Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:27:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tonyglei Suave.pdf: 1388240 bytes, checksum: 2cca166039c8bc922a0aaa6d67177d3c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-30 / The objective of this dissertation is to present an exegetic study of a biblical poem: Psalm 42 43. This undertaking is justified in the measure that the search for the original meaning of a text which is inspired by God and is the bearer of a universal message of salvation can favor reflection on one of the problems that most disturbs the human conscience: human suffering and faith in a God who is omnipotent and filled with benevolence. Due to the particular position of this poem [at the start of the section of the Psalter which proportionally speaks most of human suffering] and certain stylistic traces [the striking comparison at the beginning of the poem; the name of God mentioned 22 times; the tetragram in the middle of it to call attention to a particular attitude of the person praying] this research has as a hypothesis that these Psalms throw some light on the subject of God s presence in the lives of people who suffer. In the style of commentary, the research continues following the steps of synchronic analysis with some reference to diachronic analysis when necessary. It analyzing the literary beauty and certain cultural, historical and theological aspects of one of the sacred texts which was chosen as a model of prayer for Israel because it deals with one of the vital problems of the human being in a realistic and beautiful manner. As a result of this work five essential elements were discovered which appear to contribute towards reflection on the presence of God next to the suffering human person: 1) the importance of trust in God; 2) how the presence of God appears to be experienced as absence; 3) worship as a privileged manner of communication and communion with God; 4) the misunderstanding of God as one of the causes of the difficulty to deal with suffering; 5) confining the presence of God to only the Temple in Jerusalem as a theological limitation of this poem / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo apresentar um estudo exegético de um poema bíblico: Sl 42 43. Tal empreendimento se justifica na medida em que a busca pelo sentido original de um texto, que foi inspirado por Deus e é portador de uma mensagem universal de salvação, possa favorecer a reflexão sobre um dos problemas que mais perturba a consciência humana: o sofrimento humano e a crença em um Deus cheio de bondade e onipotente. Dada a singular posição deste poema encabeça a parte do Saltério que, proporcionalmente, mais fala de sofrimento humano e certos indícios estilísticos a impactante comparação no início do poema, o nome de Deus citado 22 vezes, o tetragrama no centro do poema para chamar a atenção a uma determinada atitude do orante esta pesquisa tem como hipótese que estes Salmos lançam alguma luz sobre a questão da presença de Deus junto ao ser humano sofredor. No estilo de comentário, a pesquisa avança seguindo os passos de uma análise sincrônica com acenos à diacronia, quando necessário, analisando a beleza literária e certos aspectos culturais, históricos e teológicos de um dos textos sagrados que foi escolhido como modelo de oração para Israel por ele tratar de um dos problemas vitais do ser humano de maneira realista e bela. Como resultado deste trabalho foram encontrados cinco elementos essenciais que parecem contribuir na reflexão sobre a presença de Deus junto ao ser humano que sofre, a saber: 1) a importância da confiança em Deus; 2) o modo da presença de Deus parece ser sua ausência sentida; 3) o culto como uma maneira privilegiada de comunicação e comunhão com Deus; 4) a incompreensão de Deus como uma das causas da dificuldade de se lidar com o sofrimento; 5) o confinamento da presença de Deus apenas ao Templo de Jerusalém como uma limitação teológica deste poema

Author's name: Magdalena Hošková School: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts Department: Institute of Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies Title: Spells as a Part of Finnish Folklore Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Dlask, Ph.D. Number of pages: 77 Key words: spell, Finnish spells, Finnish folklore, Kalevala, Finnish mythology, tietäjä, shaman, prayer, healing magic, homoeopathic magic, John Abercromby, James Frazer, neoshamanism, neopaganism This thesis deals with spells as a part of Finnish folklore. It depicts the circumstances of the spells' genesis, as well as their structural features and different purposes of their use. It is considered that most spells were created during the era of late paganism and early Christianity. This is true not only of Finland but also of Europe in general. The thesis also analyses the role of the shaman as the spiritual leader of Finnish people living in the era before the spells' creation and thereafter analyses the role of the shaman's successor: the tietäjä, the charmer who created spells and used them to help people in his community. So the tietäjä used his spells for the same purpose as his predecessor, the shaman, used trance states, which he entered via drumming, chanting and dancing. In the trance state, he talked to animal spirits and ancestors' spirits and...

