Testament Prophets Research Articles

Old Testament Prophets and Shamans: Comparison of the Phenomena (Anthropological Approach)

Old Testament Prophets and Shamans: Comparison of the Phenomena (Anthropological Approach)

„Térjetek meg...” : Az akkor és a most idő-anomáliájának feloldása

Jesus’ radicalism is based on the fact that the pious religious image we have of Jesus is fundamentally different from the image Jesus Christ had as a historical person. Radicalism was never strange to the Old Testament prophets and is thus intrinsic to Jesus’ prophetic role. It is also fundamental that prophetic radicalism should manifest itself towards the internal institutions of religion: priests, Levites, Pharisees, etc. The question is how to highlight parallels between the religious conditions of that current age and those of days. Understanding the Greek language’s duality of tempus and actio brings us closer to the message of Jesus two thousand years ago, which is still relevant today.

Анализ и перевод древнеанглийской поэмы Instructions for Christians в контексте христианской традиции

An Old English poem, preserved in a copy of the 12th century, Instructions for Chris­tians, consisting of 265 lines, is considered through the prism of the explication of the theme of moral instructions in the Old English tradition. The poem, along with other Old English sermons and Christian poems, represents the suggestion of moral rules regarding early Chris­tian life, being a set of orders for believers. This article provides the author's translation of the contexts of the poem Instructions for Christians. The problem of studying the phenomenon of instructions and the representation of the indisputable position of faith in the ancient culture of the Anglo-Saxons is posed. The overall goal and objectives of the study determine the com­plex nature of the traditional methods used for philological analysis of texts and the semiotic approach to texts. The analysis of the Old English text showed the interweaving of plots of the Old and New Testaments, reflecting opposing views on poverty and wealth, sacrifices, acts of gift and exchange. Issues related to the deeds of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament Apostle Paul are highlighted in the context of the analyzed material. The work provides a list of variant addresses to God which are used in the poem, which indicates a de­veloped Christian tradition in the Old English period, and also notes the direct name of the devil, which is usually absent in the texts of this period.

Prophet and politician dining around the same table: God’s message in conflict?

The research problem in this article is the modern prophets who rub shoulders with politicians. The focus is on the prophets found in New Prophetic Churches (NPCs). These prophets seek favours as much as politicians seek favours that are divinely sanctioned by prophets. The objectives here include ensuring that God’s message is not conflicted because of this prophet–politician symbiosis. It warns Christians not to commodify faith in order to achieve some political ambitions. The foundation is laid on biblical teachings on prophets and prophecy. There are two identified categories of the Old Testament prophets. Those who feasted with the kings at dinner tables and those who suffered under the status quo. These were banished, exiled, always on a run, and sometimes beheaded. Real-world examples of modern politicians who visit prophets on a regular basis are offered using social media and literature evaluations as resources. These politicians do so for a variety of reasons, including seeking spiritual affirmation and expressions of appreciation, praying for divine intervention during times of crisis that may affect their political careers or performances, and eventually soliciting favours. These favours are sought in some ungodly exchanges with expectations of some kickbacks. The solution to this compromise is the calling for the revisit of application of doctrinal and ethical dealings in and by the church and the government. Theology’s task is to clarify to citizens the relationship between church and government. The debate between these two powers (prophet and politician) should continue towards amicable understanding. The church must redefine its political involvement to avoid being swallowed up, and to remain the salt of the earth and a light in the world.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article’s intradisciplinary implication is realised through the literature and social media platforms reviews to enhance social and some theological disciplines such as biblical studies, church history, ecclesiology and pneumatology. Social disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology combined with theological disciplines argue that prophets and politicians should not become bedfellows unless for enacting social justice and this to be done ethically without any compromise to morality.

