PhD Abstract- I have finished!

Saturday, March 9, 2019

My PhD has been accepted and passed!

The Abstract: In the Arabic version of the account of Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus engages in a struggle or jihād. This use by Christians of what today is a highly controversial Islamic term that is usually associated with terrorism appears incongruous. The Christian Arabic translator’s choice of jihād to mean an inner spiritual struggle raises many questions about the pre-Islamic Christian understandings of the concept especially among Syrian ascetics. It also suggests a greater level of Christian-Muslim interaction than often accepted. Given that jihād is used here and in several other verses in the earliest ninth-century Arabic Bibles and continuously till today, this indicates that the historic breadth of meaning inherent in the word jihād is wider than just an external expression, as is commonly understood in the media. Muslims assert that this breadth existed from the earliest days of Islam and that jihād in itself does not always mean external acts of violence but encompasses inner spiritual struggle. In the case of Jesus, Christian ascetics, and Sufis, the word more commonly denotes a metaphorical inward spiritual struggle against temptation, rather than outward violence.
The main focus of this thesis is a comparative analysis of the inner struggle metaphors in mostly pre-Islamic Syrian Christian ascetic authors, compared with early Sufi writers. I investigate the wider range of terms associated with this imagery such as fight, battle, sword, shield, race, fortress, wounds, conquering, capturing, and guarding, and not just the term jihād or its Syriac equivalent. I conduct a metaphor analysis of the idea and images of spiritual struggle in seven Syrian Christian and two Muslim authors. This shows that at the level of language and metaphor, and in relation to anthropology and worldview, there is much correlation between pre-Islamic Syrian Christian and Sufi conceptions of inner struggle. This has major significance for how early Christian-Muslim relations should be understood, and also should impact how Islam is interpreted today.
My research clarifies the meaning of jihād as understood in early Sufism through analysis of its metaphorical usage in Arabic. I also compare this to the usage of equivalent Syriac words which were used by Christians living in close proximity to early Islam both chronologically and geographically. This fills an important gap in the research on how spiritual struggle was understood in the social context around the emergence of Islam. It also provides valuable information for the debate on the nature of Islam, especially with respect to the relative roles of spiritual struggle and violent warfare, by identifying the original shared cultural framework for the use of the spiritual struggle metaphor and the term jihād.

Severus paper published

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

I have a paper on asceticism in Severus published in a Brill volume.
A pre-pub version is available; http://sshexplorations.blogspot.com.au/

Aphrahat and Augustine: Resurrection asceticism and Eastern hope

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

A paper I gave 3 years ago has been published: https://www.academia.edu/2062748/Aphrahat_and_Augustine_Resurrection_asceticism_and_Eastern_hope
I have not made any posts here for a year! due to trying to complete the PhD soon- I am now on the last lap :-)

Ghazali resources

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Ghazali resources: Some exceptionally good resources at  Revival of the Religious Sciences and Islamic Texts Society.

Parole de l'Orient

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

All of Parole de l'Orient is available here: http://documents.irevues.inist.fr/handle/2042/34760

Arabic keyboard layout, useful dictionaries etc

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

There are lots of good Arabic resources around but sometimes they take a long time to find!

1. Arabic keyboard layout- the normal MS one is useless, so many prefer the one used by the excellent (and free) Shibboleth software (which is excellent for Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew and about 15 other exotic languages). So to add a new keyboard layout follow the instructions at: http://ilgthegeek.livius.net/2010/05/31/editing-windows-custom-keyboard-layouts/ using the unicode info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_script_in_Unicode.

2. Online Arabic Dictionaries-quite a variety to choose at: Lexilogos. Plus there's lots of vocab and learning resources there too.

3. Arabic-English parallel texts- top quality books with important Arabic texts: Uni Chicago press/BYU books.

Learning Syriac

Thursday, June 26, 2014

After the initial  stage of learning some basic Syriac, what is the best way to develop vocabulary and acquire (as opposed to memorise) grammar? For me it is using the Peshitta analysis tool at: http://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta/index.php
Truly a brilliant resource for Syriac research, and works for learning Syriac- just work on a chapter a day.

Useful Websites May 2014

Monday, May 26, 2014

As my research continues I keep find many useful resources:
1. The Hidden Pearl - Syriac and Arabic Christianity, from a Maronite perspective.
2. Lexicity - Syriac and other languages- links to dictionaries, texts etc.
3. The Syriac Gazetteer -  lots of info on Syriac named places and maps.
4. The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic looks like a great book to buy, after I finish my thesis!
5. Syriac Music has lots of hymns etc.
6.International Qur'anic Studies Association - some great articles on Christian Arabic.

