Divine Wrath Research Articles

Die Beschwörung göttlichen Zorns als Ordnungselement in lateinischen Inschriften

25 Latin inscriptions testify that in specific situations divine wrath was invoked in the form of the name of the gods in the accusative + iratum/-am habeat. The gods were instrumentalized to maintain order in everyday situations. In this way, people tried to prevent the robbery and desecration of graves and to avoid damage and fecalization, especially in public spaces. The testimonies show a wide geographical distribution and address the most diverse deities.

Natural Disasters and Time: Non-eschatological Perceptions of Earthquakes in Late Antique and Medieval Historiography

Abstract This contribution analyzes the rhetoric surrounding natural disasters in historiographic sources, challenging our assumptions about the eschatological nature of late antique and medieval historical consciousness. Contrary to modern expectations, a large number of late antique and medieval sources indicate that earthquakes and other natural disasters were understood as signs from God, relating to theophanic encounters or divine wrath in the present time. Building on recent research on premodern concepts of time and historical consciousness, the article underscores the fact that eschatological models of time and history-that is, the relentless linear, teleological progression of time towards the End of Days-was not how premodern people perceived the relationship between past, present, and future. The textual evidence presented here is supported by a fragmented and littleknown illuminated historiographic text, the Ravennater Annalen, housed today in the cathedral library in Merseburg. This copy of a sixth-century illustrated calendar from Ravenna contains unique depictions of earthquakes in the form of giants breathing fire. Like the textual sources, this visual document should not be read as a premonition of the End of Days, rather it visualizes the belief that divine agency and wrath caused natural disasters.

스바냐와 요시야 개혁 - 요시야 개혁에 대한 예언적 관점 -

In general, Zephaniah is considered a forerunner of Josiah’s reform, due to the fact that Zephaniah 1:4-6 shows terminological and thematic correspondence to the report of the reform in 2 Kings 22-23. However, recent studies argue for the literary dependence of the Book of Zephaniah on DtrH. This paper accommodates the recent diachronic view to the synchronic reading for the interpretation of Zephaniah 1:2-2:3. Looking back at Josiah’s reform, Zephaniah presents it as YHWH’s purifying judgement. From this point of view come his words against the leadership of Judah and Jerusalem, that maintained the Assyrian way of life and thinking, and pursued a political-military policy, practicing violence and lies, relying on their silver and gold instead of YHWH (1:7-18). According to Zephaniah, it was against the divine will, embodied in the reform of Josiah. In a word, they nullified the reform. Zephaniah sees that Judah, in the days of Josiah, is still under the divine wrath (2:2). In the hope for the potential salvation of God (2:3), he asks to ‘seek the Lord’ before the day of YHWH. Paradoxically asking the poor to repent, Zephaniah emphasizes that only the poor and the humble will remain after the judgement. In this way, Zephaniah, like DtrH, explains the fundamental reason for the downfall of Judah and Jerusalem in spite of the reform of Josiah, and presents the possibility of salvation. According to Zephaniah, the end of Judah and Jerusalem was not due to the cultic sins of Manasseh as in the DtrH (2Ki 23:26), but due to the social, political sins of the leadership in the days of Josiah.

Rejuvenating Karayala: An Endangered Folk Theatrical Form of Himachal Pradesh

This paper deals with karayala, a folk theatrical form of Himachal Pradesh. This form is basically a ritual, performed in the name of a local deity called Biju/Bijeshwar. It is a night long ritual consisting of minimum three and maximum four episodes (swaangs) and each one is followed by a musical interlude comprising singing and dancing. Karyala is an impromptu theatrical form. There are no women actors and only men play female roles. Surprisingly, till date women are not allowed to play female roles. It deals with range of themes and most of them aim at reforming society by employing techniques like mimicry, caricature, satire, paradox, pun and word play. The paper seeks to introduce karayala to larger audience. In the crisis of the present context and particularly owing to onslaught of media multiplicity, we have lost karayala’s past as none for a long while cared to document it due to urbanization, people’s indifference and media charged environment that has threatened its existence. At present it is alive in people’s memory and is necessitated by rituals to avert divine wrath; nevertheless, its space stands largely invaded by media today. The future of this folk theatrical form seems bleak unless we take effective measures to revive/ retrieve it.