Почему Иона бодрствует? Интерпретация раннехристианского саркофага из Британского музея в современном искусствознании

Although the sarcophagus No. 1957, 1011.1 is investigated in detail, to this day there are many questions in its study. In addition to the main problems facing the researcher in the study of early monuments the item has a unique iconographic solution: unlike other objects of this kind (3rd c.), the prophet Jonah, reproduced on the front wall, is represented awake. The authors put forward a number of hypotheses explaining this feature, but none of them is comprehensive. These aspects justify the choice of the monument as an object of study.A review of texts (2nd-4th cc.) and objects (3rd-5th cc.) showed that, probably, the Old Testament prophet is not literally represented in the relief, but rather an allegorical transmission of the theology of bodily Resurrection is presented. Although the early texts were only trying to comprehend the relationship between the image (εἰκών) and the Prototype (ἀρχέτυπον), nevertheless, perhaps understanding the images at that time could be more complicated and led to the formation of the theology of the image.

Профетизм Ф.М. Достоевского в богословских концепциях В.С. Соловьева и М.М. Тареева

The article compares the interpretations of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky, proposed by the philosopher V.S. Solovyov and the theologian M.M. Tareev. The method of comparison between the writer and the prophet, which came from the literary tradition of romanticism, is transferred to the sphere of cultural studies and religious thought. The article analyzes the works of V.S. Solovyov “Three speeches in memory of Dostoevsky” and M.M. Tareev “Dostoevsky as a religious thinker to clarify the interpretations of the prophetic function of the writer proposed in these texts, other texts of these authors are involved, revealing in more detail their ideas about the place and tasks of the prophet in the New Testament time and about possible carriers of this function in modern the church community. The article attempts to show that the discrepancies in the assessments of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky between V.S. Solovyov and M.M. Tareev are partly due to their ideas of the relationship between Christianity and culture. (Thus, the limitation of Dostoevsky to the framework of national Christianity, noted by M.M. Tareev, which makes it possible to compare him with the Old Testament prophets, is explained by the idea of the impossibility of combining the religious-moral and cultural-historical spheres in the theological writings of M.M. Tareev). The views of thinkers on the person being able to perform the function of prophet in the modern church community are also examined.

Construction of regional myths: a case study of the Greeks of the North Azov Sea region

The article examines the process of constructing the mythological image of the Russian Empire as a "saviour of Christians" who were resettled from the Crimean peninsula to the North Azov Sea region, which became the basis for the formation of a historical myth in the region. The paper uses the analysis of various sources: orders, letters, reports, rescripts, descriptive and statistical materials, messages, etc. to consider the main stages of creating and maintaining this image and its articulation at different levels. The author proves that the positioning of Russia's special mission to protect the Christian population of the peninsula began from the moment the Russian Empire decided to resettle Christians from the territory of the Crimean Khanate. The Russian Empire assumed a leading role in the protection of “co-religionists” justifying themselves by unbearable religious oppression and the difficult situation of the Greeks, Armenians, Georgians and all those who practiced Orthodox Christianity in a Muslim state. To strengthen its role and emphasize the importance of its “mission” the Russian Empire created and spread the image of the Crimean Khanate as a despotic state that oppressed the Christian population in every possible way and limited their religious and social rights almost to the point of destruction. Their extremely difficult situation forced the Crimean Christians to appeal to the Russian Empress to resettle them on the territory of the Orthodox Empire. This was the official version of the resettlement of the Christians used at all levels and became the basis for the construction of the myth.
 The official image of the empire as the “savior” of the Christians was actively spread at first through the works of priests and representatives of the church. The special role of the leader of the Crimean Christians – Metropolitan Ignatius of Gotfey and Kafay was constructed. His actions are compared with the actions of the Old Testament Prophet Moses. In the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, this image was replicated by educators, doctors, and researchers of history. At this stage, the author observes the fixation of the official image of the Russian Empire as the “savior” of Christians. It was inconsistent with the memories of the Greeks and their descendants who survived the resettlement and strove to return to the Crimean Peninsula. At the same time, the “logical chain” of the regional myth about the founding of Mariupol by Metropolitan Ignatius and the first commemorative practices in his honor was built. All this laid the foundation for the final formation of the myth of the imperial city of Mariupol.

