Сила в правде, "Power is in the truth." These words of the character Daniel in Balabanov's film "... more Сила в правде, "Power is in the truth." These words of the character Daniel in Balabanov's film "The Brother 2" (2000) have become a moral, spiritual, and cultural rallying cry for the Russian people. This paper explores relevant ideas about truth, from Fr. Pavel Florensky's Столп и утверждение истины to Hasidic philosophy, Hasidism being in essence the Russian expression of the Jewish faith.
The Zoroastrian divine guardians of the plants and the waters, Haurvatat and Ameretat, find thems... more The Zoroastrian divine guardians of the plants and the waters, Haurvatat and Ameretat, find themselves demonized in the Qur'an as two demonic beings, Hārūt and Mārūt, biding their time in a well in Babylon and teaching magic, apparently having taken on the roles of another winsome pair, the fallen angels Shemhazai and Azael. Their tuition is offered after the caveat that it is all a lie. Why then does no customer ever refuse their services? Haurvatāt and Amǝrǝtāt, "Wholeness" and "Immortality" are the rhyming pair amongst the seven Amǝša Spǝntas, the "Holy Immortals" of the Avesta who preside over the seven good creations of Ahura Mazdā: in the forms Xordād and Āmurdād they survive in modern Persian as names of months. In a Manichaean Middle Persian to Sogdian glossary, MP '(mwr)d'd hrwd'd is glossed as Sgd. hrwwṯ mrwwṯ, i.e., Amurdād Harwadād as Harwōt Marwōt. The names do not occur in a known Manichaean text so one does not know what the translator understood by them; and since the his not Sogdian, Henning suggested that the forms in the latter language "were probably borrowed from the same source from which Armenian Haurot Maurot are derived." 1 Armenian sources know the Amǝša Spǝntas as the "seven helper/adjutant (hamharz) gods (astuac-k')" but unlike a number of prominent yaza-tas they are not remembered as objects of cult and the names of only three are attested. Spǝntā Ārmaitī, Phl. Spandārmad, "Holy Devotion", the female guardian of earth and mother of mankind, in the NWMIr. form spandaramet-akan with a Pth. adjectival suffix translates the Biblical Gk. Dionysian revels detested by the Maccabees. The probably older form from SWIr., sandaramet-k' with pluralis tantum is the generic underworld; and by the Middle Ages the radically shortened sandark', cf. the analogous form Sondara in Cappadocian, are a class of chthonian demons 2. As for hawrot mawrot, it is the name of a flower. On Ascension Eve (Arm. Hambarjum), unmarried girls sprinkle its petals into a bowl of water in which they also place identifiable personal items and then stand vigil overnight under the stars. The heavens open then (so does the cave of the apocalyptic hero of the Sasun 1
Human ideas and events develop and unfold in the context of inherited culture and tradition. The ... more Human ideas and events develop and unfold in the context of inherited culture and tradition. The idea of revolution in the modern world, even in atheist ideology, partakes of necessity of religious beliefs and imagery, where the natural order is miraculously and apocalytically overturned and the poor and downtrodden are vindicated. The foundational text is Exodus; Psalm 37 with its overt reference to the poor inheriting the earth develops the theme; and Esther translates it into a romanticized narrative of political history. It is proposed that Philo encodes Esther into his In Flaccum. БиБЛиЯ и РеВоЛЮЦиЯ: неСКоЛЬКо ЗаМеЧаниЙ оБ иСХоде, ПСаЛМе 37, еСФиРе и ФиЛоне аЛеКСандРиЙСКоМ Резюме: идеи и события в истории человечества развиваются и разверты-ваются в контексте религиозной идеологии и иконологии: естественный и об-щественный порядок божественным чудом перевернуты, униженные и угнетен-ные сего мира приобретают богатство и власть. основной текст: книга исхода; иисус Христос применял и Псалом 37, где подчеркивается спасение бедноты. Книга есфирь переводит тему в сферу романтизированной политики; автор статьи полагает, что Филон Александрийский в своем сочинении In Flaccum пользуется ключевыми темами и структурами Книги есфирь, скрытых от рим-лян и обращенных к еврейскому читателю, знающему библейский текст.
