The Bible, Its Status and African Christian Theologies: Foundational Document or Stumbling Block?

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Punt

AbstractThe relationship between the Bible and Christianity, including Christian theology, is traditionally strong and undisputed; however, in Christian theology in Africa, as elsewhere, the status of the biblical texts is contested. A brief consideration of the Bible as 'canon' leads to a broader discussion of how the Bible has to a certain extent become a 'problem' in African theology also, both because of theological claims made about its status, and - and in conjunction with - its perceived complicity in justifying human suffering and hardship. The legacy of the Bible as legitimating agent is dealt with from the vantage point of the history of interpretation; but the latter also provides for a 'rehumanising' of Scripture. In the end, this article is also an attempt to explain some of the different views of the Bible's status in Africa, and to address and mediate the resulting conflict by attending to proposals to view the biblical canon as 'historical prototype', foundational document' - as scripture. A number of important aspects regarding the continuing role of the Bible in African theologies in particular, conclude the essay.

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hennie F. Stander

A response to Van der Watt’s article on ‘Intertextuality and over-interpretation: References to Genesis 28:12 in John 1:51?’ This article is a response to an article of Van der Watt titled ‘Intertextuality and over-interpretation: References to Genesis 28:12 in John 1:51?’ (2016). He states in this article that his aim is ‘to illustrate the dangers of over-interpretation when dealing with intertextual relations between texts, especially when allusion is assumed’. He then gives a brief survey of different interpretations of John 1:51. Van der Watt shows in his article how theologians use themes from Genesis 28:12 (like the ladder, Jacob or Bethel, which are not mentioned in John 1:51) in their expositions of John 1:51. Van der Watt regards some of these expositions as examples of over-interpretation. The aim of my article is to show how Church Fathers interpreted Genesis 28:12 and John 1:51. I show in my article that the Church Fathers saw several parallels between these two sections from the Bible. Furthermore, I suggest that the early theologians’ interpretations formed a tradition that probably influenced modern interpreters of the Bible. I also discuss the role of typology in the history of interpretation, specifically also in the case of Genesis 28:12 and John 1:51. I then argue that it is perhaps not so far-fetched to see an intertextual relation between Genesis 28:12 and John 1:51.


2021 ◽  
pp. 636-647
Author(s):  
Kristel Clayville

This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between ethics and the Bible, then turns to focus on the specific role of environmental ethics in biblical interpretation and the development of ecological hermeneutics. After this brief history of ethical thinking in and with the Bible, the chapter offers a critical summary of various interpretive typologies that scholars have developed to describe the Israelite relationship to land in the Bible. Building on this background, this chapter offers an analysis of Jeremiah that is informed by ecological hermeneutics. This reading focuses on the role of the land in the Israelite imaginary, the loss of land as punishment, the natural versus unnatural as a diagnostic for moral purity, and reading from the perspective of the land.


This chapter reviews the book The Jews of Modern France: Images and Identities (2016), edited by Zvi Jonathan Kaplan and Nadia Malinovitch. The Jews of Modern France situates the history of French Jews “within a comparative, transnational and post-colonial context.” The book explores the relationship between the Jews of metropolitan France and those of the colonies, and links the history of French Jewry with that of Jews of the colonies. Topics include the construction of synagogues and the central role of the French government in Jewish affairs or the allotment of cemeteries; the distribution of “patriotism” prizes for girls learning in Jewish schools; the status of religious and civil divorce; and the “Jewish Marshall Plan” aimed at strengthening local Jewish communities.