Stockholm County is a post-industrial Swedish region characterized by high levels of mobility and technologization as well as ethnic and religious diversity. Among its religious minorities exist various strands of charismatic Christianity, some of which originate from the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century and some of which belong to more recent movements. The aim of this ethnographic study is to examine how affiliates of the multicultural charismatic Christian congregation New Life Church practice religiosity within the context of their personal daily lives, within the framework of the general congregation and in terms of their involvements with other religious organizations in the area of Stockholm. Beginning with the assumption that the practice of contemporary religiosity and the development of a religious identity are part of an ongoing process of habituation, the study describes how practitioners cultivate a form of charismatic piety characterized by certain embodied orientations, patterns of ritualization and narrative genres. To shed further light on this process, it draws upon a variety of theories concerning ritualization, embodiment, performance, narratives and materiality. Apart from this, the study also constitutes an attempt to explore and measure the impact on the practitioners’ religiosity of late modern developments such as urbanization, detraditionalization and global mobility as well as the growing absorption in consumerism, emotional intimacy and the unfolding of the “authentic” inner self. While pursuing these ends, the study also calls into question previous assumptions about charismatic Christianity in Sweden, most particularly the assumption that today’s practitioners remain inclined to be entirely faithful to one given institution and its system of beliefs and practices. Indeed this view is directly challenged herein by the finding that contemporary charismatics are far more inclined to eclectically appropriate elements and models of thoughts from various contexts of origin as well as to affiliate with and/or visit multiple Christian institutions.

Philos.-Theol. Hochsch., Diss.--Benediktbeuern, 2005.

For sixty-five years hardly anyone in the English-speaking world was aware of the anthropological theories of Marcel Jousse, a twentieth century Jesuit scholar. In 1990, Jousse's seminal work, Le style oral rythmique et mnemotechnique chez les verbo-moteurs. (The rhythmic and mnemotechnique oral style of the verbo-motors), was translated into English and given the name The Oral Style. His anthropologie du geste, called in this study the anthropology of geste, presented his discovery of the universal anthropological laws governing human expression: mimism, bilateralism and formulism. Jousse had sought to understand the anthropological roots of oral style, in particular the phenomenal memory of oral style peoples. In this dissertation, Jousse's theories are summarised and his anthropological laws are used to determine whether three eucharistic prayers of the Roman rite contain elements of oral style expression. The Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer 1 and Eucharistic Prayer for Children 1 are set out in binary and ternary balancings. An attempt is made to show that written style expression, an inheritance from the Greeks, houses in its extraordinary complexity the very oral style elements it appears to have superseded. The assertion made is that written style, with its predilection for subordination, actually conserves, preserves and perpetuates oral style balancings, not only in the simple sentence (what Jousse calls the propositional geste), but also in clauses, phrases, words, and sound devices. Support is given to T. J. Talley's view that the Jewish nodeh lekah (thanksgiving) and not the berakah (blessing) is the prayer source that influenced the structure of the early Christians' eucharist (thanksgiving in Greek). The expressions of thanksgiving that are a distinguishing feature of anaphoras from the 1st century AD onwards, continue to shape the eucharistic prayers today. This is offered as one reason why, in a reconstruction of Eucharistic Prayer for Children 1 presented at the end of Chapter 5, it is possible to balance one recitative with another, and the recitation of one prayer component with another. The dissertation concludes by recommending that oral studies of the Christian liturgies of East and West be pursued as they have much to contribute to the orality-literacy debate not only in the matter of liturgical language but also in gaining an appreciation of other gestes of worship. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1994.

