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Drawing on Marcel Mauss, this article contends that historians and sociologists should not focus on what prayer brings about, but on how it is brought about or “produced.” Specifically, it aims at bringing to light normative conceptions of prayer, through content analysis of Protestant children’s books, written by the Netherlands’ most important twentieth-century author of juvenile literature, W.G. van de Hulst. A recurrent theme in his earlier works is a “breach” in the prayer life of the (male) protagonists – their “conversion” from conventional, “ritual” prayer to individualised, improvised, “sincere” prayer. In his later works, by contrast, Van de Hulst suggested that “real prayer” can be learned gradually, in an intimate relationship between children – notably girls – and their mothers. The gender- and age-specific nature of these models for prayer is shown by mapping out differences between prayer scenes, e.g. with respect to social setting, body postures, and forms of address.

Ruqyah refers to the healing method based on the Quran and hadith through the recitation of the Quran, seeking of refuge, remembrance and supplication that is used as a means of treating sickness and other problems, by reading verses of the Quran, the names and attributes of Allah, or by using the prayers in Arabic or in a language the meaning of which is understood. The use of ruqyah as a method of treatment is popular among the Islamic alternative healing practitioners. This method of ruqyah is based on the recommendations and practices carried out by the Prophet (pbuh) for self-treatment or to help his Sahabah and others. Through analysis of the inductive, deductive and historical approaches, this article aims to explain the views of Imam al-Bukhari in relation to aspects of ruqyah and its use in the treatment of disease by analysing some chapters translated (tarjamah al-bab) by Imam al-Bukhari in the Kitab al-Tibb. The results show that the use of ruqyah in the treatment of diseases refers to the discussion of the seven chapters translated (tarjamah al-bab) on three main issues: [1] The use of ruqyah from the Quran, [2] Conditions in using a ruqyah, and [3] The types of ruqyah recommended by the Prophet.

This article investigates the manifestations of anti-Judaism that informed fifteenth-century debates over the religious and civic status of the conversos. Insurgents in Toledo supported the persecution of the conversos and their exclusion from public life by insisting on their continued Jewishness despite baptism. Documents such as the “Petition” and the “Sentencia-Estatuto” issued by the rebel regime, the “Appeal and Supplication” written by Marcos García de Mora, and the anonymous “Privilege,” show that the conversos’ opponents developed a hermeneutic of the flesh founded in a reading of the epistles of Paul and informed by their own particular historical context. This hermeneutic afforded the conversos’ opponents a theological basis for shutting certain baptized Christians out of Spanish society based on their carnal descent, weaving race into Christian theology. So useful a conceptual and rhetorical tool was anti-Judaism, however, that even converso defenders employed it as a weapon against their opponents.

Dialogue is one of the most important issues in the world because it directly refers to man’s mind. However, the dialogue in the Qur’ān acquires man’s mind to develop faith in Allah. A dialogue process between Gabriel and Prophet Muhammad SAW was the turning point before the first revelation sent to him. In fact, the dialogue appears to be a fundamental tool in communication which it has own strength, and plays a significant role in developing faith and belief. This process, then, moves to the next level of view’s sharing and exchange in which it would achieve better and stronger belief. This paper conducted an analysis which it has proved the Qur’ān strongly emphasized the dialogue process. The result of this paper presented ten elements of the dialogue in the Qur’ān which are comprised of da’wah, conversation/ debate, reading, speech, advise, reminder, instruction, interview-listening and supplication.

Abstract In Euripides’ Suppliant Women, Theseus at first rejects Adrastos’ supplication to recover the bodies of the Argive dead. Later he changes his mind. This article discusses the initial failure of the supplication, both examining the failings in Adrastos’ appeal and suggesting that a strong case can be made for Theseus’ rejection: neither he nor Athens would have suffered from gods or from men had he stood by it. Why then did he have the change of heart that the play clearly approves? The article links his rejection with a narrow nationalism evinced in his response to the exogamous marriages Adrastos had contracted for his daughters. His attitude looks back to Perikles’ marriage law of 451 BC and reflects the chauvinism that it brought in its wake. Theseus must unlearn this limited mind-set and become a truly Panhellenic hero. The article traces how this in fact happens in the course of the play, above all through the developing relationship between Theseus and Adrastos. His jingoism and isolationism melt away, though in her ex machina appearance Athena undermines the great-heartedness that both kings have displayed. Despite that, the play ends affirmatively, endorsing the theme of the inadequacy of a narrow Athenocentrism.

