Christian Canon Research Articles

The Public’s Response to the Book of Mormon

When the Book of Mormon was published in March 1830, it represented a textual shift from the Bible as the representation of sole scriptural truth to the possibility of the Book of Mormon as an equal contender. Within the New York newspaper scene, the Book of Mormon was constructed as a novel false scripture as well as a true culmination of prophecy by competing parties. Within these parties, social actors presented interesting rhetorical dynamics between the establishment of authority and competing Christian canons. Both parties use scripture – the Bible and the Book of Mormon – as tools to navigate the world. One party uses the Bible to argue that the Book of Mormon stands in opposition to an established Christian canon. The other argues that the Book of Mormon is a fulfilment of prophecy made necessary by the Bible. This paper explores the clash of authoritative discourses between those who understood the Book of Mormon as scripture and those who did not. Nevertheless, both groups insist on taking “scripture” seriously. Reading the archive with critical phenomenology, I argue that the publication of the Book of Mormon represents a historical moment where the identity formations of nineteenth-century Americans relied on a discourse of authority mediated through competing canons.

The Rule of Faith, the Scripture and Tradition: A Voice in the Discussion on the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture

The article is a voice in the discussion on the doctrine of Scripture, that is, the theological reflection on the nature, attributes and mission of Scripture. The text shows the close link between the regula fidei and Scripture and, at the same time, the impossibility of identifying the rule of faith with the biblical canon. The rule of faith has played a role in establishing the Christian canon and throughout the Church’s time serves to protect the message of Scripture. The content expressed in the rule of faith is not derived from hidden Tradition, and Tradition has become the internal principle of the New Testament and the regula fidei. The key to Scripture is the faith of the Church, one expression of which is the rule of faith. It allows us to grasp the order of the truths of faith (harmonia veritatum) and their hierarchy (hierarchia veritatum). The original rule of faith was born out of the reception of divine revelation and, together with Scripture, remains at the service of the New Covenant.

Theology and politics. political attempts to subordinate the Church

The article reviews a cultural hybrid, which is defined as religious political science or “theopolitics”. Within the framework of this phenomenon, according to the author, the language of church mission and catechetical practices is subordinated to the discourse of political activists. Among the examples of such subordination are the so-called “maidan theology”, the Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching, Polish political Catholicism, the accession of the Hrodna episcopate clergy to the “zmagar” political opposition in 2020, etc. Religious political science tends to consider politics itself as a religious practice; political theology, on the contrary, looks at political issues as something that should be brought in accordance with a theological canon. The goals of theopolitics are reached with the close application of modernist theology. The latter seeks to transform the Christian canon according to the secularism, in particular, to sacralize specific events in secular history - this principle is characteristic of concepts from the category of the so-called “theology after” (after Auschwitz, after 9/11, after the global pandemic, etc.) According to the author, the field of church mission is thus taken under control, preaching is reinterpreted in line with the political propaganda, the church is represented as a subsystem of a “civil society”. The author emphasizes the importance of the motives of the “weak Church” and “weak God” for creating a “theological” justification of the ideas of religious political science and concludes that theopolitics is one of the manifestations of the “new Reformation” (otherwise: secular reformation) aimed at secularisation of church institutions.

Remembering Jerusalem

Abstract This article analyzes John Calvin’s 1562–1563 lectures on Lamentations as a case study for exploring the role of biblical exegesis in creating and shaping what scholars such as Judith Pollmann have demonstrated to be early modern memory practices. Lamentations is not one of the better-known books of the Christian canon, and although it was central to Catholic Holy Week liturgies, it appears to have played little to no role in Reformation-era doctrinal and ecclesiastical controversies. In content, Calvin’s eighteen lectures on these five poems of lament are typical of Calvin’s historicizing approach to the Bible. Calvin shows deep appreciation for the events underlying the biblical text (in this case, he argues, the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians as a recent calamity) and seeks to relate the biblical past to the conditions of the present. But they can also be considered as a form of memory culture: an effort to engage with a past disaster that not only provides a negative object lesson for the present but, in addition, invites participation in a process of collective memory-making among Calvin’s sixteenth-century Genevan auditors and wider readership.

