DOCSLIB.ORG

The Gospel of Science and American Evangelism in Late Ottoman Beirut*

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Gospel of Science and American Evangelism in Late Ottoman Beirut* Th pl f n nd rn vnl n Lt ttn Brt Marwa Elshakry Past & Present, Number 196, August 2007, pp. 173-214 (Article) Pblhd b xfrd nvrt Pr For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ptp/summary/v196/196.1elshakry.html Access provided by Harvard University (24 Jan 2015 23:39 GMT) THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE AND AMERICAN EVANGELISM IN LATE OTTOMAN BEIRUT* In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Protestant revivalist and millenarian movements swept the shores of the Atlantic. Wesleyan Methodism captured the imagination of English en- thusiasts, while their overseas brethren witnessed two ‘Great Awakenings’. Numerous prophecies foretold the triumph of Christ’s spiritual rule over the earth and the conversion of all the world’s peoples, particularly the Jews, who were expected to return to the Holy Land and there embrace a reformed faith on the path to salvation. With the coming of the Saviour and the destruction of all the Men of Sin a ‘thousand years of peace, brotherhood and justice’ were expected.1 Inspired by the spirit of ‘disinterested benevolence’ of Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Hopkins — and by visions of America’s ‘manifest destiny’ in the world — American Protestant disciples set out to prepare the road for Christ’s return and to sow the seeds of peace, justice and brotherhood among the heathen and unre- formed.2 In 1810 a fraternity known as the ‘Brethren’ at the * The research for this article was made possible through the support of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the British Academy. For their critical suggestions and discussions, I am grateful to Nadia Abou El Haj, Peter Buck, Alice Carter, Omnia El Shakry, Ellen Fleischmann, Tamara Griggs, Shafiq Juha, Mark Mazower, James Moore, Aida Nawar, Steven Shapin and the participants of Columbia University’s Middle East Studies working group. Special thanks are also due to the librarians and archivists at the American University of Beirut. 1 Oliver Wendell Elsbree, ‘The Rise of the Missionary Spirit in New England, 1790–1815’, New England Quart., iii (1928), 295–9. On the first Great Awakening (c.1720–40), see Frank Lambert, Inventing the ‘Great Awakening’ (Princeton, 2001); on the second (c.1795–1835), see Barry Hankins, The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (Westport, 2004). See also Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (Leicester, 2004). 2 See Jonathan Edwards on Evangelism, ed. Carl J. C. Wolf (Westport, 1958); Samuel Hopkins, A Treatise on the Millennium, repr. of 1793 edn (New York, 1972). On mani- fest destiny, see Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York, 1995). American mission work began in the mid to late eighteenth century with efforts to convert — and civilize — native Americans through local mission societies set up in the 1790s; in 1802 congressional appropriations, known as the ‘Civilization Fund’, also made money available to religious groups ‘to (cont. on p. 174) Past and Present,no.196(August2007) ß The Past and Present Society, Oxford, 2007 doi:10.1093/pastj/gtm006 174 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 196 Calvinist Divinity College (later the Andover Theological Sem- inary) founded what would quickly become one of the largest interdenominational missionary societies in the north-eastern United States: the American Board of Commissioners for For- eign Missions (ABCFM).3 From the start, theirs was a project with global ambitions: ‘Prophesy, history and the present state of the world’, announced the Board in 1811, ‘seem to unite in declaring that the great pillars of the Papal and Mahommedan impostures are now tottering to their fall . Now is the time for the followers of Christ to come forward boldly and engage ear- nestly in the great work of enlightening and reforming mankind’.4 By mid century the ABCFM had established numerous