This study analyses the Aramaic root ‮קשט‬ and its derivatives in the Book of the Words of Noah and Second Temple Jewish Aramaic literature. In its basic meaning the root and its derivatives signify the straightness of a matter, but they oscillate semantically from a simple statement regarding the truth of a matter to the idea of a universe that is patterned by righteousness. In its broad and often highly philosophical range of meanings, the concept of qûšṭâ comes closest to the idea of Maat in ancient Egyptian thought.

An exploration of the use of 'bd in the Psalms shows that it is almost exclusively used metaphorically. As a verb, this study affirms translations such as 'to worship' in reference to deity, and 'to be subject to' in reference to human power. As a noun, it is used to describe a wide range of things or people, all in relation the YHWH. Of interest is how 'bd is used as a metaphor ('bdk/'bdyk) for the voice in a number of psalms, effectively being a substitution for 'I' or 'we'. This use is always connected with supplication and or claims of loyalty to YHWH, and shows that 'bd indicates the relationship of the voice in the psalm to YHWH is that of dependency, submission and loyalty. When used to describe others outside of the voice in the psalm, the term can indicate status, but always derived status.

Long-distance trade, entailing as it does repeated exchanges across countries and cultures, often brings in its train consequences beyond the exchange of goods and specie. As other exchanges—of warfare, kinship, supplication, devotion—thicken social relations across routes pioneered by trade, new ways of imagining society across a larger space emerge. This paper examines the transcultural work that may be performed to create such enlarged imaginations of society, with a particular reference to the Hadramis of Yemen. In such ways, we suggest that a world religion, such as Islam, can give specific cultural shape to the distant horizons of world trade, as both expanded across the Indian Ocean over the past five centuries. Le commerce de longue distance impliquait des échanges répétés entre régions et cultures; il en entraînait souvent d'autres qui, tels la guerre, les liens de parenté, les actes cultuels, renfor çaient les relations sociales, suscitant de nouvelles perspectives d'approches de la société sur une plus large échelle. Fondée plus particulièrement sur le cas des Hadramis du Yémen, cette contribution examinera les études transculturelles à mener pour appréhender une plus large société. Il est ainsi suggéré qu'une religion universelle, l'Islam, a pu apporter quelque forme culturelle spécifique au commerce mondial quand, durant les cinq derniers siècles, ils se déploient de concert sur l'Océan indien.

This chapter explains Gregory's two things; (i) he pointed to the dignity and eminence of that most holy prayer when he wrote: "Being warned by saving commandments and formed by divine teaching" and (ii) he showed us the courage needed to pray, giving the confidence of supplication when he added: "we dare to say". The dignity of anything arises from its own causes, and the four causes of this prayer are treated; (i) material cause is shown in the words: 'saving commandments', (ii) final cause is indicated by the words: 'being warned', for a warning comes about either so that we might reach our end or so that we might not fall away from our end, (iii) efficient cause is contained in the words: 'by divine teaching', for this prayer is divinely instituted, (iv) the formal cause of 'being formed'. Keywords: commandments; Gregory's two things; holy prayer

This paper explores the themes and tensions of the first part of the Seven Against Thebes, against the background of Athenian civic religion. The confrontation between Eteocles and the Chorus can be seen as an opposition between two gender-related religious attitudes. Eteocles describes his religious behaviour as ritually appropriate whereas he rebukes that of the women as inappropriate and disruptive. Thus, sacrifice and euchê-prayer stand against supplication and lamenting prayer (litê). In partial opposition to other interpretations, this paper views Eteocles as more concerned about the religious behaviour of the Chorus—what they do and how they pray—than with their religious views; in other words he castigates them for their heteropraxy, not their heterodoxy. In the background it is possible to make out the needs of a society of soldier-citizens to contain the ritual and emotional expression of fear and lament in order to avoid demoralizing the troops.

