Biblical Commentaries Research Articles

Kajian Teologis tentang Mazmur 23:1-6 dan Penerapannya dalam Pelayanan Gereja Masa Kini

Psalm 23:1-6 is one of the most well-known passages in the Christian tradition, portraying the intimate relationship between God as the Shepherd and His people as the sheep. In the context of contemporary church ministry, a deep understanding of these verses is crucial, as they offer theological and practical guidance for the faith community in overcoming various spiritual and emotional challenges. This study aims to explore the theological relevance of Psalm 23 in the context of modern church ministry. The primary objective of this research is to conduct a theological analysis of Psalm 23:1-6 and to explore its application in today's church ministry context. This study also seeks to identify how the principles contained in this Psalm can serve as a foundation for pastoral care, spiritual strengthening, and congregation development in the modern church. The research employs a qualitative approach, using literature review and textual analysis methods. The primary sources used include the Hebrew text of Psalm 23:1-6 and modern translations, while secondary sources comprise various theological literature, Bible commentaries, and writings from related theological experts. This research also utilizes hermeneutical methods to delve deeper into the meaning of the text and its interpretation in various historical and theological contexts. The results indicate that Psalm 23 portrays God as a Shepherd who nourishes, protects, and guides His people, creating a sense of security and trust for those who follow Him. These attributes are relevant to contemporary church ministry, particularly in the context of pastoral care and spiritual support for congregants facing life crises. The findings also suggest that the application of the values contained in Psalm 23 can strengthen church ministry strategies in providing comfort, trust, and hope to its members. This study concludes that Psalm 23 holds strong and practical relevance for modern church ministry, as it offers an ideal depiction of divine care that can be applied in pastoral ministry. The church can use the principles from this Psalm to build trust and hope among congregants, as well as to provide more effective spiritual support in addressing the challenges of modern times.

Strategies of Social Persuasion Against Hussitism

This contribution investigates the different strategies and methods of cultural and social persuasion against the Hussite reformation employed by an important member of the University of Vienna, Peter of Pirchenwart (d. 1436). During his career he used various oral and written means against the “new” heresy: sermons to the people, university lectures, theological commentaries, and short treatise. Different types of audiences were targeted in two cultural centres and key sites of anti-Hussite propaganda in the city of Vienna: the Faculty of Theology and St Stephen’s Church, both connected to the Ducal Court. Here I am going to discuss five unedited texts produced by him: the commentary on the Book IV of the Sentences; the biblical commentary on the Gospel of John, containing two anti-heretic sections, one of which is known to the catalogues under the eloquent title of De religione militari contra Hussitas; the short treatise Determinatio contra Hussitas; and two sermons delivered in 1423 and 1431. In these texts, the dimension of violence (both verbal and physical) is present as a recurring motif and substantial theme; one of Pirchenwart’s primary aims, in fact, is precisely to justify the extermination of heretics, without any form of negotiation or dialogue. Through these case studies I will highlight some of the ways in which the heresy was addressed locally (the city of Vienna), at the intersection of intellectual production and the construction of the collective imaginary.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Personal Copy of Abraham Calov’s Bible Commentary: History-Significance-Perspectives ed. by Albert Clement (review)

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Personal Copy of Abraham Calov’s Bible Commentary: History-Significance-Perspectives ed. by Albert Clement (review)

The Linguistic Provenance of the Hebrew King Arthur (1279) Reassessed

Abstract Based on its inclusion of non-Hebrew Italian loanwords and the sole surviving manuscript copy being Italian, the current consensus among scholars is that an Italian Jew authored Melekh Artus (1279), the only extant medieval Hebrew translation of Arthurian material. The following study destabilizes this consensus opinion demonstrating why these loanwords are a precarious tool when ascertaining this text’s linguistic provenance. Not only are most of the said loanwords not necessarily Italian, but, using Italian copies of the French biblical commentator Rashi, this study establishes that Jewish Italian scribes sometimes Italianized Old French loanwords they encountered in their Hebrew sources. Thus, the few loanwords that are Italianisms do not prove Italian authorship but merely that the sole surviving copy was produced by an Italian-Jewish scribe adhering to the scribal conventions of his times.