mis- sionary outposts across the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and the Americas. ‘Through various channels of influence’, wrote the Reverend James Dennis, an early member of the station at Beirut, ‘missions are pouring vitalizing forces into the social, na- tional, commercial and religious life of foreign peoples’. The aim was to create ‘new men’ abroad or, as Dennis wrote, ‘the embry- onic norms of a new society and a new life’.5 Hoping to mould ‘new national lives and characters’, American evangelists pro- moted spiritual and worldly reform in foreign lands through an ambitious amalgam of pedagogy, philanthropy and politics that critics have since referred to as ‘colonial evangelism’.6 Commentators and scholars have long debated the relationship between Christian missions and imperialism in the Middle East. (n. 2 cont.) provide civilization among the aborigines’. Americanizing the American Indian: Writings by the ‘Friends of the Indian’, 1880–1900, ed. Francis Paul Prucha (Lincoln, Nebr., 1978), 19. 3 Although Congregational in origin the ABCFM quickly grew to include Presbyterian, Dutch-Reformed and other denominational members. See Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 20; James A. Field Jr, America and the Mediterranean World, 1776–1882 (Princeton, 1969), 89. 4 ‘Address to the Christian Public’, Nov. 1811, from First Ten Annual Reports of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Boston, 1834), 28. 5 James S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions, 3 vols. (New York, 1897–1906), iii, 3–4. 6 See, for instance, T. O. Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism: A Socio-Historical Study of an East African Mission at Grassroots (Bloomington, 1982). Cf. John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, i, Christianity, Colonialism and Conscious- ness in South Africa (Chicago, 1991), 7–11; Andrew Porter, Religion versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester, 2004). AMERICAN EVANGELISM IN LATE OTTOMAN BEIRUT 175 From the start, there were those who suspected that a colonial agenda lurked behind the missionaries’ religious aspirations. As early as the 1890s, contemporary writers and journalists linked the evangelists with foreign occupiers such as the British in Egypt and the Sudan, or the French in Algeria and North-West Africa.7 Some twentieth-century Arab nationalist historians followed suit and described them as the shock troops of imperialism.8 Others, however, especially in the Anglophone world, have portrayed Christian, and particularly Protestant, missionaries in a more favourable light, not as collaborators with foreign imperialists but as mentors of Arab nationalism itself — both the carriers of new ideas from Europe and the agents in the revival and mod- ernization of the Middle East.9 Missionaries to the Middle East are thus hailed as playing a role in a surprisingly diverse number of rather worldly endeavours, whether as sponsors of the late nineteenth-century revival of the Arabic language and belles- lettres known as the nahda (Arab Renaissance) or as promoters of a new spirit of Arab secularism and nationalism.10 Historians 7 See, for example, al-mu8ayyid, i (1890), 50–4; al-manar, i (1898), 898–9; ibid., ii (1899), 141–2. See also Mahmud Samrah, ‘Christian Missions and Western Ideas in Syrian Muslim Writers, 1860–1918’ (Univ. of London Ph.D. thesis, 1958), 33–42; Robert Truett Gilliam, ‘A Muslim Response to Protestant Missionaries: The Case of al-Manar’ (American Univ. of Beirut MA dissertation, 2000), 12–16; Mahmoud Haddad, ‘Syrian Muslim Attitudes toward Foreign Missionaries in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, in Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon (eds.), Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East (New York, 2002). 