Reading Of Scripture Research Articles

Saint Thomas Aquinas's Biblical Exegesis: Hebrews 2:9 as a Case Study

Saint Thomas Aquinas's Biblical Exegesis:Hebrews 2:9 as a Case Study Jörgen Vijgen "Biblical Thomism," a term coined by the American theologian Matthew Levering, constitutes, together with the emphasis on the patristic sources of Saint Thomas and the renewed discovery of the commentatorial tradition of Thomism, one of the most vibrant features of contemporary Thomism. Its dynamic is rooted in its twofold aim.1 Historically, biblical Thomism aims at uncovering the methods and sources of Saint Thomas's the principal task as magister in sacra pagina, which consisted in reading and commenting on the Holy Scriptures. This approach should not be limited to his biblical commentaries or the scriptural references in his systematical works but can also include a reconstruction of the central ideas of Saint Thomas's commentary on a book of the Bible for which we do not have a commentary, as has been demonstrated recently by Serge-Thomas Bonino in his book St. Thomas Aquinas: Reader of the Song of Songs.2 In doing so, biblical Thomism further aims at contributing to overcoming the typically modern gap between exegesis and speculative theology or to contribute to what Joseph Ratzinger in his famous 1988 lecture "Biblical Interpretation in Conflict" has called the "Method C" within biblical exegesis, that is to say, a perspective on Scripture which takes advantage of the strengths of "Method A" (the patristic-medieval exegetical approach) and "Method B" (The historical-critical [End Page 269] approach), while being cognizant of the shortcomings of both.3 In this contribution I would like to draw attention to his Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos, his commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews, which still remains somewhat overlooked, by way of an analysis of Saint Thomas's reflections on Hebrews 2:9. For in these reflections he offers the contemporary reader an overview of his exegetical methods and as such his analysis can function as a case study for his biblical exegesis and an introduction to the way he reads the Scriptures. First, however, I present Saint Thomas's arguments for why one should not separate the three features mentioned above. Next, I briefly introduce his Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos before offering in the final part a detailed analysis of Hebrews 2:9. Distinguish to Unite Although for practical purposes a division of labor is often necessary, it would be contrary to both the mind of Saint Thomas, as well as his explicit teaching, were one to separate these three features (the Scriptures, Church Fathers, and the commentators) so that his thought becomes detached from the tradition that formed his work and subsequently brought his work to us. Rather, due to the role of the Holy Spirit in history, there exists for Saint Thomas a profound unity between the reading of Scripture and its transmission and interpretation throughout the ages. Saint Thomas argues, often with reference to Ambrosiaster's phrase Omne verum, a quocumque dicatur, a Spiritu Sancto est ("All truth, by whomever it is spoken, is from the Holy Spirit"), in favor of God's causal action with regard to the formal, efficient and exemplary role of the Holy Spirit in the constitution and recognition of any truth whatsoever.4 In particular regarding the truth of Scripture, Saint Thomas emphatically rejects an absolute separation between the inspired nature of the Scriptures and their subsequent interpretation. On the contrary, as he explains in one of his quodlibetal questions, the interpretation is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit so that at any given time in history the Holy Spirit is both the author and the interpreter of the Scriptures in so far as the "spiritual man" (1 Cor 2: 15) possesses the Holy Spirit and judges accordingly.5 The sed contra of [End Page 270] the same article expresses this even more clearly: To the contrary: It belongs to one and the same person to do something for the sake of a goal and to lead to that goal. But the goal of the Scriptures, which stems from the Holy Spirit, is the erudition of man. This erudition of man from the Scriptures, however, cannot exist unless by way of the expositions of the saints...

Reconceiving the Theology of Procreation in Response to Stigmatisation of Childlessness1

Abstract This article, based on the author’s doctoral research, offers a theological response to the traditional attitudes towards childlessness within the Bakossi community of South West Cameroon. Research reveals a prevalent negative attitude towards those—both men and women—who do not have children. This stigmatization is often reinforced within Christian communities by a reading of scripture that interprets the command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ as referring exclusively to biological reproduction. In contrast to this, an African cultural feminist hermeneutic can be used to argue for a more holistic interpretation of scripture, one that draws out God’s concern for family, community and creation.