인간의 ‘자유의지’에 대한 오리게네스의 견해

The purpose of this study is to examine Origen’s thoughts on the subject of human free will. Origen has described the topic of free will separately in his 『Peri Archon』, but it is not easy to systematically understand the theory because it contains a mixture of biblical commentary, theology, and philosophy. In addition, just as many church fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries focused on guarding against heresy and Gnosticism, Origen also wrote his works with the purpose of refuting them, and for this reason, it is difficult to independently understand his theory of free will. Accordingly, chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis compare the claims of the Gnostics identified by Origen with the author's own theory. Rejecting the fatalism and natural determinism of the ancients, Origen generally emphasized the importance of free will and also mentioned reason as the basis for free will and the ethical responsibility of action. Chapter 4 attempts to understand free will in its relationship with divine providence. Origen believed that free will and God's providence is not in conflict, but is compatible, and he further spoke of their dynamism, in which God's providence helps and embraces human will, allowing humans to use their free will better. Lastly, through Origen's insight into divine foreknowledge, we understand that free will does not conflict with foreknowledge and can be harmonized within providence.

Berns, Andrew D. The Land Is Mine: Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance

Berns, Andrew D. The Land Is Mine: Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance

The womb as a wild mother beast

This article traces the roots of a metaphor that compares the aching womb to a forest or wild beast. A close examination of the metaphor, which appears in a chapter on uterine pains in Gilbert of England’s Compendium medicinae, opens a window into ideas that circulated in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin thought about human and animal maternal affection. After mapping out the medical tradition in which this singular metaphor appears, we turn to bestiaries, encyclopedias, literature, biblical commentaries, and sermons to situate this metaphor in a broader cultural context. By awakening the metaphor of the wild beast/womb, we identify a notion of embodied motherly love that circulated in medieval learned Latin Europe. These findings, in turn, shed new light on the role of animal-human discourse during the period, and reveal a compassionate approach to miscarriage and loss within medieval medicine.

A political theology for the Ghanaian context from Christ’s perspective

One of the key challenges facing contemporary Ghana is ineffective political structures and leadership. Leadership failure is the main reason why Ghana continues to experience socio-economic challenges such as poverty, hunger, poor education system, poor road networks, injustice, high unemployment rate, human right abuse, and local currency depreciation despite the country’s vast natural resources. Ghana’s socio-economic problems continue to attract scholarly attention and yet, the problems persist. As a predominantly Christian nation, the church has a major responsibility to engage the country’s political space by analysing and scrutinising political structures with the effect of chatting a new path of socio-economic and political developments. This research was, therefore, conducted to contribute to the ongoing discussion by exploring how a contextual application of political and leadership lessons embedded in Jesus’s teaching in Mark 10:35–45 might address the Ghana’s political needs. The article is a qualitative research that analysed data collected from books, Bible commentaries, journal articles, and dissertations.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This research involves systematic and/or political theology, New Testament studies, and leadership and/or governance. It argues that for Ghana to overcome her political challenges, leadership must be seen as a position of service rather than an opportunity to amass wealth at the expense of others. The article contributes to the field of political theology in the Ghanaian setting.

Czeżowski's Theory of Reasoning and Mediaeval Biblical Exegesis

We present how the theory of reasoning developed by Tadeusz Czeżowski, a Polish logician and a member of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS) can be applied to the mediaeval texts which interpret the Bible, which we collectively call as Biblical exegesis (BE). In the first part of the paper, we characterise Czeżowski's theory of reasoning with some modifications based on remarks of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. On these grounds, we discuss the nature of reasoning and its different types, as well as the problem of textual representation of reasoning. In the second part, we describe the analytical nature of some BE at the end of twelfth century and in the thirteenth century by referring to the examples of Stephen Langton, Robert Grosseteste, Bonaventure, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. We argue that they represented an analytical approach in BE, characterised by advanced use of logic and specific methods, including reasoning reconstruction and logical analysis. In the third part, we present selected examples to show how Czeżowski's framework helps in identifying various types of reasoning. We indicate some universal problems with the textual representation of reasoning found in the BE of the authors in question. Lastly, we point out how Czeżowski's framework enables the understanding of phenomena such as ‘Special Biblical Inference’. Thanks to this experiment, we can see how a framework as advanced as that offered by LWS representatives can be put to the test using mediaeval Biblical commentaries, yielding interesting results.

