Theological Reading Research Articles

Hosea 4—14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship

Twentieth-century scholarship on Hosea has addressed a wide range of interpretive questions that often reflect the common approaches to the prophetic literature in general, yet an inordinate amount of attention has been paid to the marriage and family imagery in Hosea 1—3. In recent years, scholars have corrected this tendency, exploring ways that texts throughout Hosea 4—14 offer insights into long-standing critical issues. Rather than exhibiting a movement in which newer methodological perspectives have replaced older traditional approaches, all of the established, modern scholarly pursuits remain prominent in the current study of Hosea 4—14. Scholars are now reformulating the traditional questions, however, from new angles largely generated by interdisciplinary influences. These influences have also given rise to previously unexplored lines of inquiry, such as synchronic, literary, and theological readings, Book of the Twelve studies, and metaphor theory. Studies using metaphor theory with an eye toward religious, political, socio-economic, and gender considerations seem likely to occupy the central place in Hosea scholarship in the immediate future.

Jeg tror for at elske

The purpose of this article, “I believe in order to love: Negative theology in the writings of St. John of the Cross”, is threefold. First we see how St. John uses classical negative theology as the basis of his spiritual programme. This is of especial interest because John manages to transform the theoretical method of apophatic discourse into a practical spiritual process. In this spiritual programme, discourse about God results in the soul’s refusal of the entire creation in an attempt to move closer to God through faith. This is particularly obvious in his metaphorical expression “the dark night”, which can be best interpreted in the light of Christ's passion, death and resurrection. The second purpose of this article is exactly to show how St. John uses the agony and pain of Christ as a model for the soul’s suffering in “the dark night”. Thirdly the aim is to put St. John’s negative theology in a contemporary and postmodern theological discourse and, in the light of this study, see if a new theological reading and understanding of it is possible.

Reading the New Testament from a theological perspective

This article argues that, from the perspective of the faith community, it is not enough to read the Bible only from a “technical” point of view; a theological perspective is also required. Subsequently the article deals with what a theological reading entails: A reader-orientated and a text-orientated view are presented.

Melville's Bibles. By Ilana Pardes.

Since the revival of interest in Herman Melville in the 1920s, commentators have noted the importance of religion for apprehending his work. From Nathalia Wright’s study of Melville’s biblical knowledge and allusions in her Melville’s Use of the Bible (1949) to H. Bruce Franklin’s provocative analysis of mythology in Moby-Dick in his The Wake of The Gods (1963), to William Hamilton’s theological reading in Melville and the Gods (1985), Melville’s place in the interdisciplinary space between literature and religion is at this point, nearly canonical. In her recent book Melville’s Bibles, Ilana Pardes adds to this ever-growing wealth of literature. In the process, she provides us with an important example of constructive hermeneutics, one whose significance transcends a specialisation in either Melville or religion. With Moby-Dick, Pardes argues, Melville sought to write a book of truly ‘biblical proportions’ (p. 3). As with the Bible, Melville’s classic novel famously combines a variety of genres and discourses. He does this, she continues, in order to ‘recapitulate in new terms the tantalising experience of reading an all-encompassing book like the Bible’, which results in Moby-Dick’s enduring hermeneutical-aesthetical richness. Melville’s Bibles is a celebration of this richness. According to Pardes, it is too simplistic to say Melville merely uses biblical imagery or employs the commentaries of his day to reflect on biblical ideas. This is not to say it is untrue, but rather that it is inadequate to explain what is happening in Moby-Dick. It is more accurate to say, she explains, that instead of parroting the Bible and its commentaries, Melville supplements them with his own reflections on their relevance for his particular socio-political situation. As a result, his source materials are thus expanded beyond themselves and their original intentions.

Book Review: A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel

Book Review: A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel

Pathetic Sacrifice: Christian Love in the Poetry of Mary Karr, as Found in Sinners Welcome

Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ... If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. (2 Cor 1:3-6) THIS ARTICLE AIMS TO UNCOVER and assess theology of in Sinners Welcome (2006), most recent collection of poems by Mary Karr. (1) A reading that is specifically theological will help to articulate how Karr's poetry--in its unity of subject matter and style--is a dynamic reflection on mystery of Christian love. I will draw fundamental insights for this project from Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on Christian love, Deus caritas est (2006). (2) I. Proem: Poetry and Theological Reflection Karr's work has been widely praised in contemporary literary scene. Her best selling Liars' Club (1995) is considered to have helped rejuvenate memoir genre. And her award-winning verse harks back to this country's tradition of confessional poetry. Widespread acclaim for Karr indicates that her work resonates with current sensibilities. She is also a Roman Catholic convert, which may help to account for significant parallels between Sinners Welcome and understanding of in part I of Deus caritas est. All things considered, poetry of Mary Karr merits critical attention from a Christian perspective. To be sure, Sinners Welcome is not theology in classical or academic sense and poetry is not wholly amenable to theological science. Indeed, it can even be argued that critical analysis per se tends to corrupt experience of art, subjugating one's perception of creative expression to reason. But significant motifs in Karr's poetry--self-knowledge, conversion, love, mother-child relationship, communion, suffering, and death--all summon reader's theological reflection, and perhaps designedly so. More objectively, five poems on mysteries of are, by their very titles, instances of what Karr calls descending theology. Each poem runs under that title followed by a subtitle: The Nativity, Christ Human, The Garden, The Crucifixion, and The Resurrection. A certain theological intellectus is at work in Karr's poetry, and one's appreciation of her artistic and spiritual sensus cannot but benefit from a theological reading. Karr, who tends toward bombastic and graphic, is apt to shock and offend some readers with her occasionally perverse and unlikely references. Nevertheless and more importantly, her work poignantly expresses what Benedict lucidly teaches--that the which God mysteriously and graciously offers to man forges an intrinsic link between that Love and reality of human love (n. 1). poet certainly believes that is fundamental desire of human person. Whether or not she intends them as such, images of eros and agape are prominent in Sinners Welcome. More specifically, Karr's poems confess both painful insufficiency of erotic and consummating succor of agapic love. However, Sinners Welcome seems to lack reference to self-sacrificial aspect of agape. Absolute eschewal of this matter would be theologically problematic: Self-sacrifice is crucially instrumental to nature of Christian love. Nevertheless, it will be found that there is no attenuation of love's Christian significance in Karr's poems. Because she uses her own experiences of sin and salvation for her aesthetic matter, her poetry as such bears graced valence of Christian self-sacrifice. In other words, confessional craft that is Sinners Welcome is itself a sacrificial offering of theological charity. II. Fundamental Desire for Love Perhaps most significant trope in Sinners Welcome is that of face. Facial glances abound--faces of a deceased mother, of past lovers, of Christ, and of poet's self. …

Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology. Volume I: Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement. Volume II: Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection. Edited by MICHAEL REA.

Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology. Volume I: Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement. Volume II: Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection. Edited by MICHAEL REA.

Providence, Distributive Justice, and Divine Government in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas: Some Implications for Ecclesial Practice

AbstractThomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologiae to provide Dominican friars with solid theological instruction in moral theology and pastoral care on the firm foundation of scripture. Despite an increasing awareness among scholars of the importance of Thomas' scriptural commentaries to his thought, few have attempted to interpret his theology and philosophy in light of his scriptural commentaries and the mendicant context of the 13th century. This paper offers a reading of Thomas' theology of providence and divine government both as a mendicant friar and Master of the Sacred Page in order to understand some of the implications of the doctrine of providence for distributive justice in ecclesial practice today.

A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel – By Brendan Byrne, S.J

A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel – By Brendan Byrne, S.J

Religião, cultura, sexismo, alteridade em Levítico

Este ensaio apresenta uma releitura do livro de Levitico a partir da hermeneutica feminista, objetivando a desconstrucao de uma interpretacao patriarcal e metafisica do texto sagrado. Ao inves da cultura da linguagem argumentativa, o texto considera a cultura material e a corporeidade. Por fim, aponta a necessidade de uma leitura teologca que considere a alteridade em sua diversidade.

Border Crossing with the Uninvited in Matthew’s Wedding Feast Parable and Jacques Tourneur’s 'I Walked with a Zombie'

This article is a theological (re)reading of Matthew’s wedding feast parable (22:1–14) through one of the parable’s specific disruptions: the man without a wedding garment. It argues that the plight of this enigmatic figure critiques Matthew’s dualistic anti-imperial reversal on its own terms and unveils the theology of empire embedded within its narrative. The man without a wedding garment is a border crosser whose presence unleashes a violent reaction from the anti-imperial king of the parable: the king has the man thrown into the “outer darkness.” The second half of the paper crosses into the world of B-horror, where the zombies in the Jacques Tourneur/Val Lewton collaboration, I Walked with a Zombie (RKO: 1943), are border crossers who not only disrupt colonial space, but also achieve a narrative and spatial takeover. Tourneur’s zombie film is offered as a way out of Matthew’s “outer darkness” and into a space of subversive hope. This article argues that border crossing is a subaltern strategy of resistance for the uprooted, dislocated, and excluded of the world.