This study deals with a short text on a small piece of paper, a conversational glossary, found in... more This study deals with a short text on a small piece of paper, a conversational glossary, found in the Cairo Geniza. It is likely to be nearly a millennium old, and consists of a list of twenty Judaeo-Arabic words and phrases with their equivalents in Armenian written in Hebrew script. It suggests that members of the two communities met in a convivial setting , possibly a Barekendan (Mardi Gras) party where an official was parodied as a goat in effigy-a custom encountered in other Armenian celebrations of the holiday at Lvov in the 16th century; and Tiflis, in the 19th. The other words in the list reflect economic and cultural realia of the 11th-13th centuries.
The prophecy of Isaiah presents the paradox of a people who cannot know what he is teaching them,... more The prophecy of Isaiah presents the paradox of a people who cannot know what he is teaching them, and will suffer accordingly, because they are to be prevented from knowing. The gospel of Mark explores this paradox. The paradox becomes greater and stranger when one considers other Biblical texts that af@irm that Israel does know, and other nations do not. Knowing is a particularly powerful and direct, personal process that involves all @ive senses. The books of Job and Jonah present ironic comedies about unknowing, which can be innocently disingenuous or maliciously intentional. The Hebrew prophets severally intimate that we cannot know what God knows because He knows all His creation, particularly the animals, in a way we cannot. Secrecy involves knowing something oneself and keeping others from knowing it. There is a "Secret Gospel of Mark" about such secrecy, and it is suggested that its discoverer and his critics both failed to know the text because their prejudices became a barrier to understanding. The author proposes the stories of Elijah and Elisha as a basis for the "Secret Gospel", and presents a Hasidic parallel to it. Prejudice is a harmful kind of unknowing, but many cling to it: the only way out, it is suggested, is faith in the realm of God-perhaps ironically, in the ultimate Unknown.
Светлой памяти Нины Георгиевны Гарсоян посвящается This is an essay in two parts. The first part ... more Светлой памяти Нины Георгиевны Гарсоян посвящается This is an essay in two parts. The first part considers the theophany in the Biblical book of Job, which involves both cosmology and language and adumbrates the revelation of language in several stages. It is an architectonic cosmology which is shared, for instance with Isaiah, but which is appreciably different from that of Genesis. But the factor of language is essential to the latter, too, for God creates through His word. The blessings that precede the Jewish credo, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is One only!" proceed through the stages of language, from wordless cosmic patterns to angelic song to the human speech of man's immediate encounter with the Divine. These blessings add the important idea that God renews Creation at every instant. Jewish mystical, exegetical, homiletic, and even magical texts across the wide span of the centuries explore aspects of these central ideas. Some texts try to harmonize the two divergent cosmologies as well; while others strike out on wildly original linguistic pathways.
In a well-known Hasidic parable attributed to the Ba'al Shem Ṭov a great King builds a closely gu... more In a well-known Hasidic parable attributed to the Ba'al Shem Ṭov a great King builds a closely guarded partition (Hebrew meḥiṣa) and places treasures here and there; He sits within behind a veil. Seekers are deterred by the high wall and its guardians or distracted by the chests of riches, and only the King's son perseveres and finds Him, realizing also that the barrier is but an illusion (Hebrew aḥizat 'einayim). The parable has an affinity to that of the Prodigal Son, best known in the Gospel according to Luke in the New Testament, and in one version the agonized son cries out to his royal father with Psalm 22:2-the same as the cry of Jesus on the Cross. Scholars have long discerned something from Indian philosophy in the concept of illusion in the story; but the present essay proposes a precise origin in the Buddhist story of the Phantom City in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sutra, the Lotus Sutra of the Good Law, which became the tale of the City of Brass in the Islamic collection of stories The Thousand and One Nights and entered Christian, then Jewish, literature from there.
