DOCSLIB.ORG

Tilde Bak Halvgaard: Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Tilde Bak Halvgaard: Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought An Investigation of the Use of Stoic and Platonic Dialectics in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII,1) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) Halvgaard, Tilde Bak Publication date: 2012 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document license: CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Halvgaard, T. B. (2012). Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought: An Investigation of the Use of Stoic and Platonic Dialectics in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII,1) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2). Det Teologiske Fakultet. Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet No. 38 Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought An Investigation of the Use of Stoic and Platonic Dialectics in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII, 1) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought An Investigation of the Use of Stoic and Platonic Dialectics in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII, 1) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) Ph.D. Dissertation Tilde Bak Halvgaard University of Copenhagen Faculty of Theology Centre for Naturalism and Christian Semantics Department of Biblical Exegesis 2012 Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought An Investigation of the Use of Stoic and Platonic Dialectics in the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII, 1) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 38 Licensed under CreativeCommons Tilde Bak Halvgaard ISBN: 978-87-91838-52-1 (trykt) ISBN: 978-87-93361-02-7 (pdf) Printing and binding by: Grafisk - University of Copenhagen University of Copenhagen 2012 Published by: The Faculty of Theology University of Copenhagen Købmagergade 44-46 1150 København K Denmark www.teol.ku.dk Preface This dissertation is a product of the Centre for Naturalism and Christian Semantics (CNCS) funded as a Programme of Excellence by University of Copenhagen from 2008-2013, and run by Prof. Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Prof. Niels Henrik Gregersen. I would like to express my deepest grat• itude to both of them for giving me the opportunity to realize this project which has been a great desire ever since I finished my Master's thesis on the Thunder: Perfect Mind in 2004. There are many people who in one way or the other have been part of this long process, and I wish to thank them all sincerely. First and foremost, I thank my supervisor Prof. Troels Engberg-Pedersen for hard but always excellent and constructive advice, encouragements and timely instructions. Without him this project had not been as well thought through, and it would miss a lot of commas. I also wish to thank my co-supervisor Prof. Antti Marjanen from University of Helsinki, who on my visits to Helsinki most kindly has spent several days discussing details of my project. I am enormously grateful for all the efforts he has put into this, not least reading through the whole thing in a very short time. I also thank the participants at the Helsinki Nag Hammadi Sem• inars for commenting on early drafts of my dissertation. Especially Risto Auvinen, Prof. Ismo Dunderberg, Ulla Tervahauta and Päivi Vähäkangas for their comments and very good company. At the same time I send a heartfelt thanks to all members of the Nordic Network of Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism (NNGN), which was a NordForsk funded network from 2004-2008 directed by Prof. Einar Thomassen, Antti Marjanen and Nils Arne Pedersen. The annual seminars are unforgettable. They have provided an outstanding foundation for young scholars to grow and make very good friends with likeminded "Gnostics". I especially wish to thank Prof. Karen L. King, who most generously found time to meet with me when I was at Yale University to study for six months. She gave invaluable advice and even accepted to read some of my work in progress. Also Prof. Harry Attridge kindly encouraged me to continue my work. Likewise, I thank Prof. Paul-Hubert Poirier for patiently answering the numerous questions that I had for him, when I participated in the NNGN seminar at Laval Uni• versity in 2010. I also wish to thank David Tibet who many years ago got me into Nag Hammadi Studies through his fantastic music. I wish to ex• press a very special thanks to Dylan Burns, who has spent hours and hours reading and correcting my dissertation to minimize the otherwise huge amount of flaws of my very best school English. He has not only corrected my mistakes, he has also laid ears to my preliminary thoughts and theories about these beautiful Nag Hammadi texts. I also thank all my colleagues at the Department of Biblical Exegesis and CNCS. They have been