In this paper, I intend to discuss three early Christian Syriac sources in relation to the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (Pi epsilon rho iota epsilon kappa kappa lambda eta sigma iota alpha sigma tau iota kappa sigma iota epsilon rho alpha rho chi iota alpha sigma;) of Saint Denys the Areopagite (floruit cca 500), with particular regard to the concept and nature of "hierarchy" appearing therein, as well as to the monastic virtues and especially the relationship between monasticism and the institutional Church, more precisely the grace-mediating authority of the bishop. My source texts are the Acts of Judas Thomas (cca 200); a 4th-century Syriac ritual handbook, editorially titled De ordinationibus; and Homily 12 of the anonymous collection known as the Liber graduum, the Syriac Book of Steps (4th century). With this short investigation, then, I would like to reinforce the historical and philological argument for Denys' Syrian background. (This paper is a revised and substantially upgraded version of a short article I first published in Hungarian, Vassanyi 2023).
This paper first analyzes the errors made by Chinese learners with English as their first language (L1) in acquiring Chinese demonstrative reference words (DRW) through examples of errors in their output. Then, it employs a comparative analysis to explore the differences in the near-referring and far-referring functions of four types of DRWs in Chinese and English. Consequently, it concludes that the errors of these learners stem from interference from their L1. The four types of DRWs analyzed are: (1) DRW referring to Person, objects, and events; (2) DRW referring to qualities and states; (3) DRW referring to manners; (4) DRW referring to degrees. Finally, the paper proposes targeted teaching strategies based on the characteristics of each type of error.
This paper selects four current intermediate and advanced Chinese as a Second Language writing textbooks: Developing Chinese, An Intermediate and Advanced Chinese Writing Course for Foreigners, A New Chinese Writing Course, and Jumping High: A Systematic Chinese Course & centerdot;Writing Textbook. Using the cohesion theory of Halliday & Hasan (1976) and Hu (1994) as a framework, this study examines the teaching content of discourse cohesion and coherence in these textbooks. In comparison, all four textbooks contain relevant content, but some cover only means of conjunction, while others include additional means such as reference and lexical cohesion. Overall, there are phenomena such as incomplete variety and inconsistent quantity in Chinese writing textbooks. This paper also briefly analyzes the reasons for these issues and proposes suggestions.
Hungarian Reformed Christians experienced the emergence of liberal theology coming from mainly German, Swiss and Dutch centres of higher learning during the course of the nineteenth century. This new theological trend which repeated most of the non-orthodox teachings, often labelled as heresy during the patristic era, or false teaching in the medieval Catholic church, gained currency owing to the impact of Enlightenment in Europe. The Zeitgeist with its buoyant and dominant ideology named liberalism promoted precious values such as freedom, progress, science and development that married in various robe and forms with different Christian worldviews most notable what came to be called liberal theology 'liberale theologie' in Germany, 'moderne theologie' in the Netherlands or theology of science of religion (vall & aacute;studom & aacute;nyi teol & oacute;gia) in Hungary. The challenge posed to the core doctrine of Christian theology by liberal theology had an incredible impact Hungarian Protestantism and the debate led to the emergence of Confession of Debrecen by new-orthodox theologians in 1875. The Confession of a peculiar expression that is somewhat similar to the Nicaean Creed yet it is different in some aspects. This paper uncovers how the debated evolved, the confession came into being and then it explicates the creed itself drawing lines of explanations to core issues of freedom of examination, semper reformanda and the voluntary obligation of accepting a faith upon entering a religious community. In so doing, the paper also throws light on some of the doctrinal differences of both theological camps, and underlines that even liberal theologians created doctrines despite of their desperate and good intentioned endeavour to reformulate the old Christian belief such as incarnation resurrection and alike.
In this paper, I examined and analyzed five ambiguous passages while providing examples from the Chinese and the English Bibles, comparing them also to the original Hebrew and Greek versions, to illustrate my points. I employed cognitive linguistic methods to delve into the informational differences between the versions. This article aims to contribute to an important research topic by highlighting specific practical principles for Bible translation.