The Production of the Book of Mormon in Light of a Tibetan Buddhist Parallel

The Production of the Book of Mormon in Light of a Tibetan Buddhist Parallel

The burial of the princely era from the ancient Buzhesk: analysis and verification of the archaeological materials

Materials that belong to the horizon of the burial ground of the princely period from the Small Hill-fort in the Busk town of Lviv region were systematized, analyzed, and verified. The archaeological excavations on the site continued in 2015, 2017–2019, and 2021 years, as a result of which 62 inhumation burials were investigated on 142 square meters. The analysis of vertical and horizontal stratigraphy and the thickness of the cultural layer (up to 90 cm) of the cemetery allow us to state at least two phases of burials. It is established that the graves were arranged around a wooden church, from which the destruction of the filling, laid with ceramic glazed tiles, has been preserved. The number of burials and their orientation according to the Christian canon (head to the west, 20 buried) with seasonal deviations to the south (20) and north (18) west were also recorded. The contours of burial pits are traced only in those quantitatively insignificant cases when they were dug into the mainland, or the filling of deep dwellings of earlier times. Remains of wooden rectangular houses have been found in 14 burials, and iron nails have also been found. Particular attention is paid to the hands laying of the dead. It is accepted that those buried with their arms crossed on their stomachs may be earlier than those with their arms crossed on their chests. At the same time, in detail, with references to the paleopathologist O. Kozak, it is shown that the position of the hands of the deceased can be influenced by both ritual practices and their taphonomy. In almost a third of the analyzed burials, «stone pillows» were found, represented by ordinary stones, as well as fill tiles from the church floor and even an iron ingot. Artifacts found as accompanying inventory (two glass beads, part of a glass bracelet, two temple rings, part of a bilon ring) belong to the standard products distributed in the Galician-Volyn territories. During the dating of the necropolis from Small Hill-fort, several groups of data were involved: stratigraphic observations, ceramic materials from the cultural layer of the cemetery, the principle of laying the hands of the dead, accompanying inventory, and information from written sources. As a result of their comparison, it was concluded that the cemetery on the territory of the Busk Small Hill-fort could have existed from the second half of the 12th – to the first half of the 14th century. The analysis and verification of the excavated burials gave grounds to claim that on the territory of the Busk Small Hill-fort there is a suburban Christian church cemetery, which together with a wooden church formed a kind of sacred space in the historical landscape of ancient Buzhsk. Key words: chronicle Buzhsk, Small Hill-fort, an earthen cemetery of the princely era, inhumation burials, «stone pillows», temple rings, ceramic glazed tiles.

Is Scripture a Gift? Reflections on the Divine-Ecclesial Provision of the Canon

This article investigates whether the canon of Christian Holy Scripture is properly understood as a gift and, if so, what theological implications this might entail. Following the introduction, the article has three main sections. The first section proposes an expanded grammar by which to describe the production and reception of the canon in and by the church, under the superintending sovereignty of the divine will and action. The second section offers a guide to recent inquiry into “the gift” in the fields of philosophy and theology, particularly those theories that might prove useful for applying the concept of “gift” to Scripture. The third section unfolds a normative account of the Christian canon as a gift of the triune God to his people and through his people, thus making sense of the long-standing liturgical practice of responding to the reading of the sacred page in the public assembly with a cry of thanks to God.

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

An Insufficient Canon: The Popol Wuj, Book of Mormon, and Other Scriptures

Questioning the Pauline Authorship of Philemon: Crackpot Theory or Plausible Alternative?

In modern scholarship, Paul’s letter to Philemon, which is considered to be one of the letters that virtually all scholars agree was written by Paul, has not been subjected to the same standards of historical inquiry compared to the ‘disputed’ letters of Paul (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians and the Pastoral Epistles). This has led to double standards in how scholars treat the historical provenance of Philemon, as well as the question of Philemon’s authorship. The following article will serve to raise some important questions regarding the historical backdrop of the epistle that many scholars have been content to theorize about without much scrutiny, mainly because of the unquestioned assumption of Pauline authorship. In doing so, the hope is that this article can surface some double standards in how scholars treat Philemon compared to the other Pauline epistles and provide a fresh viewpoint in critical discussion of Philemon’s provenance and place in the Christian canon.