ever sup• portive and cheerful. However, the greatest of all thanks is for my husband Christian who has patiently supported me in every possible way, showing admirable strength during this intense period of time. Without him, the project would simply not have been possible. Therefore, this dissertation is dedicated to him and our three daughters Esther, Iris and Flora. Contents Preface 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 9 The "Sethian" tradition 12 Chapter 2: Ancient Philosophy of Language 18 Introduction 18 Plato on language 19 The Cratylus - on names 20 The Platonic method of diairesis 23 Stoic dialectics 32 Introduction 32 The things which signify 33 What is signified 42 Conclusion 45 Chapter 3: The Trimorphic Protennoia 49 Introduction 49 The manuscript 49 The content of the Trimorphic Protennoia 53 Linguistic manifestation in Trimorphic Protennoia 62 £ροογ, CHH and Xoroc - Diversities of translation 62 First part: the Discourse of Protennoia 68 Second part: On Fate 91 Third part: the Discourse of the Manifestation 98 Conclusion 104 Chapter 4: The Thunder: Perfect Mind 107 Introduction 107 The manuscript 107 The content of the Thunder: Perfect Mind 109 Linguistic manifestation in Thunder: Perfect Mind 122 The first linguistic passage 123 The second linguistic passage 149 The knowledge of my name 154 Judgment and acquittal 156 The third linguistic passage 159 Conclusion 172 Chapter 5: Conclusion 176 Abbreviations 181 Ancient Sources 182 Bibliography 184 Dansk resumé 203 English Summary 207 Chapter 1: Introduction This dissertation examines the use of ancient Platonic and Stoic philosophy of language in two texts from the Nag Hammadi Codices: the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII, 1) (hereafter TriPro) and the Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) (hereafter Thunder). These texts employ language-related speculation in their descriptions of the descent of divine Thought. In its de­ scent into the sensible world, Thought manifests itself progressively in lin­ guistic terms as Sound, Voice, and Word. I shall suggest that we call this kind of descent a "Linguistic Manifestation". The manifestation of the divine in linguistic terms is a well-known fea­ ture in ancient literature. We see examples of this especially in Jewish and Christian sources in which the Word (λόγος) or Voice of God (φωνή θεοΰ) is a central feature. Within the Nag Hammadi Codices we also find several examples of linguistic manifestations of divinity, as well as examples of use of language-related terminology in theological expositions.1 This study is limited to dealing with TriPro and Thunder only, since they share more than one characteristic, and these common traits separate them from other occurrences of what one might call a "theology of language". These two texts integrate language-related speculation into revelatory frameworks, which are shaped as monologues performed by divine female figures. Thus, besides their linguistic manifestations, both texts articulate an aretalogical style by employing "I am"-proclamations (^MOK re/ne) in the presentation of the female revealers. In addition, it seems that the figure of Epinoia plays an important role in the overall unfolding of the two trac­ tates. Moreover, both texts are clearly inspired by Jewish Wisdom tradi­ tions concerning the Thought of the Father as the mediatrix of heaven and earth. These similarities are hard to disregard when reading through the texts, and they clearly invite for a comparative analysis of them. Finally, the texts are even connected codicologically, insofar as codex XIII, which 1 See, for instance, the Gospel of Truth (NHC 1,3 and XII,2); the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit {Gospel of the Egyptians) (NHC 111,2 and IV,2); the Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth (NHC VI, 6) and others. 9 Linguistic Manifestations of Divine Thought contains TriPro, had already in Antiquity, been tucked inside the covers of codex VI in which Thunder is found. Because of the above connections, I will present a new approach for re­ searching the two Nag Hammadi texts, which takes into consideration the similarities between them as well as their common source of inspiration: philosophy of language. With regard to Thunder, the research to date has to a great extent been on the subject of explaining the nature and function of the many paradoxical self-proclamations of the female revealer. The para­ doxes are mainly interpreted either as an expression of the transcendence of the female revealer or as a way of describing her universality. The para­ doxes are generally understood in such a way that the female revealer is able either to contain all these differences, and thus transcend them at the same time, or to contain them and thus be everything that the world repre­ sents. These interpretations of Thunder's paradoxes are in themselves quite persuasive and have been accepted as the consensus among scholars of "Gnosticism". However, I find that Thunder itself concentrates signifi­ cantly on language-related questions and employs concepts which belong to a somewhat technical, linguistic discussion in Greek philosophical sources that goes back to Plato and the Stoics.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies
    Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies Editors Johannes van Oort & Einar Thomassen Editorial Board A. D. DeConick—W.-P. Funk—I. Gardner C. W. Hedrick—S. N. C. Lieu—A. Marjanen P. Nagel—L. Painchaud—B. A. Pearson S. G. Richter—J. M. Robinson—M. Scopello W. Sundermann—J. D. Turner—G. Wurst VOLUME 68 Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking Rethinking Sethianism in Light of the Ophite Evidence By Tuomas Rasimus LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rasimus, Tuomas. Paradise reconsidered in Gnostic mythmaking : rethinking Sethianism in light of the Ophite evidence / by Tuomas Rasimus. p. cm. — (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies ; v. 68) Revision of the author’s thesis (doctoral)—University of Helsinki and Université Laval, 2006. Includes bibliographical (p. ) references and indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-17323-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Sethians. 2. Ophites. I. Title. II. Series. BT1390.R38 2009 273'.1—dc22 2009029148 ISSN 0929-2470 ISBN 978 90 04 17323 1 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
    [Show full text]
  • The Figure of Melchizedek in the First Tractate of the Unpublished Coptic-Gnostic Codex Ix from Nag Hammadi
    THE FIGURE OF MELCHIZEDEK IN THE FIRST TRACTATE OF THE UNPUBLISHED COPTIC-GNOSTIC CODEX IX FROM NAG HAMMADI BIRGER A. PEARSON The first tractate of Codex IX of the Nag Hammadi library1 is clearly a very important document of "Christian" Gnosticism. Would that it were complete! As it is, not a single page from this document is completely preserved. Of the approximately 745 lines which this text comprised (1, 1-27, 10) only 130 are either completely extant or have been conjecturally restored. An addi­ tional 318 lines are partially extant or restored. Thus it is impos­ sible to understand fully the contents of this tractate, or even the meaning and context of some obviously important sections. Nevertheless it is possible to ascertain generally the position of this document in the development of Gnosticism as we know it from other texts. In thought-world, and particularly in its refer­ ence to key aeonic figures of the gnostic heavenly population, it resembles such other gnostic documents as the Apocryphon of John/ the Gospel of the Egyptians, 3 the Three Steles of Seth,4 * This article is an abbreviated version of the paper read at the Congress in Stock· holm. It has also been partially revised to take into account advances made over the past three years in the study of the text with which it is concerned. Pagination and placement of the major fragments of this text have been ascertained, and additional conjectural restorations have been made, largely on the basis of study of the original manuscript in the Coptic Museum, Cairo.
    [Show full text]
  • The Neo-Caliphate of the “Islamic State”
    CSS Analyses in Security Policy CSS ETH Zurich N0. 166, December 2014, Editor: Christian Nünlist The Neo-Caliphate of the “Islamic State” The so-called “Islamic State” represents a new phase in global jihad, wherein efforts will be made to seize and retain territorial control in the face of overwhelming Western military superiority. While this potentially makes jihadist groups vulnerable to destruction, it also increases the risk of home-grown radicalization as foreign fighters flock to join the new “Caliphate”. By Prem Mahadevan The jihadist takeover of Iraq’s second-larg- est city Mosul in June 2014 sharply focused international attention on the country. Coming at a time when Western policy concerns were oriented towards Ukraine, the South China Sea, Gaza, and Afghani- stan, the takeover’s abruptness came as a surprise. Shortly thereafter, the responsible jihadist group named itself the “Islamic State” (IS) and declared the formation of a new Caliphate, signaling that its ideologi- cal agenda was not confined to distinct po- litical or geographic boundaries. The IS has been since projecting itself as a rival to al- Qaida, by competing for credibility and le- gitimacy among the global jihadist com- munity. The IS is unusual in that, until very recent- ly, it had a record of impressive operational A militant Islamist fighter celebrates the declaration of an Islamic “caliphate” in Syria’s northern success, combined with a slick propaganda Raqqa province in June 2014. Reuters machinery to showcase this success. In contrast, al-Qaida remains weakened as a result of counterterrorism efforts in the Af- ghanistan-Pakistan region.
