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In the early 19th century, missionaries flocked to Central and Southern Africa to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whilst interacting with the local African indigenous communities, and observing their culture and their way of life, the missionaries concluded that the indigenous people needed not only the Christian faith, but also to be civilised. The African way of life was regarded as backward, barbaric, and heathen. For this reason, the missionaries went out of their way not only to convert Africans to Christianity, but also to package Christianity in European culture, which was viewed as more advanced and acceptable than the African way of life. The arrival and work of missionaries in Africa flourished. Hence, even nowadays, Southern Africa is predominantly Christian. Unfortunately, the attitudes and teachings of missionaries regarding African traditional religion remain in Africans' minds, in particular. Many Africans, especially those who are educated and have converted to Christianity, still perceive some practices of African traditional religion as heathen and demonic. This research intends exploring this narrative, by mainly referring to the African practice of venerating ancestors as demonic. It intends, first, to set the record straight, by exploring demonology as well as Christian demonology and its origins; secondly, to evaluate the African traditional religion's understanding of ancestral veneration, and thirdly, to analyse Christian demonology and whether there are correlations between demonology and ancestral veneration. The research employs a literature review as a methodology for the study. This research concludes that ancestral veneration is not demonic; instead, it found that demonology is a foreign concept in traditional African religion. In addition, the research established that the words 'demon' or 'demonic' do not exist in African languages and world view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the role of evil spirits in the history of salvation according to Saint Peter Chrysologus. This argument has not been examined so far though it is to be found in many homilies of the Bishop of Ravenna. His sermons explain the reason for the fall of the angels created by God as wonderful heavenly beings. They explain the devil’s role in temptation, indicating the cause of evil to the world. The preacher emphasizes the victory of Christ over Satan and points to him as a source of hope for Christians in their spiritual struggle, in which practice of prayer and fasting are helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Song of the Sea is long known to contain allusions to mythological motifs related to Canaanite religion that have been adapted to the faith of Israel. On the basis of a recent study of the Ugaritic texts KTU 1.107 and 1.100 it is shown that Exod 15:7-8 falls in this category of reinterpretation. It is proposed to render verse 7b 'you sent your Ḥoron, he devoured them like stubble'. Suffixed personal pronouns with the names of deities are attested in Ugarit and ancient Hebrew inscriptions. However, in Exod 15 Ḥoron has been reduced to a redoutable assistant of God, an executioner called up to punish God's opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have over many years been aware that the figure of Enoch has affinity to Mesopotamian prototypes, such as Adapa and Enmeduranki. More recently several scholars have raised the question whether this is not the case with the other protagonists and the core plots of the Watcher Story as well. The article discusses the background of the watchers, the giants and the demons in relation to Mesopotamian material. It also investigates the background of the two core plots of the story, the forbidden knowledge and the sexual transgression. In all these cases it is important to notice that the Watcher Story is a primeval myth. Therefore the Mesopotamian parallels are most convincing when they occur in similar mythic material. The most important issue is here the traditions about the primeval apkallus, "experts", and how these relate to contemporary ummanus, "scholars" and kings. The Mesopotamian notions about primeval time developed over a long time span. The article discusses how these traditions survived and were further developed into the Late Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic periods when the traditions could have been transposed from a Mesopotamian to a Jewish setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food and dining references have generally been treated individually in the Apocalypse rather than as a motif of the text. Reading for typical daily practices such as eating and drinking rather than specific local or historical references or biblical allusions provides a window into the social world of the audience and the ideological agenda of the text. This article argues that the text employs banqueting traditions that would be familiar to Christian communities in urban Asia Minor. John uses aspects of the literary symposium tradition to construct the moral character of several actors in the text and to connect his opponents in the Asian communities with the satanic forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food and dining references have generally been treated individually in the Apocalypse rather than as a motif of the text. Reading for typical daily practices such as eating and drinking rather than specific local or historical references or biblical allusions provides a window into the social world of the audience and the ideological agenda of the text. This article argues that the text employs banqueting traditions that would be familiar to Christian communities in urban Asia Minor. John uses aspects of the literary symposium tradition to construct the moral character of several actors in the text and to connect his opponents in the Asian communities with the satanic forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reading engages two important and related dimensions of Mark's scene of Legion entering the pigs. First, is the name Legion to be understood as signifying numbers (Gundry), or as a largely nonintegrated or secondary military detail (Marcus, Collins), or, as will be argued here, a military reference that is, along with other military terms and motifs, central to the scene? Second, how might we understand the demon's unusual request to enter the pigs? Seeking to integrate a military meaning for the name "Legion" with an explanation for the demon's request to enter the pigs, and employing imperial-critical, masculinity, and sociopolitical-narrative approaches, this paper highlights the scene's polyvalent gendered and military-imperial language that has often been neglected since Derrett's brief but undeveloped 1979 reference to it. My argument is that the scene inscribes Jesus's hegemonic masculinity even while it mocks Roman power as an out-of-control, demonic, militaristic, and (self-)destructive masculinity, and fantasizes Rome's defeat as womanly weakness at Jesus's superior, commanding, masculine hands. Attention to the scene's cross-gendering, which draws from imperial-critical and gendered perspectives, has been ignored in previous work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the views of British asylum chaplains during the Victorian era regarding whether inmates were insane or possessed by evil spirits. A 1855 debate in the periodical "Journal of Psychological Medicine" involving chaplains James McKee, John May, and Joseph Souter is addressed. The interpretation of New Testament references to demonic possession is analyzed in light of the influence of German theologians on English theories of biblical hermeneutics.

