The day was the most important legal unit, for it was linked most directly to actions. Surviving sources make the relationship between days and action appear much more straightforward than it actually was. Roman jurisprudence assigned days to clear classes which might then be associated with permissible or impermissible activities. But classes sometimes overlapped with others, producing situations when particular days possessed different assemblages of norms. Unique events affected the significance of particular dates, a practice close to calendrical divination. Concern for the accumulation of norms on particular dates also affected record-keeping. Inscriptions and literary sources from at least as early as the beginning of the second century reveal a practice of placing events on definite months and days, but exhibit no concern for identifying years.

This chapter identifies prominent Jewish thinkers as “theorealists,” a position that defends the reality of God but denies our ability to speak truthfully about the divine. The chapter argues that while theorealists sought to preserve Jewish theology, their contradictory position in which they routinely violate their own strictures stifles contemporary theological reflection.

In the Extra Help, you will continue to learn how to tackle any Greek sentence as a ‘trunk with branches’. Extra Material introduces some of the different jobs that the Greek dative case can do.

This chapter introduces the concept of groupuscular nature of the extreme right, a type of organisational style set across a range of competing organisations that developed in Britain and elsewhere after the Second World War. It reflects on the rise of new groups, such as Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement, linking interwar and postwar activism. It examines the impact of a new generation of activists, such as Colin Jordan and John Tyndall, and the significance of new political issues, such as changing demographics in Britain and the decline of empire. Finally, it reflects on the history of the National Front, and later the British National Party, as two important British fascist organisations.

Having documented the opposition to Jewish theology in the previous two chapters, Chapter 6 identifies a powerful countertrend in modern Jewish thought that has boldly fought to defend our ability to speak truthfully about God and the place of theology in Jewish life.

On a standard approach, love’s proper object is construed in terms of personhood or rational agency. Some philosophers in this broadly Kantian tradition deny that love has a proper aim: specifically, they reject the idea that love properly aims at the good of the beloved. They worry about paternalism and encroachment. In this chapter, we show how Kierkegaard’s Works of Love advances a rival approach: one which provides an account of how love can properly aim at the good of the beloved, without thereby becoming objectionably paternalistic or encroaching, together with an alternative conception of love’s object. We bring out the significant advantages of this approach, which emphasizes our human interdependence and mutual vulnerability. Through a comparison with the ethical thought of K. E. Løgstrup, whose philosophy of love we present as standing in significant continuity with Kierkegaard’s, we further show how the expressly theological framework advanced in Works of Love may also be developed in a more secular direction.

In Extra Help you will extend the use of participles (from Chapter 7) with your grasp of how all adjectives decline (including Chapters 12 and 13). In the Extra Material you’ll think further about what Greek authors communicate when they choose to use a participle.

In addition to the Old Testament’s Primary History, we have a Chronistic History comprised of 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. The two histories contain some of the same materials. We will see that the Chronistic History, however, includes events of the postexilic community down to the late fifth century bce. With the Persian Empire as the background, we will note also a different perspective, characterized by different themes, stylistic devices, portions written in Aramaic, and particular emphases on the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s religious practices associated with Jerusalem.

Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah are sequenced differently in various canons, indicating independent collections, but we will see that they are linked literarily by the edict of King Cyrus. This historical event marked the return of Israelite exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem, now part of the Persian province Yehud, and the subsequent restoration and rebuilding of a community. Indeed, these books are significant in the Old Testament for the way in which they confirm the postexilic community as the legitimate successor of preexilic Israel.

This chapter reflects on the ways state and society in Britain have had both a positive and a negative impact on curbing the extreme right. It reflects on how policies around immigration have helped normalise extreme right prejudices, and also comments on the ways the state has limited the political space for extreme right activism, including the Prevent Agenda. While the state is important, it also highlights the ongoing role of Britain’s diverse civil society in responding to the issues posed by the extreme right. It identifies antifascist and related antiracist traditions, set across a range of important organisations, and reflects on how solutions empowering communities have been successful in changing attitudes. Finally, it argues that developing a multicultural liberal democracy should be an important animating factor for those wanting to limit the impact of the extreme right.

This chapter examines the turn to digital activism across the extreme right since the 1990s. It reflects on the rise of static websites, then a turn to social media, and more recently the impact of messaging apps on the organisational dynamics of the extreme right. It also considers the impact of memes as a new way to communicate politicised ideas and explores the cultivation of new narratives in online spaces, such as the ‘alt right’. It argues that the responses by tech companies to the increased ability to amplify extremist positions reflect a commercial logic, not more fundamental debates on free speech. Efforts to remove groups from mainstream platforms does hamper extreme right activism, and so legislative moves and pressure from campaigns to embarrass companies to remove material will have a tangible effect. As society has made a fundamental shift to a post-digital age, online extreme right activism will remain a problem for the foreseeable future.

Diving into deep history and asking whether evolution and cognitive historiography is freeing us from the strings of our upbringings in religious, denominational, and religious enclaves.

In this chapter we will move into the heart of the Pentateuch and explore narrative highlights from the books of Exodus and Numbers. The story begins in Egypt, where God’s people are enslaved. Yahweh reveals himself through a burning bush to Moses and instructs him to confront the pharaoh. Ten plagues challenge the Egyptian pantheon, but they also reveal the unique nature of Yahweh. He delivers his people and leads them into the desert wilderness, en route to the promised land. The journey is punctuated by episodes of Israelite rebellion, Yahweh’s responses, and tabernacle plans, but most importantly, by another covenant – Yahweh’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.

We will observe that archaeology does not provide answers to many historical questions we might have regarding this ancient people and their wilderness sojourn, but it has brought to light Near Eastern political treaties remarkably similar to those of Israel. In striking contrast, no other nation perceived of its deity as a treaty partner. Yahweh, the all-sufficient covenant-making God, demanded a loyalty and exclusivity that marked the radically new idea of Israel’s monolatrous henotheism, and ultimately its concept of monotheism.