    [Show full text]
  • GNOSIS and NAG HAMMADI Anne Mcguire
    12 GNOSIS AND NAG HAMMADI Anne McGuire Introduction Introductory remarks on “gnosis” and “Gnosticism” “Gnosticism” is a modern European term that !rst appears in the seventeenth-century writings of Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614–87). For More, “Gnosticism” designates one of the earliest Christian heresies, connected to controversies addressed in Revelation 2:18–29 and in his own day.1 The term “gnosis,” on the other hand, is one of several ancient Greek nouns for “knowledge,” speci!cally experiential or esoteric knowledge based on direct experience, which can be distinguished from mere perception, understanding, or skill. For Plato and other ancient thinkers, “gnosis” refers to that knowledge which enables perception of the underlying structures of reality, Being itself, or the divine.2 Such gnosis was valued highly in many early Christian communities,3 yet the claims of some early Christians to possess gnosis came under suspicion and critique in the post-Pauline letter of 1 Timothy, which urges its readers to “avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of falsely so-called gnosis.”4 With this began the polemical contrast between “false gnosis” and “true faith.” It is this polemical sense of “false gnosis” that Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons took up in the title of his major anti-heretical work: Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely So-Called Gnosis, or Against Heresies, written c. "# 180.5 Irenaeus used 1 Timothy’s phrase not only to designate his opponents’ gnosis as false, but, even more important, to construct a broad category of
    [Show full text]
  • Vision Performance Institute
    Vision Performance Institute Technical Report Individual character legibility James E. Sheedy, OD, PhD Yu-Chi Tai, PhD John Hayes, PhD The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence the legibility of individual characters. Previous work in our lab [2], including the first study in this sequence, has studied the relative legibility of fonts with different anti- aliasing techniques or other presentation medias, such as paper. These studies have tested the relative legibility of a set of characters configured with the tested conditions. However the relative legibility of individual characters within the character set has not been studied. While many factors seem to affect the legibility of a character (e.g., character typeface, character size, image contrast, character rendering, the type of presentation media, the amount of text presented, viewing distance, etc.), it is not clear what makes a character more legible when presenting in one way than in another. In addition, the importance of those different factors to the legibility of one character may not be held when the same set of factors was presented in another character. Some characters may be more legible in one typeface and others more legible in another typeface. What are the character features that affect legibility? For example, some characters have wider openings (e.g., the opening of “c” in Calibri is wider than the character “c” in Helvetica); some letter g’s have double bowls while some have single (e.g., “g” in Batang vs. “g” in Verdana); some have longer ascenders or descenders (e.g., “b” in Constantia vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Nag Hammadi Codex II in Its Fourth
    2 CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . 5 ABSTRACT . 8 DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHT STATEMENT . 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 10 1. INTRODUCTION . 11 The Nag Hammadi Codices after ‘Gnosticism’. 11 Order and Themes: Alternative Scripture? . 15 Pachomian Ownership? Arguments from Codicology . 21 Ideological Affinity? . 29 Introducing the Pachomian Sources . 29 Pachomian Ideology and Practice . 35 2. THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN AS A THEMATIC PROLOGUE . 45 The Significance and Prominence of the Apocryphon of John . 45 The Narrative . 48 Sexual Complexity: Asceticism and Anti-Feminism? . 62 Carnal Union and Spiritual Unity . 64 Feminine Wiles: The Placement of Sexual Desire in Codex II . 67 Sex: Despicable or Distorted? . 72 Knowledge Revealed and Preserved . 77 The Struggle of the Soul . 79 3 3. ETHICS AND PRACTICE: ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE BODY, THE WORLD, AND OTHERS IN THE GOSPELS OF THOMAS AND PHILIP . 83 Defining ‘Asceticism’ . 83 The Gospel of Thomas . 86 Origins of the Text and the ‘Ascetic’ Argument . 86 The Counter Debate . 89 A More Nuanced Position? . 92 The Gospel of Philip . 108 Metaphorical Marriage? The Bridal Chamber . 108 ‘Appropriate’ Sexuality . 114 Social Responsibility and Attitudes towards Other Christians . 127 4. THE DEMISE OF COSMIC THREAT AND REWARD FOR THE DEVOTED: THE HYPOSTASIS OF THE ARCHONS AND ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD . 135 The Consequences of Earthly Actions . 135 The Hypostasis of the Archons . 138 Making a Mockery of Malice . 145 Sexuality: The Roles of Eve and Norea . 156 Reinterpreting the ‘Chosen Generation’ . 161 On the Origin of the World . 164 Eschatology Cosmic and Individual . 164 5. UNDERSTANDING AND LIBERATING THE SOUL: THE EXEGESIS ON THE SOUL AND THE BOOK OF THOMAS THE CONTENDER .