Parts of St Isaac's Second Part is online

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Parts of St Isaac's Second Part is now online. This is a most remarkable work of spirituality, originally written in Syriac and available in English. (I have both versions in the CSCO versions). Now available online at : http://books.google.com.au/books?id=AKXYw7rOeN4C&pg=PA203&dq=isaac+second+part&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q=isaac%20second%20part&f=false

St Gregory of Nyssa's use of Second Sophistic rhetorical techniques

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Johan Leemans (Leuven) has written a rather excellent article on St Gregory of Nyssa's use of Second Sophistic rhetorical techniques when speaking on the Holy Martyrs. Great analysis. This informs my up-coming paper on Aphrahat's use of various rhetorical approaches.

See: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/118024/1/2005+-+Style+and+Meaning+in+Gregory+of+Nyssa%E2%80%99s+Panegyrics+on+Martyrs.pdf

THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND RESPONSES TO IT

Monday, September 16, 2013

There are so many disturbing aspects of the current war in Syria, and Western responses to it.
1. Syrian Christianity is 2000 years old, with a church in Damascus since the book of Acts! St Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, yet most Western Christians today assume that Syria is full of Muslims and have no knowledge of the actual church there.
2. The Antiochian Orthodox church (of which I am a priest) has its Patriachal HQ in Damascus. The church has lived alongside Islam for 1400 years, sometimes with peace, sometimes with violence, but has worked out how to live in a civil society that has mostly worked. For example, there has never been a North-South civil war like in the USA. Relatively speaking, Christians in Syria have been ok, certainly less persecuted than in many other Muslim-majority countries.
3. The Christians on the ground in Syria report a very different story than the Western media is telling us. The bishops there are not happy with Assad but consider the so-called "freedom fighters" to be much worse! It is the "Free Syrian Army" which is predominantly Al-Qaeda-related who are the terrorists. Christians in Syria are shocked and bewildered that the West is arming and supporting AlQaeda! These terrorists which the western press calls "heroes of democracy" have been killing Christians, ransacking 1400 year old churches and monasteries, and destroying the country.
4. Christians on the ground in Syria have called for the West to stop arming the terrorists directly or via their Saudi middlemen, but are ignored! This is crazyness. Syrians assume it is about the Western quest for more oil and Western hegemony of the entire Mid-East. Their guess is probably accurate, as indicated by none less than Dick Cheney several years back when he said the US would soon invade 7 countries, and guess what, they have already done Libya, Iraq, etc. and now comes Syria just like he said.
5. In response to the "civil war" which is reality is mainly being waged by imported Pakistani, Saudi and Iraqi terrorists, millions of Syrians have fled, including tens of thousands of Christians.
In summary, the majority Western responses are atrocious and are having terrible consequences for Christians in Syria.
*** 
This post is part of a synchroblog (syncronised blog) in which various people write about the same general theme from different points of view, and thus help one to see the bigger picture. Follow the links below to see the other posts. More links may be added later, as more people add their contributions.  If you are participating in the synchroblog, please copy the links below and paste them to the end of our own post.

1. Fr John D’Alton (Antiochian Orthodox) on THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND RESPONSES TO IT
2. Richard Fairhead (missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed- yet hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian) of Relational Journey on Who would Jesus bomb?
3. Ryan Peter (neo-evangelical) of Life-Ecstatic on Syria: The Show Must Go On
4. Steve Hayes (Orthodox Christian) of Khanya on Syrian civil war: no good outcome?

The Asceticism of Severus: An analysis of struggle in Homily 18 on the “Forty Holy Martyrs”

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

I'm back from a 4 month intermission (have to pay the bills and an ideal full-time IT job came up, working as Programme Test Manager for the new DisabilityCare Australia software setup). And I'm back into writing up the thesis. It is all coming together nicely and God willing I can have a first draft ready by mid-2014. Just before intermission I presented a paper at the Severus Symposium held March 2013 in Melbourne, to be included as book chapter in the Symposium publication...

The Asceticism of Severus: An analysis of struggle in Homily 18 on the “Forty Holy Martyrs”

"The continuing debate about, and focus on, Severus' Christology has obscured the extent to which his ascetic approach was fully in accordance with the Cappadocian and Syrian church fathers. This continuity is evident in Severus' Homily on the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste when compared to similar works by Aphrahat, Ps. Macarius, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, and the later Isaac of Nineveh. This paper analyses aspects of Severus' Homily 18 in relation to Cappadocian and Syriac traditions, detecting elements of Syrian provenance in his discussion of spiritual combat and perfection." 