Ras Kimono: A Prototype of Old Testament Prophets in Nigeria

Ras Kimono, one of Nigeria’s finest reggae musicians, is regarded as an evergreen musical voice and Prophet. His music has been earmarked by social commentators and fans alike as a weapon of social change, because it speaks truth to power and institutions at all times and at levels on socio-political ills that affect the masses in the society. This study, therefore, alludes that Ras Kimono is a mirror of Old Testament Prophets, who were active and spontaneous at critical times of national perils; who doubled as reformers and national advisors, alongside being seers. The purpose of this study is to highlight and attempt to re-awaken the nationalist consciousness among other themes of his arts which is lacking in post-colonial African States like Nigeria. The concern and significance of this research work bothers on the question of whether the Nigerian government and citizenry had and has ever taken his message into serious consideration in the light everyday realities which reflect some of the fears expressed by Ras Kimono in his music. Study engages in a critical assessment of the songs of Ras Kimono towards identifying in them national policies on politics, governance, religious pluralism and national cohesion as embedded in his works. The study adopts the performance and the Wallesteinian theories of nationalism as theoretical frameworks.

The Afterlife of St Cuthbert: Place, Texts and Ascetic Tradition, 690–1500

The Afterlife of St Cuthbert: Place, Texts and Ascetic Tradition, 690–1500

Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of the Gothic Cathedral by Stephen Murray

Reviewed by: Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of the Gothic Cathedral by Stephen Murray Michael T. Davis Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of the Gothic Cathedral. By Stephen Murray. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2021. Pp. xii, 440. Numerous color and black-and-white illustrations. $40.00. ISBN 9780231195768.) Beginning with the first stories, writers have guided readers through the built environment. The author of The Epic of Gilgamesh transports us to the third [End Page 190] millennium BC and the Mesopotamian city of Uruk urging us to, “Look at its wall which gleams like copper, inspect its inner wall, the like of which no one can equal! (Tablet 1)” Some, like Abbot Suger in his “little books” (libelli), or Frank Lloyd Wright in the Autobiography, take center stage to explain the political and spiritual motivations or the creative processes that informed their active roles in building projects. Others offer a shared experience emulating Pliny the Younger, who wrote of his Tuscan villa to his friend Domitius Apollinaris: “I . . . set out in this letter to take you with me round every corner of my estate. . . (Pliny, Epistulae, 5.6), ” or John the Evangelist, who reports the vision of “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven” shown to him by an angelic chaperon (Rev. 21: 10–21). Scholarly writers, on the other hand, tend to stand discreetly in the wings directing buildings to tell their stories supported by a cast of patrons, craftsmen, documents, and institutions. Stephen Murray, in Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of the Gothic Cathedral, inspired by John Ruskin’s The Bible of Amiens (1864), revives the role of the interlocutor—“the person who points and talks and guides” (p. 14)—to narrate the long life of an edifice that has been called “the Parthenon of Gothic architecture.” In an earlier book, Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens: The Power of Change in Gothic (Cambridge, 1996), Murray foregrounded construction of the thirteenth-century structure, significantly refining understanding of the sequence of building and the sources behind its design. The present volume recalculates the narrative path while extending coverage into the sixteenth century to include the additions and urgent repairs that created the cathedral that, by and large, we see today. Chapter 1, “Visiting the Cathedral” (pp. 14–98) briskly reviews the history of the city from its Roman origins as Samarobriva to its florescence as a prosperous and strategically vital node of the Capetian kingdom. With the historical background in place, Murray then steps across the temporal threshold to tour the present cathedral as a whole, first circling the exterior, then moving into the interior, and finally ascending to thread through the triforium and around the flying buttresses. Black-and-white plans and photographs, many of them also reproduced as color plates, follow the verbal commentary, but the true companion to the text is the Columbia University Media Center for Art History website (https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/amiens-arthum/content/home-page), which contains a comprehensive and dynamic dossier of high-resolution photographs, panoramas, and sound recordings. The panoramas, especially, afford a measure of independence, permitting the viewer to look up and down, zoom in and out, or explore space in a non-sequential route. Chapter 2 (pp. 99–158) surveys the five portals of the cathedral. The three west portals capture the arc of history from the Old Testament prophets on the outer faces of the buttresses to the Virgin portal and the Incarnation of Christ on the right, Saint Firmin the Martyr, venerated as the principal saint of the city, to the left, culminating with the Last Judgment in the center. Here, Murray stresses [End Page 191] the active relation of sculptural subjects to the liturgical life of the cathedral. For example, the Invention and Translation of the relics of Saint Firmin on January 13 was staged in procession, while the lush foliate band that rings the cathedral interior recalls the accompanying miracle of the leaves. As past and present, sculpted images and living actors merge across space, the cathedral reveals “the wider power of the Gothic to transform physical observation and sensation into religious and spiritual affect” (p. 226). Chapters 3, 4, and...

