Understanding Of Jesus Research Articles

The Miracles of an Eschatological Prophet

While it has not been a central aspect of his work on the historical Jesus, E.P. Sanders has contributed to the understanding of Jesus’ miracles. In Jesus and Judaism, Sanders argued that Jesus was an eschatological prophet and maintains that he certainly healed people in ways that his contemporaries regarded as miraculous, but that his miracles were not signs of the end, and cannot be used to determine what type of figure he was. The fuller treatment of miracles in the later The Historical Figure of Jesus emphasizes the exorcisms and dismisses the nature miracles as having made minimal impact, leading Sanders to conclude that Jesus’ miracles were not as spectacular as the Gospels suggest, and that they probably led his contemporaries to view Jesus as a holy man like Honi the Circle-Drawer, although Jesus himself probably understood his miracles as signs of the imminent arrival of the new age, and his disciples may have come to see them as a defeat of evil powers and as a legitimation of Jesus’ claims. After summarizing Sanders’s arguments this article goes on to suggest how some of their foundations may be secured while also suggesting that the case for associating Jesus’ miracles with his role as an eschatological prophet may be stronger than Sanders allowed. It then concludes by indicating how Sanders’s account of the role of Jesus’ miracles might be further rounded out first by exploring their possible symbolism (as Sanders does with the Temple incident) and second through various social-scientific approaches.

Book Review: Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption

Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption. By Gregory Vail. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2013. xiv + 401 pp. $69.95 (cloth).Gregory Vail introduces Learning Christ as theological exploration of the economy of redemption, based on a historically informed exegesis of Ignatius's letters (p. 1). Vail argues that Ignatius's theology is cohesive, penetrating, and even somewhat comprehensive, despite the occasional nature of his letters. He examines Ignatius's theology through an approach he refers to as a hermeneutic of understanding and empathy (p. 6). He argues that understanding comes through conversation in which the interlocutor genuinely seeks truth rather than the acceptance of his or her own ideas. After this introduction, Vail turns in chapter 1 to what he understands to be the foundation for interpreting Ignatius's letters, namely, the redemptive economy which Ignatius explicates through creative allusions to Pauline, Matthean, and Johannine writings. This position contrasts with much contemporary Ignatian scholarship, which is summarized in chapter 2. Vail is aware that some of what he sees following from an empathetic reading may be understood as maximalist by others, but he acutely applies his methodology without being simplistic.The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 examine three aspects of the redemptive economy which Ignatius outlines in terms of unity. First Vail explores the unity of Jesus and the Father by looking at Ignatius's Christology, pneumatology, and incipient Trinitarian theology. Then he turns to Ignatius's understanding of humanity by looking at the unity of flesh and spirit. In chapter 5 Vail looks at the unity of faith and love within Ignatius's writings. Although Ignatius's conception of faith has been read as a deviation from the Pauline conception, Vail argues that Ignatius does not abandon Pauline faith, but understands faith to include a teleological orientation which must be lived through love.In part two, chapters 6 through 10, Vail examines Ignatius's understanding of several aspects of redemption as they occur in history. He first explores how Ignatius understands the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and helpfully situates Ignatius's letters among other secondcentury texts to show that Ignatius is more theologically nuanced than is often recognized, and then looks at the interplay between word and silence. Vail argues that Ignatius articulates his incipient Trinitarian theology through this paradox and teaches bishops to follow Jesus by teaching through action. Vail next explores Ignatius's understanding of Jesus' baptism as a hinge that links the incarnation and passion in Jesus' life as well as the church's sacramental practice. …

