This thesis contributes towards understanding of how ‘ordinary’ Christians, who have little or no experience of academic biblical study or theological training, might be enabled to engage more deeply with the Bible. I propose that attempts to cultivate the skills of biblical engagement among ordinary Christians might be shaped around lectio divina, this ancient practice being adapted for the situation of contemporary readers. The adaptations would involve use of a range of modern media with which to encounter the texts, working in small groups in order to make space for a more intentional engagement between the voices of multiple ordinary interpreters, and employment of strategies to enable readers to navigate a perceived tension when approaching the Bible: one between head and heart, academic learning and spiritual growth. More specifically, I propose that the promotion of biblical engagement among ordinary Christians should be undertaken as a planned programme with a suite of different resources, which complement one another in both style and aim, together with a sign-posted framework to show participants what each stage is designed to achieve. It should begin with a widely accessible introduction to the whole Bible that conveys the overall narrative and historical setting while communicating the sense that the reader is a participant in the ongoing biblical story. This and subsequent resources should be selected in order to attempt to integrate cognitive and emotive approaches to the texts and, where possible, straightforward terminology would be employed to maximise accessibility. These proposals emerged from my evaluation of an experiment in promoting biblical engagement among ordinary Christians (Bible Society’s ‘Pathfinder’). Analysis of, and reflection upon, the rich qualitative data generated there led to my examining the process of developing biblical engagement in the context of the lectio divina tradition and in the light of contemporary theological reflection across a wide range of theological hermeneutics.

[pt] A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo principal estudar a salvação em Zc 8,1-8, apresentando uma leitura exegética desta unidade a partir do cenário de Zc 7,4-14, e demonstrar as inter-relações entre as unidades, construindo uma nova compreensão de Zc 8,1-8 em relação a Zc 7,4-14. A pesquisa considera que embora os textos de Zc 8,1-8 e Zc 7,4-14 possam sugerir, a princípio, uma relação de oposição, existe uma coerência temática, que torna justificável a sequência das duas unidades. A partir desta compreensão a implícita conexão entre Zc 8,1-8 e Zc 7,4-14 explica as relações de tensão presentes nos dois textos. A compreensão conjunta das duas unidades também permite revelar um sentido temático-teológico que evidencia a dinâmica da salvação e repreensão de Deus diante do comportamento de seu povo. Ambas as unidades textuais seguiram a mesma metodologia em suas etapas até o seu desenvolvimento final: os passos essenciais do Método Histórico Crítico, conjugando-os com a análise sincrônica dos textos em sua forma final e canônica. As unidades de Zc 8,1-8 e Zc 7,4-14, quando estudadas em conjunto, mostraram uma afinidade e um sentido teológico percebidos no agir divino diante da resposta da geração pré-exílica e da comunidade do profeta, que parece repetir os padrões do passado. YHWH reprovou o povo da geração passada por seu comportamento obstinado e desobediente (Zc 7,4-14). Por sua vez, ele resgatará novos grupos de exilados, que formarão o novo povo de Deus, pelo comportamento justo e obediente às suas palavras (Zc 8,1-8). / [en] The present survey has as principal purpose to study the salvation in Zech 8:1-8, revealing an exegetical reading of this unit from the scenario of Zech 7:4-14, and to evidence the inter-relations between the units, developing new knowledge of Zech 8:1-8 in relation to Zech 7:4-14. The survey takes into account that although the texts of Zech 8:1-8 and Zech 7:4-14 can promptly come up with a relation of opposition between them, there is a thematic coherence, which makes the sequence of the two units justifiable. From this understanding, one can see that there is a connection between Zech 8:1-8 and Zech 7:4-14, which justifies the tension relations in both texts. The joint understanding of the two units also reveals a thematic-theological sense that highlights the dynamics of salvation and rebuke of God in the face of the behaviour of his people. Both textual units followed the same methodology in their stages until their final development: the essential steps of the historical-critical method, combining them with the synchronic analysis of the texts in their final and canonical form. The units of Zech 8:1-8 and Zech 7:4-14 when studied together showed an affinity and theological sense, which are perceived in divine action in the face of the behaviour of the pre-exilic generation and in divine action before the answer of the community of the prophet, which seems to repeat the patterns from past. YHWH condemned the people of the past generation for their inflexible and rebellious behaviour (Zech 7:4-14). In turn, he will release new groups of exiles, who will create God s new people, through righteous behaviour and submissive to his words (Zech 8:1-8).

La investigación que presentamos a continuación se ubica en el ámbito que se conoce como "Antropología de la Religión". Se trata del estudio de un grupo religioso de origen peruano, al que se le conoce como "La Hermandad del Cordero de Dios" o "La Divina Revelación Alfa y Omega". Este es pues nuestro Objeto de Estudio.