Standing in the Gap.

FigureFigure“So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one” (Ezekiel 22:30, NKJV). I'm sure everyone is familiar with this lament from God through the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel about how the leaders of God's people abused their power and oppressed the people in ancient Israel. The same is true around the world today. Leaders are supposed to shepherd those under their care and in their sphere of influence; abuse of power is common, whereas true loving kindness and compassionate care are rare. However, in Haiti, nurses under the leadership of NCF-Haiti chapter leaders have taken on the challenge to “stand in the gap” for their people. Recognizing the tremendous need for education and guidance in face of the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of nurses led by NCF-Haiti vice president Vanessa Roland and her colleagues began providing health education in churches and other venues where people could gather. Nurses handed out masks and taught about health and hygiene, especially in relation to prevention of COVID-19. INITIATING HEALTH BOOTHS Moreover, the nurses initiated the practice of street corner “health booths” to provide hand sanitation and masks which are hard for the general public to obtain. This effort spread among nurses and college students as well as the Scouts organization that had done this kind of outreach all across Haiti in 2010 during the cholera epidemic. Efforts by nurses and other public health-minded leaders and individuals have mitigated the spread of coronavirus even though the vaccine is not readily available in Haiti. Another way NCF-Haiti nurse leaders stood in the gap for individuals and communities in Haiti was after the 2021 earthquake and hurricane that devastated southern Haiti; these nurse leaders gathered a team of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare personnel. Even though vicious gangs prowled along the main roads in the affected areas, these courageous nurses led their group by back roads to the town nearest to the epicenter where there was much suffering and great need. This team provided healthcare, food, and help with rescue efforts, clearing viable shelters that could protect people from the elements. EDUCATING AND PROMOTING HEALTH Today, NCF-Haiti nurse leaders continue to provide health education and promotion among the Haitians. Currently, they see a need to explain the odd behaviors of Americans and others who are opposed to mask mandates and vaccination requirements. With the Internet and telephone communication, multiple opinions from the world are readily available, producing confusion and lessening the positive health impact of education on people's behaviors. Nurses in Haiti now need to counteract misinformation as well as provide accurate information. According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), compassionate care is mandated by The ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses (ICN, 2021). This kind of care requires nurses to be creative and to think outside the box to give the best care possible. Solutions are not always easy and may require sacrifice on our part, as shown by the nurse leaders of NCF-Haiti and their colleagues. Additionally, loving kindness is promoted throughout the Bible as the practice of kind attitudes and actions that flow out of the well of love within us who are followers of Jesus Christ. Christ in us is not only the “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) but also the fountain or wellspring from which flow life and light and love (Psalm 36:9). This is the basis for the kindness and compassion that should characterize all of our service as nurses in a hurting world. God calls all nurses to stand in the gap wherever he has placed us. This means that we need to sacrificially do our part in the great effort to alleviate suffering and to promote health. How this looks in practice may be different for each of us, but it is required of all nurses in our role as workers in God's Kingdom and ministers of health and healing.

