Empire, Postcolonial Criticism, and Biblical Studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Postcolonial Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Convergence And Divergence ◽  
The Relationship

When it comes to the relationship between the Bible and ancient empires, the focus for the most part remains on the past and on the imperial contexts in which these texts were written. It must be noted that even though historical-critical scholarship has drawn our attention to historical contexts, empires continued to remain in the background in biblical studies. This chapter focuses on the relationship between the Bible and empire, not only of the past but also the present. It examines in depth the works of biblical scholars who have made a conscious attempt to expand the field of Biblical studies. Furthermore, by highlighting the points of convergence and divergence between the Bible and precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial empires, scholars can begin to see the ways in which the relationship between the Bible and empire has constantly evolved, transformed, and mutated as scholars transgress boundaries and draw on the work of one another.

Wisdom and Wisdom Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. xxii-14
Author(s):  
Will Kynes
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter introduces the volume by arguing that the study of biblical wisdom is in the midst of a potential paradigm shift, as interpreters are beginning to reconsider the relationship between the concept of wisdom in the Bible and the category Wisdom Literature. This offers an opportunity to explore how the two have been related in the past, in the history of Jewish and Christian interpretation, how they are connected in the present, as three competing primary approaches to Wisdom study have developed, and how they could be treated in the future, as new possibilities for understanding wisdom with insight from before and beyond the development of the Wisdom Literature category are emerging.

scholarly journals Rethinking the message of the church in the 21st century: An amalgamation between science and religion

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk G. Van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Theological Training

Throughout its history, Christianity has stood in a dichotomous relation to the various philosophical movements or eras (pre-modernism, modernism, postmodernism and post-postmodernism) that took on different faces throughout history. In each period, it was the sciences that influenced, to a great extent, the interpretation and understanding of the Bible. Christianity, however, was not immune to influences, specifically those of the Western world. This essay reflects briefly on this dichotomy and the influence of Bultmann’s demythologising of the kerygma during the 20th century. Also, the remythologising (Vanhoozer) of the church’s message as proposed for the 21st century no more satisfies the critical Christian thinkers. The relationship between science and religion is revisited, albeit from a different perspective as established over the past two decades as to how the sciences have been pointed out more and more to complement theology. This article endeavours to evoke the church to consider the fundamental contributions of the sciences and how it is going to incorporate the sciences into its theological training and message to the world.

Small trenches. Archaeology and the postcolonial gaze

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Audrey Horning
Keyword(s):  
Potential Significance ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The comments of Nicholas Sarkozy provide a powerful and forceful opening to Dr Richard's article and remind us of the potential significance of academic considerations of colonial legacies in the contemporary world. Dr Richard argues strongly against static conceptualizations of pre-‘Atlantic-era’ Africa and seeks to recast Africans not as victims, but as active ‘producers of history and culture’ (p. 26). In so doing he aligns himself with current trends in critical scholarship on colonial encounters in the Atlantic worlds of the last four centuries, scholarship that overtly criticizes dichotomous understandings of such encounters in favour of approaches that emphasize ambiguity (e.g. Hall 2000; Silliman 2001; 2009; Stahl 2007). Dr Richard's introductory suggestion that we should formulate ‘new questions instead of supplying different answers to the quandaries of an earlier generation of historians’ (p. 3) is clearly applicable to studies of colonial arenas beyond West Africa. In all parts of the world touched by European colonialism (including, of course, Europe itself) the ways in which scholars approach their subjects are very much conditioned by more widely held cultural memories, whatever the relationship of those memories may be to whatever may have occurred in the past.