Symbolon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Delphine Edy

The hotly debated performance of Thomas Ostermeier’s stage version of Edouard Louis’s History of Violence points to a confusion concerning the role of the author, the status of the text, of its performance and of the role played by theatre in today’s society. It raises a threefold question: what is the relationship between literature and reality, what defines an author (whether writer or stage director) and what does it mean that contemporary literature should be so intent on self-writing? E. Louis is particularly clear about using fiction to write about truth, but then truth all too often is construed as fact, and therefore as antithetic to fiction. He claims to explore a form of confrontational literature. In T. Ostermeier’s staging he becomes the actor of his own text which only compounds the text’s powerful ambiguities. Together, Louis and Ostermeier create a dynamic recomposition of the political and the intimate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Robar

The relationship between linguistics and philology, within biblical studies, became a fraught issue when the Society of Biblical Literature proposed subordinating linguistics to philology. The larger concern is the integrity and integration of scholarship within biblical studies, which itself is related to the integration of scholarship within the academic world. The history of institutionalised scholarship suggests two potential paths for biblical studies: one in which each sub-discipline pursues relative independence and expands the field of knowledge from a detached, scientific vantage point, and one in which the role of the text in speaking to a community is sought in the context of relational knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-102
Author(s):  
Tasnim Rehna ◽  
Rubina Hanif ◽  
Muhammad Aqeel

Background: Widespread social paradigms on which the status variances are grounded in any society, gender plays pivotal role in manifestation of mental health problems (Rutter, 2007). A hefty volume of research has addressed the issue in adults nonetheless, little is vividly known about the role of gender in adolescent psychopathology. Sample: A sample of 240 adolescents (125 boys, 115 girls) aging 12-18 years was amassed from various secondary schools of Islamabad with the approval of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), relevant authorities of the schools and the adolescents themselves. Instruments: Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor & Spence, 1953) and Children’s Negative Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (CNCEQ) by Leitenberg et al., (1986) were applied in present study. Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed that cognitive errors jointly accounted for 78% of variance in predicting anxiety among adolescents. Findings also exhibited that gender significantly moderated the relationship between cognitive errors and adolescent anxiety. Implications of the findings are discoursed for future research and clinical practice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Bulat R. Rakhimzianov

Abstract This article explores relations between Muscovy and the so-called Later Golden Horde successor states that existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the territory of Desht-i Qipchaq (the Qipchaq Steppe, a part of the East European steppe bounded roughly by the Oskol and Tobol rivers, the steppe-forest line, and the Caspian and Aral Seas). As a part of, and later a successor to, the Juchid ulus (also known as the Golden Horde), Muscovy adopted a number of its political and social institutions. The most crucial events in the almost six-century-long history of relations between Muscovy and the Tatars (13–18th centuries) were the Mongol invasion of the Northern, Eastern and parts of the Southern Rus’ principalities between 1237 and 1241, and the Muscovite annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates between 1552 and 1556. According to the model proposed here, the Tatars began as the dominant partner in these mutual relations; however, from the beginning of the seventeenth century this role was gradually inverted. Indicators of a change in the relationship between the Muscovite grand principality and the Golden Horde can be found in the diplomatic contacts between Muscovy and the Tatar khanates. The main goal of the article is to reveal the changing position of Muscovy within the system of the Later Golden Horde successor states. An additional goal is to revisit the role of the Tatar khanates in the political history of Central Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.


Author(s):  
Rosamond C. Rodman

Expanding beyond the text of the Bible, this chapter explores instead a piece of political scripture, namely the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Over the last half-decade, the Second Amendment has come to enjoy the status of a kind of scripture-within-scripture. Vaulted to a much more prominent status than it had held in the first 150 years or so of its existence, and having undergone a remarkable shift in what most Americans think it means, the Second Amendment provides an opportunity to examine the linguistic, racial, and gendered modes by which these changes were effected, paying particular attention to the ways in which white children and white women were conscripted into the role of the masculine, frontier-defending US citizen.


Author(s):  
Rachel J. Crellin ◽  
Oliver J.T. Harris

In this paper we argue that to understand the difference Posthumanism makes to the relationship between archaeology, agency and ontology, several misconceptions need to be corrected. First, we emphasize that Posthumanism is multiple, with different elements, meaning any critique needs to be carefully targeted. The approach we advocate is a specifically Deleuzian and explicitly feminist approach to Posthumanism. Second, we examine the status of agency within Posthumanism and suggest that we may be better off thinking about affect. Third, we explore how the approach we advocate treats difference in new ways, not as a question of lack, or as difference ‘from’, but rather as a productive force in the world. Finally, we explore how Posthumanism allows us to re-position the role of the human in archaeology,


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