The Virgin Mother Sarah: The Characterization of the Matriarch in Genesis Rabbah

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-103
Author(s):  
Rami Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The Other ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
The One

Abstract This article analyzes the portrayal of the matriarch Sarah in the fifth-century Palestinian rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah. The midrash not only dedicates a large number of derashot to the matriarch, but it repeatedly depicts her as a model of personal and religious excellence. In order to understand this development, I turn my attention to the portrayal of Sarah in the works of Origen of Alexandria. Continuing New Testament themes, Origen presents her as the spiritual mother of Christianity and a prefiguration of Jesus’ mother Mary. Various textual and thematic parallels help demonstrate that the rabbis were both aware of this rhetoric and responded to it. Based on this, I conclude that the rabbis used their portrayal of Sarah to combat the Christian appropriation of the matriarch on the one hand, and to establish her as a Jewish alternative to the Virgin Mary on the other.

Galiläa oder Jerusalem? : Ein Ordnungsversuch in den Erscheinungsorten des Auferstandenen im Markusevangelium, im Lukasevangelium und in der Apostelgeschichte

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Jens Dörpinghaus
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sich Eine ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
Form Criticism

Zusammenfassung Markus 14,27-28; 16,7 und Lukas 24,49 bzw. Apostelgeschichte 1,4 sprechen jeweils unterschiedliche Erwartungen für die Erscheinungsorte des Auferstandenen aus und insbesondere für das Verbleiben der Jünger. Markus spricht von Galiläa als Erscheinungsort, nach Lukas 24,49 sollen die Jünger jedoch in Jerusalem bleiben. Dieses Spannungsfeld wird häufig durch Methoden der Form- und Traditionskritik untersucht. Hier soll dieser Ansatz nicht nur diskutiert, sondern es sollen auch die theologischen Implikationen untersucht werden. Anhand eines neuen literarisch-chronologischen Ordnungsversuchs in den Evangelien kann herausgearbeitet werden, dass sich beide Aussagen auf die Nachfolge der Jünger Jesu in bestimmten Abschnitten der Zeit vor und nach der Auferstehung Jesu und seiner Himmelfahrt beziehen. Damit findet sich eine neue Perspektive auf die nachösterliche Nachfolge im Neuen Testament.SummaryMark 14:27-28 and 16:7 on the one hand and Luke 24:49 with Acts 1:4 on the other hand mention different locations where the disciples will meet Jesus after the resurrection or where they should stay. Mark mentions Galilee, Luke Jerusalem. Most scholars try to solve this conflict with the methods of form criticism or tradition criticism. This article discusses the shortcomings of this approach and discusses the resulting theological implications for both Jerusalem and Galilee. It introduces a new literary approach for ordering the post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels and Acts. The results provide new perspectives on discipleship in the period after Easter in the New Testament.RésuméMarc 14:27-28 et 16:7 d’un côté et Luc 24:49 avec Actes 1:4 de l’autre mentionnent différents lieux où les disciples rencontreront Jésus après la résurrection ou devront attendre. Marc cite la Galilée, Luc Jérusalem. La plupart des exégètes s’efforcent de résoudre ce conflit en recourant aux méthodes de la critique des formes ou de la tradition. Cet article traite des faiblesses de cette approche et aborde les implications théologiques qui en résultent pour à la fois Jérusalem et la Galilée. Il introduit une nouvelle approche littéraire pour ordonner les apparitions post-résurrection dans l’Évangile et les Actes. Les résultats ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives sur le discipulat en cette période importante du Nouveau Testament.

scholarly journals Jewish fish (ΙΧΘΥΣ) in post-supersessionist water: Messianic Judaism within a post-supersessionistic paradigm

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Willitts
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Messianic Judaism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

This article defines, explains and argues for the necessity of a post-supersessionistic hermeneutical posture towards the New Testament. The post-supersessionistic reading of the New Testament takes the Jewish nature of the apostolic documents seriously, and has as its goal the correction of the sin of supersessionism. While supersessionism theologically is repudiated in most corners of the contemporary church through official church documents, the practise of reading the New Testament continues to exhibit supersessionistic tendencies and outcomes. The consequence of this predominant reading of the New Testament is the continued exclusion of Jewish ethnic identity in the church. In light of the growing recognition of multiculturalism and contextualisation on the one hand, and the recent presence of a movement within the body of Messiah of Jewish believers in Jesus on the other, the church’s established approach to reading Scripture that leads to the elimination of ethnic identity must be repudiated alongside its post-supersessionist doctrinal statements. This article defines terms, explains consequences and argues for a renewed perspective on the New Testament as an ethnic document; such a perspective will promote the church’s cultivation of real embodied ethnic particularity rather than either a pseudo-interculturalism or the eraser full ethnicity.