The Violence of the Frame: Image, Animal, Interval in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac

The Violence of the Frame:Image, Animal, Interval in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac Steven Swarbrick (bio) All authentic reading is in its own way violent, or it is nothing but the complaisance of a paraphrase. — Pierre Macherey (113) Imago, n. 1. a. Entomology. The final or adult stage in the development of an insect, during which it is sexually mature. 2. Psychoanalysis. A subjective image of someone (esp. a parent) which a person has subconsciously formed and which continues to influence his or her attitudes and behavior. —Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. What is a nymph, and how do we recognize her/its appearance in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (2013)?1 The film's title—spelled Nymph()maniac—points to a difference without recognition. I am referring to the parenthetical lips that hollow out the film's center. Those lips, when read through a Foucauldian lens of power-knowledge-pleasure, are certainly not the same lips that, in saying yes to sex, believe they are saying no to power. The lips of von Trier's title do not speak the truth of one's sexual identity, much less the protagonist Joe's (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Instead, suspicious of the repressive hypothesis and its attendant sex-positive formulations, the lips of Nymphomaniac are more akin to the lips theorized in Luce Irigaray's essay "When Our Lips Speak Together," which posits a sexual ethics based on difference and self-fracture rather than a unified politics of the One. At the center of my question, then, there is a (w)hole fractured by two parentheticals. And yet the interval that interrupts my question is the same interval that arouses so much speculation about [End Page 131] the future of the image, as theorized by Jacques Rancière, and the image of life at the heart of biopolitics. Rancière frames the question of the image and its future in terms of the "interstice" and its distribution. Following Gilles Deleuze, Rancière states, "Thenceforward, what creates the link is the absence of the link: the interstice between images commands a re-arrangement from the void and not a sensory-motor arrangement" (Film Fables 108). Rancière continues his post-Deleuzian investigation into "the interstice between images" in The Future of the Image, where he is primarily concerned with the category of the new, that is, with what the image can be after the breakdown of the sensory-motor link between images. Notably, this absence of the link is also what governs the image of life within biopolitics, as "life itself" tends more and more toward molecularization and the recombination of elements (Myers 2015).2 Rancière highlights the connection between "life itself" and the image-link problematic in his essay on Deleuze, in which he calls Deleuze's cinema books works of "natural history." My goal—somewhat at odds with Rancière's—is to embrace Deleuze's notion of the image-link problematic by tracing the propulsive force of nature's queer negativity, the interval or gap between images, in von Trier's cinema. What creates the link in Nymphomaniac is the absence of the link—nature's hollow center. Among the first to read nature's absent center was Spinoza. According to Warren Montag, Spinoza reads nature in the same way he reads Scripture, by paying painstaking attention to the materiality of the letter, its gaps and contradictions—in a word, its form. Spinoza shows that there is not a coherent, undivided meaning beyond or behind the letter of the text, but a swarming assemblage of material bodies whose swarming encircles a void—text without substance. Montag relates Spinoza's reading practice to a series of natural disasters: Spinoza's method has been compared to an archaeology but, if anything, it resembles the activity of modern paleontology which in place of the gradual, uniform and continuous evolution imagined by Darwin … has restored to the fossil record its gaps and discontinuities, and in the process demonstrated the existence of a natural history replete with catastrophes and reversals. (11) This chain of catastrophes tells us how Spinoza's philosophy of reading connects to his metaphysics: nature is not a self-present totality...