Pacifist Jesus?: The (Mis)Translation of ἐᾶτε ἕως τούτου in Luke 22:51

Jesus’s refusal to be defended by the sword at his arrest plays a significant role in popular and scholarly understandings of Jesus as a committed pacifist. Of the four NT accounts, the Gospel of Luke offers Jesus’s most forceful and unequivocal rebuke: “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51 NRSV), translating ἐᾶτe ἕως τούτου. Such a translation, however, is tendentious and misleading, seemingly the result of a twentieth-century translational bias that has exerted enormous influence on subsequent biblical translation and interpretation. An analysis of Luke’s lexical usage, grammar, and context rather suggests that, instead of rebuking his disciples, Jesus is reminding them of the divine plan to which Jesus must not only submit, but which he must actively carry out. In Luke’s narrative framework, Satan has received permission to sift the disciples in the present hour of darkness, and the disciples must not interfere with the divine permissio . This apocalyptic reading allows the words ἐᾶτe ἕως τούτου their more natural force: “permit until this,” or, more pointedly, “allow the arrest to continue.” The subsequent healing of the high priest’s slave guarantees the continuation of the plan and expresses Jesus’s control over the situation more than his presumed compassion or love. The implications for Christian ethics are considerable: Jesus may have been a “pacifist” but not in the way one might think.

'Very' Self-Conscious Jesus

Beside his scholarly contributions to understanding Jesus, early Christian discourses and Jewish law, James Crossley has developed an influential toolkit for critical reflection on the unavoidable ideological embededness of scholarshp on Jesus. Most recently he has exposed the deep permeation of historical studies of Jesus with the neoliberal discourse in which scholars and their institutions operate. Crossley provides a compelling mirror for his readers, but cannot entirely guide us as to why we choose to look and what we hope and fear to see there.

Jesus' Prophethood and Islam: Insights from the Risale‐i Nur

AbstractWhile Jesus’ prophethood is an indisputable component of his identity in the Christian tradition, it has been marginalized for centuries in favor of his identity as savior. In this article, I argue that an engagement with an understanding of Jesus’ prophethood in Islam, particularly as explicated by the Turkish thinker Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, can help Christians recover a more robust interpretation of Jesus as prophet that has a positive impact on a Christian articulation of the church and of discipleship today.

The Varieties of Pity

The Varieties of Pity David Konstan If the quarrel over whether emotions are innate and universal or culturally constructed and subject to historical change has now been superseded, it is in large part thanks to meticulous investigations into how specific emotions are construed in different social contexts. Françoise Mirguet’s study of ἔλεος in two Hellenistic Jewish texts is a model of what can be achieved in this regard. Human beings everywhere are capable of responding emotionally to the suffering of others—in this respect we may speak of a common or fundamental human sentiment, though it is not usually included in modern inventories of basic emotions—but such feelings are shaped by social life and beliefs and may assume quite