The Use of evangelicus in the Paraphrases

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Dean Simpson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Word Study ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One

This article is a word study that analyses and interprets how Erasmus uses the adjective evangelicus, -a, -um in his New Testament Paraphrases. The development of the idiom ‘gospel-blank’ (evangelicus + noun) is analyzed diachronically; the phrases denoting gospel things are divided into six semantic categories. The study shows, on the one hand, that there is a general consistency in how evangelicus is used, the most common pairings predominating in most Paraphrases on the Epistles and Gospels, while, on the other, there is some broadening and lowering of the nouns with which evangelicus is joined, moving from the Paraphrases on the Epistles to the Gospel Paraphrases. Erasmus’ changing attitude to the project of paraphrasing the New Testament provides biographical and historical context in which to place the study’s findings. The study concludes by highlighting the New Testament Paraphrases as Erasmus’ humanistic response to worsening divisions in the early 1520s.

Was the Text of the Septuagint Christianized?

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-92
Author(s):  
Gilles Dorival
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One

On the one hand, all of the deuterocanonical books and all of the supplements to Daniel, Esther, Jeremiah have Jewish origin. In fact, there are only five Christian texts within the Septuagint, perhaps six, if Job 42:17a originated from a Christian circle (which is less likely than from a Jewish milieu). The five texts are found in the Psalter. After Psa 13:3ab, Psa 13:3c–j gives a lengthy quotation of Paul’s Rom 3:12–18. In the Odes, there are four Christian texts: three passages of Luke and one ecclesiastical composition. On the other hand, New Testament verses are introduced into the Septuagint. There are, at most, 159 possible Christianized verses listed for the whole of the Septuagint of which twenty-five occur in Psalms. Of these twenty-five, nine have very limited Christianization: the verses that align with the New Testament text occur only in one, two, or three manuscripts. There are twelve cases of partial Christianization attested in more than three manuscripts and there is only one example of a complete Christianization: Psa 39:7b (40:7b MT), but even this is debated among scholars. Finally, it happens that a few words (less than half a verse) are added into the verses of the Septuagint. There are just six potential Christian additions of this kind. Of these, Psa 65:1a has to be removed. Five cases remain: Psa 37:14a; 37:21c; 49:6a; 50:9a, and 95:10a. The latter is the most famous example: instead of ‘say among the nations: “the Lord became king”’, the Coptic versions, some manuscripts and some Fathers offer ‘say among the nations: “the Lord became king from (the) wood”’. So, a connection is established between the Lord of the Psalm and the wood of Jesus’ cross. In sum, the Septuagint text is very little Christianized: the translation remains remarkably close to its Jewish origin.

A Characterization of the Topological Dimension

1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-490
Author(s):  
Gerd Rodé
Keyword(s):  
Hausdorff Space ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Numbers ◽  
Topological Dimension ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

AbstractThis paper gives a new characterization of the dimension of a normal Hausdorff space, which joins together the Eilenberg-Otto characterization and the characterization by finite coverings. The link is furnished by the notion of a system of faces of a certain type (N1,..., NK), where N1,..., NK, K are natural numbers. It is shown that a space X contains a system of faces of type (N1,..., NK) if and only if dim(X) ≥ N1 + … + NK. The two limit cases of the theorem, namely Nk = 1 for 1 ≤ k ≤ K on the one hand, and K = 1 on the other hand, give the two known results mentioned above.

scholarly journals What is Unilateralism in International Taxation?

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 260-264
Author(s):  
Wei Cui
Keyword(s):  
International Business ◽  
International Taxation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Profit Shifting ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
International Coordination ◽  
International Tax ◽  
The One

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) recently emerged as the site of unprecedented, multilateral, and seemingly high-stakes negotiations about the future of international business income taxation. Judging by the political resources deployed in these negotiations, international tax has entered unchartered territory. Ruth Mason offers a timely and balanced portrayal of the OECD process so far. But explanations of this process remain eminently contestable. On the one hand, international institutions that address externalities from uncoordinated actions and produce mutual benefits for participating nations can be highly stable. On the other hand, the OECD has struggled, whether in its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) and post-BEPS initiatives or during the pre-BEPS era, to articulate the goals for which international coordination in taxation is needed. By many accounts, recent discussions at the OECD are motivated mainly by the desire to stop foreign imposition of taxes on U.S. companies, or, as the other side of the same coin, to avert the wrath of the single hegemonic power in international tax. What is the best characterization of this conflict? I believe that understanding the underlying subject matter for international coordination, as opposed to merely the institutions that might facilitate such coordination, is required for identifying the coming transformation of international tax.

