Abstract
This article pays tribute to Andries van Aarde’s theological and hermeneutical contribution. His research unfolds in three phases: a narrative reading of the text, a social scientific investigation of the context and an ‘ideal construct’ of the historical Jesus. Despite the theoretical nature of these inquiries, Van Aarde indicates convincingly their practical value for the church and society on the whole.
Highlights
The way in which the Bible has been transmitted, received and interpreted has been and still is heavily debated
Van Aarde has always valued the role of genre in biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, which means distinguishing between gospel, acts, epistle and apocalypse
According to Andries van Aarde (1983:76–80), the gospels are not historical reports about the life and death of Jesus, but are narratives, permeated with the intrinsic ideology of the narrator, who aims to draw readers into the story so that they can participate in the events
Summary
Andries van Aarde – A sideways glance: His theological and hermeneutical contribution to the South African scene. Jesus has to be studied in the context of the eastern Mediterranean world during the time when the New Testament came into being, that is, Palestine under Roman rule, and deeply under the influence of Hellenistic thought and culture This society was structured by some important ideological powers that determined the different social relationships, namely: economy, politics, family life and religion. In analysing these categories, Van Aarde (1988b:840–842) realises that modern notions of rich-poor in terms of 20th century capitalism of the developed world is vastly different from those of a 1st century citizen in the eastern Mediterranean world. One can imagine how ‘the world goes round’
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