Sino-Christian Theology and the Bible

2021 ◽  
pp. 510-526
Author(s):  
Pan-chiu Lai
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese Journal ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Chinese Characteristics ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This essay offers an analysis of the relationship of Sino-Christian theology, a cultural qua theological movement flourishing in contemporary China, with the Bible. Based on a survey of the articles published in Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology (Dao Feng), the organ journal of Sino-Christian theology, and some other relevant publications, it argues that due to the political atmosphere, the institutional restriction, and the intellectual as well as religious orientations of the relevant scholars, Sino-Christian theology had made very limited efforts in developing biblical studies as an academic discipline in mainland China until the mid-2000s or so. Since then, the publications related to biblical studies proliferated dramatically in mainland China, and some approaches to biblical studies with certain Chinese characteristics have been developed. It is expected that some innovative approaches to the Bible as well as biblical studies will be further developed in the Chinese-speaking world.

scholarly journals Die Woord van God by Luther

1998 ◽  
Vol 54 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W.C. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Law And Gospel

Luther's understanding of the Word of God. This paper attempts to show that Martin Luther is much more than a great personality from the past. He is in fact an important theological father of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk. Our theology must be understood from the perspective of Luther's theology. A call is also made that theologians from the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk not turn their backs on Luther. This paper concentrates on Luther's understand-ing of the Word of God. It gives perspectives on historical developments in Luther's theology. It also disCusses the following themes: the Bible as the Word of God, the relationship between Old and New Testament, the relationship between law and gospel, the position of the pope and the role of experience in understanding the Word of God.

Recent Contributions to the Study of the Reception of the Bible and Their Implications for Biblical Studies in Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 329-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Stenschke
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Introductory Section ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Detailed Presentation

This article surveys a number of recent studies on the reception of biblical material in the Bible itself or in later works and periods. It endeavours to present studies that are representative of the nature and extent of the shift in the past two decades from the Bible itself to its rich reception history. An introductory section describes how recent developments in hermeneutics have shown to what extent hermeneutics is a historical discipline. After a detailed presentation and assessment, a final section draws some conclusion for the tasks ahead for biblical studies and related disciplines in Africa.

REVISITING KARL BARTH'S EXEGESIS OF 1 KINGS 13

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 360-383
Author(s):  
David Bosworth
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Additional Support ◽  
1 Kings ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe present article seeks to re-present Karl Barth's exegesis of 1 Kings 13 with additional support that Barth neglected to include. Changes in biblical scholarship over the past few decades have resulted in an environment in which Barth's interpretation may not be as readily rejected as it was in the past. Barth's exegesis of 1 Kings 13 was not accepted among biblical scholars for several reasons. He was thought to be an enemy of historical criticism whose exegetical work was not a serious contribution to biblical studies. Furthermore, he interpreted the chapter holistically at a time when scholars were preoccupied with analytical questions concerning sources and composition. Barth related the chapter to the whole history of the divided kingdom by suggesting that the man of God and the old prophet represent the kingdoms from which they come and that the relationship between the two prophetic figures mirrors the relationship between Israel and Judah as told in Kings. This analogy seemed unlikely to scholars convinced of the fragmentary nature of Kings. The present article begins with an overview of Barth's relationship to modern biblical scholarship followed by a summary presentation of his exegesis of 1 Kings 13. Next, the major objections to Barth's interpretation are critically assessed, and recent research on the chapter is evaluated. Finally, the analogy indicated by Barth is elaborated, so that his interpretation may seem more plausible and future research may benefit from his insights.

scholarly journals Kyiv in the Global Biblical World: Reflections of KTA Professors From the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergiy Golovashchenko
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
European Experience ◽  
Potential Factor ◽  
Cultural Component ◽  
Moral Factor

