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The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P), one of the longest texts of the so-called "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha," presents the fictitious farewell speeches that the twelve sons of Jacob held on their respective deathbeds. Tom de Bruin examines these twelve monologues as literary products in order to understand the function of the text for the setting in which it was composed. He approaches T12P from three directions: an analysis of the paraenetic parts, a discussion of the anthropology, and a comparative examination of other contemporaneous works documenting a world-view similar to T12P.These three approaches merge into a detailed discussion about the reasoning behind the admonition ...
The art of the Netherlands (Dutch and Flemish) is unique in Early Modern Europe in its concern for military cruelty against civilians, principally the peasantry. Decimated by time and changes in taste, this popular iconography proves varied and extensive, stretching from Bruegel to and past Rubens. 'Massacres of the Innocents' continue to be a favourite subject through the Eighty Years War, in contrast to ruling-class glorifications of war. Dutch patriotic siege prints lay claim to 'scientific' precision in landscapes free of military terror, while the idea of military conquest is presented as generous rather than cruel in the ever-popular figure of Scipio Africanus. Most of the pictorial material is unfamiliar, some of it even to specialists and never before published; new light is shed on the more familiar phenomena of the civic guard groups and Ter Borch courtier-officers, 'good soldiers' overcoming a bad image.
Revised version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universit'at Bern, 2001.
The period between the late Renaissance and the early Enlightenment has long been regarded as the zenith of the "republic of letters", a pan-European community of like-minded scholars and intellectuals who fostered critical approaches to the study of the Bible and other ancient texts, while renouncing the brutal religio-political disputes that were tearing their continent apart at the same time. Criticism and Confession offers an unprecedentedly comprehensive challenge to this account. Throughout this period, all forms of biblical scholarship were intended to contribute to theological debates, rather than defusing or transcending them, and meaningful collaboration between scholars of differe...
Recent research has made a strong case for the view that Early Christian communities, sociologically considered, functioned as voluntary religious associations. This is similar to the practice of many other cultic associations in the Greco-Roman world of the first century CE. Building upon this new approach, along with a critical interpretation of all available sources, this book discusses the social and religio-historical background of the weekly gatherings of Christians and presents a fresh reconstruction of how the weekly gathering originated and developed in both form and content. The topics studied here include the origins of the observance of Sunday as the weekly Christian feast-day, the shape and meaning of the weekly gatherings of the Christian communities, and the rise of customs such as preaching, praying, singing, and the reading of texts in these meetings.
This case study of the tea trade of the Dutch East India Company with China deals with the most profitable phase of the Dutch Company's China trade, focusing on the question why and how the tea trade was taken out of the hands of the High Government in Batavia and put under the supervision of the newly established China Committee in 1757. Various factors which contributed to the phenomenal rise of this trade and its sudden decline are dealt with in detail. Filling in lacunae left open by previous research and this monograph contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the VOC trade with Asia.