Kingdom Sayings and Parables of Jesus in the Apocryphon of James: Tradition and Redaction

1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Hedrick
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nag Hammadi ◽  
Apocryphal Gospels ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
One Step ◽  
The One

In a recent article Helmut Koester argues against the current practice of distinguishing between canonical Gospels, on the one hand, and apocryphal gospels, on the other, and treating the apocryphal gospels as ‘step children’ of New Testament research. Koester maintains that there are a number of the ‘apocryphal’ gospels which ‘belong to a very early stage in the development of gospel literature — a stage that is comparable to the sources which were used by the gospels of the New Testament.’ One of those texts to which he points is the Nag Hammadi tractate the Apocryphon of James. This paper is an attempt to legitimize one ‘step child’ of New Testament scholarship as a valid source for investigating the earliest levels of the Jesus traditions.

Hedgehog and Fox: Anderson as Historian and Philologist

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-382
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
Positive Sense ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One

To sin or transgress, according to one dictionary definition, is to go beyond a limit, to cross what is supposed to be a clear border. In this sense, one can say that Gary Anderson has succeeded in writing a very sinful book. Like Sennacherib as the rabbis describe him, Anderson is (he “erases boundaries between nations”)—only I use this phrase to describe Anderson in rather a more positive sense than the rabbis intended it when they applied it to the Assyrian emperor.2 Throughout this book we are discussing, Anderson crosses boundaries between academic disciplines: biblical criticisms that study the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Qumranic scholarship, rabbinics, patristics, the study of both medieval Catholic and early Protestant theology. He crosses boundaries within some of these fields, as well: for example, by attending to modern Israeli biblical scholarship in a way that is, alas, all too rare among non-Jewish scholars in North America and Europe; or by showing scholars of rabbinics what they can learn from the study of the New Testament, especially when that study is conscious of its roots in medieval and early modern theology. Most importantly, Anderson tears down artificial barriers that separate historical, philological, descriptive scholarship on the one side from constructive theology and inter-religious dialogue on the other.

Ritual Elements in the New Comedy

1943 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 46-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Murray
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
Old Comedy ◽  
Colloquial Language ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The One ◽  
New Comedy

The New Comedy as an art form is descended both from the Old Comedy and from fifth-century Tragedy. It is a middle style of the sort that Diderot called le genre sérieux. On the one side it made an expurgation of the Old Comedy by dropping the gross elements of the primitive ritual ⋯ϕέσεωςκ⋯μος which still survived in Aristophanes, the phallic dress, the ϒεϕυρɩομός in language, and the reckless personal satire, while it kept and emphasized the final Gamos, or union of lovers, and developed a more elaborate plot. On the other side it reformed Tragedy by getting rid of the supernatural stories and the stiff conventions. To quote some words of my own written in 1912, it ‘introduced all the simplifications and improvements which seem to a modern’—I meant a modern philistine—‘so obviously desirable. It developed an easy colloquial language, a flexible and unexacting metre. It left the Chorus quite outside the play, a kind of entr'acte, not worth writing down. It frankly abandoned religious ritual’—please observe that statement, which I now wish to correct—‘and heroic saga. It drew its material from the adventures and emotions of contemporary middle class life, and boldly invented its own plots.’ Menander in particular was considered in antiquity to have held a mirror up to life; a verse by Aristophanes of Byzantium asks.

No More Zealots in the House of the Lord

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Joel Marcus
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Temple

Abstract The word כְּנַעֲנִי in Zech 14:21b (“there will no longer be a כְּנַעֲנִי in the house of the Lord of hosts”), has usually been interpreted either in an ethnic (“Canaanite”) or in a mercantile sense (“trader,” “merchant”), and it is possible that in its original context it was a double entendre. In later exegesis, the mercantile interpretation comes to predominate, but the ethnic sense is never completely eclipsed. The New Testament allusions to the Zecharian text reflect both interpretations. On the one hand, the Markan and Johannine Jesus utilizes the mercantile interpretation when he forbids the commerce in the Temple to continue (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:14-17). On the other hand, Mark also seems to reflect the ethnic interpretation, at least indirectly, since he seems to be responding to revolutionaries who used it to justify their ethnic cleansing and military occupation of the Temple. But Mark, for his own part, may have employed the sort of punning exegesis common in ancient Judaism to interpret Zech 14:21b as a prophecy of the eschatological expulsion of these revolutionaries from their Temple headquarters: on that day, there will no longer be קַנְאָנִין (“Zealots”) in the house of the Lord of Hosts.

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