Scriptural Texts Research Articles

Book Notes

Book Notes Amina Inloes and Mohammed Ali Ismail Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions, by Christian Lange, 2016. New York: Cambridge University Press, xvi + 365 pp., ills., £18.99. isbn: 978-0-521-73815-6. This solid, scripturally based study of Muslim beliefs pertaining to the afterlife is a welcome addition to the literature on Islamic eschatology. It traces the development of Muslim beliefs about the afterlife chronologically, from early Muslim thought until today, and with respect to theological movements, such as Akhbārism and Ismaʿilism. While previous literature on Islamic eschatology has primarily addressed Sunni thought, this book integrates the views of Muslim thinkers from a variety of denominational and ideological backgrounds, including Shiʿism; it also discusses scripture and writing from other faith traditions. Rather than limiting himself to discussions of scripture and scripture-based scholarship, however, Lange also explores the cultural ramifications of belief in the afterlife, such as in architecture; and the thought-provoking cover photo symbolizing ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ illustrates that approach well. Lange also gives special attention to gendered portrayals and concerns. One of Lange’s main contentions is that Muslims envisioned this world and the next (the dunyā and ākhirah) as permeable rather than as separate. After all, Eve and Adam came from the garden; some prophets are said to have ascended to the heavens (both in the Qurʾan and in the Near Eastern tradition); and hadith connect earthly features, such as the Nile and Euphrates, with the other world. A frequently asked question about Muslim eschatology – often by bereaved pet owners – is ‘what happens to animals after they die?’ – and a particularly interesting section addresses the role and fate of plants, animals, jinn, angels, and houris in the other world. Lange employs both Arabic and Persian sources, as well as a wide range of secondary sources, and illustrations from medieval manuscripts bring to life Muslims’ historical imagination of the eschatological. Amina Inloes The Islamic College, London, UK [End Page 246] Towards Eternal Life, by Muhammad Saeed Bahmanpour, trans. Abbas Jaffer, 2016. London: The World Federation of KSIMC, 264 pp., £9.99. isbn: 978-1-90928-554-5. ‘What happens after we die?’ may be the most universal human question. Here, Muhammad Saeed Bahmanpour – a Shiʿi scholar who has taught in the university and is also a scriptwriter – answers that question based on Islamic scriptures. The primary audience of this book is the Muslim believer – in particular, the Muslim believer who expects to survive in an afterlife. However, the writing is accessible and well-referenced, and the book would serve well as a source on Muslim belief for inter-faith studies. It is also likely to be an eye-opener for the Muslim layperson, given that many Muslims only have a passing notion of what Islamic scriptures say about the next world. It is the first well-written and solidly-referenced treatment of Muslim views on the afterlife to include Shiʿi views to be printed in English, and this book plus Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (discussed above) would work very nicely together as readings for an academic or devotional course on Islamic eschatology or comparative religion. Primarily, Towards Eternal Life synthesizes Islamic scriptural texts – namely, the Qurʾan, and Shiʿi and Sunni hadith – with each other, and with the views of Islamic scholars and philosophers, including the mystical philosopher Mullā Ṣadrā. However, Bahmanpour also weaves into his discussion contemporary, cross-confessional writings on topics such as near-death experiences, and gives particular consideration to the writings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (d. 1772), whose views, he feels, sometimes parallel those found in Islamic scripture. This inclusion of multiple views lends a sense of freshness to the work, especially given the centrality of the topic to the human experience. The book takes a step-by-step approach, beginning with Islamic views on what happens at the moment of death, including portrayals of the Angel of Death. It continues with a detailed description of the intermediate world – the barzakh – and the transition from that world to the world of the final judgment. A particularly detailed chapter outlines scriptural prophecies of the process towards the eternal...

