Biblical Sources Research Articles

Characterization and analysis of a Commiphora species germinated from an ancient seed suggests a possible connection to a species mentioned in the Bible

A seed recovered during archaeological excavations of a cave in the Judean desert was germinated, with radiocarbon analysis indicating an age of 993 CE– 1202 calCE. DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis identified the seedling as belonging to the angiosperm genus Commiphora Jacq., sister to three Southern African Commiphora species, but unique from all other species sampled to date. The germinated seedling was not closely related to Commiphora species commonly harvested for their fragrant oleoresins including Commiphora gileadensis (L.) C.Chr., candidate for the locally extinct “Judean Balsam” or “Balm of Gilead” of antiquity. GC-MS analysis revealed minimal fragrant compounds but abundance of those associated with multi-target bioactivity and a previously undescribed glycolipid compound series. Several hypotheses are offered to explain the origins, implications and ethnobotanical significance of this unknown Commiphora sp., to the best of our knowledge the first identified from an archaeological site in this region, including identification with a resin producing tree mentioned in Biblical sources and possible agricultural relationship with the historic Judean Balsam.

The Sabbath in Judean Communities during the Mid-fifth Century BCE

Abstract The importance and observance of the Sabbath within the Judean exilic communities has often been the subject of debate. Recent studies have argued that the exiles in Elephantine, Egypt, observed the Sabbath but the exilic Judean communities in Babylonia did not. New evidence – in the form of names derived from “Sabbath” among the exiles during the Achaemenid period – seems to reflect a shift in the importance of the Sabbath within Judean identity. In this article we review the occurrences of the name Shabbataya (Šabbatāya) in extrabiblical material and explore possible parallel phenomena in Elephantine and biblical texts, ultimately drawing a picture of an Achaemenid-era evolution in the attribution of significance to the Sabbath. This transformation is evident in Ezra-Nehemiah and corroborated by new evidence; extrabiblical and biblical sources demonstrate that names relating to the Sabbath began to appear at the time.

The biblical sources of morality

In the context of a “Residential Course in Bioethics,” this report obviously stands as a contribution at the foundational level. In this respect it relates to other reports, from which, however, it must be clearly and adequately distinguished. In other words, I intend to respect to the utmost the biblical framework that has been indicated to me and that I now point out to you as a fertile and promising field for every man of good will who intends to ethically ground his prass.

Deuteronomy and Contextual Teaching and Learning in Christian-Jewish religious education

This research explores the contextual approach within Christian-Jewish religious education, addressing a notable gap in existing literature and offering fresh insights into the application of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model within Christian contexts. Through a qualitative literature study employing a three-step methodology, including an in-depth analysis of Deuteronomy 11:19–20, this study reveals that this biblical text provides both educational guidance and theological significance, serving as a foundational support for the CTL model in Christian-Jewish religious education. The integration of digital media into biblical sources holds promise for future research, while the central challenge lies in harmonising life experiences and empirical phenomena with biblical reflections to seamlessly integrate inquiry processes and pedagogical phases, with potential avenues for further exploration in scripture models endorsing CTL. This research provides valuable insights for educators, parents and policymakers in Indonesia and beyond, advancing educational research in contextualised teaching models within religious education.Contribution: This article demonstrates that the CTL model in the digital era has the potential to revolutionise religious education and profoundly impact learners, making it a significant scientific contribution in the context of Christian-Jewish religious education.

The Universal Light, or the Only Way to the Father? Universalism and Exclusivism in John’s Provocative Christology

Among the most perplexing of John’s theological riddles is question of salvific universalism and particularity. John is both the greatest biblical source of Christian universalism and the greatest source of Christian exclusivity. After all, the Johannine Overture affirms universal access to the saving–revealing Light of Christ, declaring: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world!” (Jn 1:9). What else could this mean, other than to affirm that every person has saving access to the divine Light of Christ? And yet, Jesus also declares in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me!” What could this mean, other than to assert that there is only one means of access to God, and that it involves saving belief in Jesus as the Christ? Sorting out the apparent contradictions within these tensions is the goal of the present essay.

Biblical Foundations for Business Ethics

The article explores biblical sources of ethics principles of business. It demonstrates that in the contemporary pluralistic world, principles of biblical business ethics can be valuable in the communication and interaction among representatives of different countries and cultures, as they encompass fundamental foundations for building business relationships. Due to the influence of Christian morality on the culture of many nations, biblical values have the potential to significantly impact individuals and their economic behavior, contributing to the dissemination of important economic categories in society. The study reveals that important anthropological foundations for fruitful economic relations have been formed within the framework of biblical theocentrism, including considerations of human dignity, honesty, diligence, responsibility, and charity. The biblical perspective on property as a temporary stewardship has significant implications for awareness and education about responsibility not only towards other people but also towards the environment, holding crucial relevance in the context of corporate social responsibility in the modern world.