Paul and Isaiah's Servants: Paul's Theological Reading of Isaiah 40‐66 in 2 Corinthians 5.14‐6.10 – By Mark Gignilliat

Paul and Isaiah's Servants: Paul's Theological Reading of Isaiah 40‐66 in 2 Corinthians 5.14‐6.10 – By Mark Gignilliat

Book Review: A Social-Scientific and Theological Reading of John

Book Review: A Social-Scientific and Theological Reading of John

Where Men are Men and Women are Women? The Song of Songs and Gender

The Song of Songs imagines a world in which “men are men” and “women are women,” yet a world in which masculine and feminine relate in caring, often mutualistic, ways. This article examines the ways the Song constructs masculinity and femininity, especially the ways it attempts to restore clear boundaries between the genders when these boundaries become blurry. Christian theological readings have focused on the love between the two figures as in some way representing the divine love; reading the way the Song presents gender can offer a new perspective on love, both human and

Book review: Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A social-scientific and theological reading of John

Book review: Lazarus, Mary and Martha: A social-scientific and theological reading of John

Nationalized Judaism and Diasporic Existence. Jakob Klatzkin and Hans Jonas

This article characterizes the modern Jewish debate around Zionism as a profound political theological controversy by juxtaposing the works of two significant twentieth-century Jewish scholars, Jakob Klatzkin (1882–1948) and Hans Jonas (1903–1993). While Klatzkin campaigned for Zionism as Gnosticism, Jonas critically challenged this link in his writings from the 1950s and 1960s. In presenting a theological reading of modern Jewish secular thought, the article transcends the political controversy between Zionists and Post-Zionists of the recent decades and proposes a new horizon in the study of Jewish modern-secular thought.

SIGHT AND SOUND IN "STERKENWALD": ON THEODICY AND THE SENSES

... yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen.(Augustine, The City of God, XVII. 1 7)But such a vision is not of the present life.(Bernard of Clair vaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, 31.2)For we walk by faith, and not by sight.(II Corinthians v. 7)Faith . . . cometh by hearing.(Romans x.17)1In the 352 lines of the Middle English St Erkenwald, there is but one lengthy example of close visual description: the eighteen lines given (lines 75-92) to the clothing and flesh of an incorrupt body found in a mysterious tomb under St Paul's Cathedral.2 This remarkable passage stands out not only because it occupies one-twentieth of the length of a very tightly crafted poem, but especially because the poet passes by so many other likely opportunities for dwelling on the visual. We hear of grand pagan temples (lines 27-32) and Christian churches (lines 19-22), and particularly of the 'noble note' of the New Werke at St Paul's (line 38); of the 'grete prece' of high and low estate who come to see the unearthed wonder (lines 59-64, 141); of a bishop's palace (line 115) and his stately vestments (line 130); and of the great concluding procession to the sound of bells (lines 3 51 f.). Yet the author gives no more than a passing glance to any of these potential feasts for the reader's eye. On the other hand, sounds seem to get more than their usual share of emphasis: there are (perhaps fortunately) no eighteen-line descriptions of particular noises, but the raw number of sound-words and brief descriptions of sonic phenomena will be quite striking to the reader with pricked ears. Thus the bishop's initial actions leading up to the reanimation of the mysterious corpse are described in a series of words of singing, saying, and asking, ending with a rather unexplained sigh (line 189). We are told much about the noise of the populace (e.g. line no) and told again when they finally pipe down (lines 217-20). And the lamented himself, of course, produces a remarkable amount of sonic disturbance for one so long dead. Not only his speech is recorded, but also his sighs (lines 189, 305), his 'drery dreme' on beginning to speak (line 191), and his moaning and groaning at the dolorous part of his tale (lines 28 if).When we add to this remarkable contrast the further detail that the only set of objects given close visual attention is derided as 'vainglorious' and suddenly obliterated at the poem's end, we may begin to suspect that there is something substantive behind the poem's treatment of sight and sound. Following the question closely will lead us, rather unexpectedly, to adjust what has become the standard theological reading of the poem, in the direction of questions of suffering, justice, and human and divine power. Caveat lector, the two themes, the opposition of sight to sound and the theological reading, are not entirely easy to disentangle. It is to be hoped that a certain oscillation between the two in what follows will prove illuminating to both rather than befuddling to all.Sight and sound: the poem's first halfSt Erkenwald may require a certain amount of introduction. Written in alliterative verse in a north-west Midlands dialect within about two decades of the turn of the fourteenth century, the poem is known to exist in only a single manuscript, British Library, Harley MS 2250, the relevant part of which dates from around 1477. It is occasionally suggested, on the basis of dialect, style, phrasing, and theme, that it may be the work of the same one author supposed to have composed the four more famous alliterative poems of BL, Cotton MS Nero A.X.: Pearl, Gawain and the Green Knight, Cleanness, and Patience. In that company, and the company of most late medieval narrative poetry, it is a short work, recounting in its 352 lines a single brief episode from the life of the titular saint. What we know of him historically comes from Bede and other prose writers, who relate that Erkenwald was the fourth bishop of London, occupying the see from roughly 675 until his death around 690. …

Nationalized Judaism and Diasporic Existence. Jakob Klatzkin and Hans Jonas

This article characterizes the modern Jewish debate around Zionism as a profound political theological controversy by juxtaposing the works of two significant twentieth-century Jewish scholars, Jakob Klatzkin (1882–1948) and Hans Jonas (1903–1993). While Klatzkin campaigned for Zionism as Gnosticism, Jonas critically challenged this link in his writings from the 1950s and 1960s. In presenting a theological reading of modern Jewish secular thought, the article transcends the political controversy between Zionists and Post-Zionists of the recent decades and proposes a new horizon in the study of Jewish modern-secular thought.