Inside “Paradise Lost”: Reading the Designs of Milton’s Epic

Inside “Paradise Lost”: Reading the Designs of Milton’s Epic

Mormonism and the emotions: an analysis of LDS scriptural texts

Mormonism and the emotions: an analysis of LDS scriptural texts

Metodologi Penafsiran Al-Qur’an Kontemporer Telaah atas Pemikiran Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd dan Mohammed Arkoun

One of the causes for stagnation of thought experienced by Muslim society at the present time is the difficulty faced in the ongoing dialogue between the reality of religious texts and the reality of contemporary life. This is the reason present-day Muslim scholars are more deeply reflecting on the works of classical Muslim scholars inherited from the at-turā£. At the same time in the Western world there has emerged a method, known as hermeneutics, used for understanding scriptural texts. This theoretical approach has attracted much interest from contemporary Muslim scholars who are seeking to apply its method to understanding Islamic classical works (at-turā£). The article introduces two figures, namely Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Muhammed Arkoun, who having attracted much attention from scholars

The Spirit Speaks: Pneumatological Innovation in the Scriptural Exegesis of Justin and Tertullian

This paper considers the role of the Spirit within early Christian writers’ use of prosopological exegesis, an interpretive method which seeks to identify various persons (prosopa) as the “true” speakers or addressees of a Scriptural text in which they are otherwise not in view. While scholars are increasingly recognizing that, for some early Christian writers, the Spirit could himself be a speaking agent, there remains no systematic analysis of the texts in which the Spirit speaks from his own prosopon. After making just such an analysis, focusing on key texts in the writings of Tertullian and Justin Martyr, this paper concludes that the need for divine testimony concerning both the Father and the Son was the central motivating factor for assigning ot quotations to the prosopon of the Spirit. In particular, this paper argues that this emphasis on the Spirit’s role as one who testifies is a direct outgrowth of the portrayal of the Spirit in the Johannine corpus and arose in the context of conflict with Judaism concerning the cessation of the Spirit. By making this connection, we have a new means by which to glimpse the theological dynamics at work in the pre-Nicene period that would contribute to the development of a distinctively Trinitarian, and not merely binitarian, view of God.

Justifying Allegory: Scripture, Rhetoric, and Reason in Galatians 4:21–5:1

ABSTRACT This article examines the way Paul seeks to justify his claim in Gal 4:24 that the story of Hagar, Sarah, and the two sons whom they bore to Abraham is to be understood as an allegory of two covenants bearing children (respectively) for slavery and freedom, and explores the implications for Christian theological interpretation of Scripture. Recent interpretations of the passage range from those that represent Paul as bringing to the text of Scripture the interpretive warrants for his appropriation of the text to those that represent Paul as deriving his interpretive warrants from within Scripture itself. I propose a reading that resists polarization between these two alternatives, tracing the various interwoven threads of inner-biblical intertextuality, salvation-historical narrative, apocalyptic revelation, apostolic ethos, and Galatian experience within the argument that supports Paul's allegorical appropriation of the Genesis story, and highlighting the fusion of dramatic and persuasive functions that the allegory serves within Paul's deliberative rhetoric. Understood in this manner, Paul's interpretive practice in Gal 4:21–5:1 does not provide a global warrant for speculative allegorization. It does, however, provide an apostolic precedent for figural readings that cohere with the narrative logic of salvation history and contribute to the formative and directive functions of Christian doctrine within the life of the church.

Justifying Allegory: Scripture, Rhetoric, and Reason in Galatians 4:21–5:1

ABSTRACT This article examines the way Paul seeks to justify his claim in Gal 4:24 that the story of Hagar, Sarah, and the two sons whom they bore to Abraham is to be understood as an allegory of two covenants bearing children (respectively) for slavery and freedom, and explores the implications for Christian theological interpretation of Scripture. Recent interpretations of the passage range from those that represent Paul as bringing to the text of Scripture the interpretive warrants for his appropriation of the text to those that represent Paul as deriving his interpretive warrants from within Scripture itself. I propose a reading that resists polarization between these two alternatives, tracing the various interwoven threads of inner-biblical intertextuality, salvation-historical narrative, apocalyptic revelation, apostolic ethos, and Galatian experience within the argument that supports Paul's allegorical appropriation of the Genesis story, and highlighting the fusion of dramatic and persuasive functions that the allegory serves within Paul's deliberative rhetoric. Understood in this manner, Paul's interpretive practice in Gal 4:21–5:1 does not provide a global warrant for speculative allegorization. It does, however, provide an apostolic precedent for figural readings that cohere with the narrative logic of salvation history and contribute to the formative and directive functions of Christian doctrine within the life of the church.