East meets West: the-curious-case-of-st-john-cassian

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Excellent article on a most significant Eastern writer and his impact on the West, and why he has been forgotten...
http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/2012/08/13/the-curious-case-of-st-john-cassian/

Isaac the Syrian's ascetic interpretation of apatheia and agon

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Last week I presented a paper on Isaac the Syrian at the ANZAMEMS conference- Australia and New Zealand Medieval and Early Modern Society, held in Melbourne.

Abstract/Intro: 
Isaac the Syrian has often been compared to Evagrius who he quoted extensively, but while Evagrius was condemned, Isaac was lauded. One key difference is that Isaac is far more Stoic than Evagrius, and his asceticism is less speculative. Isaac’s ascetic homilies were originally written for an audience of monastics in the 690s. He wrote in Syriac and his work was early translated into Greek and Arabic, becoming a central text for monks across the Orthodox and Oriental churches. His work evidences many Syriac thought-forms intermingled with Greek philosophy, especially Stoicism. Other authors have focussed on his Neoplatonic thought, but as Marcia Colish has noted, there is a Western academic  bias against Stoicism, and this has meant that almost nothing has been written about Isaac’s Stoicism. Alfeyev’s much-cited and excellent work only treats Isaac’s NeoPlatonism and does not even mention his Stoic approach.

This paper thus analyses key themes in Isaac’s writing, especially the concepts of agon, apatheia and ataraxia, and discusses how he appropriated Greek ascetic thought, Stoicism in particular, to shape Christian spiritual practice.

Combatting the soul in al-Muhasibi and Isaac of Nineveh

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

On Monday I presented at the Australian Early Medieval Association's annual conference. The abstract:

When al-Ghazali wrote his works on purification of the soul he drew especially on the 3^rd/9^th century works of al-Muhasibi. Al-Muhasibi developed a rich terminology of inner spiritual battle and soul purification which he considered was 90% of jihad. Smith, Schoonover, Renard and Picken have described his works but not analysed the metaphors and concepts involved. This paper analyses key aspects of al-Muhasibi’s approach to combatting the soul, and briefly compares this with Isaac of Nineveh’s roughly contemporary writings, demonstrating significant similarities and differences between them. This analysis informs the current debate over the meaning and methods of jihad.

5 years of "A Common Word"

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

In the 5 years since its official release, A Common Word (ACW) has become arguably the most influential interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians in history.

It has provided a common ground on which thousands of Muslim and Christian religious leaders have been brought together.

Here is the original Muslim position statement
and the Yale-based Christian Response
Hopefully there will be more developments over the next few years, and an avoidance of the media-hyped-up nonsensical government-orchestrated "clash of civilisations".

Stoic asceticism and St Isaac

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I've been finding many ways in which St Isaac's asceticism imbibed elements of Stoicism. Also found some useful free online philosophy texts,eg Essays in Ancient Philosophy by Michael Frede, which has some useful material on Stoicism.

Ektobe Syriac Manuscripts database

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Ektobe Syriac Manuscripts database is a massive project to develop a comprehensive online database of Syriac manuscripts. This will be of enormous use for scholars as the information and images presented are excellent. See:

http://www.mss-syriaques.org/

jihad and the saints

Sunday, September 23, 2012

"Jihad" in the spiritual sense of striving, struggle, and spiritual battle against the passions and demons, (as discussed in Greek and Syriac from earliest days of the church, and in Arabic from 600s onwards), is central to Greek, Syriac and Arabic Christian life. It is an aspect of the lives of nearly every saint! My research is mostly on Syrian saints and struggle, but there's so much more that could be done. Found this amazing reference site on saints: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook3.asp

Sacred Music...Music for Peace

Saturday, July 28, 2012

"Music is a universal language. When a nation shares the language, traditions and life, also shares the music and cultural influences that give rise to texts, expressions and musical compositions of its members despite being from different religions. Music is an attractive and potentially fruitful channel for building understanding..."

So writes Renee, another researcher I met in Malta.  I think she makes a very good point- sacred music lifts people up to God and builds bridges, going beyond political rhetoric. This will be an important way to build peace. Check out Renee's website, with some beautiful music to listen to, and further excellent ideas on music for shared understanding at: http://salammusic.wordpress.com/ (Use google chrome for a good translation.)