The focus of this article is the global and European experience of the reception, assimilation, and social application of the Bible, reproduced in the works of a number of prominent Kyiv Theological Academy (KTA) representatives from the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The analysis specifically covers the works of professors Stefan Solskyi, Kharysym Orda, Nikolai Drozdov, Afanasii Bulgakov, Mykola Makkaveiskyi, Vasylii Pevnytskyi, Arsenii Tsarevskyi, Volodymyr Rybinskyi, Dmytro Bohdashevskyi, and Aleksandr Glagolev. The author uses the metaphor of the Biblical world to describe the historically developed spiritual and cultural component of the European world, for which the Bible played the role of a normative and symbolic core. Affiliation with the Biblical world — as a way of broad social application of the Bible and assimilation of the norms and public behaviors sanctioned by this text — was and still is a stable symbolic marker as well as a cultural and ideological factor of integration with European civilization. The historical panorama of the reception of Biblical knowledge and the inculturation of Biblical morality by Christianized nations, reproduced in the writings of Kyiv academics, is presented as a field of centuries-old intercultural contacts and active inter-confessional interaction, and as an important ideological and moral factor of the socio-political integration and development of civil society. The issues addressed by Biblical studies in Europe and the rest of the world and considerations and solutions prompted by these issues proved to be fruitful for both the academic research and public practices in which academics of the Kyiv Theological Academy were engaged. The past and modern foreign experience related to the inculturation of the Bible was interpreted by the Kyiv researchers in the local context, more specifically, in the modernization attempts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, the reflection of European and worldwide experience, though not fully implemented, was productive and was a potential factor that could have contributed to the European modernization of Kyiv cultural and religious life of the time and its integration into the global Biblical World. GOLOVASHCHENKO, Sergiy. Kyiv in the Global Biblical World: Reflections of KTA Professors From the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal, n. 5, p. 37-59, 2018. ISSN 2313-4895. Available at: . doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.18523/kmhj150384.2018-5.37-59.

scholarly journals “Twisting the glory of both halves of this time...”: on the spatio-temporal and mythological manifestation in “The Lay of Igor’s Host”

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-626
Author(s):  
Olga A. Porol
Keyword(s):  
Russian Text ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Time Path ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The article puts forward a hypothesis about the existence of the goddess of the ancient Slavs Slava in the Lay of Igors Host. Some dark places have been translated. When analyzing the work, a search for text parallels was used. Revealed and substantiated the relationship between separate Old Russian and Church Slavonic vocabulary. The semantic shades of the words mind, heart, time, path, contained in dark places are considered. An attempt was made to understand the peculiarities of the manifestation of space-time forms in the Lay of Igors Host. The coexistence of the present and the past tense in The Lay of Igors Campaign is explained by the timeless forms of being, the recognition by the ancient Russian scribe of two spaces. The duality in The Lay of Igors Host is manifested in the use of ancient pagan images, old words and epics of this time. The Church Slavonic word, dating back to the text of the Bible, contains many semantic shades, the explanation of which can reveal the depth and richness of the Old Russian text. The expressions that go back to the theme of Christianity are analyzed. At the end of the work, the emerging joyful attitude of the author of The Lay of Igors Host to the hero who destroyed his army and escaped from captivity is regarded as Christian. Willfulness and the fulfillment of Gods will are present in the character of Prince Igor, in his actions. Christian images in The Lay of Igors Host and the authors kind attitude to the defeated prince tell the reader about the new established Christian world, which, however, is in a difficult relationship with the world of former words, ancient pagan Slavic images.

Law and Narrative

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-232
Author(s):  
Assnat Bartor
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Research Domains ◽  
Common Combination

The relationship between law and narrative in the Bible is a wide topic that touches on various research domains concerning ancient Near Eastern literature in general and the Bible in particular. It deals with the common combination between literary genres, with the unique model of the Pentateuch and its rhetorical, historiographical, national, and theological roles. It also relates to the intensive presence throughout biblical literature of legal issues as well as tendentious references to the laws of the Pentateuch and enables an acquaintance with the poetics of biblical laws. The “Law and Literature” school, one of the most influential contemporary schools in the study of the law, together with the framework of biblical studies and of biblical law, constitutes a methodological framework for a narrative reading of the pentateuchal laws and for the examination of the variety of connections existing between biblical law and biblical narrative.

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