Dissent and disparagement: Dealing with conflict and the pain of rejection in John

This article addressed the issue of how the author of the Gospel according to John portrayed dissent, in particular, how the author had his protagonists respond to the experience of rejection by those typically designated as ‘the Jews’. Research thus far has usually focused on the identity of the dissenters but rarely on the way dissent was handled. This article’s aim was to examine the range of responses to dissent. It employed a sequential reading of the text to identify the various responses and then brought these findings into comparison with the way dissent was handled in related documents of the time, Matthew and Hebrews. It found that responses included not only argument and blame, including threat of divine wrath but also, beyond these, ad hominem allegations that those who dissent were inherently bad or beholden to the devil or had not been predestined or chosen by God to respond. Such categories were, however, not absolute, because the author assumed that people could choose to respond positively and so move from one apparently fixed and predetermined category to another. They served a rhetorical function. A further ploy was to reduce Israel’s tradition to witness and foreshadowing within the tension of asserting both continuity and discontinuity.Contribution: The article concluded that such strategies served in part to comfort and reassure hearers engaged in the process of grief at rejection. As such they warranted critical reflection.

“Woe unto us”: divine wrath and godly sorrow in an English plague sermon (1637)

ABSTRACT The historiography of early modern plague assumes that early modern emotions mirrored the volatile fearfulness dramatised in contemporary English plague literature, and that there was no comfort to be found in its reformative message. Meanwhile, historians have struggled to explain the resilience of English communities through frequent epidemics. Using the case study of a 1637–8 epidemic in Kingston upon Hull, where the preacher Andrew Marvell (c. 1584–1641) was broken from quarantine to return to his pulpit, this article contests that the persistence of sermons in plague provided a vital point of pastoral continuity, as well as a tool for emotional resilience. A close reading of Marvell’s surviving manuscript plague sermon, delivered at the funeral of a plague victim, will demonstrate how narratives of divine wrath and godly sorrow, embedded within early modern print culture, could offer emotional direction and succour in practice.

Law‐Gospel theologies of a state of exception

AbstractWe address contemporary concerns with fascism by critically assessing the classic law/gospel relation in Lutheran theology. Karl Holl, founder of the Luther Renaissance in the early twentieth century, develops Luther's experience of the self under the divine wrath in terms that have affinity to what Carl Schmitt calls the “state of exception.” We examine similar non‐dialectical ways of relating law/gospel that nourish fascist tendencies on the right or left in North America.

“Meat Seasoned with Divine Wrath”? The Quails Tradition(s)

ABSTRACT We find quails accounts in Exod 16 (P) (cf Ps 105) and Num 11 (non-P) (cf Pss 78 and 106). In the Pentateuch as it stands, they narrate two separate events. In both, the quails are a divine gift, but in Num 11 their arrival follows an excessive murmuring. The people then scurry to amass huge quantities of quails per person, and it is this action that leads YHWH to inflict a lethal blow on them as soon as they begin eating. The meat itself (distributed probably by the seventy elders in the role of šōṭerîm) is not harmful; it is not “meat seasoned with divine wrath”, pace C.H.Spurgeon. Num 11 is a narrative calculated to discourage greed and unjustified murmuring.

Lan Cao Margaret Van CaoFamily in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter

Queen as an adult, the stories are told with a focus on the routine. The core described above is told with subtle plot intertwined with the mundanity of holding a moment together. Which is to say, the characters are perpetually caught in a series of daily chores: “Motions upon motions, feed the animals, bang the coffee grounds, read the books.” It is in the overall contemplation of Crooked Hallelujah where a careful reader can search, reflect, and do the work to discover common themes to pull the stories together. Once readers pace themselves with the methodic rhythms of country living , there are artifacts to discover inside the pages. The spotlight shining on Reney, Justine, and Lula casts a large shadow onto masculine failure. Whether taking car rides together in an Oklahoma summer or sitting next to a hospital bed, the three women’s connection and strength cannot be examined without considering the pressures from a patriarchy emboldened by harsh Christian doctrine. So much so, in the apocalyptic tones of the final pages, one has to sit back and wonder if a patriarchal system is as indomitable as divine wrath or natural forces, telling us all “so much for Earth and all those little people down there,” including Reney. Oscar Hokeah Tahlequah, Oklahoma Lan Cao & Harlan Margaret Van Cao Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter New York. Viking. 2020. 304 pages. “MY AMERICAN LIFE started with loss.” With that sentence, Lan Cao opens this memoir told in alternating narratives with her daughter, Harlan Margaret Van Cao. Aged thirteen in 1975, Lan Cao fled Saigon during the last days of the Vietnam conflict to stay with family friends in Connecticut . Eventually, her parents followed and settled in Falls Church, Virginia, where she attended high school, then went on to Mt. Holyoke College and Yale Law School. Today, she is an endowed professor of international economic law at Chapman University School of Law in Los Angeles. An immigrant success story, the American Dream come true? On the surface, perhaps, yet in this compelling memoir, Cao and her daughter, born in 2002, break that surface as they explore the nature of loss and what it means to reach beyond a hyphenated identity. Cao sees and adamantly presents herself not as an immigrant but as a refugee, a critical distinction. In fact, the book’s influence is needed. It is his contention that the best lands ancient humans settled were first prepared and enriched by the beaver. Ignorance about this important species has robbed many places of their extremely important work of flood control and habitat creation. Gow is funny, irreverent, and as hostile to bureaucracy as Edward Abbey. No human being nor organization is spared, though he holds a special place of ridicule for DEFRA, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, an agency that seems eager to play the fool. Neither are his dear colleagues and fellow beaver-believers exempt from his ribbing. One aging arborist is described as “now as old and gnarled as an Ent with a complex system of underpants containing so many forms of ancient fungi that the government’s nature authorities are preparing to declare them Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).” There are passages so hilarious that readers must read them aloud to all nearby, such as a demonstration of beaver sexing gone comically awry, Russians attempting to create beaver-based circus acts, or an account of British farmers engaging in nigh unprintable drinking games on field trips to the continent. While human beings are frequently the butt of his jokes, Gow is deeply empathetic with beavers themselves, and some of the most arresting places in the book imagine beaver-hunting from their perspective. While jarring in relation to the humorous passages, Gow’s descriptions are too factual to be lugubrious. One leaves the book feeling that beavers are people, too. And probably the better persons. Bringing Back the Beaver is thoroughly entertaining, which in these times is an achievement for environmental nonfiction. Part of this is the author’s genuine affection for these busy creatures. The fact that this book is a comedy in the best sense helps— there...

House of Weeping: The Motif of Tears in Akkadian and Hebrew Prayers

House of Weeping: The Motif of Tears in Akkadian and Hebrew Prayers

Samuel Fisher’s Letter to the Jews: ‘To All the House of Jacob’

In the 1650s, Samuel Fisher addressed an undated letter ‘To All the House of Jacob’, inviting Jews to attend to the light in their hearts. Composed in Hebrew, it consists almost entirely of allusions to the Jewish Scriptures or Christian Old Testament, much of it organised by clusters of images drawn from biblical sources. The letter is a call to repentance, drawing on the threats of divine wrath, particularly from the Psalms and the prophets. Since no English translation from Samuel Fisher’s time is known, one is offered here.

바울서신의 ‘속죄’와 ‘화해’ 용어에 대한 비판적 고찰 - ίλαστήριον과 καταλλαγή의 해석의 문제를 중심으로 -

The present article examines the terms ‘sokjoe’ and ‘hwahae’ (‘hwamok’) used in Korean Bible translations, particularly in Paul’s epistles. It first investigates the meanings of the Greek expressions behind ‘sokjoe’ and ‘hwahae’ (‘hwamok’), namely ἱλαστήριον, καταλλαγή, and καταλλάσσω, in light of their usage in various ancient writings available in Paul’s time. Then based on the results of this investigation, it examines the theological meanings of those terms in Paul’s epistles to reconsider the validity of their Korean translations.BR With regard to the Korean translations of ἱλαστήριον in Rom 3:25, neither the New Korean Revised Version (NKRV) nor the Revised New Korean Standard Version (RNKSV) provides precise translation. A survey of the use of ἱλαστήριον in the Septuagint reveals that its central meaning is to cover, close, or wrap. It can also mean block or countervail. In the Septuagint, it refers to various objects that cover or wrap (Exo 25:17-22; 31:7; 35:12; 38:5,7 ff; Lev 16:2,13-15; Num 7:89; Eze 43:14,17,20; [Symmachus] Gen 6:16; Amo 9:1). In the context of Hellenistic religions, it refers to an object that functions to block divine wrath (Cos Nr. 80; Cos Nr. 347; Bullettino del Museo dell

Cultural Trauma and the Song of Moses (Deut 32)

