It has become quite common in scholarship to consider the community described by Philo in De vita contemplativa as a specific Jewish group comprising contemplative Essenes or people somehow related to the Essenes. In this study, we shall explore the meaning of Philo's masculine and feminine designations, θεραπευταί and θεραπευτρίδες, and consider the possibility that these words referred not to the male and female members of one group that was part of a Therapeutae sect, but to individuals whom Philo understood as exemplary devotees of God. We shall also consider a few matters concerning the character of the group. Overall, this study seeks to call into question the assumption that, in his De vita contemplativa, Philo is describing an Essene community in Egypt.

Until fairly recently, the usual view of Maimonides' position on freedom of the will was that he was a strict libertarian. This is because he appears to assert unequivocally in several places in this Commentary to the Mishna, most notably in Shemonah Perakim 8 and in Mishneh Torah (Teshuva 5), that human choice is undetermined. Alexander Altman and Shlomo Pines challenged this view in recent years by arguing, mostly on the basis of Guide of the Perplexed 2.48, that Maimonides maintained an esoteric view according to which human choice is determined by the natural order, which is itself determined by God.

Vincent Ferrer was born in Valencia on January 23, 1350 and died at Vannes (Brittany) on April 5, 1419. He grew up in a devout family, and by 1367 had joined the Order of Preachers in Valencia. As a member of the Dominican Order, Vincent Ferrer underwent extensive academic and pastoral training from 1370 to 1378 in preparation for a life of scholarly teaching and preaching. He was a teacher of logic at Lleida (1370–71), philosophy at Barcelona (1375), and he completed his formal training at Toulouse (1376–78). These academic activities reflect only one aspect of his intellectual background.

Suspicion raised by the Neo-orthodox movement concerning Schleiermacher's theological enterprise continues to cast its shadow. Karl Barth framed this suspicion perspicaciously in terms of an “either/or” in his “Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher”:

Is Schleiermacher's enterprise concerned (a) necessarily, intrinsically, and authentically with a Christian theology oriented toward worship, preaching, instruction, and pastoral care? Does it only accidentally, extrinsically, and inauthentically wear the dress of a philosophy accommodated to the person of his time…? Or is his enterprise concerned (b) primarily, intrinsically, and authentically with a philosophy…indifferent as to Christianity and which would have wrapped itself only accidentally, extrinsically, and inauthentically in the garments of a particular theology, which here happens to be Christian?

Judging by the proliferation of a new body of theological works that have encouraged a deliberate rethinking of the intellectual premises of Christian theology, scholarly discussion appears to have come to the juncture of an exciting though unpredictable stage in theology. Perhaps this is nowhere clearer than in the realm of the ongoing dialogue on the theological relevance of communication theory associated with the German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. Contrary to what has become an article of faith in recent theological forays into social theory, I contend: (a) that Habermasian theory has little to contribute to theological thought and is more valuable as an indirect aid in critiquing various deficient theological discourses; (b) that the current Habermas-sympathetic attempts at a communicative theology are, by and large, open to criticism for the same shortcomings and problems found in Habermas's own works; and (c) that the need to address these problems necessarily points us toward an alternative postcommunication theology.