Cautious about Conatives

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-321
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Malone
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Worked Examples ◽  
As If

Abstract It has long been recognized that the imperfect and present tenses can communicate a conative sense. The category is sufficiently established that New Testament commentaries can brusquely identify “a conative imperfect” or “imperfectum de conatu” as if (1) the terminology conveys a uniform meaning and (2) such meaning is established by the verb’s tense. A fresh inspection of the phenomenon suggests neither assumption is accurate. With worked examples we can observe that at least two competing nuances are understood by the label “conative” and that the verb’s tense is far from the determinative factor. Whether in generating claims about the conative sense or in digesting others’ analyses, interpreters need to be alert to the pitfalls associated with this category.

scholarly journals Proposing Some New Ecliptics in New Testament Studies Enabled by Digital Humanities-Based Methods

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-135
Author(s):  
James A. Libby
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Worked Examples ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Face Validity ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Greek New Testament

“Fragmentation” is a well-worn watchword in contemporary biblical studies. But is endless fragmentation across the traditional domains of epistemology, methodology and hermeneutics the inevitable future for the postmodern exercise of biblical scholarship? In our view, multiple factors mitigate against such a future, but two command our attention here. First, digital humanities itself, through its principled use of corpora, databases and computer-based methods, seems to be remarkably capable of producing findings with high levels of face validity (interpretive agreement) across multiple hermeneutical perspectives and communities. Second, and perhaps more subversively, there is a substantial body of practitioners that, per Kearney, actively question postmodernity’s impress as the final port of call for philosophy. For these practitioners deconstruction has become both indispensable — by delegitimizing hegemonies — but, in its own way, metanarratival by stultifying all other iterative, dialectical and critical processes that have historically motivated scholarship. Sensing this impasse, Kearney (1987, pp. 43-45) proposes a reimagining that is not only critical but that also embraces ποίησις, the possibility of optimistic, creative work. Such a stance within digital humanities would affirm that poietic events emerge not only through frictions and fragmentation (e.g. Kinder and McPherson 2014, pp. xiii-xviii) but also through commonalties and convergence. Our approach here will be to demonstrate such a reimagining, rather than to argue for it, using two worked examples in the Greek New Testament (GNT). Those examples – digital humanities-enabled papyrology and digital humanities-enabled statistical linguistics – demonstrate ways in which the data of the text itself can be used to interrogate our perspectives and suggest that our perspectives must remain ever open to such inquiries. We conclude with a call for digital humanities to further leverage its notable strengths to cast new light on old problems not only in biblical studies, but across the spectrum of the humanities.

The “Sic et Non” of Stephanus Gobarus

1923 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-234
Author(s):  
Adolf von Harnack
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
History Of Doctrine ◽  
As If

In the older, as well as in the current, books on church history, and at some points in New Testament introduction, patristics, and the history of doctrine, a certain work is referred to under the name of “Stephanus Gobarus.” The problems arising out of the quotations from this book are of great interest; but we are given virtually no information about the author beyond his name, and the book itself remains a complete mystery. Only the industry of Walch, in Part VIII of his “Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Ketzereien” (1778, pp. 877 ff.) has analyzed it, or, rather, made unsatisfactory and incorrect extracts from it, to which he has added a few observations of his own. With this exception, it seems as if ever since the tenth century scholars had entered into a conspiracy to maintain complete silence about this work, or at least to content themselves with a few scanty remarks.In the following pages I shall endeavor to come closer to the work and its author. I do not undertake to give a commentary, for that would require a book; but shall confine myself to the main points, going into detail only with reference to passages that relate to the literature of the first three centuries.