Генезис юродства в византийской традиции

In this article, an attempt was made to make a preliminary religious analysis of the phenomenon of foolishness from the perspective of the modern methodology of the Dutch researcher J. Waardenburg. It was noted that earlier in the Russian science of religion, this phenomenon practically did not become an independent object of study. The systematic concept of J. Waardenburg assumes a consistent consideration of religious facts from the perspective of four approaches of equal importance: historical, comparative, contextual and hermeneutic. The collection and primary analysis of empirical data is a necessary and preliminary condition for a full-fledged study of the phenomenon of foolishness. Foolishness arises in Byzantine society and is perceived ambiguously by the contemporaries. The article indicates the sources of the phenomenon of foolishness in the Byzantine tradition: ancient cynicism in the person of Diogenes Laertius, healed the demoniacs who spend a lot of time near temples, Old Testament prophets. This work also reflects the historical process of the gradual separation of foolishness as an independent rank of holiness. Its biblical justification is the multiple references on the pages of the Gospel to the madness of the world and the wisdom of the unwise. The fact that the foolishness was known to the culture of the Romans is evidenced by the fact of the spread of the phenomenon of false ugliness, which the official Church tried to fight. The reason for the appearance of foolishness in Byzantium can be called the extinction of spiritual life after its rise in the first centuries of the spread of Christianity. The tradition of honoring extraordinary ascetics, as well as the formation of iconography, was slow. Only at the end of the VIII century the process began to gain momentum, which was connected with the approval at the Seventh Ecumenical Council of the veneration of saints as a necessary element of Christian dogmatics. In the Byzantine Church, six holy fools were canonized. Despite their small number, the hagiographic literature of Christian ascetics of the first centuries often offers examples of episodic foolishness. The article concludes that the genesis of foolishness in the Byzantine tradition required a long time for its development. In Russian culture the phenomenon of foolishness has found its full-fledged development, becoming an integral part of Russian culture. The author assumes, that this phenomenon requires its further empirical study as an objective religious fact.

Paolo Veneziano’s arbor crucis in Dubrovnik and the Rhetoric of the Frame in the Mid-Trecento

Abstract The paper analyzes the wooden frame of Paolo Veneziano’s monumental Crucifixion, the largest trecento composition in the Adriatic to survive, on the triumphal arch of the church of St. Dominic in Dubrovnik. By including the scrolls’ foliage, the Old Testament prophets, and censing angels, this frame transforms a stylistically inventive yet typologically conventional “croce dipinta” into one aligned with the iconography of the arbor vitae by way of an unprecedented shift of attention to its margins. The full power of the Crucifixion is vested both in the body of the crucified Christ and its frame. At the same time, its overarching theme of the genealogy of Christ and his Passion can be subject to different readings, i.e. “doctrinal,” “liturgical,” or, as the paper tentatively proposes, “Dominican.”

Calvin's Visual Exegesis of Old Testament Prophecy: Figural Reading and the Sacramental Character of Scripture

AbstractThis article provides a study of John Calvin's treatment of the Old Testament prophets' language, images and metaphors to illuminate the distinctly visual character of his theology. It explores Calvin's theology of Scripture as shaped by the visual theology rooted in his exegesis of the Old Testament prophetic books. The author argues that the Old Testament prophets serve as supreme models for imitation of how to make God's Word come alive through visual images and powerful metaphors. Furthermore, the article draws connections between Calvin's engagement with the prophets' language of ‘painting’, ‘mirror’, ‘vivid representation’ and ‘visible symbol’ and his descriptions of biblical theophanies and the power of sacraments. Bringing these elements side by side, a vivid portrait emerges of Calvin's conception of Scripture as a visual sign. The author argues that this visual sign‐character of Scripture undergirds a deeper commitment of Calvin's – a conviction of Scripture's sacramental character and functions. Consequently, the article argues that the visual features of Calvin's theology – where visual aspects unite his theologies of Scripture and the sacraments – set forth Scripture itself as a sacrament and call students of Calvin to take more seriously the visual and material commitments of his theology.

The Flourishing of the UK African and Caribbean Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century with Reference to Jeremiah’s Letter to Jewish Exiles in Babylon Sixth-Century BCE

ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt to explore how the UK African and Caribbean Diaspora might flourish by focusing more on self-agency. Drawing upon Black Pentecostal and Black theological concepts, the paper highlights, exilic identity, settlement and growth, welfare and prayer and prophetic truth as fecund with ideas towards Black self-determination in the diaspora. These are drawn from Old Testament prophet Jeremiah’s letter to Jewish exiles in Babylon in sixth-century BCE that suggests a framework for flourishing and resisting empire. This is a quasi-autobiographical approach that utilises the writer’s experience and research as a Black Pentecostal and ecumenist, Black theologian, and a member of the UK African and Caribbean Diaspora for over five decades.