The Second Letter to the Corinthians.By Mark A. Seifrid.

M ark S eifrid , formerly Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and now professor of exegetical theology at the Lutheran Concordia Seminary, writes for the Pillar series. Aimed at ‘serious pastors and teachers of the Bible’, this evangelical series focuses more on exegesis of ‘the text of Scripture as we have it’ than on contemporary scholarship or technical minutia (p. ix). Consequently, Seifrid does not attempt sweeping dialogue with scholarly literature. Instead, he focuses largely on the theology of 2 Corinthians, which, he repeatedly argues, accords with that of Martin Luther, by far his most frequent dialogue partner. Seifrid argues that the epistle’s main theme is ‘the jarring contrast between [Paul’s] powerful letters and his pitiful presence … the difference between what the eyes can see and what the ears can hear in the apostolic proclamation of the cross’, a message manifest also in Paul’s ‘body and life’ (p. xxxii). As such, Seifrid frequently argues that the epistle’s ultimate concern is hermeneutical—that is, ‘whether the human being has the capacity of recognizing, understanding, and judging the work of God within the world, or whether it is the work of God that recognizes and judges the human being’ (p. xxxiii).

Book Review: Found Theology: History, Imagination and the Holy Spirit

Found Theology: History, Imagination and Holy Spirit. By Ben Quash. London: Bloomsbury TT it can bring new perspectives to given. This illumination can also show Triune God as present and active not only in given but in contingencies of history.Quash is clear here that both given and are work of God: this is not a matter of divine (the given) versus created (the found). Rather, that which is is also seen as a gift of God, as Holy Spirit unfolds all riches that are in Christ (p. xiv). It is significant that he terms it the found rather than the made (or a similar term). Rather, like inspiration of an artist or discovery of a new idea, is, in a sense, received, while yet also involving human searching, finding, creativity, and imagination in their fullness (p. 4). And so, in part, Quash provides an account of divine and human agency.Quash elaborates this thesis through three sections. Each section begins with an engagement with a specific historical and artistic episode: translation of Bible into English from Vulgate, two paintings by Vittore Carpaccio in context of Renaissance Venice, poetry of Henry Vaughan in midst of English interregnum. Each of these chapter-long case studies is then followed by a theoretical chapter. In light of difficulties of translation, Quash turns to Jewish scholar David Weiss Halivni's account of maculation (the imperfections, contradictions, and lacunae in text of scripture) to argue that gaps and tensions that are created in translation of Bible into other languages and contexts might be understood as an historical occurrence of gaps and tensions within untranslated canonical texts themselves. …

Messianic Servant or the End of Israel’s Exilic Curses? Isaiah 53.4 in Matthew 8.17

Contrary to previous suggestions, the use of Isa. 53.4 in Mt. 8.17 does not derive from a desire to portray Jesus either as Isaiah’s ‘suffering servant’ or as Israel’s unexpectedly compassionate Davidic messianic king. It comes instead from the gospel writer’s conviction that the signal characteristic of Jesus’ early ministry – his healing of all who came to him (Mt. 4.23-25; 8.16) – must have divine and therefore scriptural warrant. The only scriptural text that speaks of healing in such comprehensive and eschatological terms is Isa. 53.4. Since Matthew’s use of Isaiah elsewhere indicates that he is aware of a verse’s larger context, his deliberate truncation of Isa. 53.4 and his translation choices strongly suggest that for him Jesus’ divinely authoritative healings (cf. Mt. 9.8) constitute the inauguration, in Jesus’ own lifetime, of Yahweh’s long-promised removal of covenant curses upon his rebellious and exiled people (Deut. 28.59-61).