On Reading Others' Letters

1986 ◽  
Vol 79 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Lars Hartman
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
As If

“My mother taught me that reading others' letters isn't nice.” Those, or something like them, were the words of Krister Stendahl when he once tried to open the eyes of his audience to some of the hermeneutical problems which pertain to the fact that Christians read Paul's letters as if they were addressed to themselves rather than to their original recipients. The following reflections deal with these problems, and they are meant as a humble tribute to my first teacher in New Testament exegesis. I begin by recalling a few facts that are intriguing once one puts them together. This will lead me to the suggestion that, when he wrote his letters, Paul had a wider usage in mind than we usually assume. Against such a background I shall discuss, in a rather unsophisticated way, some conditions that may apply to a rereading of the Pauline letters and some possible consequences for so-called historical exegesis.

scholarly journals Eros and Agape – a Critique of Anders Nygren

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Torstein Theodor Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
New Religion ◽  
As If

Nygren’s book Eros och Agape was first published in Sweden in 1930/36. It was then published in English translation in 1953 under the title Agape and Eros. The author’s idea was to describe the development of the Christian concept of love through the centuries. Nygren argued that eros is the term for Platonic, self-centred love that strives for union with the divine realities, while agape, denoting the Christian concept of love, is the free, divine movement towards human beings. Agape is unselfish and is not motivated by any value in the recipient. This distinction drawn by Nygren has been so influential that it has been taken for granted in a lot of Christian contexts worldwide, even if one does not associate it with the name Nygren. In this paper his methodology and the distinction he draws are criticised. He finds in eros and agape two so-called “fundamental motifs” that, as he sees it, unfortunately merge in Christian tradition and thereby obscure the original Christian understanding of love that emerges in its purest form in St Paul and later in Luther. There are a lot of problems in Nygren’s book. He argues, for instance, that Christianity emerges from Judaism as a completely new religion, and separates the Old and the New Testament as if they had nothing in common. Agape as the divine gift to human beings excludes all human activity since God has freely and graciously chosen human persons as his slaves. In the present paper it is argued that Nygren’s methodology is unsound and that his conclusions are not even in agreement with the New Testament.

MURDER AND THE DEATH OF CHRIST

Think ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (26) ◽  
pp. 103-107
Author(s):  
N.M.L. Nathan
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
As If ◽  
Human Hands

Some people believe that God made it a condition for His forgiveness even of repentant sinners that Jesus died a sacrificial death at human hands. Often, in the New Testament, this doctrine of Objective Atonement seems to be implied, as when Jesus spoke of his blood as ‘shed for many for the remission of sins’ (Matth. 26:28), or when St Paul said that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (1 Cor. 3:15). And for many centuries the doctrine was indeed accepted by most if not all Christian theologians. It seems in fact to be an essential part of Christianity, which adherents of that religion cannot reject without undermining the authority both of their scriptures and of a very long tradition. It looks then as if objections to the doctrine are objections to the Christian scheme itself. Here is one of them. As the Gospels present it Jesus was murdered, by one or more of Pilate, the Sanhedrin and the Jewish mob. Given Objective Atonement, God ordained the sacrificial death of Jesus, and so, as it seems, this murder. Murder requires freedom on the killer's part. And many have doubted that an action can be both free and ordained by God. Leave that aside. A good God would in any case not make it a condition for our forgiveness that someone acquired the guilt of murder.

The papal scandal (presidential address)

1976 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 141-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald M. Nicol
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Many ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

The Greek word skandalon means a stumbling-block, an offence. As such it is used frequently in the Septuagint and the new testament. In Byzantine texts at least from the eleventh century the word is employed as a collective noun to denote the many obstacles that stood in the way of union between the Greek and Latin churches. In the thirteenth century, however, it is often qualified by the phrase ‘relating to or concerning the pope’—τò κατά τòν πάπαν σκάνδαλον. It was as if the pope or the papacy had come to be identified as the cause or agent of the stumbling-block that lay in the path of understanding. This is the ‘papal scandal’ that I have in mind.

Two Conceptions of Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 36 (138) ◽  
pp. 289-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Knox
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
As If

In the summer of 1921 the newspapers in this country carried long reports of a Conference of Modern Churchmen at Cambridge. Many of the contributions to their proceedings were unorthodox; they resulted from an historical and philosophical approach to the New Testament and certain fundamental Christian doctrines. There was nothing particularly new to scholars in all that was said, but the eminence of some of the speakers, their intellectual distinction, and their outspokenness created a public sensation. It looked almost as if the Modernist movement which had been stifled in the Roman Church were advancing in the Anglican.

scholarly journals Sosiaal-wetenskaplike kritiese eksegese van Nuwe-Testamentiese tekste – ’n voortgaande debat sonder einde

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andries G. Van Aarde
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Cultural Criticism ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
The Third ◽  
Context Group ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
As If