According to popular and literary tradition, when the Mamlūk period poet al-Būsīrī (d. 694-6/1294-7) was stricken with semi-paralysis that confounded his physicians, he turned in despair to compose a poem of praise to the Prophet Muhammad (madīh nabawī). He then saw the Prophet in a dream and recited the poem to him, upon which the Prophet bestowed his mantle (burdah) upon him, and the poet awoke miraculously cured. The present study argues that the story of the miraculous cure, the talismanic uses of various verses of the Burdah, and the extraordinary power of the poem to generate a vast body of imitations, expansions, translations and commentaries, cannot be understood except through a literary analysis of the text of the poem itself. After analyzing the structural and generic differences between the Burdah and the Sufi ghazal of Ibn al-Fārid of which it is technically a contrafaction (mu'āradah), this study argues that the overall ritual-poetic structure of the Burdah, as contained in Parts 1-3 and 9-10 of the poem, is that of the supplicatory panegyric ode as practiced by such poets as the pre-Islamic al-Nābighah al-Dhubyānī or the poet of the Prophet, Ka'b ibn Zuhayr. It then proceeds to demonstrate that the Burdah exhibits the same structural elements as the supplicatory qasīdat al-madh: 1) Lyric-Elegiac Prelude (nasīb); 2) Self-Abasement; 3) Praise of the One Supplicated (mamdūh); and 4) Supplication (including benediction). It notes that in post-classical madīh nabawī the mamdūh is no longer of this world, and therefore the ritual exchange between poet and patron is essentially a spiritual one: what the supplicant is asking for is shafā'ah, the intercession of the Prophet on the Day of Judgment. The myth of the miraculous cure then serves, above all, as a symbol, a physical sign of a spiritual transformation or cure, that is, of the poem's ritual and spiritual efficacy. Taking these stories literally, believers engaged the poem, as text and talisman, to procure a wide range of physical and spiritual boons.

On the night of April 18, 1421, a Venice-bound cargo boat plied the waters of the Gulf of Quarnaro in the northeastern Adriatic. It was captained by Giacomo Frumento and came from Candia. The craft was Venetian and was on the return leg of its journey. On board there was a San Giovanni's member, a merchant and manufacturer of woolens by the name of Paolo Rabia. Around midnight, as the ship was negotiating the treacherous channels of the Gulf, a storm broke out. It was a gale force onslaught that caused the sailors on the craft to despair. Paolo remembered San Giovanni's relic and its capacity to calm stormy waters and deliver sailors in distress, and commended the vessel to the Cross. No sooner had he uttered the supplication than the Cross manifested its powers. It made itself visible in the dark nightly sky, and the storm subsided.Keywords: Candia; Giacomo Frumento; Gulf of Quarnaro; miracle of Paolo Rabia; northeastern Adriatic; San Giovanni; Venice-bound cargo boat

Pilgrimage to the tombs of holy persons, known as ziyāra (lit. a visit, visiting) was a fundamental aspect of devotional life throughout the medieval Near East. Medieval Muslims composed pilgrimage guides reflecting their pilgrimage experiences and those of others. Such guides, known collectively as "kutub al-ziyārāt" (pilgrimage guides), meant to be employed at tombs and shrines, mention places efficacious for prayer, obtaining baraka (blessings), achieving cures, and fulfilling supplication for worldly and spiritual needs. This study looks at the first known Syrian pilgrimage guide which was composed during the sixteenth-century Ibn al-awrānīs-Ishārāt ilā Amākin al-Ziyārāt (Guide to Pilgrimage Places). It also explores the genesis of the ziyāra genre in Syria and offers a number of suggestions as to its late emergence there. This is followed by an annotated translation of the guide.

The status of foreigners in the Greek world was always delicate; outside his own polis the foreigner was usually without rights or protection. These he could obtain by applying to the authorities in another polis. However, the sources do not provide a detailed description of the procedures established in these cases, and these procedures have to be inferred from the large number of inscriptions that refer to the granting of privileges to foreigners. The terminology used in Attic inscriptions indicates that the two methods used by foreigners to apply to the polis were the request (a?t?s??) and the supplication (??ete?a). Requests made by private non-citizens (in contrast to those made by official emissaries of foreign cities) appear in Attic honorary decrees from the Hellenistic period, while supplication by foreigners to the polis is found only in fourth-century B.C. inscriptions. The different terminology used in these different periods has led Ph. Gauthier to conclude that these were two distinct procedures, and that the rules which regulated application to the polis by foreigners may have been changed by the reforms of 330 B.C. These reforms, he suggests, also ruled out the supplication as a form of application1). A review of the evidence, however, seems to lead to a different conclusion. I shall argue in this paper that both these methods of applying by foreigners already existed as a defined procedure in the fifth century B.C.; that the difference between these two forms of application was one of wording rather than procedure; and that the procedure of applying to the polis, known from sources of the classical and Hellenistic periods, was an institutionalized form of an