Interpreting the Christian Category of Patience in M. Elizarov’s Novel “The Librarian”

Purpose. The aim of the article is to investigate the author's interpretation of “patience” concept, other key categories and images of Christianity in M. Elizarov’s novel “The Librarian”.Results. The plot of “The Librarian” is based on the myth “USSR, the golden age” and on the complex of Christian ideas. It is most productive to consider “The Librarian” within the framework of the myth-making tendency, when the author continues to cultivate a myth created in a fictional work in his interviews and journalism. The leading artistic task of the author is an attempt to update the Christian doctrine through a synthesis with communist ideology. In the novel, the patience category is endowed with both Christian meanings (“the consolation of the suffering”) and Soviet militaristic sense. M. Elizarov enters into a dialogue with the mass consciousness since it becomes the main consumer of any myth, including the myth created by the author of “The Librarian”. In the novel, the contexts of archaic myth, folklore and criminal subculture, the interest in which is typical for modern mass society, arise in the patience motive’s implementation. The author's understanding of patience, that is close to the Christian canon, is found in Alexei Vyazintsev’s interpretation of the soteriological mission. The motive of the alone hero’s reading of “The Incessant Psalter” in an underground bunker appeals to schema practice. However, in reality, Elizarov creates an unconscious schema practice parody.Conclusion. In M. Elizarov’s novel “The Librarian”, the ideas about the Christian feat of patience are passed through the prism of mass consciousness, that leads to literalization, simplification and emasculation of highly spiritual Christian meanings.

Developing a Metadata Standard for Orthodox Christian Canon Law Description: OrthoCCL Metadata Standard Version 1.0

Canon Law, in the Orthodox Christian Church, is the body of Canons that regulates the lives of its members and has a two-fold meaning, legal and theological. Although for the Orthodox Christian Community these canonical texts play an important role in the life of its members, there is stagnation concerning, inter alia, their documentation, that is, the recording information required for their retrieval, organization, storage, use, and transmittal. Within this context, this article presents the first edition of a proposed Orthodox Christian Canon Law Metadata Standard, henceforth OrthoCCL Metadata Standard. This standard is based on Dublin Core, and more specifically it reuses its elements and at the same time expands them to cover the current needs of this work. The first version of the standard includes 23 elements and 61 element refinements that comprise the metadata terms of the template. A part of the terms was formed and organized based on a semiotic methodology. We expect this documentation standard to form the basis for any future work related to the annotation and exchange of Canon Law data on the Orthodox Christian Religion.

Consent in Love and Marriage in Songs Associated with Princess Isabel of Castile

In Christian canon law, marriage is considered invalid if consent has not been obtained from both partners. Isabel of Castile understood this: rejecting the suitors selected by Enrique IV, she insisted on her right to marry a husband of her choice. Similarly, in the courtly love tradition to which ladies then subscribed, voluntary commitment was regarded as an essential feature of love, but there was a tacit understanding that marriage should not be mentioned as a solution. By assigning the song ‘Ni me plaze, ni consiento’ to Prince Alfonso, Isabel’s brother, in the poem that he wrote about the prince’s departure from Arévalo c. 1466-1468, Nicolás de Guevara was drawing attention to the need to respect this principle, and also alluding to an understanding between Alfonso and his sister that each would insist upon it. It is within this context that we may interpret a short cycle of poems in the British Library Cancionero (LB1) associated with the courtship of Isabel by King Afonso V of Portugal in the years 1465-1468.

The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: A Textual Analysis

The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: A Textual Analysis

«Hellige outsidere» fra Det gamle testamentet

This article discusses the idea of seeing Melchizedek, Job, Balaam, Rahab, Ruth and Naaman «as holy outsiders», ethnically, geographically and/or religiously. And yet they played major roles in the Biblical narratives. The tensions with the otherwise strict borders between Israel and the Gentiles are discussed, partly also related to contemporary missiology. Within the overall Christian canon these «outsiders» appear as exceptions rather than representative. But even as exceptions, they belong to the overall picture given in the Bible.

Taras Shevchenko’s Сhristian cordocentrism

The article deals with adoption of Christian tradition in poetry of Taras Shevchenko. Theoretical basis includes methodological principles of hermeneutics, the philosophicoaesthetic approach to art, cross-cultural methods. On the one hand, the sources of the creative components by Shevchenko’s ethics and aesthetics are related in Christian tradition. On the other hand, as a result of cordocentrist intention of the Ukrainian ethnos, Christian canon was deprived of the big part of rigorism in Old-Kyiv period. Shevchenko’s aesthetic theology is insufficiently investigated but it characterizes the absence of stark categories, dogmas and rituals. It gives an opportunity to speak about the apophatic approach in Shevchenko’s dialectic of God-seeking which appears in the apophatic approach of individual style which also you can find in Old Kyivan authors’ works. The outcome of our investigation proves that the Shevchenko’s adoption of Christian tradition shows the priority of aesthetic and cultural landmarks of Kyiv Christianity.