Lydende Nuwe-Testamentiese gelowiges bedien deur die Ou-Testamentiese profete: Eksegese van 1 Petrus 1:10–12

Suffering New Testament believers ministered by Old Testament prophets: Exegesis of 1 Peter 1:10–12. Even though 1 Peter 1:10–12 has received considerable attention in the research done on 1 Peter, the fact that Peter in these verses emphasises that the Old Testament prophets ministered to the New Testament believers, has not yet been properly investigated. This article focuses on the ministry by the prophets, mentioned in 1 Peter 1:10–12, and indicates how this ministry became a reality in the lives of the addressees. The exegesis done in this article follows the historical-grammatical model as practiced in the Reformed tradition. Although the exegesis is focused on 1 Peter 1:10–12, these verses are examined exegetically within the context of the whole letter. The article finds that, in 1 Peter 1:10–12, the apostle Peter urges his readers to continue praising God in the midst of the suffering they are going through. They are ministered to by the Old Testament prophets in their circumstances of suffering. This ministry of the prophets became a reality in the readers’ lives when evangelists provided, as good news, significant information regarding the witness of the Lord’s Spirit, through the prophets, about Christ’s sufferings and glories.Contribution: The article highlights the unique encouragement of Peter in 1 Peter 1:10–12 to his readers to continue to praise God in the midst of the suffering they are experiencing as believers. The readers can still praise God, because they are, as New Testament believers, trustfully ministered to by the Old Testament prophets with the witness of the Spirit about Christ’s sufferings and glories.

The Uniform of the Old Testament Prophet

This study of the dress of Elijah the prophet confirms that clothing when specified in Old Testament narrative adds to characterization and serves as a prop for the action. It cannot be proved that every prophet or even many prophets dressed after the fashion of Elijah, but that post-Elijah more than one wore “a hairy mantle” is demonstrated by what is viewed in Zech 13:4 as classic prophetic garb, and several texts in the New Testament also allude to the practice. This mode of dress is best explained by a link to the wilderness and appears to express support for the religious orthodoxy of the faith proclaimed by Moses.

Celebrant's Flame: Daniel Berrigan in Memory and Reflection by Bill Wylie-Kellermann

Reviewed by: Celebrant's Flame: Daniel Berrigan in Memory and Reflection by Bill Wylie-Kellermann Ryan Di Corpo Celebrant's Flame: Daniel Berrigan in Memory and Reflection. By Bill Wylie-Kellermann. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. 212 pp. $23.00. The radical life of the late Jesuit priest and poet Daniel Berrigan, at once revered and ridiculed for his provocative acts of nonviolent resistance against the death march of war and imperialism, is welldocumented in numerous books, essays, and documentary films. Berrigan, most remembered as one of nine Catholic activists who, in 1968, illegally burned 378 draft records in a Catonsville, Maryland parking lot, was himself a prolific author. At the time of his death in 2016, Berrigan had published more than 50 works—some collections of poetry, some musings on the Old Testament prophets, some chronicles of the anti-war protests that made him an unlikely icon. (Full disclosure: I personally befriended Berrigan during the final months of his life.) It is despite numerous detailed studies on Berrigan's legacy that Detroit-born activist and retired Methodist pastor Bill Wylie-Kellermann, who first met Berrigan in the early 1970s, has delivered to us a truly unique commentary in Celebrant's Flame. Pulsating with the rhythms of poetry and protest, Kellermann's book presents a kind of spiritual symphony, a collage of personal reflections, friends' recollections, and essays by contemporary peacemakers. The book, moving freely between topics ranging from Scriptural exegesis to French absurdist Albert Camus, is best read slowly, [End Page 61] savoring its prose interspersed with Berrigan's hallmark poetic flourishes. This is a book for contemplation, to be read with the temperament of monks and the righteous fever of prophets. Calling us to lives of "radical discipleship," as Mr. Kellermann terms it, Berrigan ruffled feathers—and bruised egos—in the hallowed halls of American political power and the institutional church through a stubborn, stalwart rejection of violence under all circumstances (4). Kellerman, who was studying at New York's Union Theological Seminary when he came to know Berrigan, describes Bible studies with the Jesuit as striking the soul with paralyzing force. "Never had I met anyone who took The Book with such life and death seriousness," writes Kellermann. "I got knocked off my horse. A tidy worldview crumbled. I do not exaggerate: I was struck nearly dumb and wandered the seminary for a time more than a little lost" (79). Kellermann regards Berrigan both a spiritual mentor and a confessor, a prophet who outright refused such an august title. (Berrigan once chided an "idiot headline" in The Baltimore Sun which asked if he and Phil were modern-day prophets) (82). A major strength of this volume is that it offers a generous helping of Berrigan's poetic works. His verses—sarcastic then sincere, challenging then comforting—reveal an innate Christian sensibility, a worldview imbued by the spirit of peace. In his five-part poem "Vietnamese Letter," his meditations on a nation scarred by war highlight a distinctly Eucharistic flavor. "[T]he sweet earth, punished by ruffians' fists / heals like a rising loaf, a bread of heroes," he writes (73). In "Homily," he extends the metaphor of our world as the Body of Christ: "Said; a cleric worth his saltwill salt his bread with tears, sometimes.will break breadwhich is the world's flesh, with the world's poor,count this his privilege and more—" (37) Celebrant's Flame is also aided by four essays by Berrigan's friends, who provide valuable insight into his personal character. John Bach, once an inmate with Berrigan at Danbury federal prison in Connecticut, recalls a weekly class on great novels. "[I]n that prison classroom I marveled at Dan's insights, eloquence, spot-on analysis, and the implications for what passed for politics," writes Bach (17). "In the evening […] Dan would brew concoctions of coffee, hot chocolate, with melted Snickers bars that were shared amid all the laughter" (18). Catholics familiar with Berrigan will find Celebrant's Flame replete with fascinating, little-known details about his life (Did you know he [End Page 62] wrote unproduced television screenplays?) and timely reflections on his legacy today. Catholics unfamiliar with Berrigan...