This chapter looks at how prayer is faring in some European countries as revealed by the latest European Value Survey (EVS) survey of 2008-09 which, as is known, dedicates only two variables to the subject: if and how often people devote some moments to prayer, to meditation, to contemplation or similar activities. It finds confirmation of what was observed in the data from the EVS surveys: some of the "non-believers" in God (and in the Christian God) are not alien to attitudes of prayer, in some cases quite assiduous. Spiritual intentions (typical of prayers of praise and thanksgiving) are mostly blended with prayers of supplication to gain grace and earthly favours. Many Italians combine different styles of prayer, both putting their trust in formulas learnt in basic religious instruction and the years of catechism, and utilizing direct, spontaneous language that implies a more familiar and personal relationship with the sacred. Keywords: basic religious instruction; catechism; Christian God; European countries; Italians; non-believers; prayer

This is the introductory chapter of the book Prayer in Religion and Spirituality . Prayer is a phenomenon which seems to be characteristic not only of participants in every religion, but also men and women who do not identify with traditional religions. The book shows that prayer is not merely petition but has additional content and motivation. It presents types of group prayer (communal liturgies, finding God in secular events, communal examine or discernment) and crowd prayer. The book shows how public religious gestures of prayer appear among relatively unchurched people. It explores how prayer and politics may interact. The book also discusses Naraloka Prarthana . It describes prayer for the dead in the daily practice of Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist movement. The book explains the ways in which the interviewees' experiences of having heard and felt Jesus and the Holy Spirit can exist in relation to a scientific worldview. Keywords: crowd prayer; group prayer; Holy Spirit; Jesus; Naraloka Prarthana ; Soka Gakkai; spirituality

Wierix ingeniously combines verbal tags and visual images drawn from two popular laudatory prayers - the Salve Regina and the Litania Loretana - that doubled as prayers of supplication. This chapter examines the series' text-image apparatus - its prayerful armature - that plays upon the votive properties of pictorial artifice, harnessing ejaculatory and supplicatory rubrics to exquisitely fashion and minutely detailed Marian icons. Hieronymus Wierix clearly relied upon Antoon's plates, using them as compositional templates and as models for the main Marian scenes, but he also diverged from the earlier series. The title-print gives the place: Antwerp, and within this place another place - the soul of Johannes Malderus, understood as the locus where the mediatrix Mary dwells. The angelic chorus adumbrates the contemplative image of Maria Mediatrix to be secured through meditation on her virtues and privileges, as enumerated in the Salve , Litania Loretana , and Rosarium . Keywords:Hieronymus Wierix; Johannes Malderus; Litania Loretana ; Marian icons; Salve Regina

This article reveals aspects of the manner in which the post-Qur'anic sources have elaborated on the relatively modest Qur'anic image of Muhammad out of polemical needs as well as due to natural admiration for the Prophet of Islam. It begins with a source containing a commentary attributed to the Prophet's cousin Ibn 'Abbas. In sum, the first generations of tafsir witnessed unreserved inclination towards the temporal interpretation of the smoke passage, which put Muhammad's powerful supplication at the centre and marked the transition from warning to triumph. Later on, however, and in spite of the urge to read Muhammad's post-Quranic legendary image into the Quran, the eschatological option regained impetus. The latter preserved the intertextual context of the passage. But there was one field in which the temporal interpretation of the smoke passage gained exclusive status, and that is the dalâ'il al-nubuwwa compilations. Also includes Baydawi; Ibn Kathir and Al-Alusi. Keywords:Al-Alusi; Baydawi; Ibn Kathir; Ibn 'Abbas; Muhammad; muslim prophet; Post-Qur'anic; tafsir

For many tribes of Plains Indians whose bison-hunting culture flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun dance was the major communal religious ceremony. Generally held in late spring or early summer, the rite celebrates renewal-the spiritual rebirth of participants and their relatives as well as the regeneration of the living earth with all its components. The sun dance reflects relationships with nature that are characteristic of the Plains ethos, and includes symbolic representations of various animal species, particularly the eagle and the buffalo, that once played vital roles in the lives of the people and are still endowed with sacredness and special powers. The ritual, involving sacrifice and supplication to insure harmony between all living beings, continues to be practiced by many contemporary native Americans.