Catechesis with the Domestic Church

Catechesis with the Domestic Church Gregory Sobolewski (bio) The third in a series of catechetical directories from the Holy See appeared in June 2020, issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization rather than the Congregation for the Clergy that presented directories in 1971 and 1997. The new iteration continues the typical arrangement: observations on the human condition, essential Catholic doctrines, principles for varied catechetical methods, age-appropriate considerations, and ecclesial assets for forming and assisting catechists. The renamed Directory for Catechesis (abbreviated herein as Directory/2020) defines catechesis as "an ecclesial act, arising from the missionary mandate of the Lord and aimed, as its very name indicates, at making the proclamation of his passion, death, and resurrection continually resound in the heart of every person, so that his life may be transformed."1 Directory/2020 is especially noteworthy for catechists who are interested in understanding the social influences on their hearers, whether they be "their children" or "their students" or "their people." The new directory introduces and considers cultural scenarios that have recently emerged to influence persons worldwide, including urban and rural, ecumenical and pluralistic, digital and socially unequal. While restating its predecessors' twin objectives for catechesis—maturing initial faith and educating the disciple of Christ—Directory/2020 emphasizes the social transformation of Christian believers who are in broad dialogue with their culture as well as their local churches. This article will account for Directory/2020's increased emphasis on social transformation of believers and their Church in two parts: 1) an historical overview of the three directories with attention to their evolving focus on family as domestic church, and 2) a discussion of [End Page 5] domestic church, subsidiarity, and accompaniment as three ambient Catholic principles that can amplify our understanding of the most recent catechetical directory regarding social transformation. I argue that attention by catechists and their formators to the domestic church should prioritize the principle of subsidiarity and the practice of accompaniment in order to promote the social maturation of the Catholic faithful as well as their missionary discipleship. Overview of the General Catechetical Directory (1971), the General Directory for Catechesis (1997), and the Directory for Catechesis (2020) Catechetical directories emerged as a genre of magisterial teaching consequent to the Second Vatican Council's Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church (1965), which stated "this directory will consider the fundamental principles of such [catechetical] instruction, its disposition and the composition of books on the subject. In preparing these directories, special attention should be given to the views which have been expressed both by the commissions and the council Fathers."2 General Catechetical Directory (1971) The Sacred Congregation for the Clergy produced the Directorium Catechisticum Generale in order to provide basic principles of pastoral theology for the ministry of the Word and catechetical maturation of Catholic faithful. While emphasizing doctrinal teaching and including various pastoral methods, this directory taught overall that "catechesis should contribute to the gradual grasping of the whole truth about the divine plan by preparing the faithful for the reading of Sacred Scripture and the learning of tradition."3 Directory/1971 opened with an emphasis that "special pains" had been taken to develop the new integral presentation of Catholic faith [End Page 6] for pastoral action, thereby promoting the council's expectation that local churches would also strive mightily to develop regional catechisms for particular pastoral contexts.4 Berard Marthaler, OFM Conv., observed that a universal catechism, an unfinished project of the First Vatican Council (1869–70), was not endorsed by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Instead, the "catechetical directory" emerged as the alternate genre and it evolved through consultations among episcopal conferences worldwide that were conducted by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy.5 This initial directory specified its proportional concerns, given the traditional twofold definition of "faith which is believed" (fides quae creditur) and "faith by which it is believed" (fides qua creditur): It is clear that not all parts of the "Directory" are of the same importance. Those things which are said about divine revelation, the criteria according to which the Christian message is to be expounded, and the more outstanding elements of that same...

Saint Thomas and the Development of Doctrine

Saint Thomas and the Development of Doctrine Guy Mansini O.S.B. Introduction The "development of doctrine" commonly refers to the unfolding of Christian faith into hitherto unformulated and undefined doctrinal propositions. It is the successive unfolding of the one, once and for all given revelation completed by and in Christ and possessed by apostolic faith, into newly articulated doctrines. I take it that the original possession of revelation, the original formulation of faith, was itself propositional, located in the propositions of the Bible, in such dicta as the confession that "Jesus is Lord," and "he has risen from the dead," and "he will come again." Sometimes revelatory propositions summarize a narrative of events, of course, and this is not unimportant, since certain truths about God cannot be manifested except on the basis of a history captured in narrative. For instance, in the Isaian reflection on the Old Testament story of Israel's exodus from Egypt, her establishment in the Promised Land, the kingdom and then the kingdoms, Jewish exile, and return from exile, there are statements about God's providence and eternity. The narrative itself is the prior and necessary demonstration of this providence and eternity, without which Isaiah cannot formulate his teaching about them. Evidently, the narrative of the mission of Jesus and its conclusion are the necessary presupposition of what Saint Paul teaches, quite "didactically," in Galatians and Romans. And there are smaller narrative communications of truth, too: the narrative of Jesus's calming of the storm on Lake Galilee and the subsequent worship of the disciples is a declaration of his divinity. What is to be noticed, however, is this, that the original possession of revelation and so every initial access to the Realities disclosed by revelation through deed and event—namely, the triune God, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and so on—this possession is in language. And [End Page 393] although saving assent to revelation requires the interior assistance of the Holy Spirit, it remains a saving assent to the exterior word of biblical truth (see Rom 10:14–17), the exterior word spoken by apostle and evangelist. The point of departure for the development of doctrine, therefore, is not in the first place some wordless experience, either historical or transcendental, of God and his Christ, but assent in faith to the creed and the reading of Scripture the creed enables and controls. We recognize the phenomenon of development when we see four things. The first thing to see is that there is a "one," an integral cognitive whole, "revelation" as such "closed with the death of the last apostle." The second thing to see is a "many" into which this one is unfolded or developed or articulated, which unfolding occurs—third thing to notice—within a temporal expanse in which the "many" are formulated and articulated. Fourth, there is required also our ability—a Christian ability of reason illumined by faith—to discern and verify that it really is the one, integral cognitive whole that is exfoliated into the many subsequent doctrinal propositions. Without the first thing, the one perduring whole of revelation, we have not development but transformation, a self-contradictory plurification of Christian discourse where one age says something different from another. Without the second thing, the many articulations of the one, there is no development but only repetition. Without the third thing, temporal expanse, the question does not arise as to the maintenance of the apostolicity of the Church for us, the maintenance of the truth across time. And without the fourth thing, the ability of reason to recognize that the one really is truly and rightly unfolded in the many, our faith in the apostolicity of the Church turns into fideism. It is a condition of the possibility of genuine development of doctrine that it be able to be recognized as such. This recognition, of course, is magisterial, but it also engages the sensus fidei of all the faithful. Moreover, this ability, while it requires faith, requires also certain auxilia, two auxilia in fact, namely, metaphysical skill and historical learning. There is also a fifth thing ordinarily contained in the idea of the development of doctrine, a function especially...

Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes by Febbie C. Dickerson

Reviewed by: Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes by Febbie C. Dickerson F. Scott Spencer febbie c. dickerson, Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes (Womanist Readings of Scripture; Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. 223. $95. This work marks the first installment of a new series, Womanist Readings of Scripture, edited by Mitzi J. Smith and Gay L. Byron. Dickerson’s volume, an outgrowth of her doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University, treats Jesus’s parable of a widow and judge in Luke 18:2–5. D. provides a critical, multilevel analysis of this story, attending to (1) Luke’s context in 18:1–8, (2) the broad history of interpretation, and (3) particular African American readings. In chap. 1, D. challenges common stereotypes, both ancient and modern, of the helpless widow and heartless judge. In short, “[a]ll widows are not vulnerable and needy, and [End Page 138] all judges are neither uncaring nor impervious to justice” (p. 3). The parable’s brevity and limited character descriptions warrant resisting stock presumptions that foreclose wider interpretive options. In chap. 2, D. delineates a set of nine critical “problems” that this parable raises: The Problem of Place: Which City?; The Problem of a Judge with No Respect for People; The Problem of the Stereotyped Widow; The Problem of the Widow’s Question: Vengeance or Justice?; The Problem of Interior Monologue; Another Problem of Translation: A Threat of Violence or a Misunderstanding?; The Problem of the Inscribed Subject and Redaction Criticism; The Problem the Text Creates for Theodicy; Problems with the Text in African American Church Traditions. I list these headings in full because of their clear focus and comprehensive scope. Such issues pertaining to setting, characters, translation, rhetoric, readers, theology, and ethics provide a model framework for investigating other parables and other parts of Gospel narratives. In the next two chapters D. considers the parable’s reception history. Chapter 3 tracks reading trends across the patristic (Ephrem of Syria, Augustine of Hippo, Cyril of Alexandria), medieval (Venerable Bede, Hugh of St.-Cher), Reformation (Erasmus, Luther), and modern eras. Overall a dominant stereotypical pattern emerges: “The increasingly common portrayal of the widow as desolate—whether as the desolate church, or the desolate soul— eventually becomes, for the modern interpreter, the widow as epitomizing the desolate socially vulnerable” (p. 50). In this prevailing image of the widow as a “desolate” victim, she seeks justice rather than vengeance (ἐκδικέω, used in Luke 18:7, allows both meanings) through virtuous rather than violent means. A few modern scholars, however, have dared to challenge this helpless-widow pigeonhole, such as Wendy Cotter, who marshals evidence of wealthier, more self-sufficient women, including widows, representing themselves in ancient courts (“The Parable of the Feisty Widow and the Threatened Judge [Luke 18:1–8],” NTS 51 [2002] 323–43), and Barbara Reid, who sees the parable’s widow as a God-figure in Luke’s narrative (“A Godly Widow Persistently Pursuing Justice: Luke 18:1–8,” BR 45 [2000] 25–33). Both Cotter and Reid, however, still view the judge in wholly negative terms—another stereotype that D. aims to shake, if not shatter. To this end, she calls attention to Charles W. Hedrick’s provocative study of the legal system underlying the parable (Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994]). In Hedrick’s view, the judge’s absent “fear” of God and others reflects objectivity and impartiality, qualities of a “thoroughly honest man” (Hedrick, p. 197); conversely, the widow’s “demand for vengeance violates Torah” (Hedrick, p. 102), and her disrespect for the court makes her a dishonorable character. Chapter 4 zeroes in on the first and most formative interpretation of the parable—that of Luke’s Gospel—which D. regards as a tendentious, constrictive reading against the wider grain of Jesus’s original story. In short, via the introduction in 18:1 and Jesus’s commentary in 18:6–8, “Luke’s narrative frame turns the widow into a prayerful petitioner” and “turns the judge into a negative image of the divine . . . a bad judge who yields to prayer” (p. 88). Such counter-“turning” fits Luke’s overall gendered stereotypes of widows...