Cotton Mather’s Biblical Enlightenment: Critical Interrogations of the Canon and Revisions of the Common Translation in the Biblia Americana (1693–1728)

Abstract While there exists a robust scholarship on the cultural influences and public uses of the Bible in early American history, the historical development of biblical scholarship in America remains relatively understudied. The prevalent view suggests that biblical scholarship in America had its critical awakening with the importation of German Higher Criticism to northeastern divinity schools in the nineteenth century. This essay makes a corrective intervention by looking at Cotton Mather’s unpublished Biblia Americana (1693–1728), the first comprehensive Bible commentary to be authored in British North America. More specifically, the essay examines Mather’s response to critical interrogation of the canon and the Biblia’s numerous revisions of King James translation in light of recent philological scholarship. What connects these two issues is that they both concern the “givenness” of the Bible, which, in Mather’s day, was being fundamentally challenged. Behind the discussions about the canonicity of diverse books and over how to render the Hebrew and Greek texts into modern languages always lurked fundamental questions regarding the divine authority, integrity, and perspicuity of the Bible. Examining a broad range of examples from across the Biblia, the essay demonstrates how Mather’s work defies clear-cut categorization as either precritical or critical. In response to the intellectual currents of the early Enlightenment, Mather pioneered a new type of deeply learned, historically conscious but apologetically-oriented biblical criticism in America. The Biblia clearly reflects the challenges brought on by the deepening historicization of Scripture and the destabilization of texts and meanings through a new type of criticism. More widely read in current European scholarship and in many ways more curious and daring than any other early American exegete, Mather joined the infinitely complex and open-ended quest for better translations. Moreover, he was the first in New England to seriously address hard questions about the canon of the Bible and its historical development. But he always did so with the aim of providing constructive answers to these debates that would ultimately shore up the authority of Scripture, stabilize the scriptural foundation for what Mather regarded as the core of Reformed orthodox theological beliefs, and offer improved interpretations of the biblical texts, which would lend themselves even better to devotion and illuminate for Christians, with the help of the most up-to-date scholarship, the full riches of God’s Word.

:The Land is Mine: Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance

:<i>The Land is Mine: Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance</i>

The Virtue of Humility: Interpreting the Summa Theologiae’s ‘Minimalist Approach’

Abstract This paper argues, in response to scholarly criticism, that Thomas Aquinas’s account of the virtue of humility in the Summa Theologiae does not undermine the importance of humility in the Christian moral life. While the Summa’s classification of humility as a ‘potential part’ of temperance, which results from Thomas’s reliance on classical sources, has been blamed for this work’s perceived belittling of humility, an understanding of the Summa’s overall scope and Aquinas’s system of organizing virtues therein helps demonstrate that this categorization does not imply a lesser significance of humility either than other virtues in the Summa or than humility as treated in his Bible commentaries. Furthermore, even if the Summa’s structure creates limited space for an extensive discourse on humility, the establishment of humility’s reciprocity with magnanimity and absolute contradiction of pride leave no doubts as to the magnitude of this virtue. Thus, the ‘humble’ portrayal of humility in the Summa not only adequately but aptly expresses this uniquely Christian virtue, capturing the way it disposes human beings to ‘creaturely’ reverence before the Creator, and invites a more holistic understanding of Aquinas’s virtue ranking in the Secunda Secundae.