varied forms. Sometimes such differences are reflected in distinctions of vocabulary. For example, in the semantic sphere that we may loosely define as sorrow for a past action, modern English distinguishes between regret, remorse, and repentance, whereas in classical Greek or Latin all these senses, as well as a simple change of mind, may be expressed by the single term μετάνοια or paenitentia. The difference in terminology is significant and reflects a particular conjunction of moral and religious ideas, but this is not to say that the Greeks and Romans were incapable of making the relevant discriminations: just what μετάνοια or paenitentia may connote depends on the wider context, and philological rigor is required to determine whether, for example, the words acquired radically new meanings over the course of time or under the pressure of Jewish and Christian conceptions (which may themselves have evolved historically). The question has an important bearing on our understanding of Jesus’ mission in the NT, for in recent translations of the Bible, μετάνοια is sometimes rendered as “conversion” (that is, a change of heart) rather than as “repentance.” To take just a few examples, whereas the Spanish Nueva Versión Internacional renders Luke 3:3 as “Juan recorría toda la región del Jordán predicando el bautismo de arrepentimiento para el perdón de pecados,” and La Biblia de las Américas offers “él fue por toda la región contigua al Jordán, predicando un bautismo de arrepentimiento para el perdón de los pecados,” the La Palabra version reads, “Comenzó Juan a [End Page 869] recorrer las tierras ribereñas del Jordán proclamando un bautismo como signo de conversión para recibir el perdón de los pecados,” and the Traducción en Lenguaje Actual gives “Juan fue entonces a la región cercana al río Jordán. Allí le decía a la gente: ‘¡Bautícense y vuélvanse a Dios! Sólo así Dios los perdonará.’ ” The Italian Nuova Riveduta 2006 opts for “repentance”: “Ed egli andò per tutta la regione intorno al Giordano, predicando un battesimo di ravvedimento per il perdono dei peccati”; however, the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana version gives “Ed egli percorse tutta la regione del Giordano, predicando un battesimo di conversione per il perdono dei peccati.” Luther rendered the verses as “Und er kam in alle Gegend um den Jordan und predigte die Taufe der Buße zur Vergebung Sünden,” that is, “penance”, but the Gute Nachricht Bibel has “Da machte er sich auf, durchzog die ganze Gegend am Jordan und verkündete: ‘Kehrt um und lasst euch taufen, denn Gott will euch eure Schuld vergeben!’” In Lothar Coenen and Klaus Haacker’s Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1967), there is a joint entry under the lemma “Busse/Bekehrung,” as also in Xavier LéonDuFour’s Wörterbuch zur biblischen Botschaft (Freiburg: Herder, 1967) (“BusseBekehrung”), which only highlights the nature of the problem. When it comes to our responses to the misfortunes of others, English today distinguishes between pity, sympathy, and empathy. There is also the related notion of mercy, which shades over into the ideas of clemency and pardon, or even forgiveness, terms that imply sensitivity to another person’s condition but place the emphasis more on leniency in response to an offense rather than to adversity per se. There is no ancient Greek or Latin word that quite corresponds to “mercy”: the term that is commonly rendered as such in translations...

