Light Against Darkness

Light Against Darkness is comprised of articles that put on display the power and pervasiveness of dualistic thought. Dualism has proved a potent cultural tool for clarifying and ordering reality. Particularly in times of social stress and psychological insecurity, it can offer a valuable conceptual grid that provides orientation to the world and a clear sense of identity. At the same time, though, there are important questions to be asked about the social effects of binary thinking. As history amply illustrates, dualistic notions can readily be deployed to legitimate cultural demonization and to rationalize violence. At a deeper level, a dualist worldview can also obscure the possibilities to be found in multiplicity. The articles in this volume treat Dualism across a wide historical spectrum and from multiple methodological perspectives. The studies are organized around the religious and cultural contexts of Ancient Judaism and they include contributions from leading voices on ancient Persia, Israel, Greece, and Egypt. Experts on modern religious and philosophical thought not only lend context to concepts applied to the ancient world, but engage recent European and American experiments in binary thought. All of the studies contribute to a richer and more complete portrait of dualism in ancient Judaism.

1;Title Page;4 2;Copyright;5 3;Contents;6 4;Introduction;8 5;P. Kyle McCarter, jr. Dualism in Antiquity;20 6;Sydney H. Aufrère Dualism and Focalization in Alexandrian Religious Thought in Egypt at the Beginning of the Ptolemaic Period: Manetho of Sebennytos and the Argive Myth .;37 7;Prods Oktor Skjærvø Zoroastrian Dualism.;56 7.1;Appendix: The Sources of Zoroastrianism ..;77 8;Eric M. Meyers From Myth to Apocalyptic: Dualism in the Hebrew Bible;93 9;Patrick Lee Miller Greek Philosophical Dualism;108 10;Loren T. Stuckenbruck The Interiorization of Dualism within the Human Being in Second Temple Judaism: the Treatise of the Two Spirits (1QS III: 13IV: 26) in its tradition-historical context;146 11;Philip S. Alexander The Dualism of Heaven and Earth in early Jewish Literature and its Implications;170 12;Fred L. Horton Dualism in the New Testament: a Surprising Rhetoric and a Rhetoric of Surprise;187 13; Zlatko Plee Gnostic Dualism ;210 14;Werner Sundermann What has come down to us from Manicheism?;227 14.1;with an Appendix by Prods Oktor Skjærvø;242 15;John C. Reeves Manichaeans as Ahl al-Kitab: a Study in Manichaean Scripturalism;250 16;Piet F. M. Fontaine What is Dualism, and what is it not?;267 17;Kalman P. Bland Human-Animal Dualism in Modernity and Premodern Jewish Thought;278 18;Rodney S. Sadler jr. Exegesis in Black and White: Dualism in 19TH and early 20TH Century African American Biblical Hermeneutics;284 19;Yaakov Ariel You must choose! The Prince of Peace or the Prince of Darkness: Evangelical Beliefs and American Dualism at the turn of the twenty-first Century;295 20;Michael A. Rosenthal Spinozas Monism and Jewish Philosophy;311 21;Randall Styers Displacements and Proliferations: Moves beyond Dualism in Contemporary Continental Thought;326 22;William G. Lycan Recent Naturalistic Dualisms;349 23;Index;365 24;Author Information ;368