The papers in this session engage in comparative analyses of religious texts, liturgies, and understanding of reality. The papers discuss topics ranging from McGilchrist’s hemispheric modes of attention, the conceptualization of divine assembly in ancient Near Eastern religious literature, and the collective worship of Bahá’í communities in conversation with Christian and Islamic liturgy.
Priests before the Divine Assembly: Zechariah 3 and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions
The vision of Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3 presents a striking scene in which the priest stands before a heavenly assembly, accusations are raised, impurity is removed, and priestly authority is restored. While this passage is often interpreted primarily within the historical context of the postexilic restoration of the Jerusalem temple, its imagery also resonates with broader patterns found in Ancient Near Eastern religious literature. This paper examines how traditions of divine assembly deliberation, heavenly adjudication, and ritual purification help illuminate the symbolic setting of the vision. In this light, Zechariah 3 portrays the restoration of the Jerusalem high priesthood as an event affirmed in the divine realm, linking earthly priestly authority with heavenly authorization.
182 years after the founding of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’í communities in some countries are ceasing to be imperceptible minorities and becoming numerically significant segments of their populations. As they grow, practices of collective worship are changing, in part through the emergence of local houses of worship. This paper places the decisions Bahá’í communities are now making regarding collective worship in the context of scholarship on the transition from house meetings to a formal liturgy in second century Christianity and the formalization of collective prayer with the spread of Islam.
| David Schones | dschones@austincollege… | View |