Resisting Honor: The Markan Secrecy Motif and Roman Political Ideology

This article builds on the work of David F. Watson, who has recently argued that major features of Mark's so-called messianic secret should not be understood in terms of “secrecy” at all, but rather should be understood in terms of intentional resistance to honor. While I agree with Watson's evaluation of the “secrecy motif ” (as intentional resistance to honor), I find Watson's claim that the Markan evangelist inverts standard honor/shame conventions to be unsatisfactory. The article explores alternative explanations for the Markan Jesus' resistance to honor and proposes that a possible explanation might be found in Roman political ideology. While examples of resisting achieved and proscribed honor are few and far between in the ancient Mediterranean world, they are frequently found in the lives of first-century Roman emperors, particular emperors who were remembered favorably. I propose that this Roman political background might be a useful way forward in understanding Jesus' resistance to honor in Mark's Gospel. To support this argument, three spheres of evidence are considered: (1) the clear presentation in Mark's Gospel of Jesus as a world ruler; (2) the strong possibility of a Roman provenance for Mark; and (3) numerous features in Mark's Gospel suggesting that it is challenging Roman imperial power.

Resisting Honor: The Markan Secrecy Motif and Roman Political Ideology

This article builds on the work of David F. Watson, who has recently argued that major features of Mark's so-called messianic secret should not be understood in terms of at all, but rather should be understood in terms of intentional resistance to honor. While I agree with Watsons evaluation of the (as intentional resistance to honor), I find Watsons claim that the Markan evangelist inverts standard honor/shame conventions to be unsatisfactory. The article explores alternative explanations for the Markan Jesus' resistance to honor and proposes that a possible explanation might be found in Roman political ideology. While examples of resisting achieved and proscribed honor are few and far between in the ancient Mediterranean world, they are frequently found in the lives of first-century Roman emperors, particular emperors who were remembered favorably. I propose that this Roman political background might be a useful way forward in understanding Jesus' resistance to honor in Mark's Gospel. To support this argument, three spheres of evidence are considered: (1) the clear presentation in Mark's Gospel of Jesus as a world ruler; (2) the strong possibility of a Roman provenance for Mark; and (3) numerous features in Mark's Gospel suggesting that it is challenging Roman imperial power.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)Just over a century ago, William Wrede left an indelible mark on the field of NT studies when he demonstrated the presence of a distinct secrecy motif in Mark's Gospel. Yet a century of scholarship has not produced a consensus regarding the motif's meaning and significance. In his recent monograph, Honor among Christians: The Cultural Key to the Messianic Secret, David F. Watson has taken a decisive step forward, a step I attempt to build on here.1 While Watson rightfully reads the text in light of the first-century honor/shame value system, I believe his reading only partially resolves the conundrum of Mark's secrecy motif. This article complements Watson's work by adding a political dimension to his insights. In particular, Jesus' actions will be viewed through the lens of Roman political ideology and will be compared to the actions of Roman emperors. The results will be combined with Watson's insights on the Markan secrecy motif in an attempt to explain the motif's significance for Mark's first-century readers.I. David F. Watson: Honor or Secrecy?Watson uses the tools of social-scientific criticism to explore the meaning of secrecy in the ancient Mediterranean world as well as in the Markan pericopes that are so often associated with secrecy in modern scholarship. Regarding the former, he argues that the language and function of secrecy are virtually absent in Mark's Gospel. Words closely associated with secrecy (particularly in religious texts) such as ... and (... are rare or absent in Mark.2 In fact, Watson demonstrates that in the whole of Mark's Gospel, the language of secrecy occurs only four times, three of which come in two verses of ch. 4. Watson demonstrates that secrecy functioned in three primary ways in the ancient world: to protect from danger, to preserve community boundaries, and to defend an individual's or a group's reputation. According to Watson, none of these prominent functions of secrecy stands out in Mark's Gospel. Ultimately, Watson concludes that what is often described as a motif in Mark is misleading and that the intended readers of the Gospel would not have understood the pericopes that form such a motif in terms of secrecy.But if Mark's readers would not understand these pericopes in terms of secrecy how would they understand them? Watson proposes that these pericopes must be understood in light of the honor/shame value system that dominated the ancient Mediterranean world.3 He first considers pericopes in which Jesus performs a healing and commands the recipient not to report or speak of the healing (Mark 1:40-45; 5:21-24, 35-43; 7:31-37; 8:22-26). …

Moses' End and the Succession: Deuteronomy 31 and 2 Corinthians 3

This essay argues that Deut 29–32, especially Deut 31, plays a significant role in 2 Cor 3, especially vv. 7–18: Paul's elusive allegorical narrative draws on Deuteronomic motifs of ‘closure’ (the end of Moses, of the law and of the Israelites); the national observance of reading the law and encountering the Lord face to face; and the succession of Moses by one named Ἰησοῦς in the LXX. This analysis extends scholarly discussion of Paul's use of Deuteronomy and contributes to the wider debate about Paul's use of scripture and his understanding of Jesus' relationship to Moses and the Mosaic covenant.

Narativita a teologie u Marka a Lukáše

The article attempts to compare the relationship between narrativity and theology in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Three pericopes are studied in order to achieve the goal. Two of them are to be found both in the Gospel of Mark (2:13-17; 10:46-52) and in the Gospel of Luke (5:27-32; 18:35-43) while the third is only in the Gospel of Luke (19:1-10). From the Lukan texts it is obvious that the author of this Gospel seeks to present narratives of a high quality, without any roughness or unevenness. This quality serves the theological message of the Gospel as well. The narratives should help the readers reach a better understanding of Jesus and recognize and accept his demands on those who are willing to follow him. In contrast, the author of the Gospel of Mark is primarily interested in informing his readers who Jesus is and what His Gospel means, without much concern about the smoothness of the narratives.