The Abbaye du Saint Esprit: Spiritual Instruction for Laywomen, 1250–1500 by Pinder Janice

Reviewed by: The Abbaye du Saint Esprit: Spiritual Instruction for Laywomen, 1250–1500 by Pinder Janice Thomas A. Fudge Pinder, Janice, The Abbaye du Saint Esprit: Spiritual Instruction for Laywomen, 1250–1500 (Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, 21), Brepols, Turnhout, 2020; cloth; pp. x, 219; 1 b/w illustration, 2 b/w tables; R.R.P. €75.00; ISBN 9782503586816. Vernacular writings for the spiritual instruction of women in late medieval Europe were not isolated phenomena. Ideas of spiritual direction took many forms. Janice Pinder argues that the Abbaye du Saint Esprit likely emerged in northern France or the southern Netherlands from a 'context of experimentation with new forms of religious life among the laity where features of beguinal life and prayer were familiar and viewed with approval' (p. 8). One should not misjudge the force and influence of female spirituality between the Atlantic and the deeper reaches of central Europe. One cannot read the Abbaye without thinking of related texts addressed to communities of women elsewhere. Around 1413 the Czech priest [End Page 246] Jan Hus composed a similar text, Dcerka: O poznání cěsty pravé k spasení (The Daughter, or How to Know the Correct Way to Salvation), for a Beguine-like community of women living together in Prague. Running to about 13,000 words and consisting of ten chapters, Hus focuses his spiritual instruction with the repeated declaration 'slyš, dcerko' ('hear, O daughter'). This is not the place to compare those texts, but the analysis might be fruitful. The Abbaye also uses a similar device, employing the French fille to address the readership. Following Bernard McGinn, Pinder suggests that vernacular theology was a result of conversations surpassing simplistic readings of Scripture, rote catechetical memorizations, or the hearing of formal sermons. We have lost the gist of those conversations, but texts like the Abbaye provide hints. Based on thirteen extant manuscripts and with plenty of discussion about those manuscripts, their history, modification, striking omissions, and additions, Pinder succeeds in demonstrating several things: there is no single edition of the text; the transmission history is complex; it endeavours to communicate to a lay audience the idea of the spiritual quest; and it relies upon a variety of sources to achieve that aim. Importantly, Pinder understands the Abbaye as depicting a struggle between vices and virtues, a contest in which the daughters of the Holy Spirit oppose the daughters of the Devil. The context for this battle is the cloister. Allegorically, the holy spaces of the religious house are signposts for the pilgrim who must navigate the minefields of adversity created by the daughters of the Devil. The architecture of the convent parallels the cloister of the soul. Spiritual aid and instruction are encountered in cellars, chapter houses, chapels, dormitories, granaries, infirmaries, refectories, and in the stone walls, to say nothing of the foundations. Conscience is where the Holy Spirit desires to dwell. The ladies of truth, purity, humility, and poverty are active. The fortress against sin and temptation is buttressed by Lady Obedience and Lady Mercy, while Patience and Fortitude provide reinforcement. Truth is encountered by means of Lady Preaching in the refectory where souls are fed. Lady Contemplation fits out the dormitory, Prayer the chapel, Compassion the infirmary, Devotion the cellar, and Meditation the granary, while Lady Charity is abbess, Wisdom the prioress, Humility the sub-prioress. Lady Discretion is treasurer, while Lady Prayer is the choir-mistress supported by Lady Jubilation. Lady Penance works in the kitchen, Temperance serves food and drink in the refectory, and Sobriety reads at table, while the ladies Pity, Mercy, Fear, Honesty, Courtesy, Simplicity, Reason, Loyalty, Generosity, and Zeal perform other functions. The spiritual life attracts deadly enemies, namely the four daughters of the Devil—pride and presumption; murmuring and detraction; envy; and false judgement—who seek to thwart the progress of the female seeking spiritual maturity. The Abbaye shows women actively engaged and not passive recipients of spiritual instruction. A major thematic thread in the Abbaye is the soul's ascent to God and the practices that enable and enhance that goal. The ethos of the Beguine is apparent throughout, and the world of the Beguine appears to constitute the...

