A History Of God Part 10

Shariah The Islamic Holy Law, based on the Koran and the hadith (q.v.).

Shekinah From the Hebrew shakan: to pitch one's tent. The rabbinic term for G.o.d's presence on earth to distinguish a Jew's experience of G.o.d from the ineffable reality itself. In Kabbalah it is identified with the last of the sefiroth (q.v.).

Shema The Jewish proclamation of faith: 'Listen (shema) Israel; Yahweh is our G.o.d, Yahweh is One!' (Deuteronomy 6:4).

s.h.i.+ah The Party of Ali. Muslim s.h.i.+s believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad) and the Imams (q.v.) his descendants should lead the Islamic community.

s.h.i.+ur Qomah (Hebrew) The Measurement of the Height. A controversial fifth-century mystical text describing the figure that Ezekiel saw Droned on the heavenly chariot.

Sky G.o.d See High G.o.d.

Sufi Sufism The mystics and mystical spirituality of Islam. The term may derive from the fact that the early Sufis and ascetics preferred to wear the coa.r.s.e garments made of wool (Arabic, SWF) favoured by Muhammad and his companions.

Sunnah (Arabic) Practice. Those customs sanctioned by tradition supposed to imitate the behaviour and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Sunnah; Sunni The ahl al-sunnah: term used to denote the majority group of Muslims whose Islam is based upon the Koran, the hadith and the sunnah (q.v.) and upon the Shana (q.v.) rather than upon the devotion to the Imams (q.v.) as expressed by the s.h.i.+ah (q.v.).

-T-.

Talmud (Hebrew) Literally, 'study' or 'learning'. The cla.s.sical rabbinic discussions of the ancient code of Jewish Law. See also Mishnah.

Tannaim (Hebrew) The first generations of rabbinic scholars and legists who collated and edited the ancient code of oral Jewish Law, known as the Mishnah (q.v.).

Taqwa (Arabic) G.o.d-consciousness.

Tariqa (Arabic) An order of Sufi mystics (q.v.).

Tawhid (Arabic) Unity. This refers to the divine unity of G.o.d and also to the integration required of each Muslim, who strives to surrender wholly to G.o.d.

Tawil The symbolic, mystical interpretation of the Koran advocated by such esoteric sects as the Ismailis.

Tfillin (Hebrew) The black boxes known as phylacteries, containing the text of the Shema, which Jewish men and boys who have attained majority wear fastened to their foreheads and left arms near the heart during the morning service, as commanded by Deuteronomy 6:4-7.

Theophany A manifestation of G.o.d to men and women.

Theoria (Greek) Contemplation.

Throne Mysticism An early form of Jewish mysticism, which focused upon the description of the heavenly chariot (Merkavah) seen by the Prophet Ezekiel and which took the form of an imaginary ascent through the halls (hekhaloth) of G.o.d's palace to his heavenly throne.

Tikkun (Hebrew) Restoration. The process of redemption described in the Kabbalism of Isaac Luria, whereby the divine sparks scattered during the Breaking of the Vessels (q.v.) are reintegrated with G.o.d.

Torah (Hebrew) The Law of Moses as outlined in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which are also collectively known as the Torah.

Traditionists The ahl al-hadith: the people of the hadith. Those Muslims who interpreted the Koran and the hadith (q.v.) literally in order to oppose the rationalistic tendencies of the Mutazilah (q.v.).

Tsimtsum (Hebrew) Shrinking, withdrawal. In the mysticism of Isaac Luria, G.o.d is imagined contracting into himself in order to make a s.p.a.ce for creation. It is, therefore, an act of kenosis (q.v.) and self-limitation.

-U-.

Ulema See alem.

Ummah (Arabic) The Muslim community.

Upanishads Hindu scriptures composed during the Axial Age (q.v.) from the eighth to the second centuries BCE.

-V-.

Veda (plural, Vedas) See Rig-Veda.

-W-.

Wisdom In Hebrew Hokhmah and in Greek Sophia. The personification of G.o.d's divine plan in the scriptures. A method of describing his activity in the world, which comes to stand for the human perception of G.o.d as opposed to the inaccessible reality itself.

-Y-.

Yahweh The name of G.o.d in Israel. Yahweh may originally have been the G.o.d of another people, adopted by Moses for the Israelites. By the third and second centuries BCE, Jews no longer p.r.o.nounced the holy name, which is written YHWH.