The Efficacy of Salvation in the Allegorical Reading of Scripture: Learning from Origen

Introduction This article explores the possibility of returning the practice of ancient allegorical interpretation as a resource for developing a post-critical theological reading of Scripture that prioritizes its formative significance for contemporary scriptural readers. What I am after is not the specific theological conclusions proposed within an ancient reading of a scriptural text. Those conclusions are, no doubt, interesting, but often force the comparison between ancient allegorical practice and various modern exegetical strategies in a distracting and unhelpful way. I want instead see allegorical reading as a phenomenon that arises within a set of theological commitments about the impact of scriptural reading--its soteriological efficacy--on the reader. I go about this task in three steps. First, I problematize the contemporary scholarly distinction between and allegory, seeing it as supporting an often unwarranted anxiety about ancient allegorical practice. This anxiety, usually involving the relationship between interpretation and history, presses allegorical readings into a predetermined opposition history in a way that argumentatively begs the question in favor of discreet typological reading. It will be important notice how such modern discreet categories not only obscure the variety of nonliteral reading practices in the ancient period--not noticing how they work together--but also belie certain theological commitments about the efficacy of scriptural reading that gives allegorical forms their force. Second, I take up the discussion of scriptural reading in Erich Auerbach's essay Figura, showing how his theory of figural interpretation both preserves and surpasses the assumptions of the allegory/typology distinction, thus providing a framework that pinpoints the benefits and dangers of nonliteral interpretation. Nevertheless, recognizing Auerbach's hesitance affirm the procedures of the allegorical readings of Origen of Alexandria, the paragon of ancient Christian allegorical interpretation, I turn Origen's theology and his second homily on Genesis explore how his reading strategies depend on a picture of scriptural soteriological efficacy, bringing the ancient writings bear on the contemporary ecclesial formation of the Christian reader. With the help of Henri de Lubac and Karen Jo Torjesen, I argue that Origen's allegorical reading presumes a theological relationship between Scripture and the reader that allows past events preserved in ancient Scripture contribute the contemporary soteriological formation of the reader, thus including the reader into the transformative import of the scriptural text. (1) Allegory and Typology The term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] has been used since the ancient period and is associated with interpretive strategies that have been questioned and criticized for about just as long. No doubt the origin of its meaning, literally to say something other, (2) has often sparked a suspicion that interpretive uses of allegory do a disservice the meaning of the text under analysis. Yet the Christian incorporation of allegory as a way of reading Scripture has involved a distinct set of questions that attempt determine whether ancient Christian allegorical reading bears direct methodological influence from early Platonic, Gnostic, and Philonic uses of allegorical interpretation. Attempting differentiate between allegory and what has come be called typology (derived from the Latin typologia) has been thought assist modern scholarship on ancient Christian exegesis in differentiating between properly Christian interpretive commitment regarding Scripture and otherwise non-Christian influences that bore on ancient Christian interpretation. One of the first twentieth-century scholars incorporate this distinction, Jean Danielou, attempted discern what in Origen's exegetical writings derived from the Christian tradition and what involved carryover from other non-Christian sources. …

Lament as Prophetic Ritual of Eschatological Hope: Reading Jephthah’s Daughter in Scripture and Liturgy