8 Mustafa Khalidi and 6Umar Farrukh, al-tabshir wa’l-isti 6mar fi’l-bilad al-6arabiyya [Missions and Imperialism in the Arab World](Beirut, 1953); Ibrahim Khalil Ahmad, al-mustashriqun wa’l-mubashirun fi’l-6alam al-6arabi wa’l-islami [Orientalists and Mis- sionaries in the Arab and Muslim World] (Cairo, 1964); Emad Sharaf, haqa8iq 6an al- tabshir [The Truth about Missions] (Cairo, 1975); 6Abdul Rahman Hasan al-Midani, ajnihat al-makr al thalatha wa khawafiha: al-tabshir, al-istishraq, al-isti 6mar [The Three Wings of Duplicity: Missions, Orientalism and Imperialism] (Damascus, 1975). For a review of some of these works, see Gilliam, ‘Muslim Response to Protestant Mission- aries’, 92–5; Heather Sharkey, ‘Arabic Antimissionary Treatises: Muslim Responses’, Internat. Bull. Missionary Research (July 2004). 9 Philip K. Hitti, Lebanon in History from the Earliest Times to the Present (London, 1957), ch. 31; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Oxford, 1962), 55; Kamal S. Salibi, The Modern History of Lebanon (London, 1965), ch. 7; George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (Beirut, 1969), 35–43; Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies (London, 1970), 289; Elie Kedourie, ‘The American University of Beirut’, in his Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies (London, 1974), 70. 10 On the former, see citations at n. 9 above; on the latter, see, for example, Adnan Abu-Ghazaleh, American Missions in Syria: A Study of American Missionary (cont. on p. 176) 176 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 196 have since tempered such broad claims while nevertheless giving the missionaries a key role in the transformation of Syrian society and identity.11 Even though missionaries failed ultimately in their mission to save souls — their success in terms of numbers of actual converts to the Protestant Church was never very impres- sive — they were nevertheless said to have helped win the battle for the ‘conversion to modernities’ in the Middle East.12 What is at stake in this long-standing argument, of course, is the very concept of ‘conversion’ itself — a question that bedevilled mis- sionaries, their patrons and subjects alike, and one which this article ultimately addresses.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • RISSIONS and MISSIONARIES PIETER N. HOLTROP and HUGH
    RISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES EDITED BY PIETER N. HOLTROP and HUGH McLEOD PUBLISHED FOR THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY SOCIETY BY THE BOYDELL PRESS 2000 CONTENTS List of Contributors vii Editors' Preface ix List of Abbreviations x The Vernacular and the Propagation of the Faith in Anglo-Saxon Missionary Activity i ANNA MARIA LUISEIXI FADDA St Willibrord in Recent Historiography 16 EUGÈNE HONÉE Political Rivalry and Early Dutch Reformed Missions in Seventeenth-Century North Sulawesi (Celebes) 32 HENDRIK E. NIEMEIJER The Beliefs, Aspirations and Methods of the First Missionaries in British Hong Kong, 1841-5 50 KATE LOWE Civilizing the Kingdom: Missionary Objectives and the Dutch Public Sphere Around 1800 65 JORIS VAN EIJNATTEN Language, 'Native Agency', and Missionary Control: Rufus Anderson's Journey to India, 1854-5 81 ANDREW PORTER Why Protestant Churches? The American Board and the Eastern Churches: Mission among 'Nominal' Christians (1820-70) 98 H. L. MURRE-VAN DEN BERG Modernism and Mission: The Influence of Dutch Modern Theology on Missionary Practice in the East Indies in the Nineteenth Century 112 GUUS BOONE 'Hunting for Souls': The Missionary Pilgrimage of George Sherwood Eddy 127 BRIAN STANLEY CONTENTS The Governor a Missionary? Dutch Colonial Rule and Christianization during Idenburg's Term of Office as Governor of Indonesia (1909-16) 142 PIETER N. HOLTROP Re-reading Missionary Publications: The Case of European and Malagasy Martyrologies, 1837-1937 157 RACHEL A. RAKOTONIRINA Women in the Irish Protestant Foreign Missions c. 1873-1914: Representations and Motivations 170 MYRTLE HILL There is so much involved ...' The Sisters of Charity of Saint Charles Borromeo in Indonesia in the Period from the Second World War 186 LIESBETH LABBEKE Missionaries, Mau Mau and the Christian Frontier 200 JOHN CASSON Index 217 VI WHY PROTESTANT CHURCHES? THE AMERICAN BOARD AND THE EASTERN CHURCHES: MISSION AMONG 'NOMINAL' CHRISTIANS (1820-70) by H.