Сила в правде, "Power is in the truth." These words of the character Daniel in Balabanov's film "... more Сила в правде, "Power is in the truth." These words of the character Daniel in Balabanov's film "The Brother 2" (2000) have become a moral, spiritual, and cultural rallying cry for the Russian people. This paper explores relevant ideas about truth, from Fr. Pavel Florensky's Столп и утверждение истины to Hasidic philosophy, Hasidism being in essence the Russian expression of the Jewish faith.
The Zoroastrian divine guardians of the plants and the waters, Haurvatat and Ameretat, find thems... more The Zoroastrian divine guardians of the plants and the waters, Haurvatat and Ameretat, find themselves demonized in the Qur'an as two demonic beings, Hārūt and Mārūt, biding their time in a well in Babylon and teaching magic, apparently having taken on the roles of another winsome pair, the fallen angels Shemhazai and Azael. Their tuition is offered after the caveat that it is all a lie. Why then does no customer ever refuse their services? Haurvatāt and Amǝrǝtāt, "Wholeness" and "Immortality" are the rhyming pair amongst the seven Amǝša Spǝntas, the "Holy Immortals" of the Avesta who preside over the seven good creations of Ahura Mazdā: in the forms Xordād and Āmurdād they survive in modern Persian as names of months. In a Manichaean Middle Persian to Sogdian glossary, MP '(mwr)d'd hrwd'd is glossed as Sgd. hrwwṯ mrwwṯ, i.e., Amurdād Harwadād as Harwōt Marwōt. The names do not occur in a known Manichaean text so one does not know what the translator understood by them; and since the his not Sogdian, Henning suggested that the forms in the latter language "were probably borrowed from the same source from which Armenian Haurot Maurot are derived." 1 Armenian sources know the Amǝša Spǝntas as the "seven helper/adjutant (hamharz) gods (astuac-k')" but unlike a number of prominent yaza-tas they are not remembered as objects of cult and the names of only three are attested. Spǝntā Ārmaitī, Phl. Spandārmad, "Holy Devotion", the female guardian of earth and mother of mankind, in the NWMIr. form spandaramet-akan with a Pth. adjectival suffix translates the Biblical Gk. Dionysian revels detested by the Maccabees. The probably older form from SWIr., sandaramet-k' with pluralis tantum is the generic underworld; and by the Middle Ages the radically shortened sandark', cf. the analogous form Sondara in Cappadocian, are a class of chthonian demons 2. As for hawrot mawrot, it is the name of a flower. On Ascension Eve (Arm. Hambarjum), unmarried girls sprinkle its petals into a bowl of water in which they also place identifiable personal items and then stand vigil overnight under the stars. The heavens open then (so does the cave of the apocalyptic hero of the Sasun 1
Human ideas and events develop and unfold in the context of inherited culture and tradition. The ... more Human ideas and events develop and unfold in the context of inherited culture and tradition. The idea of revolution in the modern world, even in atheist ideology, partakes of necessity of religious beliefs and imagery, where the natural order is miraculously and apocalytically overturned and the poor and downtrodden are vindicated. The foundational text is Exodus; Psalm 37 with its overt reference to the poor inheriting the earth develops the theme; and Esther translates it into a romanticized narrative of political history. It is proposed that Philo encodes Esther into his In Flaccum. БиБЛиЯ и РеВоЛЮЦиЯ: неСКоЛЬКо ЗаМеЧаниЙ оБ иСХоде, ПСаЛМе 37, еСФиРе и ФиЛоне аЛеКСандРиЙСКоМ Резюме: идеи и события в истории человечества развиваются и разверты-ваются в контексте религиозной идеологии и иконологии: естественный и об-щественный порядок божественным чудом перевернуты, униженные и угнетен-ные сего мира приобретают богатство и власть. основной текст: книга исхода; иисус Христос применял и Псалом 37, где подчеркивается спасение бедноты. Книга есфирь переводит тему в сферу романтизированной политики; автор статьи полагает, что Филон Александрийский в своем сочинении In Flaccum пользуется ключевыми темами и структурами Книги есфирь, скрытых от рим-лян и обращенных к еврейскому читателю, знающему библейский текст.
