Browsing by Subject "Christianity"
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Item Between Trepidation and Hope: A Study of Palestinian Christians after the Arab Conquests, ca. 630-797(2024-05) Hansen, BenjaminThis study examines the lives of Palestinian Christians in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. Though current scholarship sheds much light on political, theological, and other intellectual responses to the rise of Islam, it has little to say on local society, especially the impact of religious and political change on so-called “simple believers.” Responding to the neglect of this important topic, my study highlights the social-historical experiences of Christians in Umayyad and early Abbasid Palestine. Recent scholarship on the early medieval Middle East has come to eschew the notion of a common cultural and historical experience under the first Islamic caliphates. Regional and micro-regional studies have shown that distinct communities throughout the Levant were faced with unique experiences and challenges. My study offers the first treatment of the experiences and challenges of these Palestinian communities, from their center in Jerusalem to the peripheries of Galilee and the Negev. Evidence for this Palestinian “micro-Christendom” exists in a variety of texts and objects. These include hagiographies, correspondence, homilies, inscriptions, travelogues, papyri, and the remains of material culture, both urban and rural. In considering this evidence as a whole, this study assesses the changes which Palestinian Christian communities underwent in this period (alongside remarkable continuities). What emerges from this analysis are the contours of a community struggling to shape a deliberate future while claiming a sacred and immutable past. Such a paradoxical struggle overflowed into everyday life, touching on questions of food, dress, labor, family, and language. Though focused on the particulars of this Palestinian community, my study also contributes to a broader scholarly discussion of the interconnected worlds and religious and ethical values of medieval Christians, Muslims, and Jews.Item Christians of the Western Desert in Late Antiquity: the fourth-century church complex of Ain el-Gedida, Upper Egypt.(2009-06) Aravecchia, NicolaThis dissertation examines the fourth-century church complex excavated, between 2006 and 2008, at Ain el-Gedida, in the Dakhla Oasis of Upper Egypt (project directed by Professor Roger Bagnall). The church and the set of interconnected rooms that form the complex are one of the earliest examples discovered in Egypt thus far. Therefore, they provide valuable information on the development of Christian public architecture, not only in the region of the Western Desert but also throughout Egypt. Furthermore, the uncommon layout of the church itself, its location within a cluster of rooms serving more utilitarian functions, and the evidence of different phases of substantial architectural alterations make the complex a particularly significant case study. One goal of this dissertation is not to discuss the church complex as an isolated building, but to contextualize it within the topographical framework of the settlement. The archaeological evidence from the complex is not presented in the form of a standard report; rather, it is used to approach more general issues, regarding the chronology of the site, its abandonment, and the nature of the settlement, particularly the social structure of its inhabitants. This work first examines the architectural history of the complex and sheds light on its different phases, thanks to the study of the evidence gathered in the field. Furthermore, it discusses the results of comparative analysis between the church of Ain el-Gedida and other examples of Early Christian architecture inside and outside Egypt. In particular, it emphasizes the considerable typological similarities shared with the Small East Church at the nearby site of Ismant el-Kharab (ancient Kellis). The investigation of the typological origins of the church of Ain el-Gedida includes comparisons with the earliest known examples of Christian architecture, even from relatively distant regions, such as Dura Europos and its well-known domus ecclesiae. Furthermore, methods of spatial analysis, in particular access analysis, are applied to the church complex and its immediate surroundings, with the aim of investigating patterns of access control and use of space at the site in Late Antiquity. The results are offered as a valuable ingredient in typological analysis, integrating the available archaeological evidence. In its last section, this dissertation examines issues of chronology, both relative and absolute, in relation to the church complex. It also takes into consideration the highly debated question concerning the nature of the complex and, more in general, of the site of Ain el-Gedida, with the goal of shedding light on its people and their social identity. In addition to the monastery/village readings, originally brought forth by scholars, further interpretations are proposed, analyzing the available evidence in favor or against any of them.Item Dynamics of Religious Ritual: Migration and Adaptation in Early Medieval Britain(2019-08) Creager, BrookeHow do migrations impact religious practice? In early Anglo-Saxon England, the practice of post-Roman Christianity adapted after the Anglo-Saxon migration. The contemporary texts all agree that Christianity continued to be practiced into the fifth and sixth centuries but the archaeological record reflects a predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture. My research compiles the evidence for post-Roman Christian practice on the east coast of England