    [Show full text]
  • Answering Christ's Call to Witness in the Middle East
    PRESBYTERIAN MISSION AGENCY / Spring 2015 pcusa.org/missioncrossroads mission ANSWERING CHRIST’S CALL TO WITNESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AT THE CROSSROADS | By Amgad Beblawi, World Mission Area Coordinator for the Middle East and Europe Mission Crossroads is a Seeing the Middle East Presbyterian Mission Agency publication about the church’s through Christ’s call mission around the world. As reports of turmoil and conflict in the Middle East continue Presbyterian World Mission is to make news headlines, Western governments continue to committed to sending mission deliberate and strategize how to protect their national interests in personnel, empowering the the region. global church, and equipping On the other hand, the church’s outlook and response to events the Presbyterian Church (USA.) in the world is diametrically different. Compelled by the love for mission as together we address of God, the church responds to Christ’s call – “you will be my the root causes of poverty, work for witnesses” (Acts 1:8). reconciliation amidst cultures Christians in the Middle East have, in fact, been Christ’s witnesses since the Day of Pentecost. Successive generations of Christ’s followers proclaimed the of violence, and share the good Gospel to the region’s inhabitants for the past two millennia. However, since the dawn of Islam in news of God’s saving love the seventh century, Christians gradually became a small minority. By the beginning of the 19th through Jesus Christ. century, Orthodox, Assyrian, Maronite, and Eastern Catholic churches that trace their origin to the Apostolic Era were in a state of decline. EDITOR Presbyterian churches in the US and Scotland heard God’s call to send missionaries to Kathy Melvin strengthen indigenous churches in the land where Christianity had its cradle.
    [Show full text]
  • The Clarion of Syria
    AL-BUSTANI, HANSSEN,AL-BUSTANI, SAFIEDDINE | THE CLARION OF SYRIA The Clarion of Syria A PATRIOT’S CALL AGAINST THE CIVIL WAR OF 1860 BUTRUS AL-BUSTANI INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED BY JENS HANSSEN AND HICHAM SAFIEDDINE FOREWORD BY USSAMA MAKDISI The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Simpson Imprint in Humanities. The Clarion of Syria Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and rein- vigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The Clarion of Syria A Patriot’s Call against the Civil War of 1860 Butrus al-Bustani Introduced and Translated by Jens Hanssen and Hicham Safieddine Foreword by Ussama Makdisi university of california press University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2019 by Jens Hanssen and Hicham Safieddine This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hanssen, Jens, author & translator.
    [Show full text]
  • Personal Papers
    Personal Papers This is not a complete listing of all individuals for whom the Yale Divinity Library holds papers. For thorough searching, please use the Yale Finding Aid Database. See also microform collections such as "Women’s lives. Series 3, American women missionaries and pioneers collection" - University of Oregon Libraries. (Film Ms467) When an online finding aid for a collection is available, the record group number (e.g., RG 8) is linked to it. Hard copies are available for all record groups in the Special Collections Reading Room. Also available online is a geographical index grouping individuals and organizations by continent, region or country. For a list of abbreviations used in this chart, click here. Jump to: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z Abbott, Edward (RG 8) Collection of 57 photographs taken in China (1896-1900) primarily at American Church Mission stations and institutions. Also of interest: Imperial Examination cells at Nanking, Chinese Prayer Book Revision Committee. (.5 linear ft.) Abbott, James (Film Ms.121) Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in New Zealand (1892-1896). (1 reel) Ableson, Bradford Edward (RG Prominent Yale Divinity School graduate, Captain in the Chaplain 222) Corps of the U.S. Navy, and clergyman. (11 linear ft.) Adams, Archibald (RG 8) ABFMS missionary to China, stationed in Suifu (Yibin) and Kiating (Leshan), Sichuan prov. (1914-1926); correspondence, writings, photographs of Peking, Western China, Buddhist funeral, people at work, etc. (1 linear ft.) Adams, Marie (RG 8) MEFB missionary in Peking (1915-1950); memoir, photographs and watercolors in silk cases, incl.
