one of the most intriguing passages in the NT. As is well known, I Peter provides a message of consolation and exhortation to Christians who were being or were about to be persecuted, and this message is conveyed by a series of imperatives based on indicatives. Particularly in i. 13 through ii. 10 the imperative is couched between a preceding assumption (expressed either by a conditional sentence as in i. 17 or a participle as in i. 22) and a following supporting indicative.