A Theological Reading of The Man Who Was Thursday

A Theological Reading of The Man Who Was Thursday

The Vast and Terrible Drama: American Literary Naturalism in the Late Nineteenth Century by Eric Carl Link

MLR, 103.3, 2oo8 833 and sexual ambivalence at the heart of the text; inChapter 6 historical, literary,and theological readings ofRobert Louis Stevenson's novella The Ebb-Tide (I894) high light a concern about degeneration within the imperial space; and inChapter 7 an examination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writing, both fictional and non-fictional, reveals theways inwhich he anticipates aspects ofNational Socialism's racial politics. Ebbatson's project is,however, primarily concerned notwith highlighting the the matic similarities that can be drawn fromVictorian literary texts but with 'showing up the internal fissures and contradictions' (p. 4) within them. To this end he has selected texts foranalysis not on the basis of presenting the readerwith a historical survey of theVictorian period but inhis belief that theyare 'peculiarly pervaded' by 'gaps and interstices' (p. 2). His methodology consists of a removal of these texts from theirhistorical context-though this removal isnot absolute in the case ofChapters I and 2-and an application ofGerman cultural theory: he focuses on, among others, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Martin Hei degger. Some theorists receivemore attention than others, and given the titleof the book itshould come as no surprise to learn thatHeidegger isprominent throughout (although it should be pointed out that the title also refers to aminor character in a Sherlock Holmes short story,a point expanded on inChapter 7). The consequence of this is thatEbbatson makes demands on the reader that are strenuous: as John Schad, the series editor, remarks in his foreword, 'Ebbatson's school of criticism is the school of hard knocks' (p. vii). This makes itunlikely thatHeidegger's Bicycle will be suitable forwidespread undergraduate use. Nevertheless, the reader who is prepared to tackleEbbatson's project is likely to be rewarded by his close attention to textual detail and by his innovative and thought-provoking approach to the analysis of late nineteenth-century literature. UNIVERSITY OF EXETER LAURADANIELS The Vast and Terrible Drama: American Literary Naturalism in theLate Nineteenth Century. By ERIC CARL LINK. Tuscaloosa: University ofAlabama Press. 2004. x+ i67 PP. ?23. ISBN 978-O-8I73-I385-2. Eric Carl Link's book distinguishes itselffromprevious accounts ofAmerican literary naturalism by exploring the relationship of itsparticipants with itsdialogical social, political, and economic context. Link's objective is tochart theways inwhich Ameri can literarynaturalism has come tobe defined via contextual debates inperiodicals, so as toproblematize reductive accounts of thegenre's narrative techniques and promote its evident relevance for contemporary theoretical applications; his method would seem tobe of particular interest to new historicist and cultural materialist critics. InChapter iLink's efforttodialogize the analytical criteria of theAmerican natu ralistgenre begins by undermining Zola's critical omnipotence fordefining thegenre in terms 'generally dire in outlook, deterministic in philosophy, and aesthetically aligned with literary realism' (p. 3). By tracing the contribution of lesser commen tators onInaturalism from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, engaged in debate on the genre inperiodicals-such as Leopold Alas, forexample-today's li terary criticswould be able to see beyond this limiting definition and its associated stiflingmethodological applications; naturalism would provoke 'awhole range of intellectual responses' (p. 4). Chapter 2 collapses the realistic novel/romance binary that Link argues under mines literarynaturalism's complex history. Providing an overview of definitions of the genre throughout the nineteenth century, fromHawthorne to James, Link sug gests that thehistory of the genre hybridizes it.The aesthetic theories and narrative 834 Reviews methods of the most recognized authors of thenaturalistic genre-Frank Norris, Jack London, Stephen Crane, and Theodore Dreiser-incorporate, forLink, both roman tic and naturalistic elements.With respect toDreiser, claims Link, 'we discover that works such as Sister Carrie and The Financier implement a romantic symbolism that seeks to embody and reveal the abstract, hidden forces innature in a way more reminiscent of the romantics than the realists' (p. 62). InChapter 3Link stresses the importance of recognizing common ground between utopian fictionand naturalistic texts.He offers,forexample, a revision of the relation ship between historical context and literary text as itconcerns thisgenre, dialogizing accounts of the influence of evolutionary theory in redefining naturalism. For Link, both the darkerMalthusian current and the utopian evolutionary theory of Spencer contribute to a...