    [Show full text]
  • The Yubikey Manual
    The YubiKey Manual Usage, configuration and introduction of basic concepts Version: 3.4 Date: 27 March, 2015 The YubiKey Manual Disclaimer The contents of this document are subject to revision without notice due to continued progress in methodology, design, and manufacturing. Yubico shall have no liability for any error or damages of any kind resulting from the use of this document. The Yubico Software referenced in this document is licensed to you under the terms and conditions accompanying the software or as otherwise agreed between you or the company that you are representing. Trademarks Yubico and YubiKey are trademarks of Yubico AB. Contact Information Yubico AB Kungsgatan 37, 8 floor 111 56 Stockholm Sweden [email protected] © Yubico, 2015 Page 2 of 40 Version: Yubikey Manual 3.4 The YubiKey Manual Contents 1 Document Information 1.1 Purpose 1.2 Audience 1.3 Related documentation 1.4 Document History 1.5 Definitions 2 Introduction and basic concepts 2.1 Basic concepts and terms 2.2 Functional blocks 2.3 Security rationale 2.4 OATH-HOTP mode 2.5 Challenge-response mode 2.6 YubiKey NEO 2.7 YubiKey versions and parametric data 2.8 YubiKey Nano 3 Installing the YubiKey 3.1 Inserting the YubiKey for the first time (Windows XP) 3.2 Verifying the installation (Windows XP) 3.3 Installing the key under Mac OS X 3.4 Installing the YubiKey on other platforms 3.5 Understanding the LED indicator 3.6 Testing the installation 3.7 Installation troubleshooting 4 Using the YubiKey 4.1 Using multiple configurations (from version 2.0) 4.2 Updating a
    [Show full text]
  • Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and New Testament Interpretation
    Grace Theological Journal 8.2 (1987) 195-212 Copyright © 1987 by Grace Theological Seminary. Cited with permission. NAG HAMMADI, GNOSTICISM AND NEW TESTAMENT INTERPRETATION WILLIAM W. COMBS The Gnostic heresy alluded to in the NT and widely repudiated by Christian writers in the second century and after has been in- creasingly studied in the last forty years. The discovery in upper Egypt of an extensive collection of Gnostic writings on papyri trans- formed a poorly known movement in early Christianity into a well documented heresy of diverse beliefs and practices. The relationship of Gnosticism and the NT is an issue that has not been resolved by the new documents. Attempts to explain the theology of the NT as dependent on Gnostic teachings rest on ques- tionable hypotheses. The Gnostic redeemer-myth cannot be docu- mented before the second century: Thus, though the Gnostic writings provide helpful insight into the heresies growing out of Christianity, it cannot be assumed that the NT grew out of Gnostic teachings. * * * INTRODUCTION STUDENTS of the NT have generally been interested in the subject of Gnosticism because of its consistent appearance in discussions of the "Colossian heresy" and the interpretation of John's first epistle. It is felt that Gnosticism supplies the background against which these and other issues should be understood. However, some who use the terms "Gnostic" and "Gnosticism" lack a clear understanding of the movement itself. In fact, our knowledge of Gnosticism has suffered considerably from a lack of primary sources. Now, however, with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi (hereafter, NH) codices, this void is being filled.
    [Show full text]
  • EARL 8/2 No. 2
    ATTRIDGE/VALENTINIAN AND SETHIAN APOCALYPSES 173 Valentinian and Sethian Apocalyptic Traditions* HAROLD W. ATTRIDGE The paper reexamines the relationship between “apocalyptic” and “gnostic” traditions, on the assumption that global definitions of these phenomena are problematic. Valentinian and Sethian corpora in the Nag Hammadi collection display different appropriations of apocalyptic literary forms and conceptual schemes. Apart from a few late works with traces of Valentinian positions, this tradition largely ignores features characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Valentinian eschatology seems to be founded primarily on philosophical cosmology and psychology. Sethian texts preserve many features of Jewish revelatory literature, and many details associated with various eschatological schemes familiar from apocalyptic sources. The most extensive use of the characteristic “heavenly ascent” topos in Sethian literature, however, seems to be a third-century development, perhaps responding to contemporary forms of religious propaganda. It has been almost forty years since R. M. Grant made his famous, and frequently discussed, suggestion that Gnosticism was born out of disap- pointed apocalyptic hopes.1 While containing an element of truth, the very formulation seems curiously dated. At the end of the millennium we are much more aware of the difficulties of dealing with each term of *A version of this paper was presented to the joint session of the Nag Hammadi and Pseudepigrapha groups at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Orlando, November 22, 1998. The subject of the joint session was the relationship of “apocalyptic” and “Gnosticism.” 1. Robert M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959; rev. ed. 1966), 27–38.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gospel of Judas
    Volume ii8 Number 5 Pages 209-2.15 EXPOSITORY Copyright © 1007 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi) DOI: 10.11:77/0014524606075050 TIMES http://EXT.sagepub.com The Gospel of Judas By SIMON GATHERCOLE University of Aberdeen This article gives a brief account of the literature already produced on the recently published Gospel of Judas, and of the manuscript's character and contents. A discussion of the work's historical and theological relevance shows that while this new 'Gospel' does not provide any reliable information about the historical figures of Jesus and Judas, it does nevertheless afford a fascinating glimpse into the conflicts between Ghristianity and Gnosticism in the second century. KEYWORDS Gospel, Judas, Gnosticism, Jesus, New Testament, Second Century Introduction an Egyptian tomb to its final publication.' Another ne of the greatest historical discoveries of book, written by James Robinson, appeared at the I the twentieth century', writes New same time as the two 'official' publications and Testament scholar Bart Ehrman.' offered a very different side to the story. "^ Tom o Wright, the Bishop of Durham, has written a short 'Greatest archaeological discovery of all time', announced the Mail on Sundays In April 2006, book arguing that the Gospel of Judas exposes just when the English translation of the Gospel of how incredible Gnostic portraits of Jesus are, given Judas was finally published, it provoked a flurry that they detach Jesus from his Jewish origins.' of media attention in which journalists tried to Bart Ehrman, a contributor to both of the National talk scholars into saying that the work would Geographic volumes, is producing his own book overturn the traditional picture of Christianity.