Hardened hearts and cries for freedom: interpreting biblical narratives in a pandemic

ABSTRACT The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia has exposed social fault-lines and inequities not often recognised in such an affluent country. This study explores the relevance of Bible stories about plagues and disasters for the work of preachers, teachers, and pastoral practitioners who were independent voluntary contributors to this study. Each of them was serving with the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) in settings where worship and learning take place. From within the activities of a particular Christian tradition, this article offers examples of practice and interpretive processes used in approaching the questions raised as an unfolding narrative. How did the use of Christian and Jewish Scriptures by these practitioners during the pandemic inform their worship, teaching, learning and social interactions? Examples were brought into dialogue with the work of biblical commentators on texts such as Exodus, Psalms, Prophets, and Gospels. The narrative hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and the biblical scholarship of Walter Brueggemann provided helpful conceptual anchorage for the task and assisted in broadening the perception of how local perspectives may or may not connect with global concerns.

Reconsidering the Curse of Ham in Milton’s Paradise Lost: Canaan, “Vitious Race,” and Renaissance Biblical Commentary

ABSTRACT John Milton writes in Paradise Lost of a “vitious Race,” which many scholars have taken to signal his endorsement of the slavery of Black Africans. Yet these scholars often mistakenly associate Milton’s language with certain contemporary views that were indeed racist. For Milton, the “curse” on the “vitious Race” does not refer to a European subjugation of Black Africans in the slave trade but is at once more general and more specific. He subsequently in the epic applies this curse specifically to Israel’s conquest of the Canaanite people while also suggesting the impact of the curse on many “Nations,” including his own England.

Recent Theological Approaches to the Johannine Epistles

Abstract1 John has been rather roughly handled in recent exegesis, notably in Raymond Brown's Anchor Bible commentary, which sees the epistle as badly written, logically incoherent, full of nasty polemics and bereft of any claim to be considered a mystical text. The two books here reviewed mix exegesis and theology in a kind of pincer movement, which succeeds only partly in closing in on the treasures of Johannine contemplation. Despite their limits, the two books reveal a major desideratum of Johannine studies, namely, the need of a theological reading which will both do justice to the power of Johannine thought and connect it with the questions that occupy, or should occupy, theologians today.

KHOTBAH EKSPOSITORI YANG KEKINIAN

Expository preaching is a type of sermon that is considered to promote biblical validity and inerrancy. In accordance with the Bible's doctrine of inerrancy, the Bible's texts regarding past truths should also be applied to us in the 21st century. This means that a biblical text that was acknowledged as true in the past should still be relevant to be applied today. To bring it to the present, the meaning and intent of writing a biblical text must first be captured by the expositor. Therefore, this study attempts to explore various writings on expository sermons, how they are structured, and how they are delivered from various sources in a descriptive way, then compiles a practical argument regarding current expository sermons. The preparation of an expository sermon involves exegesis in the form of in-depth research on the verses to be preached, the use of various research aids such as Bible commentaries, lexicons, Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other tools. Furthermore, the results of that study can be compiled into an expository sermon. The next step is the hermeneutic task, to adapt it to the needs of the congregation today. The last step is how the preacher then uses the art of rhetoric with a variety of communication skills to be able to send a Biblical message according to the listeners and their current needs. The whole process is aimed at delivering sermons that are Biblical, but up to date.

Unhiding the voices of women in the Parable of the Good Samaritan: A call for academic inclusion

The parables of Jesus are often susceptible to patriarchal, androcentric interpretations. By using a realistic reading and social-scientific criticism, this article will investigate the voices, roles, and presence of women in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and how the 1st-century audience of the parable would most likely have understood women to be present, even if not mentioned in the parable. Women played critical roles in terms of hospitality, travel, innkeeping, and healing. These roles and voices of women are often ignored by modern interpreters and exegetes. This article not only emphasises the valuable roles that women fulfilled in the time of Jesus but also critiques the lack, or absence, of women as a point of discussion, acknowledgement, and study in most biblical commentaries and books concerning the parable of the Good Samaritan. The aim of this research is to contribute to the unhiding of women voices in patriarchal, androcentric texts thereby reconstructing and deconstructing gender paradigms within biblical scholarship.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The interdisciplinary nature of this article contributes to the debate on the roles and importance of women in the church by investigating the value that women had in the parables of Jesus. By reading women as present in the text, emphasis is given to the voices of women in the Bible and the importance of their representation today. This research is also in line with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender equality and women empowerment.