Reading Scripture Canonically: Theological Instincts for Old Testament Interpretation

Mark Gignilliat offers a helpful addition to the (long overdue) growing literature toward reading Scripture canonically as the church and within and for the church. Of particular concern, specifically addressed by Gignilliat, is a Christian canonical reading of the OT. The need for such an introductory work on reading the OT within the Christian tradition(s) is paramount to a faithful hearing of Scripture as God’s self-revelation and redemption (p. 4). This volume demonstrates the rich developments from the earlier works of Brevard Childs that found fertile ground with the maturing works of Christopher Seitz (Gignilliat’s Doktorvater and of whom attentive readers can hear echoes in the present volume).Gignilliat opens by pointing to the self-affirming canonical consciousness internal to the texts of Scripture themselves, with the external affirmation of canonicity by the community God’s people (Israel and the church) only later (pp. 7, 48). This representation of the nature of the OT as Scripture witness, as self-revelation of God, and as intentionally canonically conscious provides the basis for reading these diverse texts within their final form(s) as received by Israel and the church. It does not disregard things such as historical or text critical issues but places them within the broader already received form of Scripture as bearing witness to God’s self-disclosure and plan of redemption.For Gignilliat, the pluriformity of the final form of OT texts is not a witness against canonicity but precisely a move toward it with an appreciation of the diverse communities shaped and shaping such texts in their reception of them as Scripture. This is notable in his attempts to engage matters such as the divergent texts of the Judean Desert, septuagintal readings, and the Masoretic tradition (among others). These bear witness to diverse communities with (at times) divergent final forms of OT texts, yet belonging still to the overall consciousness of these texts bound to and shaping such communities in relation to other texts doing likewise. For Gignilliat, this is evidence of the uniformity of texts existing alongside the pluriformity of texts that serve as witness to the notion of “canon” not being a final list for inclusion or exclusion, but as witness to the unified and pluriform witness of God’s self-revelation and unified and pluriform communities. Thus, Gignilliat would propose canon function as a “rule of faith” (p. 75) for the divergent communities both of Israel and the emerging church of the NT period (this further witnesses to divergent textual forms of the OT).Broadly, this volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing the material form of Scripture and the second addressing the subject matter of Scripture. The first part provides engagement with the distinctions between “Scripture” and “Canon,” the final form and the canonical shape, canonical intentionality, and, finally, textual criticism in light of the Christian canon. Part two addresses two pressing issues for the church’s theological reading of the OT: the question of metaphysics in exegesis and the triunity of God’s self-revelation. While either part of this volume might have dealt with other topics (such as ecclesiologically constructive readings, variant canons, historical or literary critical readings), Gignilliat provides a succinct and focused approach to the theological interpretation of the OT. This volume is not a manual on this but instead offers a condensed emerging sampling of the heart of canonical and theological sensibilities in reading the OT. In this fashion, Gignilliat proposes that the formulators of Nicaea had in mind the very movements of self-revelation of the God of Israel, revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the canonical unfolding and affirmations.For Gignilliat, the interrelation of the Scripture’s character and subject matter must never be dissolved or underplayed. He contends it is not only essential for the life of the church as church but as gleaned from the very consciousness of the texts of the OT themselves in revealing God’s economic (and even ontologic) self, made known most clearly in the revelation of Jesus the Christ, Son of the Father, ever-pointed to by the Spirit.Such a volume would prove beneficial reading for advanced undergraduate courses in OT, hermeneutics, or even homiletics. It would likely prove more beneficial for graduate students (particularly those training in seminaries) in similar courses. While there seem to be many within the guild of OT studies who might reject out of hand Gignilliat’s decidedly canonical and theological reading of the OT, his concise contribution should be welcomed as a conversation partner intentionally seeking to hear these texts formed and received in community to be interpreted within and for that community. It is this contention by Gignilliat that seems too often to lead to a disconnect between church and academy in reading Scripture, resulting in a burgeoning divorce of the place of these texts within these communities.

