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I came across it in the book Eifelheim. Given the rest of the book, it might be a very obscure term. Apparently wind could rush through them: ‘wind rushed through the vises and passageways under the roof’. They must be close to the rafters: ‘shadows in the rafters and vises in the clerestory’. Th...

Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years: [After the Decian persecution] the Christian Church had been severely damaged, not so much in terms of death and suffering, because few died outside a small group of leaders, but in terms of morale. The truth is that...

I am not Jewish, but I think the Book of Samuel is an important part of the Hebrew Bible. It tells of King David and the founding of the kingdom. And it shows a brilliant example of repentance and of the consequences of doing wrong. Occasionally I get into a conversation with an American in their...

There is a substantiaial number of people who self-identify as or are otherwise classified as "African-Americans" in the United States who consider themselves Christians. Were the ancestors of those "African-Americans" who were captured, mainly on the west coast of Africa, Christians when they we...

In “The GULag Archipelago” (by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, translation by Thomas P. Whitney) one can find the following lines: Non-Orthodox sects were also under constant attack, even those sympathetic to Communism. (Thus, in 1929, they arrested every last member of the communes between Sochi and Kh...

There are 39 books in the Old Testament. These are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations...

As per this article titled Indians: Bardaisan of Edessa on Indian ambassadors’ tales and the Brahmans (early third century CE) an early Christian saint Bardaisan of Edessa wrote about Brahmins and India in his now tragically mostly lost work on India. Later on Manichaeism which syncretized many r...

I was listening to a long lecture citation needed (well, more like a somewhat chronologically structured, free-flowing monologue) on History of Poland and there the lecturer made the assertion that, at least in the Polish context, Catholic Church was the driving force responsible for introducing...

Christinity calls the followers to reject wealth, but there is no specific call to reject ownership of slaves, though possibly rejecting wealth implies freeing slaves. One can argue that Christianity wanted the wealth to be donated to the church, but hardly this could be the reason for not callin...

@38:47 of Gli uomini non guardano il cielo / The Secret Conclave (1952), the Patriarch of Venice (1893-1904), future Pope St. Pius X, visits the contessa of Count Filippo Grimani (r. 1895-1919), "sindaco d'oro [golden mayor]" (p. 109), who supposedly was contemplating divorce, and encourages here...

I'm not sure that there's a person in British history whose personal stock has gone up and down more frequently and violently as Thomas Cromwell. It's not hard to see why in the immediate years following his execution, because it was intrisincally bound up with overarching rises and falls in the ...

So recently, after a separate discussion involving the word "supper", I got to ponder about the Last Supper. Subjectively, it feels like it's the most dominant term for the supper Jesus had with the apostles, in the English-speaking world. Some research and my personal experience with Eastern Eur...

I'm interested if early Christians fasted on pagan festivals because I've read some primary sources that instruct Christians to fast on the New Year's aka the Kalends of January but I couldn't find any other sources regarding fasting on any other pagan festivals by early Christians. Here are the ...

How did the Crusades 1095–1291 affect Europe? What were the effects politically, technologically, culturally or economically? Did Europe come out of them better off or worse off?

Margaret de la Pole was, arguably, a Yorkist claimant to the English throne, but never appears to have pressed her claim. Her sons were, certainly, troublesome to Henry, particularly after his break with Rome,but I have never understood why Henry felt it necessary to execute Margaret. She was a w...

I'm researching the impact of the Babylonian revolts against Persian rule (522-521 BCE) on the Jewish population living in Babylon during this period. Specifically, I'm interested in how the Jewish communities were affected during the rebellions of Nidintu-Bēl (Nebuchadnezzar III) and Arakha (Neb...

The Puerto Rican church seemst to say so:

Can anyone make an argument that the quran did not copy from the Alexander Syriac legend . For the similarities refer this post https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/nrkcgo/dhu_alqarnayn_as_alexander_the_great/ Despite the many major parallels between the 2 stories , we also see minor s...

In the Genisis, Abram is came from Ur, and he is the ancestor of jewish people. Ur is sumerian city, I want to know whether Abram a sumerian, and whether sumerians are ancestors of jewish people?

I presume that, in order for members of the Catholic Church to confess their sins in confessional, they receive some guidance allowing them to distinguish between what the Catholic Church officially regards as sinful and what it doesn't regard as sinful. For example, I presume that using a confes...

I was reading a book by Thomas Romer "The Invention of God" and he keeps mentioning Arabia suggesting that Yahweh could have an Arab origin, or Judah might have been from South Arabia or Midianites might have been Arab or qos is Arabic. But I saw a map and it seems none of the action is actually ...

I recently heard a story about John Wesley giving way to a stubborn man while on a narrow bridge. This was interesting, so I decided to look it up. However, no matter the keywords I used, I was never able to find it. The closest that I was able to find is ChristianCentury.org, but it was a road, ...

The first Christians such as Justin Martyr, the Church Fathers such as Augustine, the Reformers such as Luther were all anti-Semites. Why was that so? Here are some quotes: Luther: "Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against t...

First of all: what I mean here by “Jew” is nationality and not religion. The question of whether Jesus was a Jew therefore means whether Jesus was an Israeli, i.e. a descendant of Jacob/Israel. The focus here is not on whether Jesus was a Jew from a religious point of view, i.e. whether he was a ...

Europe underwent major economic upheavals during the creation of Protestantism (cf. E. Michael Jones, Barren Metal or Goy Guide to World History). Is this one reason why Protestants upheld iconoclasm? Was it a sense of necessity or utilitarianism (that having a minimally decorated church is bette...

