Traditionally, Jesus and the contents of the Bible have always been thought of as exclusively concerned with spiritual and religious matters. The topic of Jesus and the social and political dimensions of the Gospel is therefore still a controversial idea for many Christians. Responses to the notion of Jesus as a social and political figure range from ignorance to avoidance and even resistance. Nevertheless scholars continue, in various ways, to explore and integrate the relationship between the religious, social and political dimensions of Jesus' words and actions. The aim of this study is to critically evaluate the notion of Jesus as 'radical social prophet‘ as set out in Horsley‘s book Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (1987). The purpose is to establish the historical validity of this notion and to determine its significance and implications for contemporary Christian reflection, teaching and discipleship. The study describes the development and impact of the social sciences on the interpretation of the New Testament. It also explains Horsley‘s presuppositions and method. An analysis of Horsley's construction of the historical, social and political context of Jesus‘ first century world is made. Horsley‘s view of the Kingdom of God is also discussed. The grammatico–historical examination of Horsley‘s reading of selected key biblical and extra–biblical texts forms a crucial part of the investigation. An appraisal of Horsley‘s notion of Jesus as 'radical social prophet‘ is made and its implications noted. The study finds adequate grounds for seeing Jesus fulfilling the role of a 'radical social prophet‘ in the same manner as the Old Testament prophets. The conclusion reached is that Horsley‘s (1987) notion of Jesus as 'radical social prophet‘, while inadequate to account for the theological nature and mission of Jesus, is nevertheless useful to highlight the often overlooked social and political dimensions of Jesus and the Gospels. / Thesis (M.A. (New Testament))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

For the last thirty years Swedish institutions, both on governmental and foundational level, have seeked to illuminate the horrors of the Holocaust and antisemitism. A part in this was collection of testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust as to save first-hand accounts from an aging population of survivors. In the middle ground between making said collections accessible and protecting the materials from potential racist and antisemitic attacks, sometimes collections were deemed too vulnerable to be made fully available which has put substantial accounts from the Holocaust behind protective barriers, figuratively speaking. A recent effort of once again intending to bring the Holocaust to the table, the newly established Swedish Holocaust Museum must deal with similar considerations of accessibility versus vulnerability. An aspect that was not as prevalent thirty years ago was digitization of cultural heritage or society in general. This practice of dealing with cultural heritage comes with its own set of considerations – Something that has been discussed in this study.  With a starting point in the Swedish Holocaust Museum, digitization of collections dealing with either Jewish cultural heritage or Holocaust memory has been the focus in this study. Other than the Swedish Holocaust Museum, the Nordic Museum, Uppsala University Library and the Jewish Library has been surveyed through interviews in trying to extract each institutions’ policies and practices regarding digitization of the abovementioned kind. To focus the study Gidlund & Sundbergs (2021) digitization as a societal arrangement was used together with Gamstorps (2020) description of Jewish history and Holocaust history as two sides of the same coin.  It was found that each institutions have limitations as to what they can digitize, be it lack of funds or regulations. In some cases, the limitations halted the digitization of the materials and other institutions tried to find solutions. The Swedish Holocaust Museum, the author argues, is placed in a unique spot in challenging current status quo in making accessible cultural heritage deemed vulnerable.

This dissertation investigates the ways scientific and biotechnological advancement impact and change Jewish law and ethics. It analyzes the contemporary Jewish bioethical debate concerning the identification of maternity and paternity in four cases of assisted reproductive technologies (ART): in vitro fertilization, gestational surrogacy, cloning, and mitochondrial replacement therapy. Unprecedented modes of procreation engender new definitions of parenthood, challenging a longstanding Jewish framework of theology, law, and ethics. Part I develops a conceptual scaffolding for the discrete analyses of Part II, and considers the philosophical bases of parenthood, the gendered nature of Jewish legal bioethics, the relationship of law and ethics, and ways of relating religion and science. For each case of ART, Part II examines the biological science and technology in historical context, locates Jewish bioethical concerns within the larger bioethical discussion, and critically reviews the epistemological and axiological dimensions of the legally oriented analyses of a select group of leading Jewish bioethicists, chosen for their copious writings on ART and contextualizing oeuvres: Rabbi J. David Bleich, Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, and the collaborative writings of Dr. John D. Loike and Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler. Insights from Jewish feminist bioethical criticism and other notable Jewish bioethical works enhance the analyses. Through a focused study of the redefinition of parenthood in Jewish law and bioethics, I demonstrate four ways in which advances in science impact Jewish law and ethics. One, scientific awareness leads to greater sophistication and nuance of analysis. Two, Jewish bioethicists grapple with religion and science relations, and speak directly to these overarching considerations. Three, the epistemological and axiological influence of religion and science relations correlate with greater openness to new technologies, theoretical conceptualizations, and their practical applications. Four, advances in science change Jewish legal and bioethical analyses and outcomes through (at least) four possible methodological mechanisms – namely, theoretic holism, innovative interpretation, indeterminate gaps, and realist realignment. Jewish bioethics are thus shown to illumine the intricate interrelationship between religion and science and its impact on Jewish law and ethics.