Lense op spiritualiteit en kerkwees: Die pad vorentoe vir die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (NHKA)

Lenses on spirituality and being church; the road ahead for the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA). At this point of time the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA) is facing the seemingly unsolvable dilemma of not being able to handle diversity in a positive manner. By applying three lenses to the current impasse with regards to the church’s struggle with diversity, this article aims at providing an answer to the question of how to proceed. The first lens addresses the challenge to maintain spiritual health and harmony in the midst of differences and tension in the church. The theory behind systems sensitive leadership as lens serves as the guideline to achieve the necessary spiritual health that the church needs in such challenging times. The second lens explores the inner Christian spiritual path in a both developmental and comprehensive way. Drawing on the work of Paul Smith this lens sets forth the developmental framework by which Christians grow inwardly in their understanding of Jesus and his teachings. The third lens is a view on a practice whereby the validity of intellectual positions, statements, or ideologies could be appraised as an innate quality in any subject. This lens opens a unique perspective which provides not only a new understanding of humanity’s journey in the universe, but also serves as a guide to were we and the whole cosmos are on our personal journeys to become who we could be. The vision that is provided by these three lenses has the capacity not only to serve as guidelines, but also to provide the tools to handle the challenges the church has to face on the road a head.

U.S. war-culture, sacrifice, and salvation

U.S. War-culture, Sacrifice and Salvation by Kelly Denton-Borhaug. Equinox Publishing, 2011. Paper, viii + 279 pages, $29.95. ISBN: 9781845537111Many peace educators have struggled with pervasiveness of war and violence in this world. Too often it seems that, in popular consciousness, unchallenged assumption is that this pervasiveness translates into a situation where violence becomes a necessary and natural means to fight fire with fire. According to biblical theologian, Walter Wink, this response is underlain by a false belief in of redemptive violence, briefly that violence can save and bring about peace. In present volume, Kelly Denton-Borhaug convincingly shows that U.S. war culture is buttressed by this belief. In particular, she draws our attention to how a discourse of necessity of sacrifice, both in terms of military service and ways of understanding Jesus' death on cross, reinforce each other in U.S. context, monopolistically serving to quell dissenting and alternative positions.In forming her argument, Denton-Borhaug provides many examples that show how militarism is connected not only to industry in United States, but also to film, video gaming, education, and other aspects of culture. She also cites predominance of a penal substitution model of atonement in popular Christianity. Namely, this model is centered on view that to open a path for salvation, Jesus needed to die for us in order to pay a debt (or serve penalty) that was required as a matter of justice because of human sin. Here, Denton-Borhaug makes link with way soldiers' deaths have been explained throughout U.S. history as a necessary sacrifice, in order to protect freedom at home (in particular) and abroad. Not only are war and death of U.S. soldiers required outcomes within this framing but deaths of enemy combatants and civilians in theatre of combat also become necessary. The absence of loved ones serving or dying abroad is also often represented within language of necessary sacrifice. Additionally, massive military budgets are justified in similar terms, even as social programming is cut or ill-funded in favor of the needs national security.The end result of these intersections, perhaps not surprisingly, given an all-volunteer army, is that it is those on margins of U.S. society who most often pay highest cost of military culture. Bearing brunt of an unequally shared sacrifice are representatives of lowest socio-economic groups who are disproportionately represented in terms of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq even as those same groups are squeezed by lack of a wider social safety net at home. At same time, military contractors grow wealthy and those who directly choose to send troops into war remain aloof from immediate dangers of armed conflict. Lest some might be tempted to think that rhetoric and effects of myth of sacrifice are problems particular to one side on political divide in United States, Denton-Borhaug cites both Republican and Democratic use of sacrificial language when praising dead soldiers' valor, justifying necessity of particular wars, and acknowledging sacrifice of loved ones via images of homes with empty chairs at dinner table. …

누가의 ‘예수의 죽음’ 이해(눅 23:44-49)