O plano deste estudo se caracteriza por entender a relação entre lei divina e lei humana concebida por Agostinho no L. I de O Live-Arbítrio e no L. XIX de A Cidade de Deus. Assim almejamos analisar primeiramente a relação entra as duas leis no L. I do diálogo e posteriormente confrontá-la com a análise retirada da Cidade de Deus, verificando as possíveis implicações de uma reformulação no entendimento da política para Agostinho. Desse modo, pretendemos evidenciar como Agostinho reformulou seu pensamento sobre as duas leis e mostrar as conseqüências de tal mudança em noções como justiça, paz, Estado, guerra e escravidão / The purpose of this study is defined by understanding the relationship between divine law and human law conceived by Augustine in On Free Choice of the Will, book I, and The City of God, book XIX. Thus, we aim first to analyse the relation among the two laws in the dialogue, then comparing it with the analysis from The City of God by checking possible implications of a reformulation in the understanding of politics for Augustine. As such, we intend to show how Augustine reformulated his thought about the two laws and the consequences of such a change in notions as justice, peace, State, war and slavery

A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo o estudo da Vita Nova de Dante Alighieri, onde o Amor, as musas e outros personagens surgem da mitologia grega. Esse Amor pagão é cristianizado por Dante, que o transforma na figura de Deus. Beatriz passa a ser a Musa de Dante, que é chamada pelo poeta primeiro de gentilissima, depois donna angelo, santa, filósofa e teóloga. No Convívio, pode-se constatar a aproximação de sua deusa à sabedoria filosófica e teológica. Tudo isso se passa pela elaboração da poesia, bem como a Divina Comédia, que são, segundo o autor, alegorias. Foram feitas algumas incursões na Divina Comédia para confirmar tais configurações entrou-se em trechos do Purgatório e do Paraíso. / The purpose of this research was to study Dante Alighieri\'s Vita Nova, where Love, muses, and other characters emerge from the Greek mythology. This pagan love is christianized by Dante, who transforms it into the figure of God. Beatrice becomes Dante\'s muse, who is initially called by him as very gentle lady, then as donna angelo (woman-angel), saint, philosopher and theologian. In Convivio, an approach between his goddess and a philosophical and theological wisdom can be observed. Convivio, as well as The Divine Comedy, are written in poetry and are both, according to the author, allegories.

