New Book Releases
- Einstein Center Chronoi
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
The Modern Hammurapi: An Old Babylonian King in Imperial Germany
Felix Wiedemann
The discovery of the 'Code of Hammurapi' in 1902 sparked widespread discussion in Imperial Germany and attracted considerable attention beyond the academic sphere. For conservative Christian and Jewish theologians, the discovery of the Old Babylonian law appeared to challenge the authenticity of biblical law. Other scholars were enthusiastic: historians identified allegedly striking similarities between the Old Babylonian king from the eighteenth century BC and highly esteemed German rulers such as Frederick II of Prussia and Kaiser Frederick William I. Legal scholars praised the supposed rule of law in ancient Babylonia, thereby drawing a direct line to the modern German “Rechtsstaat.” Such comparisons did not arise from a lack of historical reflection; contemporaries were, of course, aware of the historical, social, and cultural differences. However, as this book argues, the temporal entanglement between ancient Babylonia and modern Germany was prompted by specific political, legal, and religious issues that seemed to be similar in both worlds. This was one of the reasons why Hammurapi became a historical reference figure in various ideological branches in Imperial Germany, including nationalism, racism, and antisemitism.
From Eternal to Everlasting: God and Time in Franciscan Thought
Lydia Schumacher
The Middle Ages witnessed a shift in thinking about the way God is related to time. For most of the earlier Middle Ages, scholars had followed an earlier patristic tradition of describing God as eternal and thus as timeless or outside of time. In the early thirteenth century, however, members of the Franciscan order, who played a significant role in the development of the recently founded universities, re-defined God’s relationship to time in terms of his everlastingness. On their account, God is infinite in temporal duration, rather than simply ’timeless’, since he has no beginning and no end. So construed, God encompasses and is able to relate to every moment in time in a way that the Franciscans believed was not possible on the eternalist account. This book will discuss some of the factors that contributed to their shift in thinking about God as everlasting instead of eternal. Among these, the book will identify a transition in defining the basic nature of God as either simple (for proponents of eternity) or infinite (for proponents of everlastingness) as well as the Franciscan adoption of the metaphysics of the eleventh-century Islamic philosopher, Avicenna.
Time and History in Denis Pétau: Philosophy, Science, and Religion in Early Modern France
Johannes Zachhuber
This book offers the first comprehensive presentation and analysis of the innovative theory of time advanced by early modern French scholar, Denis Pétau. Denis Pétau (1583–1652) was the model of an early modern erudite. Proudly Catholic, the Jesuit scholar was a keen participant in the scientific and religious debates of his time. In the 1620s and 30s, he made major contributions to the burgeoning literature on scientific chronology responding especially to the work of Joseph Scaliger. As part of this effort, Pétau developed a fascinating theory of time and history. Societies inevitably exist in a temporal frame and therefore develop communal practices of timekeeping. For this, they adapt cosmic time to the needs and purposes of human societies. They create calendars and arrange their historical records in chronological form. This is a scientific task but, since time is ultimately sacred reality, its study has always been assigned to priests. Pétau therefore sees science and religion as intimately connected, progressing jointly through history and culminating in his own time. The book will be of interest to philosophers of time, and historians of early modern science, religion, and theology.
Das Erfassen von Zeit im Kontext der Vergangenheit. Zu den Anfängen der hethitischen historischen Erzählungen
Jörg Klinger
Wie entsteht Geschichtsschreibung? Die Studie untersucht die Anfänge hethitischer Historiographie und analysiert, wie Erinnerungen in kulturelles Gedächtnis übergehen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Berichte zu den frühen hethitischen Königen, besonders der sogenannte Zalpa-Text, und einem bisher in diesem Kontext noch wenig bekannten König Ḫuzzija. Jörg Klinger liefert damit eine fundierte Analyse zur Entstehung historiographischer Traditionen im hethitischen Kontext.
Time of Textiles in Ancient Greece
Marie-Louise Bech Nosch
Textiles accompany us throughout our lives, au fil du temps, from the cradle to the grave. Aspects of time, seasons and chronology play an important role when exploring textiles and clothes in antiquity. The time of textiles appears highly gendered, embodied, tangible, and concrete. Textiles follow their own timeframes and paces, and they connect us to the past in an intimate and diachronic way because we still wear woven fabrics, as people did in antiquity. Textiles themselves are ephemeral and rarely survive in archaeological contexts. But when they do, they can show evidence of a long life.
This book is about the time of textiles in ancient Greece: how time was articulated and conceived via clothing and textile production and how clothes conveyed time, seasons, ages, lifetimes and chronological periods. Textiles moreover symbolized eternity and destiny, as the spinning goddesses of fate called Moirai by the ancient Greeks. These goddesses spin, measure and cut the thread of a person's life. The book invites university students in history, archaeology and classics, as well as interested readers, craft communities and Humanities scholars to reflect on diverse dimensions of time in ancient Greece through the study of textiles and clothes.
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