Un autre récit des origines est possible: la Genèse dans l’“Icosameron” de Casanova

As an introduction to his novel Icosameron, published in 1787, Casanova offers a lengthy biblical commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis. This article seeks to better define the relationship between this curious “Literal Commentary” and the rest of the novel, which recounts the adventures of a brother and sister at the center of the Earth after their ship sinks. It also questions Casanova’s reading of Genesis, as he uses this biblical account as the central theme of his novel. Finally, at the end of a century that has forcefully denounced the literal reading of Genesis, is the choice to publish a long novel introduced by an equally imposing biblical commentary the reason for the novel’s lack of success upon publication, and the oblivion into which it has fallen outside Casanova studies?

Adoption of the tri-radical root system among Iberian Exegetes, acceptance and rejection. The case of Moses ibn Chiquitilla

This article looks at the role of formal grammatical analysis in the writings of Moses ibn Chiquitilla; tracing the adoption of triliteralism among grammarians in Iberia. One of the enduring difficulties of recounting a history of the major developments in the study of Hebrew grammar is the patchwork nature of the material available. With the availability of the Firkovitch collection at the Russian National Library (RNL), source material from the 11th-century grammarian, translator, and exegete, Moses ibn Chiquitilla, is now available. Of what little survives of Ibn Chiquitilla’s writings, a large portion of his biblical commentary on Psalms is preserved in one manuscript, Evr-Arab. I 3583 alongside smaller portions belonging to other libraries. In this article, I trace the development of debates among grammarians as portrayed in the writings of Ibn Chiquitilla. I reach the conclusion that among the circles of grammarians in Saragossa in the 11th and 12th centuries, Ibn Chiquitilla tends towards the opinions of Judah Ḥayyūj, accepting the theoretical underpinnings of his system of grammar. He rejects any except

Christian Worker Analogy According to 2 Timothy 2:1-13 and Its Implications for Sunday School Teacher Professionalism

This article is conducting research based on the analogy by the Apostle Paul mentioned in 2 Timothy 2:1-13. In the text, Paul makes an analogy of Christian workers in three analogies. This analogy has something to do with the teacher’s professionalism. Therefore the research being done here is divided into two parts, namely the analogy of Christian workers in 2 Timothy 2:1-13 and the second part the implications for the professionalism of Sunday school teachers. The research approach being used includes exegesis research through utilizing Biblical hermeneutic principles and also through utilizing an analysis of implications. The hermeneutic process of the Bible is carried out by analyzing the context and meaning that is found in the text of 2 Timothy 2:1-13. We have used several relevant sources such as books on Bible commentaries and various research reports both in journals and repositories. The implication analysis was carried out after completing the exegesis of 2 Timothy 2:1-13. We have examined the various phenomena that are related to the professionalism of Sunday school teachers and find their correlation to the results of the exegesis already conducted beforehand. The results of the study show that Christian workers by way of analogy in comparison to soldiers, sportsmen, and farmers. The first is the soldier analogy. The soldier analogy explains that the Christian worker is ready to fight on the battlefield to defend his faith in Christ. The second analogy is the sportsman analogy. The sportsman's analogy explains that Christian workers must prepare himself or herself before the competition. In the analogy of sportsmen, Christian workers must be consistent, enterprising, and ready to finish the matches with an enthusiastic spirit. The third analogy is the farmer's analogy. The farmer's analogy explains that Christian workers must be ready to plant the seed of God's Word in everyone's heart. In the farmer's analogy, Christian workers must also be patient and diligent in caring for the seeds of the world that are planted so that these seeds may produce fruit.