https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36863 2026-04-15T15:17:19Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36912 Title: Book reviews [Melita Theologica, 44(1)] Abstract: Book review of: Moshe WEINFELD, Deuteronomy I- II (Anchor Bible 5, Doubleday; New York 1991) xiv, 458 pp. 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36911 Title: Post-secularisation : the social significance of religious values in four Catholic European countries Abstract: Since the beginning of sociology variants of the secularisation model have been employed to explain religious and social change. Depending on their understanding of religion and secularisation, sociologists have advanced divergent positions concerning the social significance of religion. Still others have questioned the significance of the sociological study of religion itself. In current sociology secularisation has become a multi-dimensional concept not easily verified or disproved by scientific investigation. At a time when many voices are heard about the return of the sacred and the impact of religion on society the need is felt for an approach that goes beyond the theory of secularisation. While we acknowledge secularisation as concomitant to modernisation, we observe the persistance of the traditional and the emergence of new forms of religion in post-modern society. Accordingly, a post-secularisation perspective is required in order to examine the social significance of the sacred and the secular in society. To enquire about the social significance of religion in today's world is to ask whether people find it meaningful to hold religious values and beliefs. Do they search for purpose and meaning in life? What are their religious values and beliefs? How does traditional religious practice and belief differ from new forms of religion? Are religious values related to social and political options? Do religious values orient people's decisions and action in society? The task of a post-secularisation approach is to account for the socially significant dimensions of religion in a secularised world. 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36910 Title: Pilgrimage according to a philosopher : a tribute to Michel Meslin Abstract: In the preface to the study on L 'Homme Romain, M. Meslin has declared that through the analysis of the cultural and religious values underlying the action of the Romans from their origins to the beginning of the Christian era, he sought above all to help us understand the attraction mixed with horror, the fascination laced with distaste, that Rome has continued to exercise for two thousand years, right up to our own day. In fact, M. Meslin has utilized the vast historical knowledge that he developed over many years of scientific study of all the vestiges of the past with which the Mediterranean world is so heavily laden in order to build over very solid empirical foundations a systematic and original anthropology of religion of the greatest contemporary interest. 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36909 Title: Philological survey of Arabic root "JINN" Abstract: In the not so distant past Melita Theologica published five articles of mine treating about the Jinn in the Qur'an and in Muslim tradition. The jinn are spiritual intelligent beings, non-angelic and non-human. Since these beings are mentioned in the Qur'an and are widely present in Muslim Tradition, they constitute a theological problem, which, if studied and treated with due scientific severity, will surely shed more light on Christian-Muslim dialogue and mutual understanding. . The present philological survey is meant to complement these five articles. 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z