The story of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11 is brief but gruesome, one of the “texts of terror” which haunt the depiction of women in scripture. Jephthah, a war hero, vows to sacrifice whoever comes out to meet him from his house upon his return in exchange for God’s assistance in a skirmish with an invading army. To his horror, and ours, it is his only child, a young girl, who greets him on his return, and he is committed to continuing with his sacrifice. Unlike with other mentions of child sacrifice in the scriptures, Jephthah’s daughter is not delivered from her fate by the intervention of God or human action. Instead the young woman, nameless in the scriptures, gathers her female companions around her to mourn before her death, and is mourned by all the women of Israel, who gather annually to mark her death. This paper will examine the narrative of Jephthah’s daughter in scripture, alongside a critique of her presentation and interpretation in the lectionary of the Catholic Church. The ways in which the Church engages with violent scripture texts, especially in our public liturgical action, speaks to the cogence of our proclamation of hope in a world in which texts of terror continue to be inscribed upon the bodies of women and children. The focus of the paper will be the prophetic lament of Jephthah’s daughter, her companions, and the generations of women after them, which I argue should be reclaimed and connected with the prophetic and eschatological hope of the Eucharist when this scripture is proclaimed in liturgy.

A Nazorean and a Nazirite: Jesus and Samson in Matthew 1-2

The instance of Matthew’s formula citation in Matt. 2:23 is one of the most perplexing textual puzzles in the New Testament. There is no clear scriptural text that Matthew is quoting. The present study suggests that analyzing Jesus’ birth narrative in Matthew 1-2 as an instance of a biblical type-scene gives further support for the view that Judg. 13:5, 7 is the primary text behind this cryptic reference. It further suggests that attention to the connection between the birth narratives of Jesus and Samson shows how Jesus will accomplish the salvation that Samson was meant to begin.

Hermeneutika Versus Ta’wil (Studi Komparatif)

When the term hermeneutics and ta’wil coupled, there will be a controversial opinion. Neither of the Muslims as the owner term ta’wil, or any of a group of owners of hermeneutics. Some say hermeneutics and ta’wil no different alias exactly the same, so the use of hermeneutics together with the user function ta’wil. However, others do not think so. They consider far different hermeneutics ta’wil. This difference is seen from different sides of the two. In terms, history, object of study as well as the methodology applied in interpreting a text, particularly the scriptural text. And in the Islamic world it self, hermeneutics has been recommended to become the new interpretation as a replacement method of interpretation and ta’wil method is considered old-fashioned. All that problems above is what attracted the attention of the writer to examine critically, objectively and fairly to produce conclusions which of the two groups most worthy justified. Do hermeneutics and ta’wil the same? And could it be used as a method hermeneutic interpretation of the Qur’an? Those questions will be answered in this paper is clear, straightforward and pithy and of course with all the shortcomings writer.

Translation as Performance and Engagement: Performing Philemon from a Modern Caribbean Perspective

This introductory article addresses the use of performance criticism in the translation of Philemon as a means of critically engaging a modern Caribbean audience. The aim is to elicit a hermeneutical appropriation, which faces, in one way or the other, the polemic of condoned New Testament slavery, the reality of the Atlantic slave trade, and the liberating message of the gospel, which in the concrete case of Philemon is expressed rather subtly. The point of departure is that oral performance played a key role in the composition and dissemination of the original Scripture texts. This, combined with the salient fact that orality plays a key role in Creole language cultures, provides a fecund terrain for the translator. As an illustration, an integral translation for performance in Papiamentu, a Caribbean Creole, is juxtaposed with a provocative fictional response by the historical character of Tula, the Curaçaoan revolt leader of 1795.

Kitab Suci, Bahasa Arab dan Pembacaan Teks: Tinjauan Filsafat Mohammed Arkoun

Mohammed Arkoun is one of the great contemporary Muslim thinkers who advocate reforms of Islamic thought. This study seeks to explore Arkoun’s thoughts on The Book, Arabic language and reading scriptural text. Arkoun argues that when Muslims read the Qur’an as it is historically revealed, they will recreate Islam only as a dogma. Furthermore, he argues that it is a mandatory to rethink Islam from socio-cultural perspectives. The legacy of Islamic thoughts is accepted but it is also needed to be re-actualized because it was formulated in the specific time and place in the past. As for Arabic language, Arkoun thinks that as the language of the Qur’an, Arabic must become open language to any socio-cultural changes. However, since its enclosure as the unified codification, the Qur’an becomes “a close corpus”, which renders reinterpretation difficult. To solve this problem, he promotes the idea of de-construction of reading sacred text. 
 