This study deals with a short text on a small piece of paper, a conversational glossary, found in... more This study deals with a short text on a small piece of paper, a conversational glossary, found in the Cairo Geniza. It is likely to be nearly a millennium old, and consists of a list of twenty Judaeo-Arabic words and phrases with their equivalents in Armenian written in Hebrew script. It suggests that members of the two communities met in a convivial setting , possibly a Barekendan (Mardi Gras) party where an official was parodied as a goat in effigy-a custom encountered in other Armenian celebrations of the holiday at Lvov in the 16th century; and Tiflis, in the 19th. The other words in the list reflect economic and cultural realia of the 11th-13th centuries.
The prophecy of Isaiah presents the paradox of a people who cannot know what he is teaching them,... more The prophecy of Isaiah presents the paradox of a people who cannot know what he is teaching them, and will suffer accordingly, because they are to be prevented from knowing. The gospel of Mark explores this paradox. The paradox becomes greater and stranger when one considers other Biblical texts that af@irm that Israel does know, and other nations do not. Knowing is a particularly powerful and direct, personal process that involves all @ive senses. The books of Job and Jonah present ironic comedies about unknowing, which can be innocently disingenuous or maliciously intentional. The Hebrew prophets severally intimate that we cannot know what God knows because He knows all His creation, particularly the animals, in a way we cannot. Secrecy involves knowing something oneself and keeping others from knowing it. There is a "Secret Gospel of Mark" about such secrecy, and it is suggested that its discoverer and his critics both failed to know the text because their prejudices became a barrier to understanding. The author proposes the stories of Elijah and Elisha as a basis for the "Secret Gospel", and presents a Hasidic parallel to it. Prejudice is a harmful kind of unknowing, but many cling to it: the only way out, it is suggested, is faith in the realm of God-perhaps ironically, in the ultimate Unknown.
Светлой памяти Нины Георгиевны Гарсоян посвящается This is an essay in two parts. The first part ... more Светлой памяти Нины Георгиевны Гарсоян посвящается This is an essay in two parts. The first part considers the theophany in the Biblical book of Job, which involves both cosmology and language and adumbrates the revelation of language in several stages. It is an architectonic cosmology which is shared, for instance with Isaiah, but which is appreciably different from that of Genesis. But the factor of language is essential to the latter, too, for God creates through His word. The blessings that precede the Jewish credo, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is One only!" proceed through the stages of language, from wordless cosmic patterns to angelic song to the human speech of man's immediate encounter with the Divine. These blessings add the important idea that God renews Creation at every instant. Jewish mystical, exegetical, homiletic, and even magical texts across the wide span of the centuries explore aspects of these central ideas. Some texts try to harmonize the two divergent cosmologies as well; while others strike out on wildly original linguistic pathways.
In a well-known Hasidic parable attributed to the Ba'al Shem Ṭov a great King builds a closely gu... more In a well-known Hasidic parable attributed to the Ba'al Shem Ṭov a great King builds a closely guarded partition (Hebrew meḥiṣa) and places treasures here and there; He sits within behind a veil. Seekers are deterred by the high wall and its guardians or distracted by the chests of riches, and only the King's son perseveres and finds Him, realizing also that the barrier is but an illusion (Hebrew aḥizat 'einayim). The parable has an affinity to that of the Prodigal Son, best known in the Gospel according to Luke in the New Testament, and in one version the agonized son cries out to his royal father with Psalm 22:2-the same as the cry of Jesus on the Cross. Scholars have long discerned something from Indian philosophy in the concept of illusion in the story; but the present essay proposes a precise origin in the Buddhist story of the Phantom City in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sutra, the Lotus Sutra of the Good Law, which became the tale of the City of Brass in the Islamic collection of stories The Thousand and One Nights and entered Christian, then Jewish, literature from there.
The essay considers the problem of senility and an ethical approach to it adumbrated in b. Berakh... more The essay considers the problem of senility and an ethical approach to it adumbrated in b. Berakhot, with a discussion of literary works that ponder where the contents of a disintegrating mind go.
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