- Following graduation from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Oxford, R. Joseph Hoffmann was tutor in Greek... moreFollowing graduation from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Oxford, R. Joseph Hoffmann was tutor in Greek at Keble College and Senior Scholar at St Cross College, Oxford, and Wissenschaftlicher Assistent in Patristics and Classical Studies at the University of Heidelberg.
He began his teaching career at the University of Michigan as Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies where he developed the undergraduate and graduate program in Christian origins. From 1991 to 1999, he was Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Church History at Westminster College, Oxford. Hoffmann has also taught at Cal State Sacramento, the American University of Beirut and Wells College, where he was Campbell Professor of Religion and Human Values until 2006 and Distinguished Scholar at Goddard College in 2009.
He has held visiting positions at universities in Africa (Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Botswana), the Middle East, the Pacific (Australia and Papua New Guinea) and South Asia, most recently as Visiting Professor of History at LUMS in Lahore, Pakistan and as Professor of Historical Linguistics at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Beyond academe, he is well known for his advocacy of the humanist tradition. He was Chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion until 2010, a senior vice president of the Center for Inquiry until 2008 and a founding faculty member (1986) of the Humanist Institute. In his recent work, Hoffmann has turned increasingly to the work of “humanist restoration”–a project designed to reconsider the richness of the humanist legacy in the arts and sciences apart from recent attempts to emphasize the purely rationalistic and naturalistic varieties of humanism that emerged in the late twentieth century.
Hoffmann has focused on the controversial aspects of Christian origins, with special reference to early heresies, gnosticism, and the pagan philosophical critiques of the Christian movement. His most recent books include an edited volume entitled Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2006) and Sources of the Jesus Tradition (2010.)edit
Art of the pre-Islamic age is evidenced only from the early medieval period that corresponds with the Parthia and Sasanian dynasties in Iran. The development of the early medieval Central Asian civilization and its traditions of... more
Art of the pre-Islamic age is evidenced only from the early medieval period that corresponds with the Parthia and Sasanian dynasties in Iran. The development of the early medieval Central Asian civilization and its traditions of monumental art was evidently directly related to the establishment of the Silk Route that connected China to India and the West. Sustained by the transcontinental traffic and inspired by the cultures of Buddhist India, pre-Islamic Iran, the Greco Roman West and early medieval China, the sedentary civilizations of Central Asia underwent a period of rapid development from the first century A.D. until the Arab conquest in the eighth. (G. Azay, 1983, 30), From Tunhuang in Kansu province the trade routes followed either the northern or the southern rim of the Taklamakan desert to join again east of the Pamirs at Kashgar. From Kashgar one route followed the middle course of the Oxus to Marv where it joined a second principal route from Kashgar that passed through the Ferghana valley and Transoxiana.
We investigated whether hypothermia and hyperthermia can alter the efficacy and potency of histamine at increasing the force of cardiac contractions in mice that overexpress the human H2 receptor only in their cardiac myocytes (labelled... more
We investigated whether hypothermia and hyperthermia can alter the efficacy and potency of histamine at increasing the force of cardiac contractions in mice that overexpress the human H2 receptor only in their cardiac myocytes (labelled H2-TG). Contractile studies were performed in an organ bath on isolated, electrically driven (1 Hz) left atrial preparations and spontaneously beating right atrial preparations from H2-TG mice and wild-type (WT) littermate control mice. The basal beating rate in the right atrial preparations from H2-TG mice was lowered by hypothermia (23 °C) and elevated by hyperthermia (42 °C). Furthermore, the efficacy of histamine (0.01–100 µM) at exerting positive inotropic effects was more severely attenuated in the left and right H2-TG mouse atria under hypothermia and hyperthermia than under normothermia (37 °C). Similarly, the inotropic response to histamine was attenuated under hypothermia and hyperthermia in isolated electrically stimulated (1 Hz) right atr...
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A review of premises of modern scinetism and philosophical naturalism, this essay draws on cionemporary naturalistic thought to frame the question, Is humanism still possible?
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History f the developmemnt of Silk Road International Univesrity
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The essay attempts to deal with the matter of virtue in a way that respects formative ideas in ancient philosophy, in religion, and in contemporary ethical theory. Because so much attention is paid to Mr Trump’s colorful rhetoric and so... more
The essay attempts to deal with the matter of virtue in a way that respects formative ideas in ancient philosophy, in religion, and in contemporary ethical theory. Because so much attention is paid to Mr Trump’s colorful rhetoric and so much time is spent defending and critiquing particular pronouncements, the focus here in not on a specific range of “sayings” or actions but on the way in which his characteristic and habitual performance illuminates the current discussion of virtue theory.
The argument here is straightforward. It is that with Trump we reach a point in modern political life where virtue is not only absent but actively resisted and considered a political liability. This situation mirrors a society in which the understanding of virtue has become associated with impractical, religious, or metaphysical concerns, and to the extent it is discussed at all is considered a situational rather than a habitual matter, in which action is assessed largely in terms of effects beneficial (or harmful) on an agent or on a class of people affected by his actions.
The argument here is straightforward. It is that with Trump we reach a point in modern political life where virtue is not only absent but actively resisted and considered a political liability. This situation mirrors a society in which the understanding of virtue has become associated with impractical, religious, or metaphysical concerns, and to the extent it is discussed at all is considered a situational rather than a habitual matter, in which action is assessed largely in terms of effects beneficial (or harmful) on an agent or on a class of people affected by his actions.
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An update of recent discussion of the Arch-heretic, Marcion of Sinope by the author of gthe 1984 study, Marcon: On the Restitution of Christianity. The study shows that despite attempt by some commentators to re-establish the weight of... more
An update of recent discussion of the Arch-heretic, Marcion of Sinope by the author of gthe 1984 study, Marcon: On the Restitution of Christianity. The study shows that despite attempt by some commentators to re-establish the weight of the patristic testimony concerning Marcion, the apologetic frame within which the church writers operated and considered his teaching remains an obstacle to the full reconstruction and interpretation of his thought. Marcion remains however our best evidence of the apologetic and defensive motives for the creation of the two part canon, adopted by the orthodox church in the third century of the common era, through the domestication and revision of Pauline theology.
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The nature of interpretative generalizations and what they tell us about the nature of religion in general and religiously-motivated violence in particular.
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Heidegger's challenge to humanism is straightforward: we cannot employ it to address questions of meaning, value and authenticity. His challenge to theology is his axiom that the discovery of God cannot be something as simple as forming... more
Heidegger's challenge to humanism is straightforward: we cannot employ it to address questions of meaning, value and authenticity. His challenge to theology is his axiom that the discovery of God cannot be something as simple as forming objective images from subjective data, mainly historical.
The twentieth century in science fiction writing moved form the fantastic to the horrific, and from the grotesque to the scientifically engaged. .This short essay examines the evolution of chiefly futuristic sci-fi in the work of... more
The twentieth century in science fiction writing moved form the fantastic to the horrific, and from the grotesque to the scientifically engaged. .This short essay examines the evolution of chiefly futuristic sci-fi in the work of several key twentieth century practitioners, ending in the parenetic work of Ray Bradbury, using his short stories and novels as illustration.
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A research essay designed to show the numerous textual and methodological issues involved in the so-called Chrtist mnyth theory, recently revived by amateius biblical scholars and assorted advocates.
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A short history of the dvelpopment of the Silk Road International University in Samarkand