    [Show full text]
  • Exploring the Interconnectedness of Cryptocurrencies Using Correlation Networks
    Exploring the Interconnectedness of Cryptocurrencies using Correlation Networks Andrew Burnie UCL Computer Science Doctoral Student at The Alan Turing Institute [email protected] Conference Paper presented at The Cryptocurrency Research Conference 2018, 24 May 2018, Anglia Ruskin University Lord Ashcroft International Business School Centre for Financial Research, Cambridge, UK. Abstract Correlation networks were used to detect characteristics which, although fixed over time, have an important influence on the evolution of prices over time. Potentially important features were identified using the websites and whitepapers of cryptocurrencies with the largest userbases. These were assessed using two datasets to enhance robustness: one with fourteen cryptocurrencies beginning from 9 November 2017, and a subset with nine cryptocurrencies starting 9 September 2016, both ending 6 March 2018. Separately analysing the subset of cryptocurrencies raised the number of data points from 115 to 537, and improved robustness to changes in relationships over time. Excluding USD Tether, the results showed a positive association between different cryptocurrencies that was statistically significant. Robust, strong positive associations were observed for six cryptocurrencies where one was a fork of the other; Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash was an exception. There was evidence for the existence of a group of cryptocurrencies particularly associated with Cardano, and a separate group correlated with Ethereum. The data was not consistent with a token’s functionality or creation mechanism being the dominant determinants of the evolution of prices over time but did suggest that factors other than speculation contributed to the price. Keywords: Correlation Networks; Interconnectedness; Contagion; Speculation 1 1. Introduction The year 2017 saw the start of a rapid diversification in cryptocurrencies.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gnostic Myth of Sophia in Dark City (1998) Fryderyk Kwiatkowski Jagiellonian University in Kraków, [email protected]
    Journal of Religion & Film Volume 21 Article 34 Issue 1 April 2017 4-1-2017 How To Attain Liberation From a False World? The Gnostic Myth of Sophia in Dark City (1998) Fryderyk Kwiatkowski Jagiellonian University in Kraków, [email protected] Recommended Citation Kwiatkowski, Fryderyk (2017) "How To Attain Liberation From a False World? The Gnostic Myth of Sophia in Dark City (1998)," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 21 : Iss. 1 , Article 34. Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol21/iss1/34 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Religion & Film by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. How To Attain Liberation From a False World? The Gnostic Myth of Sophia in Dark City (1998) Abstract In the second half of the 20th century, a fascinating revival of ancient Gnostic ideas in American popular culture could be observed. One of the major streams through which Gnostic ideas are transmitted is Hollywood cinema. Many works that emerged at the end of 1990s can be viewed through the ideas of ancient Gnostic systems: The Truman Show (1998), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), The Others (2001), Vanilla Sky (2001) or The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003). In this article, the author analyses Dark City (1998) and demonstrates that the story depicted in the film is heavily indebted to the Gnostic myth of Sophia. He bases his inquiry on the newest research results in Gnostic Studies in order to highlight the importance of definitional problems within the field and how carefully the concept of “Gnosticism” should be applied to popular culture studies.
    [Show full text]