The orans, although a gesture with a long ‘pagan’ past, was easily adopted by Christians for its symbolic meanings of prayer and piety and quickly attained a number of other more nuanced meanings as it was refined and reused. By restricting the scope of this thesis to the orans in the Christian catacombs of Rome, it becomes possible to approach the figure from a multi-directional perspective, not merely concerned with what the gesture meant to the Christian, but with its literary and material pedigrees, its transition to Christian art, and its cultural significance. To this end, chapter one examines ‘pagan’ precursors of the Christian orans through an examination of coins, sculptures, inscriptions, and reliefs, as well as by looking at the two figures whose appearance most influences that of the orans – the goddess Pietas, and the Artemisia-Adorans funerary portrait type. Chapter two addresses the importance of the orans in the Christian literary community, and examines not only the actual usage of prayer with raised hands by the Christian faithful, but also examines the aesthetic and theological reasons for the popularity of the gesture – the parallel between the spread arms of the orans and the posture of the crucified Christ. Finally, chapter three presents a spatial-thematic analysis of the usage of the orans in the Roman Christian catacombs, using a corpus of 158 orantes. This chapter enables the reader to draw conclusions about the veracity of the academic theories presented in the previous chapters, as it compares the usage of the orans against its scholarly interpretation.

[pt] A presença de Deus se evidencia no mundo de diversas formas. Ela se tornou ainda mais manifesta quando Deus irrompeu na história e selou com Israel uma aliança. Amorosamente escolhido, o povo da antiga aliança pôde experimentar a cuidadosa presença do Senhor através de inúmeros sinais-sacramentos. Segundo o relato das Escrituras e o testemunho das primeiras comunidades cristãs, essa mesma presença se fez carne em Jesus Cristo, o Verbo eterno do Pai. Por meio de gestos e palavras, Jesus revelou aos homens a presença de Deus e, na potência de seu Espírito, lhes tornou membros de seu Corpo, a Igreja. As primeiras gerações cristãs, conscientes de serem herdeiras da fé do antigo Israel, procuravam - sobretudo em suas assembleias litúrgico-cultuais - experimentar e testemunhar, diante do mundo, o Cristo ressuscitado, sinal privilegiado da presença de Deus. Nele, por meio dele e com ele, doravante, o ser humano e o restante da criação carregam em si a potência de serem sacramento da presença do eterno no tempo. Segundo Santo Agostinho, isso se aplica, de modo particular, ao mistério e à missão da Igreja - corpo-presença de Cristo na história. Diz o santo Doutor que, no regime da nova aliança, este no qual vivemos, convém falar na presença e ação de um Cristus totus. Trata-se do Cristo todo inteiro: o Cristo - plenitude e primogênito, por meio do qual todos os seres são reconciliados com Deus - e seu Corpo, a Igreja, cooperadora de Cristo em seu agir reconciliante. O Concílio Vaticano II, por sua vez, reverberando o pensamento do Doutor da Graça, consegue captar e reconhecer que a Igreja tem um importante papel no processo de reconcilação-deificação do criado. A Igreja, sacramento de Cristo, poderia, então, ser chamada de Corpus totum. E tudo em vista do mais profundo e original anelo do Deus-Amor: ser presença geradora de comunhão em tudo o que existe. / [en] The God s presence in the world can be felt in many ways. Thy presence has become more and more evident when God showed in the history and seal an alliance with people from Israel. Chosen with love, the old people could feel the Lord s presence through many sacramentals-signals. According to the Scriptures and the first Christians testaments, the Lord s presence became flesh in Jesus Christ, the God s eternal Word. Through the things Jesus had made and His words, He showed the human been the God s presence and the Power of the Holy Spirit, and made them part of His Body, the Church. The first Christians, knowing been the old Israel faith heritage, tried - mainly in their cultural-liturgical meetings, feel and testimony to the world, the resurrection Christ, real signal of God s presence. In Him, though Him and with Him, from now on, the human been and the rest of the creation bring in the power of the Eternal God forever. According Saint Agostin, this means, in particular way, the mystery and mission of the Church - presence-body of Christ in the history. The Doctor saint said, in the new alliance, that we live, it could be good to say about the presence and action of Christus totus. That is, The whole Christ: The Christ - plenty and firstborn through all of us are reconciliate to God - and His Body, The Church, that helps the reconciliation act. The Second Vatican Council, at a time, reflecting the Doctor of Grace, recognize that the Church has an important hole in the reconciliation - sanctification of the creature. The Church, Christ s sacrament, could be called the Corpus totum. Considering the more profound and original enlace of God-Love: bringing union among everything that exists.