    [Show full text]
  • Kiepert's Maps After Robinson and Smith
    Haim Goren, Bruno Schelhaas Kiepert’s Maps after Robinson and Smith: Revolution in Re-Identifying the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century Summary In the long history of Palestine research one interesting devel- aus den USA stammende Theologe Edward Robinson in Be- opment has to be noted. In the 19th century the Holy Land gleitung des Missionars Eli Smith eine Reise durch das Hei- was ‘rediscovered’, leading to the detailed use of all existing lige Land. Ihre Vorreiterrolle in der Erforschung des Heili- sources, the foremost being the Scriptures. The US theologian gen Landes und die ausführliche Rekonstruktion der Bibel als Edward Robinson, accompanied by the missionary Eli Smith, historisch-geographische Quelle wurde von ihren Zeitgenos- traveled in the Holy Land in 1838. The pioneering role in Holy sen anerkannt und stellte einen Meilenstein auf dem Weg der Land research, the detailed reconstruction of the Scriptures Palästinaforschung zur akademischen Disziplin dar. Ergebnis as a historical-geographical source was accepted by contempo- der Reise war ein umfassendes dreibändiges Werk, das mehre- raries – a milestone in the process of establishing Palestine re- re Karten des jungen Kartographen Heinrich Kiepert enthielt. search as a modern academic discipline. The voyage yielded a Mit diesen Karten wurde ein neues Narrativ im historisch- detailed, three-volume work, including various maps drawn by geographischen Diskurs eingeführt, das zu einer neuen Iden- the young cartographer Heinrich Kiepert. These maps estab- titätskonstruktion des Heiligen Landes führte. lished a new narrative within the historical-geographical dis- Keywords: Palästinaforschung; Kartographiegeschichte; Ed- course, leading to a new construction of the identity of the ward Robinson; Eli Smith; Heinrich Kiepert Holy Land.
    [Show full text]
  • Toward a Conceptual History of Nafir Suriyya Jens Hanssen
    Chapter 4 Toward a Conceptual History of Nafir Suriyya jens hanssen Both words of the title of al-Bustani’s pamphlets require inves- tigation, as well as his definition of them as wataniyyat: What did he mean by nafir and what would have been its connotations? And what did Suriyya mean to al-Bustani and his generation? Was it a description of a real territory or a potentiality? al-Nafir and Suriyya are terms that go back to antiquity, but neither had much traction outside liturgical literature until contact with Protestant missionaries gave them new political valence. al-Nafīr means “clarion” or “trumpet,” which was perhaps so self-evident that al-Bustani did not explain the term in his pamphlets.1 But in Muhit al-Muhit, he dedicated almost an entire page to the different declinations and meanings of the rootn-f-r (from the “bolting of a mare,” to “raising of troops,” “the fugi- tive,” “estrangement,” and “mutual aversion”), before defin- ing al-nafir itself: “someone enlisted in a group or cause,” and “al-nafir al-ʿam means mass mobilization to combat the enemy.” The Protestant convert al-Bustani also lists yawm al-nafir (Judgment Day)2 and informs the reader that al-nafir is also a trumpet or fanfare (al-buq)3 containing associations with Israfil, 45 46 / Chapter 4 the archangel of death alluded to in the Bible and the Quran.4 Then he mentions Nafir Suriyya itself as a set of “meditations on the events of 1860 published in eleven issues that we called wataniyyat.” Like many historians before us, we translate the term as “ clarion” in order to capture both the apocalyptic mood of the text and the author’s passionate call for social concord and overcoming adversity.5 At first sight, the term Suriyya is less complex.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief Survey of Missions
    2 A Brief Survey of Missions A BRIEF SURVEY OF MISSIONS Examining the Founding, Extension, and Continuing Work of Telling the Good News, Nurturing Converts, and Planting Churches Rev. Morris McDonald, D.D. Field Representative of the Presbyterian Missionary Union an agency of the Bible Presbyterian Church, USA P O Box 160070 Nashville, TN, 37216 Email: [email protected] Ph: 615-228-4465 Far Eastern Bible College Press Singapore, 1999 3 A Brief Survey of Missions © 1999 by Morris McDonald Photos and certain quotations from 18th and 19th century missionaries taken from JERUSALEM TO IRIAN JAYA by Ruth Tucker, copyright 1983, the Zondervan Corporation. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI Published by Far Eastern Bible College Press 9A Gilstead Road, Singapore 309063 Republic of Singapore ISBN: 981-04-1458-7 Cover Design by Charles Seet. 4 A Brief Survey of Missions Preface This brief yet comprehensive survey of Missions, from the day sin came into the world to its whirling now head on into the Third Millennium is a text book prepared specially by Dr Morris McDonald for Far Eastern Bible College. It is used for instruction of her students at the annual Vacation Bible College, 1999. Dr Morris McDonald, being the Director of the Presbyterian Missionary Union of the Bible Presbyterian Church, USA, is well qualified to write this book. It serves also as a ready handbook to pastors, teachers and missionaries, and all who have an interest in missions. May the reading of this book by the general Christian public stir up both old and young, man and woman, to play some part in hastening the preaching of the Gospel to the ends of the earth before the return of our Saviour (Matthew 24:14) Even so, come Lord Jesus Timothy Tow O Zion, Haste O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling, to tell to all the world that God is Light; that He who made all nations is not willing one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel Bliss Collection, 1852-1916 a Finding Aid to the Collection in the University Libraries, AUB Prepared by Samar Mikati
    Archives and Special Collections Department, American University of Beirut Beirut, Lebanon © 2015 Daniel Bliss Collection, 1852-1916 A Finding Aid to the Collection in the University Libraries, AUB Prepared by Samar Mikati Contact information: [email protected] Webpage: www.aub.edu.lb/Libraries/asc Descriptive Summary Call No.: AA: 2.3.1 Bib record: b14618072 Record Creator: Bliss, Daniel, 1823-1916. Collection Title: Daniel Bliss Collection, 1852-1916. Collection Dates: Bulk of material 1852-1916 Physical Description: 19 archival boxes (6.4 linear feet) Abstract: Missionary, educator, founder, and first president of Syrian Protestant College (now the American University of Beirut). In addition to serving as SPC President he was also the Professor of Moral Philosophy and Biblical Exegesis, 1866-1902. Language(s): English, Arabic and French Administrative Information Source: Some documents were presented to the Library by Dr. Daniel Bliss Junior and Howard H. Bliss Junior, in 1966. Many letters of the collection were donated by Mrs. Walter C. Eystor, Daniel Bliss niece, to Jafet Library as a contribution to AUB's Centennial Year. Access Restrictions: The collection can be used within the premises of the Archives and Special Collections Department, Jafet Memorial Library, American University of Beirut. Photocopying Restriction: No photocopying restriction except for fragile material. Preferred Citation: Daniel Bliss Collection, 1852-1916, AA: 2.3.1, Box no.-, File no.-, American University of Beirut/Library Archives. Scope and Content The Collection comprises Daniel Bliss biographical information, correspondence with AUB Community and other coordinates, diaries, copy of his passport, addresses and letters of condolences to Howard Bliss on his father’s, Daniel Bliss, death.
    [Show full text]
  • Presbyterians in Persia: Christianity, Cooperation, and Control in Building the Mission at Orumiyeh
    Presbyterians in Persia: Christianity, Cooperation, and Control in Building the Mission at Orumiyeh by Natalie Kidwell Submitted to the Department of History of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for departmental honors Approved by: _________________________ Dr. Marie Brown Thesis Adviser _________________________ Dr. Anton Rosenthal Committee Member _________________________ Dr. Sam Brody Committee Member _________________________ Date Defended Kidwell 1 Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................................................2-3 Persia and Presbyterians ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Persian government and foreign powers at play ........................................................................................................... 7-11 Education in Persia ................................................................................................................................................................. 12-14 Western Christianity in Persia ............................................................................................................................................ 15-25 Dwight and Smith ...........................................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Medieval Shiloh—Continuity and Renewal
    religions Article Medieval Shiloh—Continuity and Renewal Amichay Shcwartz 1,2,* and Abraham Ofir Shemesh 1 1 The Israel Heritage Department, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ariel University, Kiryat Hamada Ariel 40700, Israel; [email protected] 2 The Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 25 August 2020; Accepted: 22 September 2020; Published: 27 September 2020 Abstract: The present paper deals with the development of cult in Shiloh during the Middle Ages. After the Byzantine period, when Shiloh was an important Christian cult place, it disappeared from the written sources and started to be identified with Nebi Samwil. In the 12th century Shiloh reappeared in the travelogues of Muslims, and shortly thereafter, in ones by Jews. Although most of the traditions had to do with the Tabernacle, some traditions started