Social-scientific critical exegesis of New Testament texts – an ongoing debate without end The aim of this article is to describe the multifarious facets of social-scientific critical exegesis. It consists of a discussion of the theoretical epistemological premises behind anthropological models employed in the exegesis of Biblical tests. The article focuses in the second instance on work published by members of the Context Group. It subsequently discusses the socio-rhetorical approach and ideology criticism. The article concludes with the contribution made by hermeneutics of suspicion and cultural criticism. The article forms the third in a series of three that aims to introduce social-scientific critical exegesis of New Testament texts. The first article was of an introductory nature, the second explains some models and methods and the third discusses the critique against the approach as if it reflects positivism and concludes with an emphasis on cultural criticism as a hermeneutical challenge.

Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau on Civil Religion

1993 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Beiner
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Mutual Forbearance ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
As If

Book 4, chapter 8, of the Social Contract, on civil religion, presents a puzzle. According to Rousseau, no state has ever been founded that did not have religion as its base. But which religion? Christianity is not an option. Paganism is not an option. Monotheistic theocracy is not an option. What does that leave? By a process of elimination, we are left with an Enlightenment religion of tolerance and mutual forbearance, which even readers sympathetic to Rousseau (or perhaps especially readers sympathetic to Rousseau) might say is no religion at all. I argue that Machiavelli and Hobbes share Rousseau's fundamental concern, which is that the otherworldly aspirations of Christianity are subversive of political requirements, but each of them thinks he can solve the problem by “de-transcendentalizing” Christianity: Machiavelli, by treating the papacy as if it were a pagan institution; Hobbes, by reinterpreting the New Testament as if it were the Old Testament. The article examines why Rousseau rejects the Machiavellian and Hobbesian solutions to his problem, and why he has no solution of his own to offer.

scholarly journals Interpersoonlike vergifnis in Matteus 18:15–35

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius J. Nel
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Interpersonal Forgiveness ◽  
Moral Transformation ◽  
As If

Die artikel ondersoek die omskrywing van interpersoonlike vergifnis in Matteus 18:15–35 ten einde die argument van David Konstan, naamlik dat interpersoonlike vergifnis, volgens die moderne verstaan daarvan, nie in die Ou of Nuwe Testament voorkom nie, te evalueer. Interpersoonlike vergifnis is, volgens Konstan, die hantering van ’n daad deur ’n individu wat direk en intensioneel ’n ander persoon benadeel het. Dit veronderstel twee handelende agente: ’n oortreder en ’n benadeelde wat albei die skadelike aspek van ’n daad erken en bereid is om ’n morele transformasie te ondergaan om dit reg te stel. Die artikel argumenteer dat Matteus 18:23–35 na die vergifnis van morele skuld verwys en nie, soos Konstan beweer, na die afskryf van finansiële skuld nie. Dit handel dus wel oor interpersoonlike vergifnis en word Matteuse se etiek van interpersoonlike vergifnis daardeur verbreed. Indien hierdie gedeelte in ag geneem word in die beskrywing van Matteus se etiek, wil dit voorkom asof Matteus meer elemente onderliggend aan die moderne verstaan van interpersoonlike vergifnis hanteer as wat Konstan identifiseer.Interpersonal forgiveness in Matthew 18:15–35. This article examines the description of interpersonal forgiveness in Matthew 18:15–35 in order to evaluate the argument of David Konstan that interpersonal forgiveness, according to the modern understanding thereof, does not occur in the Old or New Testament. Interpersonal forgiveness is described by Konstan as the addressing of an act by an individual, which directly and intentionally had harmed another person. It assumes two active agents: a transgressor and a victim, whom both acknowledge the harmful aspect of a specific act and who are willing to undergo a moral transformation in order to rectify the transgression. The article argues that Matthew 18:23–35 does not, as Konstan claims, refer to the remission of a financial debt, but rather to the forgiveness of moral guilt. It is thus an example of interpersonal forgiveness that expands Matthew’s ethics of interpersonal forgiveness significantly. If it is taken into consideration it appears as if the description of Matthew’s ethics encompasses more elements underlying the modern understanding of interpersonal forgiveness than have been identified by Konstan.

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