The Legend of The Grand Inquisitor, as featured in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, certainly requires little introduction. As a universally acclaimed piece of literature it has...Show moreThe Legend of The Grand Inquisitor, as featured in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, certainly requires little introduction. As a universally acclaimed piece of literature it has served as a source of inspiration for a wide array of different fields including philosophy, politics, literature, theology and art. Amongst the peculiarities that this Legend holds, we find that the head of the Spanish Inquisition, ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, is himself accused of being an atheist. In this ironic accusation, however, may just lie the expression of a defining feature of Christianity itself, as Slavoj Žižek would argue. With his unorthodox thesis that true atheist freedom is reached only through the process of Christianity, Žižek makes a point that seems to relate to Dostoyevsky’s legendary passage. Through a close analysis of several key points in The Grand Inquisitor, the manner in which the passage implies an intertwinement between Christianity and atheism is explored. In connecting this inquiry with Žižek’s theory of ‘Atheist Christianity’, a case is made for the idea that atheism and Christianity are interdependent and in the most radical sense even equivalent. This cross-analysis leads towards the issue of defining a secular form of faith, while at the same time opening up the way for questions regarding the aptness of Žižek’s Atheist-Christian framework in understanding the social issues brought to light in Dostoyevsky’s intriguing passage.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
2018-09-22T00:00:00Z
In this thesis, I analyze the Akītu festival for the purpose of understanding the socio-political landscape of the Neo- and Late-Babylonian periods in Babylon (626 BCE - 100 BCE). The history of...Show moreIn this thesis, I analyze the Akītu festival for the purpose of understanding the socio-political landscape of the Neo- and Late-Babylonian periods in Babylon (626 BCE - 100 BCE). The history of the Akītu festival, known as the Mesopotamian New Year’s festival, spans several millennia, but was especially known in its 1st millennium form in Babylon. This analysis focuses on the relationship between kings, gods, and high priests of Babylon and their actions in an historical and social space with relation to this festival. The interaction between cult and state in this shared space is used to compare how each empire utilized the festival and gods in order to exert and subvert power over the other within both an historic context and a wider socio-political history. I show that the Akītu festival was a constantly developing festival that was as dependent on the ruling king as it was a defining factor of kingship in Babylon.Show less