As citações, alusões e referências à Divina comédia, de Dante Alighieri, começam a aparecer em quantidade e com vigor na obra de Machado de Assis na década de 1870. Estão em todos os gêneros, da poesia à crítica, da crônica à prosa de ficção, demonstrando a forte impressão que a obra provocou no escritor brasileiro. Esta tese trata das referências dantianas na obra de Machado de 1873 a 1881, começando em Americanas, passando por Helena e Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, e encerrando n\' \"O alienista\". Com isso, pretende-se mostrar como Machado de Assis estava às voltas com a adequação de temas, estilos, quadros e assuntos do repertório da alta tradição literária, em especial a da Comédia, em sua obra. Experiências que exibem a oscilação que os estilos elevado e baixo, sublime e vulgar sofrem em sua obra, à força de misturas, fusões, imitações e paródias, formas que encontrou para conciliar estes opostos. / Quotations, allusions and references to Dante Alighieri\'s The Divine Comedy started to appear frequently and significantly in the works of Machado de Assis during the 1870\'s. They can be found in all genres Machado worked with, from poetry to criticism, from newspaper columns (crônicas) to prose, evidencing the strong impression that Dante\'s work left in the Brazilian writer. This thesis is about the references to Dante in Machado de Assis\'s works from 1873 to 1881, beginning with Americanas, passing through Helena and Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, and finally \"O alienista\". It aims, accordingly, to demonstrate that Machado de Assis tailored his themes, style, sketches and repertoire to fit in the tradition of high literature, especially that of the Comedy. Such experience shows the oscillation between contrasting styles in Machado\'s work - the elevated and the low, the sublime and the vulgar -, which the author conciliates by employing combinations, fusions, imitations and parodies to bring together such opposite poles.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-15T12:50:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 457995.pdf: 837783 bytes, checksum: 7795cbaa95bbe4686962df85224abf3e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-25 / This dissertation intends to investigates the arguments that the Saint and Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas introduces in his thinking concerning of free will and the way that he envisages the Divine Providence. It analyzes the development of these issues over the course of patristic, as well as some of the main ideas of the thinkers who were the pillars of the catholic saint. With reference to his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, this dissertation looks for the dimension of free will that humans have in front of the divine will in many issues of his work. / A presente disserta??o procura investigar os argumentos que o santo e doutor da Igreja Cat?lica Apost?lica Romana, Tom?s de Aquino, apresenta no seu pensamento referente ao livre-arb?trio e como este encontra espa?o perante a Divina Provid?ncia. Para tanto, analisa-se o desenvolvimento dessas quest?es ao decorrer da patr?stica, bem como as principais ideias de alguns dos pensadores que foram pilares do pensamento do santo cat?lico. Tendo como refer?ncia sua obra m?xima, a Suma Teol?gica, a disserta??o procura em diversas quest?es da obra a dimens?o do livre-arb?trio que o ser humano possui perante a vontade divina.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Stiebler Leite Villela.pdf: 705300 bytes, checksum: 54fd4954f58d8d697f4def478d2f7044 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-13 / The present study intended an approach between Heidegger´s thoughts in Being and time and Dante´s poetry in Divine comedy. The approach aroused from the knowledge that both works bring a comprehension of the human existence, each one in a proper way. In order to accomplish that it was necessary a non dogmatic reading of Divine comedy, that is, a non certain reading by any religious dogmatism. This approach was organized in four main points where we found accordance in both works. That is: Care and Way ; Falling and Perdition ; Temporality and Eternity and Authenticity and Salvation . In each one of those topics it was possible from the approach between both works an amplification of Dante´s poetic images and Heidegger´s concepts. With the development of the approach, we came across that the guilt concept has a central part in Divine comedy as much as in Being and time. The approach between those works, as well as its readings, is one among many others possible. This study did not intend to be more than the beginning of a conversation between Martin Heidegger s thought and Dante Alighieri s poetry / O presente estudo pretendeu uma aproximação entre o pensamento heideggeriano de Ser e tempo e a poética dantesca da Divina comédia. A aproximação partiu da constatação de que ambas as obras, cada uma ao seu modo, realizam uma compreensão da existência humana. Para tal tarefa foi necessária uma leitura não dogmática da Divina comédia, isto é, uma leitura que não estivesse determinada por nenhum dogmatismo religioso. A aproximação foi dividida em quatro pontos principais nos quais foi possível encontrar correspondências entre as obras. São eles: Cuidado e Caminho , Queda e Perdição , Temporalidade e Eternidade e Apropriação e Salvação . Em cada um desses tópicos foi possível, a partir da aproximação entre as obras, uma ampliação da leitura tanto das imagens dantescas quanto dos conceitos heideggerianos. Notamos, com o desenvolvimento da aproximação, que o elemento da culpa é central tanto na Divina comédia quanto em Ser e tempo. A aproximação entre as obras, assim como a leitura que tivemos de cada uma delas, é uma dentre tantas outras possíveis. Este trabalho não pretendeu ser mais que um início do diálogo entre o pensamento de Martin Heidegger e a poesia de Dante Alighieri

A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo o estudo da Vita Nova de Dante Alighieri, onde o Amor, as musas e outros personagens surgem da mitologia grega. Esse Amor pagão é cristianizado por Dante, que o transforma na figura de Deus. Beatriz passa a ser a Musa de Dante, que é chamada pelo poeta primeiro de gentilissima, depois donna angelo, santa, filósofa e teóloga. No Convívio, pode-se constatar a aproximação de sua deusa à sabedoria filosófica e teológica. Tudo isso se passa pela elaboração da poesia, bem como a Divina Comédia, que são, segundo o autor, alegorias. Foram feitas algumas incursões na Divina Comédia para confirmar tais configurações entrou-se em trechos do Purgatório e do Paraíso. / The purpose of this research was to study Dante Alighieri\'s Vita Nova, where Love, muses, and other characters emerge from the Greek mythology. This pagan love is christianized by Dante, who transforms it into the figure of God. Beatrice becomes Dante\'s muse, who is initially called by him as very gentle lady, then as donna angelo (woman-angel), saint, philosopher and theologian. In Convivio, an approach between his goddess and a philosophical and theological wisdom can be observed. Convivio, as well as The Divine Comedy, are written in poetry and are both, according to the author, allegories.