The first choral ode of Euripides' Supplices, or the Parodos if that term can be used for an ode which is not an ‘entry’, ends with two stanzas of lyric-iambic threnody, following four stanzas of supplication in ionic metre (42–70)As Collard comments, this structure is broadly similar to, and very possibly modelled upon, A. Pers. 65–114, 115–39. But there is an important difference here: prima facie, the ‘further∕different concerted lament’ in 71ff. is sung and performed by the πρ⋯сπολοι mentioned in 72, ‘taking over’ in a kind of antiphon to the Seven Mothers'lamenting ἱκeс⋯α

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

The situation in Alexandria became critical with the arrival of King Agrippa I. Tiberius incarcerated Agrippa in 36 C.E. on the pretext of offense to his imperial persona. Gaius needed someone to deliver his mandata to Flaccus and Agrippa, who was in Rome and about to head home, filled Gaius' need. After an ad interim period, Agrippa delivered Gaius' mandata, formalizing Flaccus' new imperium. It has been surmised that Isidoros was the gymnasiarch of Alexandria in the summer of 38 C.E. and that he had orchestrated the riots in that capacity. Philo's derogatory language presents the honors to Flaccus as a prize and should be understood in the context of the alleged alliance between Flaccus and the leaders of the city's anti-Jewish faction. It is Gaius' decretum and its consequences that the Jews asked the emperor to reconsider by giving Agrippa a supplication, a document through which provincials addressed emperors.Keywords: Alexandrian Jew; Flaccus; Gaius' decretum; Gaius' mandata; gymnasiarch Isidoros; King Agrippa I; Philo; riot of 38 C.E; Tiberius

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of ‘Abd al-Qadir’s saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual has deep roots in the Sundanese culture of West Java. The book captures the variety of understandings that participants bring to the ritual when it is held in various contexts, including Java’s largest Sufi order, religious schools and private homes.

The councilors promised to take an answer of Rothman’s to the prince. But the prince, who was still not mollified by it, summoned Rothman to the city and revoked his safe conduct. Rothman, however, secretly enjoyed the liberty of the city by restricting himself to the company of followers of his faction, and thinking that this abrogation of his safe conduct harmed him as he fervently toiled in business of the Gospel, he begged for the prince’s forgiveness in a letter of supplication that was written on January 16. The confession of Rothman’s doctrine had been sent by him to pastors and presbyters of the churches. This chapter contains the articles of Rothman, so that the reader may understand: in what regards they diverge from the doctrine of the Catholic Church; and how far they differ from those which he later taught and defended after falling into the Anabaptist error. Keywords: Anabaptist; Catholic church; councilors; Gospel; letter of supplication; pastors; Rothman

The Psalms have never been regarded as sacred private property.They were much more likely cultic commodity;They are the condensed experience of faith of a group of people whose God was the Lord.The Treasure of the fixed formulated prayers and songs was the code for the cultic movement of communion with God. The further development ofGunkehChen method to a "literature" in the narrow sense would be a relapse into the previous century. The roots of the language and imagery of the psalms in the ancient oriental culture is not only evident in the royal, Zion andYHWH-King psalms, but also in the lament and supplication and in the hymns and in songs of thanksgiving. The original text of the chapter is in German. Keywords: GunkehChen; Psalms

The book of Psalms is a synthesis of several varieties of religious experience, contemplation, reflection, testimony and protest. It therefore contains reports or descriptions of past events, addresses to the people on diverse matters, and theological reflections on fundamental issues of human life. There are two possible sources of indignation, protest, or condemnation of hostile powers: God and the psalmist. Psalm 9/10 is a prayer of supplication that focuses on past manifestations of God's saving power. Psalms 58 and 82 reflect special concern for justice in a seemingly hopeless situation and exude powerful religious and moral force. The main characteristic of the book of Psalms' presentation of the themes of reward and punishment is that it is a book of prayer. In their final form, the psalms were composed against a background of matchless Hebrew monotheism.Keywords: book of Psalms; Hebrew monotheism; punishment; theological reflections

Paul commences the appropriation of the athletic metaphor to himself with two images which run parallel to each other in formulation. Paul is not concerned with impressing on his readers the necessity of a Christian moral Agon. The image and the accompanying thought of the crown, whether applied to Paul himself or to Timothy, is to be understood as referring to the Agon for the Gospel. The evangelist's personal share in the blessings which the Gospel proclaims is inseparably connected with his obligation to preach the same. The specific way in which the Roman Christians are to take part in the Apostle's contest is, because of the distance which separates them, in supplication to God, not in an Agon of prayer with or against God.Keywords: Apostle; Christian moral Agon; Gospel; Paul; Roman Christians