ABSTRACT The Song of Moses blames Israel for the idolatry that caused divine wrath and led to the people's near annihilation by their enemies. This article analyses the Song's structure and dynamics, its rhetoric of blaming and shaming, and its literary context within the book of Deuteronomy before re-evaluating the Song's message through the lens of psychological and sociological trauma theory. Psychological research on the relation between trauma and feelings of guilt and shame helps us to understand the divine message of blaming and shaming as an externalised transformation of self-blame. Through the lens of the sociological concept of cultural trauma, the Song can be seen as an intellectual 'working through' of past collective suffering that marks the community's identity for the future. Keywords: Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), Book of Deuteronomy, Trauma studies, Cultural trauma, Collective identity

Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem by Julia Watts Belser (review)

Reviewed by: Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem by Julia Watts Belser Shulamit Shinnar Julia Watts Belser. Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 245 pp. doi:10.1017/S036400941900059X Drawing on an impressive range of theoretical approaches, including disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and new materialist ecological criticism, Julia Watts Belser's Rabbinic Tales of Destruction provides a rich examination of the rabbinic narratives of the destruction of the Second Temple and its aftermath. Centering around a close analysis of the relevant story cycle found in the fifth chapter of the Babylonian Talmud tractate Gittin, Belser's work makes two important interventions to the study of rabbinic responses to the Temple's destruction and Roman conquest. First, her book brings new focus to the material dimensions of Bavli Gittin's destruction narratives by directly [End Page 447] engaging the graphic descriptions of imperial brutality, sexual violence, and enslavement that suffuse these stories. Through her nuanced readings of the descriptions of violence wrought on body, land, and nation, she elucidates the stories' complex gender and sexual politics and critique of empire. Secondly, her analysis highlights an understudied strain of rabbinic theological understandings of communal catastrophe. In both Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic texts, the Temple's destruction is often understood in covenantal terms, where destruction and exile are viewed as divine responses to Jewish sin. However, Belser argues that Bavli Gittin deviates from this familiar theological framework, eschewing the expected tropes of sin and punishment and articulating a distinctly different "theology of destruction" (xv). In these stories, God's relationship to Jewish catastrophe is markedly different from that conceived in the covenantal framework. Here, it is not God, but the political power of imperial Rome that is the force behind the destruction, and, instead of divine wrath towards Jewish transgression, the text emphasizes God's empathy for Jewish suffering (xiv). The chapters are organized thematically, with each chapter exploring a selection of narratives from Bavli Gittin's story cycle and employing parallel texts from Palestinian rabbinic literature to highlight the unique project of Bavli Gittin. The first two chapters carefully unravel the themes of sexual transgression, sexual violence, and the vulnerability of the captured Jewish body that permeate these tales, noting how these stories subvert the expected gender dynamics associated with the covenantal interpretation of destruction. Chapter 1 begins by exploring the significance of the motif of the "wayward woman" in Palestinian rabbinic narratives of the destruction. In these texts, the "wayward woman" becomes a symbol for "social disorder" and "national danger" (11), whose behavior leads to communal disaster. Thus, the destruction becomes intrinsically tied to the perceived dangers of transgressive female sexuality. However, Bavli Gittin, despite the recurrent reference to the sexual violation of women, avoids the "wayward woman" motif and "refuses to blame women for their own violation" (2). Rather, the tractate highlights the themes of male sexual transgression and virtue, reflecting on both the "depravity of unbridled sexual desire" and the possibility of "men's sexual virtue and restraint" (38). In chapter 2, Belser turns to Bavli Gittin's accounts of rape. In these stories, rape and sexual assault become symbolic for the violation of imperial conquest, conceptualizing "divine woundedness and rabbinic lament" (41). These stories provide further contrast to the tropes found in Palestinian rabbinic accounts of destruction, as here in Bavli Gittin, women's sexual transgressions do not trigger disaster. Furthermore, these acts of sexual violence are not presented as punishments or sanctioned by God. Rather, rape is clearly identified as "an act of violation that reveals the brutality of the conqueror" (41) and God is portrayed as empathizing with the suffering of the victims of Roman conquest. Belser's analysis in these first chapters is exemplary of the careful reading practices required to unpack the shades of meaning within these chilling accounts of sexual violence. Even as she explores the stories' seemingly sympathetic attitude towards victims of sexual violence, she stresses how the deployment of rape as a [End Page 448] symbol to "express divine and rabbinic lament" ultimately silences "the voices of the most direct...