The Relationship Between Christian Metanarratives and Authoritative Scriptures in South African Society

Abstract In studying the interaction between the three monotheistic religions in South Africa it is important to note that each of them functions as a metanarrative in that they all attempt to provide a more-or-less coherent perspective on reality. The different, but also overlapping, metanarratives of Islam, Judaism and Christianity furthermore each has a complex relationship with their respective authoritative Scriptures, communities of faith, contemporary societies and each other. It is therefore necessary to investigate the manner in which each religion’s metanarrative functions within the spheres of the academy, faith community and broader society. This contribution describes one of the projects of the envisioned Centre for the Interpretation of Authoritative Scriptures (CIAS) that is in the process of being established at Stellenbosch University. The focus of this project will be on the relationship between the metanarrative contained in the Christian canon, a specific faith community (the Dutch Reformed Church) within South African society in the period 2009–2019.

Det Gamle Testamentes kanoniske status

Taking departure in the invitation in Slenczkas new book todiscuss the role of the Jewish Holy Scriptures in a Christian canon, thisarticle starts with contesting the validity of the arguments for introducingOld Testament readings in the service of the Danish Church.Reading the Old Testament in the light of Christian faith as if it in realityis about Christ was no longer possible after Enlightenment. With ahistorical and critical study, it became clear, that the Old Testament wasJewish and not Christian Scripture. In continuation of some deliberationsin Luther, and especially the thoughts of F. Schleiermacher, A. vonHarnack and R. Bultmann, Slenczka argues, that we today need to drawthe consequence of this view. It was only in the reception of the Churchthat the Old Testament became a Christian text, and this cannot beascribed a retroactive effect, a Jewish understanding and reception beingmuch more appropriate. Its meaning in a Christian Bible, therefore,can only be to witness about man’s place towards God without Christ.From this follows that in a Christian Bible the Old Testament cannotfigure with the same degree of canonicity as the New, instead it shouldbe reckoned at the same level as the Old Testament Apocrypha.

Influence of the Septuagint on the Christian Canon

As from February 8, 2006, the International Organization for Septuagint Studies (LXX) established on February 8 as the International Day of the LXX: a day for celebration and encourage its study. Robert A. Kraft of the University of Pennsylvania (USA) had reported that this Greek biblical version, and its protagonists, were the ones that facilitated Gentiles and Jews access to the Hebrew biblical texts. Some of the questions that arise from the reading of the Bible and particularly the Old Testament (OT) revolve around the antiquity of the texts that make up the biblical corpus. Also, do we wonder how the LXX has historically emerged? How has he contributed to the Christian canon? Why Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. abandoned it? What influence could he have had on the Hellenistic Jews? And something very important, what transcendence does the Septuagint have for theologians and for the Christian canon?

Hermenêutica e exegese com o método semio-discursivo: uma análise da perícope de Êxodo 3.7-12

Com o passar dos anos, muitas metodologias foram desenvolvidas para que a mensagem dos textos sagrados seja entendida em sua plenitude. No decorrer da história da interpretação bíblica, pode-se dividir em dois grandes períodos: a hermenêutica antes da reforma protestante e a hermenêutica após a reforma. Nos dias atuais, dentre as metodologias mais utilizadas a exegese Histórico-Critica é a mais utilizada pelos teólogos liberais, por sua vez, o método Histórico-Gramatical, usado vastamente na teologia reformada também encontra muito espaço e tem muito destaque. Entretanto, com uma abordagem focada na linguística da enunciação e, por consequência, nas teorias semióticas atreladas a ela, o método semio-discursivo tem ganhado muito espaço na academia e, também, tanto entre os mais ortodoxos, que creem na inerrância e na inspiração das escrituras, quanto os mais liberais, que desmitificam muito dos textos. Utilizando essa metodologia, uma das passagens mais conhecidas da Torá e, por consequência, do cânon cristão é o chamamento de Moisés para libertar o povo hebreu da situação de escravo no Egito. Portanto, seguindo esse critério, a realidade daquele povo é analisada e compreendida de acordo com diversas perspectivas diferentes. A exegese semio-discursiva enfatiza, em sua última fase, cinco ciclos da dimensão da ação: dimensão espaço-temporal, dimensão teológica, dimensão sociocultural, dimensão psicossocial e a dimensão missional. Sendo, essa última, a responsável pela aplicação das dimensões anteriores no contexto atual.