Yoga A discipline early evolved by the people of India, which 'yokes' the powers of the mind. By means of its techniques of concentration, the Yogi acquires an intense and heightened perception of reality, which seems to bring with it a sense of peace, bliss and tranquillity.

-Z-.

Zanna (Arabic) Guess work. Term used in the Koran for pointless theological speculation.

Ziggurat Temple-tower built by the Sumerians in a form found in many other parts of the world. They consist of huge stone ladders which men could climb in order to meet their G.o.ds.

Notes.

Quotations from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are taken from The Jerusalem Bible.

Quotations from the Koran are from The Message of the Qur'an, translated and explained by Muhammad Asad, Gibraltar, 1980.

1 - In the Beginning ...

1. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return or Cosmos and History (trans. Willard R. Trask), (Princeton, 1954).

2. From 'The Babylonian Creation' in N. K. Sandars (trans.), Poems of Heaven and h.e.l.l from Ancient Mesopotamia. (London, 1971) p.73.

3. Ibid. p-99.

4. Pindar, Nemean VI, 1-4, The Odes of Pindar (trans. C.M. Bowra) (Harmondsworth, 1969), p.206.

5. Anat-Baal Texts 49:11:5, quoted in E.O. James, The Ancient G.o.ds (London, 1960), p.88.

6. Genesis 2:5-7.

7. Genesis 4:26; Exodus 6:3.

8. Genesis 31:42; 49:24.

9. Genesis 17:1.

10. Iliad 24, 393 (trans. E. V. Rieu) (Harmondsworth, 1950), p-446.

11. Acts of the Apostles 14:11-18.

12. Genesis 28:15.

13. Genesis 26:16-17. Elements of j have been added to this account by E, hence the use of the name Yahweh.

14. Genesis 32:30-31.

15. George E. Mendenhall, 'The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,' The Biblical Archeologist 25, 1962; M. Weippert, The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Palestine (London, 1971).

16. Deuteronomy 26:5-8.

17. L.E. Bihu, 'Midianite Elements in Hebrew Religion', Jemsh Theological Studies, 31; Salo Wittmeyer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jem, 10 vols, and edn., (New York, 1952-1967), I. p.46.

18. Exodus 3:5-6.

19. Exodus 3:14.

20. Exodus 19:16-18.

21. Exodus 20:2.

22. Joshua 24:14-15.

23. Joshua 24:24.

24. James, The Ancient G.o.ds, p.i52; Psalms 29, 89, 93. These psalms date from after the Exile, however.

25. I Kings 18:20-40.

26. I Kings 19:11-13.

27. Rig-Veda 10:29 in R. H. Zaener (trans, and ed.) Hindu Scriptures (London and New York, 1966), p.i2.

28. Chandogya Upanishad VI. 13, in Juan Mascaro (trans, and ed.) The Upanishads (Harmondsworth, 1965), p.m.

29. Kena Upanishad I, in Mascaro (trans, and ed.) The Upanishads, p.5i.

30. Ibid. 3, p-52.

31. Samyutta-Nikaya, Part II: Nidana Vagga (trans, and ed. Leon Peer) (London, 1888) p. 106.

32. Edward Conze, Buddhism: its Essence and Development (Oxford, 1959), p.40.

33. Udana 8.13, quoted and trans, in Paul Steintha, Udanan (London 1885), p.81.

34. The Symposium (trans. W. Hamilton), (Harmondsworth, 1951), pp.93-4.

35. Philosophy, Fragment 15.

36. Poetics 1461 b, 3.

2 - One G.o.d 1. Isaiah 6:3.

2. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational (trans. John W. Harvey) (Oxford, 1923), pp.29-30.

3. Isaiah 6:5.

4. Exodus 4:11.

5. Psalms 29, 89, 93. Dagon was the G.o.d of the Philistines. 6. Isaiah 6:10.

7. Matthew 13:14-15.

8. Inscription on a cuneiform tablet quoted in Chaim Potok, Wanderings, History of the Jews (New York, 1978), p.187.

9. Isaiah 6:13.

10. Isaiah 6:12.

11. Isaiah 10:5-6.

12. Isaiah 1:3.

13. Isaiah 1:11-15.

14. Isaiah 1:15-17.

15. Amos 7:15-17.

16. Amos 3:8.

17. Amos 8:7.

18. Amos 5:18.

19. Amos 3:1-2.

20. Hosea 8:5.