from cemeteries and Roman churches to determine the extent of religious change after the migration. Using the case study of post-Roman religion, the themes religion, migration, and the role of the individual are used to determine how a minority religion is practiced during periods of change within a new culturally dominant society.Item Final Preparations: The Emergence of Human Agency in Christian Apocalyptic Speculation in the 10th and 11th Centuries(2020-11) Poletti, BaileyWhen people today think of the end of the world, whether from a secular or religions, serious or fictional perspective, the role of human agency and responsibility in how apocalyptic events occur is often of central concern. In many cases, humans believe that we have some control over if, when, or how we meet our collective end, being able to cause, prevent, delay, accelerate, or alter the course of the End Times. In the early Christian Church, however, this was not a common assumption. Instead, Christians believed they were passive witnesses to God’s unfolding plan. There was nothing humans could do to change this divine plan in one way or the other. All that humans were capable of was preparing themselves and their neighbors for the common Last Judgment that everyone would face, whether or not they ever experienced the apocalyptic drama. If one were to find themselves living in the last days, Christian advice to that person was the same as if they lived under normal times. No special actions were necessary regarding the apocalypse. This “tradition” lasted for hundreds of years into the Middle Ages. In the 10th and 11th centuries, however, a new tradition emerged in the Latin West. This traditional, inspired by seventh-century Byzantine politics and Irish penitential missionary work, coalesced in the Ottonian and Capetian remnants of the Carolingian empire. Through a combination of political and religious concerns, especially involving preaching throughout the extended Gorze monastic network within and beyond Lotharingia, a new apocalyptic tradition emerged alongside the old, one that both assumed and argued for the necessity of human participation in the divine plan in order for the apocalyptic drama to begin. This tradition was involved in many large-scale social movements throughout the 10th and 11th centuries, culminating in the start of the First Crusade in 1095. From that point onward, though the old tradition never vanished, this new tradition of humans believing they could be responsible for causing, preventing, or otherwise altering the timing and course of apocalyptic events became endemic in European Christianity. This study demonstrates when, how, and why this tradition emerged.Item Reading Dionysus: Euripides' Bacchae among Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World(2013-08) Friesen, Courtney JadeThe Bacchae of Euripides was widely popular throughout antiquity. Its narrative stages the arrival of Dionysus in Thebes and the conflict arising from the opposition of the tyrant Pentheus. This dissertation is a study of the reception of this tragedy in antiquity from the third century BCE to the third century CE. As a drama exploring the contestation of political and religious power, readers and audiences in the Hellenistic and Roman periods found new relevancies in the Bacchae for voicing contemporary experiences. Dionysus' role as a symbol of imperial conquest in the Ptolemiac and Roman Empires stood in tension with Euripides' narrative in which he destroyed the Theban tyrant. Jewish and Christian writers also evoked the Bacchae as a means of negotiating their own religious and political identities in the Greco-Roman world. The conflict staged in the tragedy proves to be an enduring expression of problems confronting ancient society. It represents the perennial tension between religion and absolute power, poetic freedom and imperial patronage, and ethnic diversity and social cohesion.Item The Rock of the Republic: The Ten Commandments in American Life from World War II to the Culture Wars(2018-08) Haker, JosephThis dissertation examines the various movements to propagate and publicly display the Ten Commandments in the United States since the end of World War II, using that history as a window to better understand the nexus of religion, nationalism, and capitalism. It demonstrates that such displays first emerged out of the impulses and needs of postwar liberalism, which sought to construct a broad and inclusive “Judeo-Christian” consensus, but were quickly seized upon by reactionary forces working to construct a more exclusionary form of nationalism. It then documents the role the Ten Commandments played in the politics and ideology of the Christian Right for whom they symbolized the foundations of a “Christian nation” that were under siege. This dissertation argues that public displays of the Ten Commandments, and the broader fusion of religion and nationalism they came to represent, helped to reconcile two contradictory impulses within postwar religious conservatism. Specifically, the embrace of liberal capitalism as a guarantor of freedom and prosperity on the one hand, and a deep aversion toward many of its material and social effects on the other. The Ten Commandments worked to displace concerns about structural changes onto individual moral failings or cultural institutions believed to shape individual conduct. For their proponents, the Ten Commandments offered a way of ameliorating social crises, arresting cultural liberalization, and reasserting traditional patriarchal authority without necessitating a broader systemic critique. This also helps to explain how conservative Christianity became reconciled with, or even necessary to, the functioning of neoliberalism.