Looking broadly at the place of Scripture in the Byzantine Church, this chapter focuses on the place and symbolism of the Gospel reading in the Divine Liturgy. The reader is provided with an overview of the various manuscripts used in the liturgical rite and the Biblical readings deployed therein, as well as an outline of the rites in the Divine Liturgy that surround the recitation of the Gospel. Using as a case study the Christmas Day reading found in an illustrated lectionary, now at the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 1156), the chapter walks the reader through the variety of evidence preserved in Byzantine Gospel lectionaries for understanding the performance of the liturgy, the chanting of the Gospel text and the artistic and scribal practices of the manuscript tradition. Through this chapter, readers will gain a better understanding of how the Gospel was recited in the Byzantine Church, while also acquiring a sense of the various primary and secondary sources for undertaking further research in this area of study.

This chapter explores the setting of Numbers (the desert) and its plot (the forty-year wandering), and how attention to these literary features connect to theological issues, such as God’s care and revelation.

This chapter examines the role of Greek philosophy in forming the worldview of the Byzantine Church. It begins with the fundamental identification of God as the Good (in the Platonic sense of the Form of the Good) found in the Cappadocian Fathers. This identification provides the basis for a number of characteristic themes in Byzantine theology, including the primacy of the experience of God over theoretical inquiry; the need for poetic imagery in describing God; the naturalness of virtue; and the active role of God within human choice. The chapter also examines a further important Platonic theme, the understanding of the Divine Liturgy as a form of participation in heavenly worship. It ends by noting a number of ways in which Greek philosophy factored into later developments, including the rise of ‘Byzantine scholasticism’ based on Aristotle and the Neoplatonism of Michael Psellos and his followers.

Starting from Dennis T. Olson’s suggestion of the theme of the change of generations as the key to a theological interpretation, this chapter deepens the analysis of this theme and considers how Numbers addresses questions of sin, God’s “visiting the iniquity” on the third to fourth generation, and the possibility of forgiveness of sin.

This chapter will trace the importance of charity and almsgiving as an inherited component of Christianity in general, as a particular duty of care in Byzantine society, and as an expression and physical manifestation of the theology of Byzantine Christianity. After a brief introduction to the cultural origins and scriptural roots of charity and almsgiving, this chapter will explore the theological rationale of charity and almsgiving specific to expressions of Byzantine Christianity and will identify select charitable institutions and significant almsgivers.

This chapter analyzes the classification of “Gulf literature,” arguing that this geographical categorization inaccurately limits the diverse cultural and global contexts found in novels by authors from the Gulf countries. It posits that such a demarcation fragments Arabic literature and often perpetuates Orientalist clichés. Using Mohammed Hasan Alwan’s Ibn Arabi‟s Small Death as a case study, the chapter points to the ways in which the novel transcends regional boundaries through its engagement with Sufism and universal philosophical questions, displacing a narrow Saudi Arabian identity. It challenges the tendency to reduce Gulf literature to sociocultural or nationalist critiques, advocating for a comparative reading approach that recognizes its sophisticated artistic and intellectual contributions and its ability to destabilize conventional literary classifications.

Starting from the murmuring stories of Numbers (and Exodus), this chapter shows how questions of punishment, responsibility, and intention plays into the book’s treatment of the motif of murmuring.

The chapter completes my discussion of the inception of periodical publishing in asylums, by examining the histories of two of the first asylum periodicals published in America and Britain and their patient-founders: Barber Badger’s Retreat Gazette (Hartford Retreat in Connecticut, 1837) and John Reid Adam’s Chronicles of the Monastery (Glasgow Royal Asylum, 1842). It shows that the histories of early asylum periodicals were tightly intertwined with their founders’ fates, which was the major reason for the publications’ comparatively short runs. Furthermore, these founders were all patients with printing skills or, in the case of Adam, literary aspirations and willingness to learn, and the opportunity to print in the asylum played an important role in their lives and professional careers: for Badger, it was a way to continue providing for his family, while for Adam, institutionalisation constituted an apprenticeship that eventually enabled them to pursue a career in publishing beyond their discharge. Asylum periodicals allowed patients to apply their existing skills or gain new ones in the pursuit of their own aspirations and personal interests.

How did shiʿr al-ʿāmmiyya, or Egyptian colloquial poetry, emerge? And what is its significance within the broader context of Arabic literary tradition? While examples of colloquial verse like zajal and mawwāl existed early on, they were largely excluded from the recognized canon and thus marginalized. The rise of Egyptian cinema and radio in the mid twentieth century, however, helped popularize Egyptian ʿāmmiyya across the Arab world, making it a familiar and influential dialect. The growing acceptance of ʿāmmiyya in the 1950s, allowed the poets Fuad Haddad, al-Abnudi, and Salah Jahin to pioneer a new poetic movement that broke from classical forms, embracing modernist aesthetics and everyday language, giving voice to the lived experiences of ordinary people. In so doing, shiʿr al-ʿāmmiyya redefined the boundaries of Arabic poetic expression.