to identify Shiloh with the tomb of Eli and his family. The present study looks at the relationship between the practice of ziyara (“visit” in Arabic), which was characterized by the veneration of tombs, and the cult in Shiloh. The paper also surveys archeological finds in Shiloh that attest to a medieval cult and compares them with the written sources. In addition, it presents testimonies by Christians about Jewish cultic practices, along with testimonies about the cult place shared by Muslims and Jews in Shiloh. Examination of the medieval cult in Shiloh provides a broader perspective on an uninstitutionalized regional cult. Keywords: Shiloh; medieval period; Muslim archeology; travelers 1. Introduction Maintaining the continuous sanctity of a site over historical periods, and even between different faiths, is a well-known phenomenon: It is a well-known phenomenon that places of pilgrimage maintain their sacred status even after shifts in the owners’ faith (Limor 1998, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Eli Smith and the Arabic Bible
    ELI SMITH AND THE ARABIC BIBLE YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY OccasionalPublication, No. 4 YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY OccasionalPublication, No. 4 ELI SMITH AND THE ARABIC BIBLE by Margaret R. Leavy NEW HA VEN, CONNECTICUT 1993 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Eli Smith and the Arabic Bible The A.B.C.F.M. Press in Malta 7 The Press in Beirut - A New Arabic Type 11 The Bible in Arabic 14 Note on Sources 22 Appendix: Eli Smith on the Difficulties of Translating 23 an Arabic Grammar: From a letter to Moses Stuart, reprinted in the Biblical Repository,vol. 2, January, 1832. Introduction This essay by Margaret R. Leavy was. commissioned to mark·the opening of two exhibits at the Yale Divinity School Library.: "Missionary Translators" and "The, Yale Missionary Bible Cpllection." Thes,e exhibits, prepared tO' G<>incidewith a symposium entitled LANGUAGE, CULTl.J!IB'AND TRANSLATION:·FURTHER: STUDIES :·IN THE MISSIONARYMOVEMENl', described the lives and werk of. various missionary translators and displayed products of their labors. Recent scholarsqip has drawn attention to the impact of Bible transJation on the social and cultural'{ievelopment of societies. Lamin.Sanneh, for e~ample, has pointed to the "connections between Bible· translatiqg· and related issues such as cultural self­ understanding·, vernacular pride~ ,social awakening, religious renewal'; cross-qultural dialogue, transmission and recipiency, reciprocity in mission~, .. "1 IA. his work Translatingthe Message:.The MissionaryImpact on -Culture,.Sannenfurther notes that: Tlie distinguishing mark of scriptural translation has been the effort to <;ome.as close as possible to the speech of the common people. Translators have consequently first de~oted much time, effort, and resources to building the basis, with investigations into the culture, history, language, religion, economy, anthropolo~y, and physical environment of the peoI?le concerned, before tackling tlteir 'concrete task.
    [Show full text]
  • The Daniel Bliss Society
    AUB Founder Daniel Bliss The American University of Beirut (AUB) is a private, independent, co-educational, and non-sectarian institution Daniel Bliss was of higher learning in Beirut, Lebanon. A teaching-centered born in 1823 in research university, AUB bases its educational philosophy, Georgia, Vermont. standards, and practices on the American liberal arts model He graduated from of higher education. The university encourages freedom of thought and expression and seeks to graduate men and women Amherst College in 1852 committed to creative and critical thinking, lifelong learning, and the Andover Theological personal integrity, civic responsibility, and leadership. Seminary in 1855. Shortly after he was ordained into the Congregational ministry, he was appointed to Syria by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Bliss and his wife, Abby Wood left Boston in December 1855. They arrived in Beirut in February 1856. They spent six years as missionaries in Abey, just north of Aley, and then at Suq al-Gharb. In 1862, American missionaries in Lebanon and Syria, Please call or email us for more information: under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, asked Bliss to establish a college of higher Beirut Office learning that would include medical training. Bliss Nadia Hassan Assistant Director of Development Programs travelled to the United States in the summer of 1862 +961-1-350000 Ext. 2638 to raise the money that was needed to establish the [email protected] college. He proved to be a skilled fundraiser securing PO Box 11-0236 $100,000 by August 1864. Because of inflation, it was Office of Advancement decided that the $100,000 should be left to appreciate Riad El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020 The Daniel Bliss and Bliss should raise a sterling fund in England.
    [Show full text]