In this article, the author discusses Sheol, a place of darkness to where all the dead go and the sons of Belial, a demon in Jewish and Christian texts. He mentions that in the Old Testament, a Christian text that has been regarded as particularly strong evidence for the identification of Belial with Sheol.

The Testament of Solomon (TSol) is filled with ideas about demons, and its textual tradition is complex and difficult. This study applies Mary Douglas' grid/group analysis to the demonologies of the TSol, arguing that the insights from her anthropological approach can help us make sense of the twin challenges of this material. By situating particular demonologies found within the TSol materials in Douglas' theorized quadrants, we can make suggestions about the social locations that might have produced them. In doing so, we can bolster both our understanding of these demonologies within this textual history and gain insight into the ways attention to demons might enhance our understanding of religious communities and their social worlds over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines demonological vocabulary in Henry Einspruch's 1941 Yiddish New Testament translation. Missionary translators like Einspruch faced at least two major challenges in making Christianity legible in translation: emphasising the Hebrew Bible's importance to Christianity while flattening its cultural specificities, and rendering Christian concepts in the host vernacular without reifying spiritual structures embedded in the language. These two aims, usually complementary, are at odds in the Yiddish New Testament, which seeks both to re-Judaize Christianity (to attract Jewish converts) and to occlude Jewish folk demonology. In translating Mark 5:1–20, the story of the Gentile demoniac afflicted by the demon(s) Legion, Einspruch ingeniously faces this challenge and successfully imbues Jewish concepts with their own supersession. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The evil eye belief is a universal phenomenon and present in the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testament. Christian scholars have usually discussed this phenomenon in their comments on Gal. 3:1. Luther, for example, concentrated on the manifold notion of the bewitchment of the evil eye (Gr. βασκαÍνω, Lat. fascinare, Ger. bezaubern; Gal. 3:1) in his Scholia (1516), Commentary (1519), and Large Commentary (1531/1535) on Galatians. Luther understood fascinare as a higher-level concept that included witchcraft (e.g. harming through the evil glance) and both psychic and spiritual disturbance. Luther's interpretation of this concept is fascinating mix of folklore, Biblical scholarship and the perspectives of ancient authors. In spite of the many similarities between the different Commentaries, there were also differences-especially between early Commentaries (1516, 1519) and the Large Commentary (1531/1535). I will prove in detail how Luther contextualized the evil eye belief to his various comments on Gal. 3:1 and who and what were his models in doing this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medical term kordiakos (m. Git. 7:1) is derived not from the anatomical situs of disease, but from the harmful action of a pathogenic demon who acts upon the "heart" to effect a husband's legal incompetence. This is consistent with the Talmud's own definition of kordiakos as the name of a spirit. The Talmud's interest in tales of Solomon's mastery of the demons (b. Git. 67b-71b) is due to the derivation of kordiakos from the verb καρδιóω in Song 4:9 (LXX), which readers understood to describe the enchantment whereby Solomon was led to his own moral collapse (1 Kgs 11:1-10). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation of Paul's fight with the beasts in Ephesus as written in the book of 1 Corinthians 15:32. His fight with the beasts was understood as a fight of the evil spirits in the demon-possessed sorcerers of the city. It was concluded this way for reasons including that the fight was memorable but was not recorded in Acts or in Paul's own lists of his sufferings and the author emphasized that the fight was impossible knowing that a small man as Paul could win.

Develops the position that finite spirits can be plausibly viewed as entities postulated by theory, comparable to the position on mental states and processes developed in the latter part of the twentieth century. Account of the exorcism of the Gadarene demoniacs in the synoptic gospels; Role played by specifying causal relationships between postulated entities and objects whose existence is not in doubt; Various features of theories in relation to the example.

Describes the diversity among the early Jewish apocalyptic writings, with reference to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, and considers what was at stake among those who read the biblical tradition as an account relating to the introduction of evil into the world. Discussion of the biblical texts; Role of the offspring of fallen angels often referred to as giants; Features shared by the seudo-Eupolemus fragments.

Explores P. Alexander's banishment of the fallen angels from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Factors that further compounded Enochic demonology; Obstacles to Alexander's particular reading of the Scrolls demonology.

The essay presents a critical analysis of the references to "elemental spirits" in the Biblical passages of Galatians 4: 8 and Colossians 2:15, 18, 20. Topics addressed include the interpretation of the angels in Col 2: 15 in regard to the demonic character of the elements, and connections of the topos with historical views by non Biblical writers on cosmology including the destiny of the soul according to Empedocles and Cicero's explanation for the physical ascent of the soul.

The article presents an examination of the New Testament Letter to the Galatians, focusing on its depiction of suprahuman spiritual dynamics in church conflicts and personal salvation. Subjects addressed include the Apostle Paul's description of agitators within the Galatian church, Paul's theology of spiritual formation and growth, and the Greco-Roman religious worldview out of which Paul emerged.

Focuses on Jesus as an alleged exorcist by analyzing certain passages in the Bible. Matthew 17:14-20; Mark 9:14-29; Luke 9:37-43a; Elimination of redaction; Elimination of secondary or tertiary tradition.