1. Introduction

The Introduction

• summarizes shortly the long and painful relation between church and synagogue; ⁴²The historical drama film Agora - Spanish: Ágora, 2009 - visualises the painful relationship between Chrisitians and Jews. Historical fiction highlights the relationship between religion and science amidst the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism and Christianization. „Agora” refers to the gathering place in ancient Greece, similar to the Roman forum. Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in late 4th-century Roman Egypt, who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system and the heliocentric model that challenges it. Hypatia struggles to save the knowledge of classical antiquity from destruction by religious turmoil, Christian superstition and social unrest.)
• presents theories used for this research, analysis and synthesis;
• accounts for the evolving research questions and
• methods of data collection and analysis.

May 2014, ed.

(When first I travelled to Israel, my daughter was three years old. She then had made a series of abstract watercolours and gave me them along, to remember her. I had them always with me. Since they accompanied my research and study on the background, I use them here as background graphics. Today, they are also an experiment with watercolour impressions on the web.)