Theology

All political action is influenced by political dreams and nightmares, by norms, beliefs and imaginations - in short, by something that transcends a given order. In continuation and critique of relevant debates, this volume's authors ask how references to transcendence contribute to the constitution, stabilization and transformation of political order.

Bohdan Kuryliak examines the book of Revelation through four approaches: preterism, idealism, historicism, and futurism. Drawing on careful exegesis and ancient Christian reception history, he argues that historicism's ability to combine past, present, and future offers an integrative framework for understanding the Apocalypse's prophetic imagery.

Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin examines a group of Coptic prayer texts known in modern scholarship as »magical liturgies.« Drawing on the sociological concept of »multiple identities,« she explores how these prayers can, from an etic perspective, be described as »apocryphal,« »magical,« and »liturgical.«

The battle is about to begin. The odds are against our heroes. But a rousing exhortation can secure victory. In war, leaders call their soldiers to violence. Joseph Scales collects and analyses every known pre-battle exhortation in Second Temple Jewish sources and earlier.