Why did Nazi Bishop François Auvity escape all punishment, both criminal and ecclesiastical, after the Liberation of France by the Allies, and how could his criminal role remain hushed up for EIGHTY long years ??

I was reading Thomas Merton’s book The Waters of Silo on the origin of the Cistercian order, in which he says: “When the hermit St. Anthony emerged from the ruined city in the desert that had echoed for twenty years with the bickering of the devils against him, his face astonished the men who had...

I understand that Philo was a prominent Roman writer and philosopher during the first century AD, it seems that in one of his books 'Against Flaccus' Philo mentions the multiple persecutions and punishments Jews of that time were facing, but it seems that the crucifixion wasn't mentioned? I have ...

Who were the Nazi bishops shown at 00:23 and 00:32 in this video?

Here is a link to a question asking about the youngest bishop ever. Has there ever been an archbishop or bishop younger than the 16-year-old James of Nicosia? There are many answers to the question, including one of mine. Archbishops are a cegegory of bishops, higher ranked bishops. Some but not...

There is an often-quoted saying of Augustine that “The church is not a hotel for saints, it is a hospital for sinners.” However, in conducting a cursory search of the words on the internet, one finds a serious divergence in... who might have said those words (Augustine of Hippo vs. Chrysostom) w...

Abraham went to Mitsrayim c. 2000 BCE. At that time the Egyptians knew themselves as Kemet, not Misr. The earliest reference to the name Misr to my knowledge is from the Amarna Letters (?) c. 1350 BCE. This is after the Hebrews reached Israel. How do we explain this?

dunno if this is the right place to ask (if it isn't, please do tell me!) I've recently visited the Pomposa Abbey, a benedectine monastery in northern Italy near Ferrara, and while visiting I've stumbled upon these inscriptions below a fresco depicting an Hydra. I have currently identified only a...

Why did Baldwin seek a truce with saladin? Was it due to financial constraints rather than fear of defeat? Saladin's grip over Egypt and Syria was already strained, compounded by the Crusader Kingdom's presence between them. Additionally, Saladin hadn't fully consolidated control over Nur al-Din’...

I assume they would not call it the "Bible". Would they say "Holy Scripture" or "The Word of God" when talking about the whole collection of OT NT (and apocrypha) or was there some other term in Middle English? I'm thinking particularly of a term that would communicate to those non Lollards to wh...

I've been teaching 4th/5th graders using the text "Social Studies Alive!" and talking about whether religious people in the colonies tended to lean loyalist vs patriot vs neutral in the years leading up to the American Revolution. In particular I'm looking at this: Page 148 Quoting: Other Loyal...

I'm down in the moderate unpleasantness that is the US state of Florida. Not having anything better to do, I pop down to the local amateur library and pick something out. Most of it consisted of generic murder mystery novels, Except for Laurie Beth Jones's "Learn from the best; Jesus; Life Coach"...

I'm looking into the growth of Christianity; I'm wondering if there are any good environmental reasons concerning the spread of Christianity (particularly in the Roman Empire) anywhere around the 4th century. To my understanding, the Roman crisis of the 3rd century and the middle of the 4th centu...

What is the history of the United States motto "one nation under God"? I saw it claimed in § "History of the 🇺🇸" of Campbell Phillip. 2019. The Story of Civilization : Vol. 4 - the History of the United States One Nation Under God Text Book. Ashland: TAN Books. that The Knights of Columbus e...

I asked this question on the Biblical Hermeneutics site and they redommended I ask it here: The Bible says in Genesis 50:10-11 10 Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of ...

We know from The New Testament that Saint Paul-(as evidenced in The Acts and even in The Epistles), preached the Christian message in various towns and cities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region-(places, such as, Cyprus, the island of Rhodes, Ephesus, Troy, Philippi, Thessalonica, Veria, ...

I quote wikipedia: The writings of the 1st century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus include references to Jesus and the origins of Christianity I'm looking since many months for a photo from these writings (from a museum archive or whatever) but can't found anything! The latest one i'm ...

I understand the time we live in and the need to be inclusive and all that, but what I don't comprehend is how the obfuscation of BC and AD by the use of BCE and CE achieves anything over the well known terms BC and AD. If a scholar or student asks to know the what is the definition of the term C...

I have to read a non-fiction book for my English project, and it must have been written by a "Marginalized" author. Examples are given, however, none of them are interesting to me. I am very interested in history (in particular the Crusades [which would be my first choice of book to read], 30 yea...

I am reading this book, "Trial of the Templars" by Malcolm Barber. I am not a historian, so I do not know to what extent Barber's thesis is right - that the Templars were arrested because Philip V has financial problems and had to raise money in ways other than taxing the populace. Assuming this ...

In the context of freedom of expression by the Church, the Index is something I have heard. How impactful was it? How widespread was it? How effective was it at the time? Were books featured in it banned in actually or just nominally?

The abstract of this article begins "Historians are generally agreed that Lancashire was the most Catholic and the most Jacobite county in England at the time of the 1715 rebellion". The Wikipedia article on "Recusancy" says "Recusancy was historically focused in Northern England, particularly Cu...

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee u...

Crusades are, oftentimes, widely condemned. There are presented as examples of religious fanaticism, Western expansionism, racism, bigotry. In general, it seems to me, that many believe that Crusades are a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the West. OK, my view on this topic may be...

There are many examples of a child king, Henry III of England when John died and nobles abandoned Louis and chose Henry to be the successor. They took power for themselves, without a king to limit their power until the king became an adult. Given that cardinals elect popes ever since the conclave...