The religious significance of Emmet Fox (1886-1951), a pioneer in the New Thought movement, is the focus of this study. The relevance of Fox's religious thought will be determined in reference to and in the context of contemporary theorist Ken Wilber's theoretical framework of integral hermeneutics. On the basis of Fox's primary writings, biographical information, the ideas and philosophy of modern New Thought scholars and Wilber's literature, Fox's religious thought was interpreted and evaluated. Aspects of Fox's belief, such as creative mind, scientific prayer, meditation and healing, concepts such as God, Jesus Christ, death, reincarnation, karma and end times, as well as his method of biblical exegesis are discussed. It becomes apparent that Emmet Fox, preacher and teacher, had never intended to provide a scientific or academic structural doctrine in which to deliver his teaching. His non-conformist, simple, yet well thought-through beliefs, which include esoteric, eastern and universal truths, focused on the fundamental truths that are necessary for humanity's evolutionary development. This approach made Fox's teaching valuable to his audience of the time, a changing American consciousness, as well as appropriate to a transformational South Africa, where it is relevant in bridging the various cultures, languages, and religious beliefs within a continuously changing spiritually minded population, and most of all, beneficial to every person's inner spiritual journey towards ultimate enlightenment. Fox's underlying religious belief is that `the thought is the thing' and this endorses the whole of the New Thought teaching, which states that `whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve' or `be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind'. Probably the most remarkable feature of his religious thinking is his popular allegorical interpretation of the Bible, which he interprets spiritually. It is apparent that there is an affinity between the religious thought of Emmet Fox and that of Wilber. Although the intent of this study is not to compare these scholars, it is interesting and valuable to Fox's interpretation that they advocate a similar underlying belief in the holistic Kosmos and the importance of having an integral vision. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)

The purpose of this dissertation is to inquire into the application of the Speech act theory in the field of theology. First, philosophical part introduces distinctive topics of language-philosophy found in Wittgenstein, Austin and Searle. The main focus of this summary lies on Searle`s categorization of speech acts. If we approach Searle`s categorization from the perspective of Wittgenstein`s philosophy, we could understand his categorization in functional and not ontological terms and therefore we find a certain liberty to modify Searle`s categorization with regard to analysed phenomenon. In the beginning of the theological part we analyse the limits of the application of the speech act theory in the case of the confession of faith. Consequently we construct categorization of the speech acts of faith discourse based on its communicative and transformative dimensions. Afterwards we focus on one of the main types of faith discourse, namely the petitionary prayer. During analysis of the petitionary prayer in the Old and New Testament we gradually introduce considerable insights of theologians who applied Austin`s and Searle`s concepts in their work. These are followed up by our own observations. Second section of the theological part of the dissertation is concerned with the application of speech act theory in exegesis of particular texts, namely those passages in Mark`s gospel which speak about Jesus as the Son of God. Speech act theory evidently could not serve to settle exegetical disagreements by always locating the precise illocutionary point of every speech act, however it proves itself as a good tool for conceptual orientation and its application brings valuable insights.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the life and work of St. Zdislava and St. Agnes of Bohemia. In the first part, there is a description of biographies of both saints, their vocation in life, charity and foundation work, their life-works. The second part compares the differences between St. Zdislava and St. Agnes of Bohemia and vice versa, it mentions their commonalities, further it describes motivation and source of strength St. Zdislava and St. Agnes of Bohemia for their foundation and charity activities. The conclusion is devoted to the reference and relevance of the topic of marriage and religious life today.