Intersectional Grassroot Reception: The Use of the Bible in Discourses of Gender Equality

This article explores how religious Latvian women draw on the Bible to discuss gender equality, examining the construction of their theologically based arguments and the conceptualization of gender equality within these discussions. The study investigates factors such as age, denomination, and education level that may influence their opinions. The findings reveal a "biblical reception at the grassroots," diverging from official religious community settings. Women, despite general assumptions or stereotypes, independently navigate gender roles through both religious texts and personal interpretations. The analysis applies gender theory, intersectionality, and reception history, emphasizing the role of biblical sources in shaping gender equality discourses. In the unique Latvian context, marked by a recent reversal of women's ordination and cultural tensions with the Western world, these women's perspectives on the Bible and gender equality offer distinctive and compelling insights.

The Context Of Ḥadīth Narration On Prophet Sulaymān Visiting Multiple Wives In A Single Night

The paper aims to shed light on the contextual background of prophetic tradition on “Prophet Sulaymān Visiting Multiple Wives in A Single Night” which has been given as an example of a contradiction between ḥadīth and logic. It tells the story of Prophet Sulaymān sleeping with an enormous number of wives in a single night. Being portrayed as carrying erotic message, the ḥadīth has also been deduced as an example of forgery committed by the ḥadīth scholars themselves. This study aims to clarify the problematic allegations, deduce a number of responses and compare the ideas from significant finding in Jewish and Christian sources. It suggests that such problematic ḥadīth implicitly implying a form of muʿjizāt and karāmah in such tradition. The study is conducted in qualitative manner based on library research technique. Relevant data material were collected from the nine canonical ḥadīth books, traditional commentaries (sharh), Biblical sources and related article and were analysed in a descriptive and analytical, and comparative manner. The finding shows that the ḥadīth fulfils the criteria of a rigorously authenticated ḥadīth given its inclusion in the canonical works of hadith and corroborated in other tradition and highly established in ḥadīth narrations. Hence, the claim of fabrication was categorically dismissed; the number of wives should be understood in general as indicating numerous wives while, ignoring the particular numbers. The study implicitly shows that the paragraph “single night” alluded to the narrative of muʿjizāt.

Linguistic Equivalence in Muslim-Idiom Translation

Muslim-idiom translations use a range of strategies to properly contextualise biblical messages and to engage their audience. Most of these are not new or unusual. The rendering of divine titles may be subject to various different kinds of legitimate equivalence, as well as semantic and social constraints, and these issues are part of biblical history. Similarly, euphemisms, fundamental to human interaction, have always been a part of biblical textual history and cannot be banned from modern translations. And the formulaic key expressions of Islam, closely paralleling those of the Bible, contribute valuably to the literary stock which can be used to achieve engagement. Concerns about these issues are ultimately a matter of trust in translators’ loyalty to the biblical source text.

In the Eye of the Lion: Iconological Observations on Frontal Depictions of Lions on Ancient Coins

This article provides an overview of the most important coin types depicting frontal lions from the Greek Archaic period to the first century BC. The spear-biting lions are not included in this paper as they form the subject of a separate study. Starting from the ancient written tradition, explanations are offered based on the effect of the lion’s gaze, which is repeatedly mentioned in ancient texts. With the addition of the respective reverses and modes of representation, it is possible to identify references to religious cults: Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Hera and Heracles. But rulers also used frontal lion images for specific purposes. To express the solar aspect of Apollo, frontality seemed the most appropriate. A particularly close connection between the lion and Loxías has been demonstrated for Rhegion. The example of Samos shows that an autocrat could choose the emblem of a “frontal lion’s head” – probably also to suggest solar qualities. Under Achaemenid influence however, the lion regularly became the victim of the ruler – albeit a particularly dangerous and fearsome one, which was emphasised through its frontality. The same goes for Lysimachus, whose choice of image is astonishingly close to Pliny’s reflex, which focuses entirely on the lion’s sight. It is also shown that lion masks are often associated with the deeds of Heracles, which also gave rise to other coin images in which the use of frontality brought special nuances of meaning, for example the illustration of special effort or a narrative connection between two coin images. In one case, a frontal lion leaping out of a rectangle was associated with the cult of Athena. Another group of frontal lions may have had an apotropaic-demonic character, mainly conveyed by the eyes fixed on the observer. Here we can see a connection with the Gorgoneion. As for the frequent image of devouring lions, a biblical source suggests that the animals were particularly irritable and dangerous during this process. Finally, it was recommended that lions and leopards should be carefully separated, with leopards being particularly suitable for depicting the ‘man-destroying’ god Dionysus in frontal perspective.