Reading the Way to the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Book of Armagh

This paper examines the series of text-image devices found in the Book of Armagh (Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS 52), at the explicit to the Gospel of John (fol. 103r), the tituli to the Book of Revelation (fol. 159v), and the Revelation explicit (fol. 170r), to suggest how the manuscript might originally have been used in meditative reading. By setting them in the context of early medieval monastic spirituality and contemplative practices, it explores how these devices might present the reading of scripture as a path to salvation.

Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes

Dickerson, assistant professor of NT at American Baptist College, inaugurates “Womanist Readings of Scripture” with this treatment of Luke 18:1–8. She is properly upset about the historic and recent atrocities against African Americans in the U.S. and sees the potential of Jesus’s parable for addressing our racism. She believes that Luke’s sole understanding of the passage is encapsulated in v. 1—to pray always and not lose heart—and this is clearly inadequate.Tracing a selective history of pre-20th-century interpretation, Dickerson finds that little other than prayer and perseverance are touted. Drawing more widely from contemporary interpretation, including online sermons, many of them African American, she remains dissatisfied, especially with the stereotyping of the woman as innocent victim and the judge as corrupt. She notes that the biblical background that Jesus’s audience knew well regularly demonstrated that widows would get justice, even if by creative means (comparing especially Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba, and [from the apocrypha] Judith).In the longest, most unique and fascinating section, Dickerson next illustrates three iconic presentations of African American women in 20th-century film, television, and literature and considers their potential for viewing the widow in the parable along similar lines: (1) “Mammy,” the overweight, nonsexual, devoted childminder for the children of well-to-do whites; (2)—“Jezebel,” the seductive, promiscuous woman who brings down powerful men; and (3) “Sapphire,” who easily morphs into the angry black woman, yet nevertheless gets things accomplished with her tenacity. Dickerson then rewrites and expands the parable from the perspective of each of these three depictions of the persistent widow.A shorter chapter rounds out the volume with a comparison between the judge and three African-American male stereotypes. He can be “cool”—that is, dispassionate, letting nothing faze him; he can be the “Master-Pastor”—the autocratic leader who also often gives in to temptation; or he can be “foolish”—with the classic example being the buffoon in the routine “Here Come Duh Judge”. Again, possibilities for different interpretations for the parable based on each figure are teased out.In keeping with womanist interpretation as a non-totalizing, postmodern option, Dickerson never suggests that any one of her revamped interpretations is the right one, just that they are possibilities. She does, however, seem fairly convinced that what she dubs Luke’s interpretation is wrong. She criticizes my interpretation (The Parables of Jesus, 2nd ed. [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012]) as perpetuating the stereotypes of widow and judge as innocent and corrupt, respectively. But she never asks how characters in either Jesus’s parables in general or Jewish parables elsewhere function. In fact, they do function as stock characters, but with key surprises that shatter the stereotype at some point. She rightly rejects much of the allegorizing of church history but, in opting for Jülicher’s corrective, has to find all of Luke’s meaning in v. 1, without mining vv. 6–8 for their rich, added complexities. She realizes the parable functions “from the light to the heavy” but fails to observe that Jesus’s “how much more” illustrations consistently function as “how different” as well.In short, I agree with Dickerson’s frustrations at how the parable has often been used, but I am less convinced that her approach(es) can actually get her to her very necessary call for activism and justice. Ironically, David Wells, in Christianity Today (November, 2 1979), already contextualized the parable for a black Chicago neighborhood, depicting prayer as “rebelling against the status quo.” And he used historical-grammatical exegesis.

