In this concluding part of The Golden Bough I have discussed the problem which gives its title to the whole work. If I am right, the Golden Bough over which the King of the Wood, Diana’s priest at Aricia, kept watch and ward was no other than a branch of mistletoe growing on an oak within the sacred grove; and as the plucking of the bough was a necessary prelude to the slaughter of the priest, I have been led to institute a parallel between the King of the Wood at Nemi and the Norse god Balder, who was worshipped in a sacred grove beside the beautiful Sogne fiord of Norway and was said to have perished by a stroke of mistletoe, which alone of all things on earth or in heaven could wound him. On the theory here suggested both Balder and the King of the Wood personified in a sense the sacred oak of our Aryan forefathers, and both had deposited their lives or souls for safety in the parasite which sometimes, though rarely, is found growing on an oak and by the very rarity of its appearance excites the wonder and stimulates the devotion of ignorant men. Though I am now less than ever disposed to lay weight on the analogy between the Italian priest and the Norse god, I have allowed it to stand because it furnishes me with a pretext for discussing not only the general question of the external soul in popular superstition, but also the fire-festivals of Europe, since fire played a part both in the myth of Balder and in the ritual of the Arician grove. Thus Balder the Beautiful in my hands is little more than a stalking-horse to carry two heavy pack-loads of facts. And what is true of Balder applies equally to the priest of Nemi himself, the nominal hero of the long tragedy of human folly and suffering which has unrolled itself before the readers of these volumes, and on which the curtain is now about to fall. He, too, for all the quaint garb he wears and the gravity with which he stalks across the stage, is merely a puppet, and it is time to unmask him before laying him up in the box. – J.G. Frazer
NEWLY ADDED BOOKS
In On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Gershom Scholem steers the reader through the essential matters in the complex account of the Kabbalah, clearing up the relationships between mysticism and made religious authority, the mystics’ interpretation of the Torah and their undertakes to explore the concealed meaning underlying Scripture, the tension between the philosophical and the mystical theories of God, and the symbolism applied in mystical religion.
The Kabbalah’s history and esoteric qualities are demystified and explained by Adolph Franck, a philosopher and scholar of ancient Jewish texts.
With origins dating back thousands of years, the Kabbalistic texts are a cornerstone of Judaist tradition. They explain the relationship between God, humanity, the Earth, and the very Creation itself. For many centuries, Kabbalist scholars employed the lore as a means of explaining difficult passages in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts. However the Kabbalah itself evolved with time; an important component of it is the Zohar, a book whose origins are considered by scholars to be potentially as late as the 13th century AD.
Beginning in the Renaissance, elements of the Zohar’s doctrine were even adopted by Christian thinkers. As Franck explains, its influences can be felt in religions and philosophical belief systems elsewhere. Frequent reinterpretations and complex philosophical discussions give the Kabbalah aspects of continuous history, reflective of the changes in society such as the Renaissance. The author devotes entire chapters to the Kabbalist views on the human soul, the physically manifest world, and the divine nature of God, his analysis informed by a wide breadth of sources plus many years of personal researches and scholarship on Judaism.
The American Journal of Theology is an academic journal that was edited by faculty at the University of Chicago Divinity School from 1897 to 1920. After 1920, it merged with the Biblical World to form the Journal of Religion, which is still published today. It discusses topics that are of interest in the academy and behind the pulpit, including “Theological Agnosticism,” “The Scope of Theology and Its Place in the University”, and “The Speculative Philosophy of the Chinese”. Gain an intellectually oriented perspective on Christianity, both historic and modern with this collection.
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The “Ancient Hebrew Calendar” is a lunisolar calendar that depends on both the moon and the sun to calculate its durations. The calendar uses both the Hebrew names and the transliterated English names for the holy/set-apart days, the new moons (lunar months) and the days of the week. Don’t just learn the dates of the Scripturally Ordained Festivals, learn their significance as well.
Wisdom Magazine is a quarterly magazine wherein we discuss various far-reaching fascinating religious topics.
We based the Scriptural Creation Timeline on the works of the “Father of Chronology” Sextus Julius Africanus, with additional support from the genealogies in Septuagint. Creation is placed on March 25, 5500 BC, the Great Flood in 3238 BC, the Incarnation of the Messiah on March 25, 1 AD, his Birth on December 29, 1 AD and his Crucifixion and Resurrection in April, 32 AD.
This Bible Study program allows users to examine parallel Bible verse translations from 7 Bibles Side-by-Side. It shows how various translations interpreted the same scriptural texts. The software comprises a word-for-word translation from different well-known Bibles, and includes the ability to take, save and print notes. This software also includes both a built in Bible dictionary and a detailed Bible commentary.
The King James Hebrew – Greek Interlinear Bible is a software program that consist of the Hebrew and Greek words with their direct English translation as used in the King James Version (1769) Bible. This program displays the various English words that could be translated from the same Hebrew or Greek Word. The program includes the ability to take, save and print notes and also includes both a built in Bible dictionary and a detailed Bible commentary.