LA PAROLA DI DIO NELLE PRECES DEI VESPRI DELL’EPIFANIA

Preces are the prayers that in modern Liturgy of the Hours are recited during Morning Prayer (invocationes) and Vespers (intercessiones). For centuries they were usually composed of psalm verses quotes and placed in different canonical hours. Contemporary preces created after the Second Vatican Council by Coetus XII bis are generally not. The author of the presentation entitled “The Word of God in the preces of the Vespers on Epiphany”, considering the record of Sacra Congregatio pro Cultu Divino, Commissio specialis ad instaurationem liturgicam absolvendam, Schemata n. 348, pointed out some expressions and phrases in verses 2, 6, 7, 12 i 17 of Psalm 71, which belongs to royal prayers, as the biblical source for preces on the Feast of Epiphany. The result of his research is an observation that Scriptura crescit cum orante, not only during reading of the text but above all as the updating in the course of the rite, which dynamism feeds the prayer so lavishly that the Word of God becomes his own and motivates him to compose a personal prayer.
 Keywords: Word of God, preces, Vespers, Epiphany.

Justice at the House of Yhw(h): An Early Yahwistic Defixio in Furem

What was the nature of ritual in ancient Yahwism? Although biblical sources provide some information about various types of cultic activity, we have thus far lacked any extra-biblical ritual texts from Yahwistic circles prior to Greco–Roman times. This article presents such a text—one that has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century on a small ostracon found on the island of Elephantine. It has variously been interpreted as dealing with instructions regarding a tunic left at the “house of Yhw”—the temple to Yhw(h) that flourished on the island from the middle of the sixth to the end of the fourth century BCE. While there is little debate regarding the epigraphic reading of this text, it has hitherto failed to be correctly interpreted. I present an entirely new reading of this important document, revealing it to be written in poetic form and to match the characteristics of a “prayer for justice” curse ritual. It is, in fact, the oldest known example of this genre; its only known specimen in Aramaic, its unique witness in a Yahwistic context, and the sole record of any ritual performance at a temple to Yhw(h). Significantly, it is administered by a priestess.

Rebellion Against the Church in the Name of Christ – Nikolai Leskov’s Rebel Priests and Russian Cultural Tradition

The paper discusses an important figure of Nikolai Leskov’s numerous literary works: a clergyman who does not accept rules in force in the Church, as he regards them as obstacles to true religion and people’s relationship with Christ. This character is analyzed in the context of Christian understanding of categories of obedience and disobedience, their biblical sources, as well as older Russian spiritual, cultural and literary tradition, namely “holy fools” and the Archpriest Avvakum. It also deliberates later transformations of the rebel priest figure in early-twentieth-century Russian literature in conjunction with the social changes and leftist political sympathies of the Russian clergy of that period.

The Covenants of the Patriarchs with Foreigners at Beersheba

The author of this paper seeks the original historical context as well as the oldest form, structure and concept of the biblical records of the covenants of Abraham and Isaac with the local ruler(s) as recorded in Gen 21:22–24, 25–33; 26:26–31. The patriarchs, who enjoy the status of foreign/sojourner/ resident in the land of the Philistine king, Abimelek, and their peaceful agreements are depicted in three biblical sources, which are very similar to each other in terms of structure and literary context. Those are compared with selected Hittite, Babylonian and Assyrian records of the royal covenants from the 2 millennium BC. The methodology adopted in the research allowed several important formal and substantive points of contact to be noted in the compared sources. Through this comparison, the paper confirms that Gen 21:22–24, 25 33; 26:26–31 reflects two ancient patterns of bilateral covenants between the monarch and an equal or subordinate social partner: royal grants and suzerain-vassal treaties. The paper also discusses the socio-cultural and legal spectrum of the Near Eastern royal procedures and how they were re-edited and adapted by the editors responsible for the current version of the biblical cycles about the patriarchs.