2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity

2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity

Josephus’s Knowledge of Scripture

Abstract Scholars have long debated whether Josephus learned Scripture while he was in Jerusalem or only once he got to Rome. The question intersects with, and is hard to answer without, a more general assessment of language use and the education of the (priestly) elite in Jerusalem at that time. This paper argues that Josephus knew little Hebrew and never learned to read Scripture in the original; he was, in this respect, typical of the Jewish elite. His introduction to written Scripture was in its Greek translation, in Rome.

Let the Reader Understand: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Struthers Malbon

Let the Reader Understand: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Struthers Malbon

Awakening to Judaism and Jews in Christian Preaching

Preaching is a daring undertaking. Whether through music, sermons, reading scripture, or personal conversation, speaking of God is an interpretive act. One never quite knows how what one plays, says, writes, or depicts is received. The distance between minds is vast. And given that every set of eyes may read the same words differently and each set of ears hear each interpretive utterance differently, hoping to communicate meaningfully with those watching and listening is nothing short of audacious. Among these challenges, one of the most delicate is preaching on Judaism and Jews. Yet Christians cannot avoid it. Judaism and Christianity are one another’s nemeses. Some biblical texts lend themselves to anti-Jewish attitudes and stereotypes that may be unrecognized so deep is Christian contempt for Jews and Judaism. This paper offers suggestions for avoiding anti-Jewish preaching. To do that effectively it will be necessary to awaken a sensibility to the concern that pervades and penetrates Christian thought. That requires slogging through some “unprettiness.” The paper first illustrates anti-Jewish preaching by interrogating a popular text, Luke’s story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. It then briefly considers Christian hymns and sacred choral music and then focuses on four sermons: The Letter to the Hebrews, Melito of Sardis’s On Passover, Augustine’s sermon 122 on John 1:48-51, and a recent sermon on Galatians 3:23-29. It concludes with suggestions for preachers, musicians and congregations and includes guidelines for preaching on Jews and Judaism and a bibliography for further study.

The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, by Iain Provan

The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, by Iain Provan

The Making Common of God: Augustine, Oliver O’Donovan, and Reading Scripture with Love

Augustine holds that Scripture finds its telos in enabling us to love rightly. By examining Augustine’s interpretation of the Psalter, this article traces the dynamics of this textual teleology and then elaborates upon it through Oliver O’Donovan’s notion of making common. That is, a community is constituted by communicative actions of sharing that flow from and are ordered to a common love. Within the communication of Scripture, we are brought into a space of shared significances and meanings with God that he has made common with us because we love most what he loves most, namely himself. God’s acts of making common include not only his speaking to us, but also, as a function of Christ’s priesthood, his speaking for us.

Doing theology with children: A childist reading of the childhood metaphor in 1 Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels

This article is written from the perspective of Child Theology and a childist reading of scripture. Firstly, the article deals with the links between children, childhood and Childhood Studies, as well as with Theology. Secondly, in terms of a childist reading of scripture, it explains the difference between a low and a high view of childhood. The fact that both views of childhood are present in the Bible is highlighted. Thirdly, the article discusses three texts in 1 Corinthians, where Paul used the childhood metaphor in a way that reflects a low view of childhood. Then, it investigates passages from the Synoptic Gospels as examples of Jesus’ implied high view of childhood. Finally, the article concludes with a challenge addressed to all adult theologians. Contribution: This article contributes to the enhancement of emancipatory methodologies for doing theology and research with children by exploring the different ways in which the childhood metaphor is used in 1 Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels through a childist reading of the relevant texts. Through this hermeneutical approach, which places the article clearly in the scope of this Theological Journal, it is established that doing theology with children in an emancipatory way adult theologians have to operate with a high view of childhood, as expressed in the way the childhood metaphor is used in the Synoptic Gospels.