The Babatha and Salome Komaise archives contain the legal documents of two Jewish women and their families, dating mostly from c. 94 C.E. to 132 C.E. The community that they attest lived in a small village which was first part of the Nabataean Kingdom but was later incorporated into the province of Roman Arabia in 106 C.E. The documents consequently provide invaluable information about a community’s experience before and after the creation of the province. The laws and traditions in evidence in the two archives are remarkable for their diversity, exhibiting elements of Jewish, Nabataean, Roman and Hellenistic law. This thesis examines this complex legal situation and considers the ways in which people coped with the array of legal options available to them. A ‘ground-up’ approach is adopted, focusing on the people involved in the documents’ creation and use in order to detail how different parties affected the working of law in the area. An overview of the individual documents is provided in The Survey of the Documents. The rest of the thesis is then structured according to the various groups that influenced their formulation and use: The Scribes, Legal Advisors, The Parties, The Alternatives to the Assizes and The Roman Officials. These various contributions are then brought together in the Conclusion to model how law operated in this particular community. The primary contributions of this study are therefore to Roman provincial and legal history, as well as the history of the Jewish people in the inter-revolt period.

Comment l’histoire des Juifs en France a-t-elle été pensée, écrite, conceptualisée tout au long du XIXe siècle ? En repartant des conditions concrètes dans lesquelles archivistes et historiens se sont saisis des documents relatifs à cette histoire, nous tentons de montrer que le processus de constitution de l’histoire des Juifs en France en domaine de savoir propre, adossé à des documents authentiques, ne peut être séparé du contexte général de mutation des conditions du travail scientifique en France à partir des années 1830, dans le cadre de ce qui a été nommé l’historiographie documentaire. Les archivistes, bibliothécaires et plus largement les érudits qui ont inventorié, classé et décrit ces matériaux leur ont donné une visibilité inédite au sein des dépôts, tout en les laissant globalement à l’écart des chantiers de publication des sources de l’histoire de France. L’historiographie des Juifs en France, s’affirmant scientifiquement à partir des années 1880, a tenté, avec difficulté, de dépasser les contradictions inhérentes à l’écriture d’une histoire des Juifs en France pensée comme une ligne continue dans le temps et dans l’espace. Cette étude souligne également, en creux, la faible place accordée aux archives internes aux communautés juives françaises dans la construction de cette histoire, tournée vers l’extérieur davantage que vers l’intérieur. / How was French Jewish history conceived, written, conceptualized throughout the XIX century? Looking at the concrete conditions under which archivists and historians accessed documents pertaining to this history, this dissertation attempts to show that the process of constructing French Jewish history as a separate domain with its own knowledge base, reinforced with authentic documents, cannot be separated from the larger context of the changing conditions of scientific work in France from the 1830s onward, in the framework of what has been called documentary historiography. The archivists, librarians and scholars, more generally, who inventoried, cataloguedand described these materials gave them a new visibility within Archives, all while excluding them from the publications of the sources of French history. French Jewish historiography, which consolidated from the 1880s onward, tried, with difficulty, to overcome the inherent contradictions to the writing of a linear history of Jews in France, conceived of as a continuum in time and space. This survey also shows, indirectly, the peripheral role that archives belonging to French Jewish communities played in the construction of this history, which was more outward – than inward – looking.

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

Through the creation of a graphic novel based on a Romanian Holocaust survivor’s testimony, this study attempts to clarify the role of artistic creation in meaning-making during Holocaust and genocide education. In facilitating empathy and moral education, the creative process encourages a deeper exploration of these troubling topics than is possible within the confines of a traditional academic approach. In order to understand this process, I worked with the testimony of Zoly Zamir, who escaped Bucharest following the Iron Guard Rebellion of 1941. The creation of the graphic novel took me from Austin to Houston and Romania, where I sought to trace the echoes of history in architecture and environment. Translating Zamir’s story into word and image produced an empathetic bond to the narrative and the region, facilitating a deeper understanding of the hows and whys of the Holocaust. That engagement spurred a desire to continue to ask questions, to look beyond a regimented understanding and view the broader implications of the history. / text

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

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