<p>Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated.</p><p>Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria.</p><p>The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others.</p><p>For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.</p>

“Shattered Communities: Soldiers, Rabbis, and the Ostjuden during Occupation: 1915-1918" addresses the interethnic experience in Poland during the German occupation of 1915-1918. This dissertation demonstrates that the German design for 'modernization' of the East began with the First World War, which envisioned the Jews as a critically vital component, rather than an obstacle to their success. The German military made its connection to the peoples in the East via its own army rabbis and Jewish administrators. This work examines the role of the German Army rabbis, in 1915, in establishing a Jewish press and Jewish schools, along with Jewish relief agencies funded by German Jewish businessmen, in assisting the local Ostjuden communities. By the time the guns stopped firing in 1918, however, the German government had reneged on their promises of recognition and help, and the circumstances of many Ostjuden were as precarious as they had been before the war. Even worse, the experience of war in the East encouraged the rise of racist nationalism in Germany and Eastern Europe. The roots of Nazi policies toward Jews were planted firmly in Poland and Lithuania between 1915 and 1918. But for defeat in the war, it is highly unlikely that the Nazis would ever have risen to power, and in the absence of the German experience of war in the East, the later commitment to a Jewish genocide might never have been imagined. By examining the transnational relationship between the Germans and the Polish Jewish communities during the Great War, I contribute to a better understanding of the complexities leading to the crucial fracture that took place under the pressure of total war in 1917.

Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated. Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria. The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others. For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.

The Bound Chronicles is a fictional story that chronicles the journey of three Irish monks who travel to Britain in 892 AD, the time of the Anglo-Saxons. There, they encounter King Alfred, Vikings, poisonings, but, more harrowing, must face their inner selves and the consequences of their choices.

Protestant nuns, Stiftsdamen, fulfilled a unique role in early modern Lutheran society. This papers focuses on the implied social roles and expected virtues of Protestant nuns [Stiftsdamen] in the works of male Lutheran pastors who supported Protestant theological positions that promoted marriage as the proper place for women, and yet who also praised unmarried female monastics in funeral sermons [Leichenpredigten]. Lutheran pastors wrote funeral sermons for both Stiftsdamen and married women, funeral sermons display similarities or differences between what virtues, characteristics, and displays of piety for women. A comparison will also be made between funeral sermons for Stiftsdamen and those written for Catholic nuns by Catholic clergy. Convent necrologies, written by Catholic abbesses will also be used to compare what virtues were expected of female religious. Also included is an examination of nuns’ writings about theology, their doctrinal reasons for remaining Catholic, leaving the cloister, and adapting their convent life to fit Lutheran teachings. Damenstiften preserved access for women to positions of authority and self empowerment. These women were, however, different from earlier female religious communities and from Catholic nuns living in other Lutheran areas. Protestant Stiftsdamen had more contact with outside society than cloistered Catholic nuns due to the desire of Lutherans to incorporate these women into their communities. An analysis of the perception of Stiftsdamen by Lutheran pastors and the nuns' consciousness of their own position, duties, and piety is the cornerstone of this new research on gender and religion in early modern Germany. The perpetuation of Protestant convents into the seventeenth century is only briefly documented by historians who focus instead on the religious experience of women in Germany during and directly following the Reformation. Catholic examples of female piety will contribute to the understanding of female religious and their role in society at large. In conclusion, this research displays how Stiftsdamen were praised for the same virtues as early modern married Protestant women and Catholic nuns in funeral sermons, but were not specifically praised as female religious by male Lutheran pastors.

In the Arthurian romances of the Middle Ages, the character of Morgan le Fay was transformed dramatically from her Welsh original, the goddess Modron. The effect was to vilify the enchantress so that medieval Christians would not be sympathetic to her character. This study consults the oldest available Welsh mythological and historical texts as well as the medieval romances surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Also consulted are some of the top contemporary Arthurian scholars. By unraveling Morgan’s transformation and the reasons for such change, it is revealed that medieval demonizing of old pagan deities was not limited to male deities. Instead, the most ancient deity of all, the Great Mother Goddess slowly became one of the most infamous characters in literature, Morgan le Fay.