On Reading the Bible as Scripture, Encountering the Church

Abstract As an exercise in the ‘theology of disclosure’, the present essay proposes a kind of phenomenological analysis of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture with the goal of bringing to light the theoretical commitments which it implicitly demands. This sort of analysis can prove helpful for the continuing disputes among Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox insofar as it is relevant for one of the principal points of controversy between them: namely, the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and Church as theological authorities. It proceeds by analyzing both the objective and subjective ‘poles’ of the act, and it illuminates the presence of the Church and her Tradition on both sides. The Church—i.e., the community of God’s people—is both that which is immediately encountered in the text, as well as the factor which enables scriptural reading in the first place. The article terminates with an application of the insights of the preceding discussion to the controversy about icons.

본문이 살아나는 성경 봉독법

공중예배에서의 성경 봉독(Public Scripture Reading)은 초대 교회뿐 만 아니라 개혁교회의 전통에서 매우 중요한 순서이다. 하지만 현대의 편리주의와 엔터테인먼트(Entertainment) 문화가 예배에 영향을 주면 서 성경 봉독이 축소 또는 소홀히 되는 경향이 있다. 하지만 성경 봉독 을‘성경적으로, 신학적으로, 설교학적으로’고찰하여 볼 때 예배에 있 어서 매우 중요한 요소이다. 성경 봉독과 성경에 충실한 말씀 선포는 이분화되는 것이 아니라 동일 선상에서 진행되어야 한다. 본 연구는 한 국교회의 예배 중 성경 봉독의 중요성을 강조한다. 또한 본문이 살아나 게 하는 성경 봉독 방법의 준비와 실제적인 전달 방법을 소개한다. 효 과적인 성경 봉독이 이루어지기 위해서는 봉독자는 먼저 본문에 의도 된 의미와 들려지는 효과를 올바르게 이해할 필요가 있다. 봉독자는 본 문의 중심 단어, 중심 메시지, 장르, 주된 감정, 움직임 등을 파악할 필 요가 있다. 봉독자가 소리 내어 읽을 때는 발음, 소리크기, 높낮이, 봉 독 속도, 봉독 중 중지 등을 고려하여 읽어야 한다. 봉독자의 자세에 관 해서는 강대상에 입장하는 걸음걸이, 성경을 잡는 자세, 봉독자의 표 정, 청중과의 시선 접촉, 호흡 등을 고려해야 한다.

Rehabilitated into a Critic

Abstract In Cain Byron demonstrates his interest in using the Bible to critique itself. He sticks close to the letter of his biblical source while engaging directly with traditional scriptural readings including the commonplace combination of the Devil with the serpent who tempts Eve—which Byron’s Lucifer rebuts himself. Byron engages more subtly with the typological equivalence frequently drawn between Abel and Christ, allowing the equivalence to stand but refusing to employ it to legitimize Christianity at the expense of Judaism. Byron thus seeks to rehabilitate two of Genesis’ most reviled characters as part of his search for a credible deliverer of his critique. Cain is juxtaposed with Lucifer and then with his sister Adah and brother Abel. These doublings within the play ultimately demonstrate that Cain is the figure most worthy of conveying Byron’s culminating critique of Christian hypocrisy at the play’s close.

Buku Muhammad His Life Based on The Earliest Sources Karya Martin Lings: Sebuah Kajian Historiografi

The book of “Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources” was written by Martin Lings, who after converting to Islam got the name Abu Bakar Sirajuddin. Since it was first published in 1983, this book has received many awards and has been translated into 10 languages. This book discusses the biography of the Prophet Muhammad and uses classical sources that are so authoritative from the 2nd century D / 8 M and 3 D / 9 M. This research aims to find out the life history and work of Martin Lings, the contents of the book Muhammad His Life based on the Earliest Sources, and their historiographic analysis. The method used is a historical research method which consists of four stages, namely heuristics (collection of sources), criticism (selection of sources), interpretation (interpretation of data), and historiography (writing of history). Based on research that has been done, it is known that Martin Lings came from England and in 1938 he converted to Islam. He died in 2005 in England. Muhammad's book: His Life Based on Earliest Sources, written by Martin Lings, first published in 1983. This book is divided into 85 parts which can be collected into 4 groups, namely before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the life of the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca, the life of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina and Islamic themes. In it, Lings selects the source he uses so he only chooses the earliest source. The style of writing Muhammad His Life's book based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings is a type of Sirah included in the biographical tradition in Muslim historiography. The uniqueness that is contained in this book is; the author is a convert to Islam and Sufi, uses authentic sources, written in literary language, and combines socio-cultural analysis with the reading of scriptures and hadith, and also includes stories of miracles.