Rotting Bodies

Any community supposedly identified with a “single” kind of Christianity is likely to contain conflicts and divisions due to the different logics and temporalities associated, respectively, with ecclesiastical institutions, popular practices, and scriptural texts. These conflicts may extend even to basic ontological assumptions. This article looks at clashes concerning popular practices surrounding relics and icons in Eastern Orthodoxy. It asks what are the ethical stakes when people insist on the powers of material things even in the face of withering criticism and contempt from inside and outside their church. That criticism, which can have both theological and atheistic bases, often focuses on the allegedly instrumental reasoning and selfish motives of people who expect to receive divine intervention from objects such as relics and icons. I argue that popular practices that focus on the agency of objects may above all be responding to material properties as ethical affordances. These affordances provide ways of treating the world as ethically saturated. In the Eastern Orthodox context, this may be one way for ordinary villagers to take lofty theological claims about the divine nature of humans in concrete terms.

Focal cortical thickness correlates of exceptional memory training in Vedic priests.

The capacity for semantic memory—the ability to acquire and store knowledge of the world—is highly developed in the human brain. In particular, semantic memory assimilated through an auditory route may be a uniquely human capacity. One method of obtaining neurobiological insight into memory mechanisms is through the study of experts. In this work, we study a group of Hindu Vedic priests, whose religious training requires the memorization of vast tracts of scriptural texts through an oral tradition, recalled spontaneously during a lifetime of subsequent spiritual practice. We demonstrate focal increases of cortical thickness in regions of the left prefrontal lobe and right temporal lobe in Vedic priests, in comparison to a group of matched controls. The findings are relevant to current hypotheses regarding cognitive processes underlying storage and recall of long-term declarative memory.

Scripture, Setting, and Audience in the RAF Talks of C. S. Lewis

It is difficult to connect individual sermons by C. S. Lewis with specific scripture texts. The wartime talks Lewis gave to RAF officers, NCOs, and airmen provide a new lens for examining this puzzle. Through biblical allusions and paraphrases, both colloquial and literary, Lewis was able to translate Holy Writ for live military audiences. Sometimes he spoke on the prescribed scripture text from the Book of Common Prayer. On other occasions, he chose a different text. When addressing committed believers, he delved deeper into explaining particular biblical passages. More often, he sent up an intellectual barrage, answering preliminary questions regarding faith, reason, and imagination. Lewis undertook an exhausting travel schedule visiting RAF stations, units, and camps throughout Britain. His creative approach to the use of scripture was one of the ways he sought to encourage military chaplains and to engage RAF aircrews and ground crews with the Christian message.

Podejście do Biblii w pierwszym z „Wykładów Listu do Rzymian” św. Tomasza z Akwinu

Artykuł stanowi pisemne opracowanie przemyśleń po dyskusji nad komentarzem Tomasza do pierwszego wersetu Listu do Rzymian, którą pod kierunkiem autora prowadzili: ks. Pavel Habrovec, ks. Marcin Kaznowski SDB, Marek Kostur, Beata Marek, Magdalena Marek, Agnieszka Piskozub-Piwosz, ks. Rafał Wilkołek. Autor wykorzystał w artykule wszystkie spisane wypowiedzi uczestników, starając się oddać raczej ostateczny owoc, konsensus w rozumieniu komentowanego fragmentu niż indywidualny wkład poszczególnych osób. Formalny aspekt analizy wyznaczały cztery pytania: 1. Czym jest Objawienie i jak się dokonuje? 2. Jaka jest relacja między słowem Boga a tekstem spisanym? 3. W jakim stosunku pozostaje tekst Pisma do osoby Chrystusa? 4. Jaka jest (wobec tego) poprawna lektura tekstu?