‘[T]he prince and the judge ask for a bribe’ (Mi 7:3): Interpreting the Old Testament prophets on bribery in light of the encounter between motorists and law enforcement agents on Nigerian highways

Transparency International has consistently reported a high level of corruption in sub-Saharan Africa, of which bribery is the commonest aspect. In Nigeria, bribery has been found to be an integral part of the public life of most public officials. This article related the message of the 8th-century prophets of Israel to the Nigerian context in which motorists are forced to pay bribes to law enforcement agents on the highways, and attempted to exonerate the motorists from bribery. The work employed the historical exegesis for the study of the relevant texts, and the descriptive approach for the analysis of bribery on Nigerian highways. The work found that the central context of the 8th-century prophets’ criticism of bribery was in the judicial process in which the court officials took bribes from the rich and denied justice to the poor. The message of the prophets is thus relevant to the current situation of the poor Nigerian motorists. It concluded that given the fact that the police, in particular, forcefully take money from the motorists, it is better described as extortion rather than bribery. In view of the helpless circumstances faced by the motorists, it is unlikely that the prophets would have accused them of bribery, but they certainly would have condemned the law enforcement agents for extortion. Therefore, given their situation, Nigerian motorists being extorted on the highways are not guilty of bribery.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This research involves the disciplines of the Old Testament (OT) and Christian ethics. It relates the message of the OT prophets to the Nigerian context in which motorists are forced to give bribes to the law enforcement agents. The article postulates that the motorists are absolved of bribery, given the manner by which money is extorted from them.

Did Sirach See Himself as a Prophet?

The article reviews J.J. Pudełko’s book-length study titled Profetyzm w Księdze Syracha [Prophetism in the Book of Sirach]. Following an initial presentation of the book, the author focuses on its methodological aspect and offers an assessment of its merit before discussing the main thesis of Pudełko in the context of other scholarly opinions on the issue. Based on her meticulous analysis of prophetism in the works of the Jerusalem sage, Pudełko concludes that Sirach saw himself as an heir to the Old Testament prophets, as his role of a sage corresponded to the tasks fulfilled earlier by prophets. Although this argument is questioned by most contemporary analysts of the Book of Sirach, still Pudełko’s book constitutes an important intervention in the debate on Sirach’s prophetic self-awareness.