The aim of this study is to examine Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ death which has been described in Luke 23:44-49. For this purpose, we have conducted examinations utilizing the approach of intertextuality between Luke 23:44-49 and the Peter"s Pentecost speech in Acts 2:14-41.<BR> Findings from this study are as follows.<BR> In Luke 23:44-49, Jesus has been portrayed as the obedient son of God doing His will. This theme has been expressed by the last word of Jesus on the cross (Luke 23:46; Ps. 30:6 quotation), exposing Jesus’ complete trust in God. Through the lips of Peter, Luke says that Jesus" death was ‘the plan of God’(Acts 2:23), and proclaims that the promise of God about the resurrection of Jesus has been fulfilled (Acts 2:24-28). In Luke, the death of Jesus was on the way to the eschatological ‘last days’(Luke 23:44-45), and the ‘last days’ have been inaugurated by the Jesus’ pouring out of the Spirit upon the disciples on the Pentecost(Acts 2:17-21; Joel 2:28-32 LXX quotation). Furthermore, Luke declares that Jesus was not only the ‘innocent’ but also the ‘righteous’ one(23:47). This notion is supported by Psalm 15 LXX(Acts 2:25-28 quotation) in which it is implied that according to the late Jewish thought about life after death: the righteous one does not go down to ‘sheol’ but ascends directly to the paradise in heaven. The reference of Luke about the people’s guilty feeling about Jesus’ death in Peter"s speech(Acts 2:37), appears similarly in the death of Jesus(Luke 23:48).<BR> Luke 23:44-49 and Acts 2:14-41 are the hermeneutical keys for each other and illustrate the dynamics of the texts. Luke saw Jesus on the cross, who had been faithful to God and who entrusted himself to God until the last moment. On the basis of this understanding, Luke depicted the death of Jesus through a sophisticated literary work.

From 'God' ( EO ) to 'God' (NO TE): A New Discussion and Proposal Regarding John 1:1C and the Sahidic Coptic Version of the New Testament

Due to the antiquity of the Sahidic Coptic version of the New Testament among early versions of the New Testament, it is a significant resource for New Testament textual criticism, reception history, and the history of interpretation. This article explores the manner in which the Sahidic Coptic version translates the anarthrous nominative singular (AnNS) qe0, and its effect on a key passage regarding the understanding of Jesus’ divinity. It does so by answering two distinct but related questions: (1) Did the Sahidic Coptic translators uniformly translate the AnNS qe0? (2) How can the assessment of the Sahidic Coptic translation pattern inform the discussion of the history, transcription, and translation of

Bonhoeffer and Arendt at One Hundred

This article compares Arendt and Bonhoeffer on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of their births. The paper presents an unusual depiction of Arendt's work, namely, its religious dimension and interests. The thought of the two intersects in three general areas. First, both embrace a fundamental worldliness that affirms the worth of life in the world and the faith that responds to it. Secondly, both recognize history as a territory of sin and evil and both claim the importance of acknowledging such sin and evil in a life of worldly action. Indeed, such recognition may be the key to successful political activism today. Thirdly, both thinkers develop precise, personal understandings of Jesus as a worldly presence. Indeed, an effective political struggle, especially in a society like the United States, may be unable to avoid delineating an image of and attitude to Jesus.

Begjærets kristologi, begjærets frigjøring

The article explores how an analysis of how desire in human life may prove a fruitful approach to develop a contemporary Christology, i.e., an actual and relevant interpretation of the work and ministry of Jesus Christ. Taking its point of departure in desire as a pre-subjective and relational element in human life, it develops its importance in the life of Jesus, interpreting his ministry as shaped by a desire for the kingdom of God, understood as an open and lifegiving community. By understanding Jesus’ desire for the Kingdom as an open and opening desire, it also becomes possible to see the opposition against him and his death as a result of a closed and closingdesire, that strives for control and negates the community he desired. Moreover, by analyzing how desire is at play also in different encounters between Jesus and others, the article displays ways of reading his life and work from the angle of desire in a way that allows for developing a close connection between his ministry and his death. This proves an important supplementary approach to a Christology that focuses more exclusively only on theological notions like sin and redemption.

