Synagogues without rabbis or Christians?: Ancient institutions beyond normative discourses
This article focuses on a problem that tends to afflict, especially but not exclusively, historical narratives involving written sources celebrated as normative texts in contemporary religious communities. The religious authority ascribed to such texts is often entangled in claims about historical p...
| Subtitles: | Special Issue in Honour of the Founding Editor of the "Journal of Beliefs and Values", Rev'd Dr W. S. Campbell |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal of beliefs and values
Year: 2017, Volume: 38, Issue: 2, Pages: 159-172 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Synagogue
/ Church
/ Literature
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| RelBib Classification: | BH Judaism CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations |
| Further subjects: | B
Judaism and Christianity
B Synagogues B Identity B historical reconstruction B Normativity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article focuses on a problem that tends to afflict, especially but not exclusively, historical narratives involving written sources celebrated as normative texts in contemporary religious communities. The religious authority ascribed to such texts is often entangled in claims about historical phenomena, resulting in ideological support of specific narratives nourished within religious communities as not only religiously significant but also historically true. Such assumptions in turn sustain aspects of religious identities and thus fulfil the social function of maintaining the status quo within and between communities. Because of their contemporary usefulness, these types of normative narratives are liable to bleed into scholarly reconstructions too, complicating the academic search for historical scenarios untouched by the needs of societies unknown to the ancients. This study aims to illustrate the problems involved through an exercise in which sources that speak to a specific historical question - the nature of ancient synagogues - but which later attained normative status within religious communities, are removed from the historical archive. The reconstruction offered, based on sources with no direct relationship to the continuing histories of Judaism and Christianity, yields a very different picture than the one commonly embraced today. The exercise also indicates the value of re-reading the sources previously removed from a new perspective, which may enrich the religious communities in question as they seek to understand their own history and identity, as well as one another. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9362 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of beliefs and values
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/13617672.2017.1315708 |