The ecological violence of apocalyptic eschatology

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 101-112
Author(s):  
Scott A. Dunham
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship

This paper considers the ecological status of Christianity's eschatological worldview. Using the apocalyptic view of history in Revelation, the nature of God's sovereignty is explored as an eschatological category, particularly the relationship between God's judgment of humanity and nature. Then, the goal of God's sovereign purpose is explored using two themes: the transforming of the creation linked to the New Testament theology of transfiguration, and the healing character of God's dominion. The implications for moral action are then considered.

scholarly journals Kønsligt hierarki eller religiøs androgyni

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitte Graakjær Hjort
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
Main Criterion ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ritual Context ◽  
Specific Influence

Only a few texts from the New Testament have been used and misused as have 1 Cor 11:2-16. A widespread misreading of the pericope consists in the interpretation that Paul there argued against equality between men and women generally or in the context of worship. The purpose of this article is twofold: To demonstrate why this reading is untenable and to argue for a more proper interpretation.My reading is based on Paul’s line of argument, including his remarkable formation of the kephale-structure and the position of the pericope between chapters (8 and) 10 and 11:17-21, respectively, as well as on the letter as a whole. All these things together indicate that the problem under discussion was not the relationship between the sexes as such, but this relationship seen in a religious, ritual context. Paul reproved a conduct whose shamefulness lay in its threat to both the gender polarity according to the creation and the sovereignty of God, a conduct which may also have caused divisions in the community. What Paul was arguing against, was a syncretism whose hallmark was an emancipatory equalization of gender polarity and, maybe, ritual intoxication and whose religious precedent was to be found in the worshipping of idols.With this interpretation as the main criterion for testing different hypotheses put forward to explain the historical situation causing Paul to write the text, I have found that a possible reconstruction consists of an influence on the Corinthians from pre-gnostic thoughts in a broad sense, combined with a more specific influence from the cult of Dionysus.

Faith

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas P. Wolterstorff
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Faith became a topic of discussion in the Western philosophical tradition on account of its prominence in the New Testament, where the having or taking up of faith is often urged by writers. The New Testament itself echoes both Hellenistic concepts of faith and older biblical traditions, specifically that of Abraham in the Book of Genesis. The subsequent attention of philosophers has been focused primarily on three topics: the nature of faith, the connection between God’s goodness and human responsibility, and the relation of faith to reason. Discussions on the nature of faith, from Aquinas to Tillich, have tried to examine the subject in terms of whether it is a particular form of knowledge, virtue, trust and so on. Regarding divine goodness, the argument has primarily focused on the relationship between faith and free will, and whether lack of faith is the responsibility of the individual or of God. Concerning the relation between faith and reason, there are two quite separate issues: the relation of faith to theorizing, and the rationality of faith. Aquinas in particular argued that faith is a necessary prerequisite for reasoning and intellectual activity, while later, John Locke explored the relationship between faith, reason and rationality, and concluded that faith can be reached through reason. This latter viewpoint was later heavily criticized by Wittgenstein and his followers.

scholarly journals Hoe kan God dit toelaat? ’n Bibliologiese verryking van die teodiseevraagstuk uit ’n vergelyking tussen Openbaring en 4 Esra

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (2/3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Du Rand
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Intertestamental Literature

How can God allow it? A bibliological enrichment of the theodicy issue from a comparison between the Book of Revelation and 4 EzraIn the process of understanding and defining the relationship between God and man, the theodicy issue frequently floats to the surface. A long strand in the history of philosophy and theology has addressed itself to the task of reconciling God’s omnipotence and benevolence with human suffering and the existence of evil. Some of the philosophical and theological views are represented in this article. According to reformed scholarly presentation, theodicy should seriously take into account the soteriological and eschatological hermeneutical views. This is confirmed by the Old Testament, intertestamental literature and the New Testament. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the apocryphal 4 Ezra which puts surprising views about theodicy on the table.

Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Y. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Household Management ◽  
House Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Families ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s New Testament scholars produced groundbreaking work illustrating that the household code had its origins in discussions of ‘household management’ among philosophers and moralists from Aristotle onward. Despite this general consensus, many points of disagreement remained, especially with respect to the function of the codes in particular New Testament documents and what the codes reveal about the relationship of Christians with the wider world. This article revisits some of the initial debates and traces their influence on subsequent scholarship. The recognition of the household codes as a type of ‘political’ discourse is of particular interest, as well as its impact on subsequent feminist, political and postcolonial interpretation. The conclusion suggests five promising directions, closely tied to the study of early Christian families, for future analysis of the codes leading to a more complete understanding of household management in a house-church setting.

scholarly journals Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-783
Author(s):  
Seth Perry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Disciples Of Christ ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Alexander Campbell ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Testament Church

This article explores the relationship between the idealization of the Bible and the material characteristics of printed bibles among the Disciples of Christ in the early nineteenth century. The Disciples were founded on the principles of biblical primitivism: they revered the “pure” Bible as the sole source for proper faith and practice. The tenacity with which Disciples emphasized their allegiance to an idealized, timeless Bible has obscured their attention to its physical manifestations and use as printed scripture. The timeless authority of the Bible was entangled with the historical contingencies of mere bibles, and the ways in which they dealt with these tensions offer important perspective on nineteenth-century bible culture. Scholars have treated primitivism as an ahistorical impulse—the idealization of the New Testament church as a mythical sacred era outside of time that could be perpetually inhabited. By contrast, through an examination of the New Testaments edited and published by Disciples leader Alexander Campbell and the heavily-annotated preaching bible of Thomas Allen, an early Disciples preacher, I argue that in seeking to recover the New Testament era through historicized understandings of scripture, primitivists like Campbell and Allen situated the early church itself firmly within historical, not primordial, time.

Psalm 2:7 and the concept of περιχώρησις

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Michael Straus
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
Psalm 2 ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThis article takes as its springboard the well-known text of Psalm 2:7, in which the Psalmist – presumably David, king of Israel – refers to himself as a ‘begotten’ son of God by virtue of his Lord's decree. The article first explores various linguistic and theological options as to the identity of the ‘son’ to whom the passage refers; and analyses the relationship between that son and the one who is stated to have begotten him. In this context, the article addresses ways in which the passage more generally sheds light on the relationship between God and Israel, including through analysis of a number of fluctuating usages of singular and plural terms in the Old Testament to describe that relationship. Second, and against that background, the article examines texts in the New Testament which quote or refer to Psalm 2:7 to see whether they provide a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between the father and the son described in the Psalm; and further to see whether any enhanced understanding of that relationship reciprocally sheds light on the relationship of God the Father to God the Son as revealed in the New Testament. The article then seeks to determine whether these passages, taken as a whole, provide explicit, implicit, or proto-Trinitarian concepts in anticipation of those given fuller expression in orthodox Church doctrine. Finally, the article explores the concept of circumincession, or coinherence, John of Damascus’ highly abstracted and nearly poetic effort at the close of the Patristic era to provide an extra-biblical explanation of the relationship between the Father and the Son as well as the relationship among the three members of the Trinity. The article concludes by finding that his attempted articulation, and quite possibly all such efforts, will ultimately fail, leaving intact the mystery of the Trinity as one escaping, or rather surpassing, conceptual analysis.

scholarly journals Reading Texts on The Violence of God in The Bible

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Gregorius Tri Wardoyo
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
New Creation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way ◽  
Reading Texts

<p><em>Violent texts in the bible</em><em> both in the Old Testament or in the New Testament</em><em>, especially in the Old Testament, arise a problem</em><em> for a potential reader</em><em> on how to read </em><em>and understand their message and the theology of the author of the Book.</em><em> </em><em>For this reason, b</em><em>iblical scholars try to read it and they propose the way to read such texts</em><em>, such as to read them in the historical context of the Book itself, and interpret them as a reflection of the author and their experience</em><em>. This article tries to propose another way to read violent texts, in particularly that involve God as author of violent deeds. The methode of this discussion is exegetical analysis on the texts of the Old Testament</em><em>, especially on those which narrate the violent deeds of God </em><em>. The result of the study is the violent deeds of God aim to recreate the creation; that is why such violent texts might be read in the frame of the new creation.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong><em>: </em>Alkitab, Keluaran, Kekerasan, Allah, Penciptaan (Baru)</p>

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