Uppsatsen består av en jämförande studie av Ulf Ekman, grundaren till församlingen Livets Ord och KG Hammar, f.d. ärkebiskop i Svenska kyrkan, sett ur ett perspektiv med gudsrelationen i centrum. Syftet var att finna hur gudsrelationen gör sig påmind i deras liv såväl i teori som i praktik och undersöka skillnaderna. För att nå uppsatsens syfte har jag använt mig av litteraturstudier. Undersökningen visade att Ekman och Hammar skiljer sig betydligt i sina sätt att resonera kring Gud. Hammar framför vikten av den egna erfarenhetens insikter, medan Ekman istället står i stark relation till vad bibelns ord och texter säger. När Hammar förespråkar dialog mellan människor tar istället Ekman avstånd från dialogen och menar att människor istället behöver omvända sig till Gud och se vad Jesus gjort för människan. Resultatet visar tydligt att deras gudsrelation i hög grad skiljer sig från varandra. Ekman menar att om alla följde ett och samma sätt skulle det underlätta för människan i samtliga situationer. Hammar anser att ett sådant resonemang inte leder till ett utrymme för tolerans, respekt, och människors förståelse för varandra kan därmed inte öka.

Five decades’ process of breaking more than four centuries of Church-State ties saw a major break-through at the stroke of the new millennium (the year 2000), with the implementation of legislative reforms aimed at giving the Church of Sweden a greater degree of liberty, while extending greater freedom to other religious communities in Sweden. Almost a decade after this historic legislation most stakeholders claim the impact of the reform has been significant. Indeed the decision to server Church-State ties for whatever purpose or reason, after such a long standing relation between the two, will by all means have implications for the Church that is separated, the State and the so called free churches and other religions in Sweden. Thus, this field study seeks to investigate the resultant impact of delimiting governmental power in the religious domain on the now autonomous church and the implications the separation has had for other “non-state churches” as well as the secularized state government in Sweden almost ten years after the reforms.

En uppsats om vodouns inblandning under slavupproret i kolonin Saint-Domingue under slutet av 1700-talet till början av 1800-talet. Uppsatsen försöker bevisa vodouns påverkan på ett lyckat slavuppror där andra slavuppror misslyckats.

SAMMANFATTNING   Syftet med denna litteraturstudie har varit att pröva den antroposofiska rörelsens vetenskaplighet. Jag har då valt att göra detta genom att studera deras medicin, deras bild av människan, deras syn på hälsa, sjukdom samt läkemedel och sedan göra en jämförelse med dagens skolmedicin. Resultatet visar att det föreligger klara skillnader i begreppet vetenskaplighet mellan skolmedicinen och antroposofin. Skillnader som idag inte har överbryggats. Den naturvetenskapliga evidensbaserade medicinen forskar för att få fram mätbara reproducerbara fakta. Antroposoferna talar istället om en andevetenskap vilken alla kan få tillgång till genom att följa den antroposfiska kunskapvägen. Skolmedicinens läkemedel är kemiskt framställda för att påverka processer eller organ i kroppen till det bättre medan antroposoferna hävdar att allt i naturen från människa till sten är besläktat med och påverkar varandra. Utifrån detta sysätt har antroposoferna valt ut vilka växter och metaller som ska användas som läkemedel och de använder sig sedan av en potentieringsprincip och ett rytmiskt skakande i framställningen av läkemedlen, principer vilka skolmedicinen helt förkastar. Ur skolmedicinsk naturvetenskaplig synvinkel är inte antroposofin en vetenskap och har därför inget vetenskapligt värde.   Nyckelord: antroposof*, människobild/människosyn, kunskapsväg/utveckling, hälsa och sjukdom/läkekonst/medicn.