Mary Magdalene

Discrediting Jesus had a child

Twenty years ago there was a lot to do about discussions brought forward by the speculation that Jesus would have fallen in love with Mary Magdalene and would have had children by her. In the previous posting you could read that after his third novel, Deception Point (2001), Dan Brown returned to Langdon with The […]

20 years ago: the Da Vinci Code

Twenty years ago a novel saw light in a world where already more people were coming up against the Catholic Church, but this time also telling a lot of historical lies.

The face or the appearance of Jesus

In several places around the world, one can find portraits, paintings and sculptures depicting Jesus as a white man. But that is not at all consistent with the real appearance of the man who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. By the way, there is scientific evidence to back that up.

A high door threshold uncovered in Ancient Iraqi City of Nimrud

The vast majority of the excavated areas of the ancient city of Nimrud were destroyed by ISIS through multiple attacks on the area, but now clean-up work can begin on restoration and further scientific research.

Leipzig Missionswerk and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia #4 New possibilities opening when Soviet state proclaimed freedom of religion and atheism

Decimated by war, revolution, and famine, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia had to face the Bolsheviks and their decrees and how the relative freedom that the Lutheran Church had experienced became curtailed by the dictates of the Soviet state.

Leipzig Missionswerk and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia #3 Soviet Lutheran Church in 1926

The time of nationalisation of the property in the Soviet Union and the perseverance of the Church and its parishioners

Leipzig Missionswerk and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia #2 Relationship between the ARA and the Soviet government

About the National Lutheran Council (NLC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics coming into existence but having problems with housing and famine

Leipzig Missionswerk and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia #1 Teutonic Livonia, Russian civil war and poverty

Looking at what became the course of Lutheranism and the stand to religion in the Soviet Union

Hebrew Language #20 Hebrew Literature #18 The re-creation of Hebrew as a literary language

As you could notice in the previous postings, can we say that literature has been the home of Jewish artistic activity throughout the ages. We must also remember that Hebrew literature is not synonymous with Jewish literature. For those who study the Bible, the Hebrew language is an important semitic language of the Northern Central […]

Hebrew Language #20 Hebrew Literature #17 Later writers – From the 18th Century into 19th century and Modernizing tendencies

Modernizing tendencies The characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries is the endeavour, connected with the name of Moses Mendelssohn, to bring Judaism more into relation with external learning, and in using the Hebrew language to purify and develop it in accordance with the biblical standard. The result, while linguistically more uniform and pleasing, often […]

Hebrew Language #19 Hebrew Literature #16 Later writers – From the Renaissance to 18th Century, going into a new religious movement within Judaism

The introduction of printing (first dated Hebrew printed book, Rashi, Reggio, 1475) gave occasion for a number of scholarly compositors and proof-readers, some of whom were also authors, such as Jacob ben Ḥayyīm of Tunis (d. about 1530), proof-reader to Bomberg, chiefly known for his masoretic work in connexion with the Rabbinic Bible and his […]

Hebrew Language #18 Hebrew Literature #15 Limit of Hebrew literature its development

Going into the 13th and14th centuries, Hebrew literature may be said to have reached the limit of its development.

Hebrew Language #17 Hebrew Literature #14 Families, works from France, Germany and the Levant

Looking a.o. at the families Ibn Tibbōn, Kalonymos and Hillel and ibn Ezra of the Levant.

Hebrew Language #16 Hebrew Literature #13 Maimonides, Maimonists and anti-Maimonists

Today we come to one of the most important figures of Jewish literature of the medieval period, the Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician Maimonides often better known as Rambam.

Hebrew Language #15 Hebrew Literature #12 High level of literature in Spain in the 12th and 13th century

Looking at 12th and 13th centuries literature and Jewish travellers.

Hebrew Language #14 Hebrew Literature #11 French school of the 11th century

The French school of the 11th century was hardly less important. Gershom ben Judah, the “Light of the Exile” (d. in 1040 at Mainz), a famous Talmudist and commentator, his pupil Jacob ben Yaqar, and Moses of Narbonne, called ha-Darshan, the “Exegete,” were the forerunners of the greatest of all Jewish commentators, Solomon ben Isaac […]

Hebrew Language #13 Hebrew Literature #10 Exegesis

The aim of the grammatical studies of the Spanish school was ultimately exegesis. This had already been cultivated in the East. In the 9th century Ḥīvī of Balkh wrote a rationalistic treatise [A fragment of such a work, probably emanating from the school of Ḥīvī was found by Schechter and published in J.Q.R., xiii. 345 […]

Hebrew Language #12 Hebrew Literature #9 Medieval scholarship

Medieval scholarship To return to the period of the Geōnīm. While the schools of Babylonia were flourishing as the religious head of Judaism, the West, and especially Spain under Moorish rule, was becoming the home of Jewish scholarship. On the breaking up of the schools many of the fugitives fled to the West and helped […]

Hebrew Language #11 Hebrew Literature #8 The Qaraites or Karaites

A look at Karaite Judaism (“Followers of the Bible”) which had its base in the Crimea in the Middle Ages, and looking at the influence of its teachers and writings on Christianity and Islam.

Hebrew Language #10 Hebrew Literature #7 The Geōnīm

The Geōnīm The order of the Amoraim, which ended with the close of the Talmud (C.E. 500), was succeeded by that of the Sabōrāīm, who merely continued and explained the work of their predecessors, and these again were followed by the Geōnīm, the heads of the schools of Sura and Pumbeditha in Babylonia. The office […]