In the Fullness of Time: Essays on Christology, Creation, and Eschatology in Honor of Richard Bauckham

In the Fullness of Time: Essays on Christology, Creation, and Eschatology in Honor of Richard Bauckham

Ask and You Shall Intercede: The Peculiar Perlocutionary Power of Asking God Questions

Abstract This article explores the ways in which the act of asking God questions in certain biblical passages directly contributes to the success of prophetic intercessory prayers. Using speech act theory, this article will investigate the function of these questions within the world of the text (the story level) and the world of the audience (the storyteller level). On the story level, the questions contribute to the (potential) overall success of the prayer by directing God’s focus away from aspects of the situation that might elicit divine wrath and toward aspects that may encourage God to be gracious. On the storyteller level, these questions might not only equip believing audiences to utilize questions in their own prayers but enable them to interact with the world in ways that model God’s grace.

Hilastērion (Rom. 3:25) and the Union of Divine Justice And Mercy. Part II: Atonement in the old Testament and in Romans 1–5

Abstract Part II of this study explains how the convergence of temple and martyrdom theologies demonstrated in Part I helps us understand ἱλαστήριον in the context of Romans 1–5. Biblical ‘atonement’ is multifaceted, comprehending expiation and forgiveness, as well as removal of divine wrath. In the LXX the ἱλάσκομαι word group is also complex, retaining propitiatory overtones from classical usage (although it may often be better to speak of God removing his own wrath), while taking on the additional meaning of expiation and forgiveness. The Pentateuchal ἱλαστήριον is a ‘place’ for such ‘atonement’. Amidst many proposals, ‘the place of atonement’ with allusion to the כַּפֹּרֶת remains the most likely meaning for ἱλαστήριον in Rom. 3:25. Christ is the ‘place’ where divine justice and mercy meet. His death is the visible manifestation of divine justice, the consequence of humanity’s collective sin, which was ‘building up’ towards a permanent breach in the relationship between God and humanity. Christ’s death is also a ransom and the means by which God objectively removes sin and so frees humanity from death. Paul radically reconfigured martyrdom theology, which offered a way of thinking about how divine justice and mercy can meet in the death of a person.

Gotteszorn und Gotteslob

Summary The people of Mesopotamia and Israel reacted in the same way to historical catastrophes. The cultic reappraising and interpretation of these events was achieved through the concept of divine wrath and the praise of the deity. Both can be found in the lamentation texts and psalms as basic categories of interpretation. A comparison of selected balag lamentations and the so-called „Volksklagen“ (Ps 44; 74; 79; 89) shows that divine wrath and the praise of the deity go hand in hand in the Mesopotamian tradition and the biblical texts.

Book Review: Anders Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation: The Narrative World of the First Gospel

Book Review: Anders Runesson, <i>Divine Wrath and Salvation: The Narrative World of the First Gospel</i>

The Role of Religion in Shaping Responses to Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions

In contrast to the situation only a few years ago, the case for religion being accepted as a vital element in the cultural responses to disasters has been largely accepted by both academic writers and international agencies, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Religions are far more varied in their approaches to natural catastrophes than is frequently recognised or acknowledged by academic writers who are trained and socialised within a 'western' post-Enlightenment tradition. In this paper we seek to demonstrate how detailed religious responses to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions vary even between two societies, southern Italy and the Azores, which are broadly similar in terms of their southern European Catholic religiosity. In southern Italy, popular Catholicism has conflated two approaches to theodicy: the retributive and the Augustinianism (i.e. free-will). Divine wrath may be propitiated through piety and Christian action, which includes worship, repentance, changed conduct and is often associated with well-choreographed ritualistic actions, some of the latter being far removed from Catholic orthodoxy. Such reactions to disaster are not confined to the past but remain strongly embedded in present-day practice. In the Azores a combination of: a history of a better educated and more enlightened church leadership; greater emphasis on praxis following disasters; the growth of the distinctive, egalitarian and pastorally focused Cult do Esparto Santo (i.e. Cult of the Holy Spirit) and the spread of alternative models of theodicy through educational outreach, has produced a strongly contrasting religious response. We conclude that, in the case of the Azores the religious milieu favours active collaboration between the Catholic faith community and the Civil Defence authorities in the aftermath of disasters, whereas this is not the case in southern Italy, although there are some recent signs of change.