The Blessed Tree in the works of Ibn Barrajān of Seville (d. 536/1141)

Abstract In his commentary on the Light Verse (Q. 24:35), the Andalusian mystic and Qurʾān exegete Abū al-Ḥakam Ibn Barrajān (d. 1141) presents the blessed tree (al-shajara al-mubāraka) not simply as a terrestrial olive tree in Syria or even as a mystical allegory, but as the ultimate locus of divine disclosure and the highest metaphysical entity in the cosmos that subsumes the world of creation. This article assesses the originality of Ibn Barrajān’s contribution to the heavenly tree motif by examining his unique mystical and exegetical theories informing his ontological reading of the blessed tree, including the concept of the ‘reality upon which creation is created’ and the ‘universal servant’. In addition to analysing the internal logic of Ibn Barrajān’s discourse, this article explores the larger interpretive themes recurrent across exoteric, Sufi, and philosophical interpretations of the Light Verse up to the twelfth century that the author may have had access to in al-Andalus, including the treatises of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafā) and Biblical sources. Finally, this article highlights how Ibn Barrajān weaves the Qurʾānic good tree (al-shajara al-ṭayyiba) and the lote tree of the furthest boundary (sidrat al-muntahā) into his overarching understanding of the blessed tree. It also considers how his reading may have contributed to later readings by Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) and some of his intellectual heirs.

Calvin on Divine Authority and Spenser's Mutabilitie Cantos

Abstract: Despite the failure of Mutabilitie's appeal against Jove, she remains for some recent critics an admirable figure, and the Cantos remain unresolved. But in the light of Calvin's treatment of civil government the Mutabilitie Cantos cohere as a poetic adumbration of what Calvin prescribed as obedience to the "powers that be"; powers, however wicked, requiring the obedience due to God. Spenser echoes the vocabulary of Calvin's biblical sources, while insisting on the principle of delegation which links mortal magistrates to God. God is figured as Nature; Creation is designed to inspire faith.

The Routledge Handbook of African Theology

The Routledge Handbook of African Theology

Идея рая и ее воплощение в романе С. Снегова «Люди как боги»

The novel “Humans as Gods” by the Soviet science fiction writer S. Snegov is analyzed. In particular, the study is devoted to identifying the characteristic features of the world of the future of human civilization, which is depicted in the work at the stage of its maturity. The new order of human life is compared with the description of the lives of people from the mythical past, which is reflected in ancient and biblical sources. The similarities and distinctive features of ideas about a happy life are indicated. The importance of labor activity for a person of the future is noted as a necessary element for creating a unified society with equal rights and opportunities, despite the carelessness of representatives of the Golden Age era. The conclusion is made about the influence of ancient myths on the formation of the creative idea of the author of the novel, modeling a picture of a bright future based on the achievements of scientific and technological progress and a highly developed moral sense of a person.

Father and His Family (Genre Originality of L. Petrushevskaya’s Story “The New Robinsons”, 1989)

The article deals with the genre originality of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's story ‘The New Robinsons’. The story, first published in 1989, masquerades as a Robinsonade, a dystopia, and a sample of village prose (with its admiration for the peasants and peasant women of pre-revolutionary times), but the true goal of Petrushevskaya is much more ambitious: the story is an invariant of the biblical story about the rebirth of humankind after a global catas-trophe. The very title of the story directly indicates the genre of robinsonade. One can easily single out elements of dystopia in the story with the help of text analysis, as well as inter-textual references to the prose of village writers (mainly, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Val-entin Rasputin). The key phrase of the story ‘The New Robinsons’ refers to biblical sources: ‘There was a boy and a girl for the continuation of the human race.’ In this light, it becomes clear why Petrushevskaya, seemingly casually, reports that the narrator’s father once in-jured ‘in the thigh’ and remained forever lame. It is a reference to Jacob, who was once in-jured ‘in the thigh’ when he fought with God. He, just like the narrator’s father, spent most of his life on the run, and was the one, from whom the twelve tribes of the Jewish people eventually originated.

Наброски С.А. Есенина: к истокам творческих замыслов поэта

The article for the first time analyzes in detail the rough notes of words and poetic lines of S.A. Esenin, which the poet’s draft notebook (1917–1919) preserved though it was partly burned in a fire in Konstantinovo in 1929. This unique draft notebook has a special place in the manuscript heritage of Esenin, who did not keep notebooks and diaries. The established semantic and figurative echoes of the text about the cup and the poem “The Silver Road...” (1917) allow us to consider the sketch as the original version of the poem, to witness the author’s intention changing and to reveal the biblical sources of the text. The unrealized idea of the work “Virgin Mary” in the context of Esenin’s creative work reveals its connection with the poem “O Mother of God...” (1917). The sketches are rich of images distinctive for the revolutionary period poetics, associated with Orthodox motifs (dawn-prayer book, star-candles); metaphors based on a riddle, color identity, polysemy of a word; characters (Mother of God, the muse); one of the leading motifs in this period (the way) and typical for the lyrics of 1917–1919 chronotope (autumn night). The comparison of the figurative-motif complex, rhythmics, techniques, chronotope confirms the relationship of the poetics of sketches and Esenin’s complete works. The study of the sketches proves that even Esenin’s brief notes show how carefully the poet were thinking over the figurative and motif complex of his works.