"Italian Readers of Ovid: From the Origins to Dante" studies the reception of Ovid's writings in medieval Italian prose and poetry, from the first vernacular poems composed in Sicily to Dante's "Divina Commedia." Starting from the very beginnings of a new literary culture, I show how the increasing availability of Ovid's texts is mirrored in the increasing textual presence of Ovid in the vernacular writings of the period. Identifying the general traits common to this Ovid-inspired literature, I discuss how medieval Italian authors used Ovid's works and his characters to address questions of poetics, openly debating the value of Ovid's poetry for their own writings. I then illustrate how, in his lyric poetry and the "Commedia," Dante inserts himself into this vernacular practice of discussing poetics through the medium of Ovid. Ultimately, I argue that Dante's reading of Ovid in the "Commedia" is deeply rooted in his own lyric poetry and that of his predecessors. Chapter 1, "Medieval Italian Readers of Ovid, Modern Readers of Reception," describes the material and cultural contexts of the reception of Ovid during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries in Italy, challenging existing notions about Ovid's reception in medieval Italian scholarship. Previous studies mostly treat Dante's "Commedia" as the starting point of this reception history, neglecting the preceding and equally important lyric tradition. Questioning this approach, I reconstruct the increasing availability of Ovid's works in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Italy and specify in which formats (commentaries, translations, anthologies, mentions in treatises, other works of literature) and contexts (schools, universities, courts, monasteries) contemporary readers could have encountered Ovid's works. By outlining these texts and contexts, I depict a growing community of Italian readers of Ovid, many of whom not only read Ovid but also incorporated the Latin poet's work in their writings. Chapter 2, "Readers Turned Writers: From the Sicilian School to the dolce stil novo," focuses on a first series of these Ovid-inspired Italian writings. This chapter explores the poetic implications of including Ovid in their works--a trait found in the poetry of Pier della Vigna, Guido Cavalcanti, and Guido Guinizzelli, among others. During this period, poets debate with their contemporaries about how to write poetry, openly addressing and even attacking fellow poets while defending their own poetics. The Italian poets explicitly evaluate their readings of Ovid's love poetry in their poems and single out his poetry as an emblem of the kind of poetry they write, or no longer wish to write. The vernacular poets treat Ovid's "Metamorphoses" similarly. By means of the simile, the Italian poets feature a select group of Ovidian characters to underline their own exceptionality: for example, the poet is similar to the male Ovidian character (but better), his lady to the female (but more beautiful). The third chapter, "Readers Turned Writers: Dante Alighieri and Cino da Pistoia," focuses on the exceptional position of Dante and Cino among this group of vernacular writers. Both Dante and Cino integrate Ovidian material in their poetry with more complexity. Including similes in their poetry, Dante and Cino radically revise this common practice by associating themselves with the female Ovidian character--a gender switch that later Petrarch will adopt. Both poets also go beyond comparing their world with that of the "Metamorphoses" (what all the vernacular poets discussed in Chapter 2 did), but truly integrate Ovidian material into their poetry, blending Ovid's world into theirs. Furthermore, this chapter challenges the notion of two phases of Dante's writing posed in Dante scholarship: one phase when he is exclusively interested in vernacular poetry, and the second phase when he turns to classical literature. Finding Ovid featured in one of Dante's earliest poem exchanges, I illustrate that it is precisely in his vernacular lyric poetry that Dante slowly starts to experiment with Ovidian material. The petrose, a series of four poems written around 1296, are central in this development. These poems test out some new techniques that Dante will use more frequently in the "Commedia": the integration of both central and peripheral elements from a larger passage in Ovid's text, and the combination of different Ovidian sources at the same time. Chapters 4 and 5 trace the development of these techniques from Dante's lyric poems to the "Commedia," where for the first time we encounter Ovidian material in a Christian context. While it is not my aim to de-allegorize Dante's reading of Ovid, I stress that the most radically allegorizing and Christianizing commentaries on Ovid are not part of the cultural context of Dante's time and, instead, illustrate how much Dante's reading of Ovid is rooted in the lyric tradition. Chapter 4, "Metapoetics in Ovid and Dante's Commedia," focuses on the role Ovid's writings play in Dante's definition of his poetics. Looking at metanarrative moments in the "Commedia" (Inf. 24-25, Purg. 24, the poetic invocations in Purg. 1 and Par. 1), I illustrate how Dante repeatedly discusses poetics through the medium of Ovid, just as the Italian lyric poets did. Chapter 5, "Shifting Shapes of Ovidian Intertextuality: Ovid's Influence in Purgatorio and Paradiso," proposes to categorize Ovidian allusions in the "Commedia" by the kinds of elements Dante drew from his Ovidian sources. The primary method with which Dante incorporates Ovidian material in the "Commedia" is the rhetorical trope of the simile, which was also repeatedly used by the vernacular lyric poets. Focusing on the Purgatorio and Paradiso, the two canticles where the poet compares himself most often with certain characters from the "Metamorphoses," I illustrate how Dante adopts and transforms this vernacular lyric practice. Of these vernacular poets, Dante is certainly the Italian reader of Ovid who integrates Ovidian material in his poetry most frequently and with the most complexity: he combines the methods of the vernacular lyric poets with other classical or theological sources and conforms these methods to the poetics of the "Commedia." But this complexity, I ultimately argue, can only be fully understood in connection within the cultural context of the reception of Ovid: an Italian literary culture that from its very beginnings reflects on Ovid's texts.