Czy Piłat był zainteresowany tym, "co to jest prawda?"

As the point of departure for my analysis in this article, I propose Polish sentences (1a) A coz jest prawda? (1b) Co jest prawda? (1c) Coz jest prawda? (1d) Coz to jest prawda? . All of them are translation Greek phrase T… ™stin ¢l»qeia (Pilate’s question in John 18,38). In order to understand the semantic relationships between their elements, and according to original sentence, it is necessary to consider the meaning of the particles -z and a . The Polish emphatic modificator -z in such contexts as above influences the semantics of wh- questions: it demands a definite context; changes, or only modifies, the intonational contour of sentences – when it is used, the tempo of the utterance is slower than without it, and sharpening of the tone is moving from the pronoun to the right part of the question; it weakens the settling of truth datī quastionis , which sometimes (in connection with utterance intonation) causes the blockade of an answer position. In particular situations such sentences as (1d) can express contempt (or similar emotions) for the object of questioning. Next, the initial operator a is homonymic to the conjunction a , it joins an additional information or expresses the relation of excluding. It can announce a reply in a dialogue, join references to the definite context, and sometimes a request for expanding or explaining any fact or state of things. Also a can be an indicator of oppositional rights. In my opinion Pilate – truly involved in understanding Jesus’s rights – asks about the meaning of truth, which is indicated in John’s metalanguage phrase T… ™stin _ and metalanguage use the of nominative noun ¢l»qeia, also the main noncontrastive stress falls on the rhematic pronoun, therefore we have here an authentic wh- question, not a speech act expressing Pilate’s contempt for truth. This is why the Polish sentences (1a), (1c), (1d) are – in relation to the meaning of -z and a – unfortunate. Pilate was interested in what was the truth of Jesus.

Conceptualising Fulfilment in Matthew

The question of how to understand the formula citations in the Gospel of Matthew is as important as it is disputed. This study begins by reviewing the avenues previously pursued for making sense of this collection of texts. Finding that typology is a helpful but ultimately insufficient means of making sense of Matthew’s formula citations, a diachronic, narratival typology is proposed. Rather than seeing Jesus as the one who embodies abstract or limited typological concepts, we see that his life takes the shape of Israel’s story. In assigning Israel’s role to Jesus, however, Matthew also opens up new avenues for interpreting this story. And so we find Jesus giving new substance to a narrative whose shape is given by the scriptures of Israel. This conception of narrative embodiment in Matthew holds promise not only for understanding Jesus’ relationship to the prophets but also for understanding his relationship to the law.

The origin of the resurrection idea: A dialogue with George Nickelsburg

This is a review article on George W E Nickelsburg’s book Resurrection, immortality, and eternal life in intertestamental Judaism and early Christianity. The aim of this article is to reflect on the results of Nickelsburg’s research with regard to the earliest Christians’ understanding of Jesus’ resurrection. Nickelsburg investigated the topic of the afterlife in intertestamental Judaism and early Christianity from three perspectives namely, resurrection, immortality, and eternal life. The book focuses on the origins of these perspectives and the dynamics involved in the development of theological understanding of Jesus’ resurrection in earliest Christianity. Part one of the article represents the content of Nickelsburg’s book, and part two consists of comments debating the results that Nickelsburg puts on the table.

A Response to John P. Meier's 'Did the Historical Jesus Prohibit All Oaths?'

AbstractJohn Meier's conclusion that Jesus' teaching in Mt 5:34-37 violates the Law of Moses is incompatible with the evangelist's insistence in 5:17 that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law. Jesus remains faithful to the Law by bringing it to its intended meaning, penetrating to the essence of its teaching. If the letter of the Law is violated, its spirit is upheld: the issue is not the oaths themselves, but the importance of unqualified truthfulness. This too is the meaning of the same material in Jas 5:12. The key to understanding Jesus and the Law is to be found in christological and eschatological realities associated with the person and mission of Jesus.