Biblical Interpretation among African-American New Testament Scholars

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-82
Author(s):  
Larry L. Enis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Epistle Of James

Given the small, but growing, number of ethnic minorities in the field of biblical studies, the issue of African-American biblical hermeneutics has received only marginal attention in scholarly journals. In an effort to discern major themes and objectives among these interpreters, this article surveys published works by African Americans who have attained either a PhD or ThD in the New Testament. In this study, six areas of particular interest emerged: hermeneutics, the black presence in the New Testament, Paul, the Gospels, the epistle of James, and Revelation. Moreover, this investigation will demonstrate that the phenomenon of African-American New Testament hermeneutics is a methodologically diverse one.

The Quest for the Cinematic Jesus: Scholarly Explorations in Jesus Films

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Henry T. Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Research Trend ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Synoptic Problem ◽  
The New Testament

This article looks at an emerging research trend in biblical studies: Jesus and film. Within the past two decades, New Testament scholars have been attracted to the numerous films about Jesus not merely as a source of illustrations, but as an avenue to interpret the New Testament Gospels—or as Larry Kreitzer proposes, ‘reversing the hermeneutical flow’. With a growing interest in this new discipline to the task of biblical interpretation, it has become an accepted critical approach to the study of Jesus and the Gospels. This article surveys some various ways in which scholars have explored Jesus films, such as with a view to provide refreshing insights into difficult scholarly issues (e.g. the Synoptic problem). Furthermore, the article examines how scholars have begun in recent years to function as critics of controversial Jesus films and also as consultants for new film projects.

Postcolonial Liberation: Decolonizing Biblical Studies in the South African Postcolony

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Black ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
The 1960S

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.

Spirit Hermeneutics or Biblical Interpretation by Any Other Name

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-212
Author(s):  
Robby Waddell
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
A Priority

Within the guild of Pentecostal Studies, few topics have received more attention than biblical hermeneutics. Craig Keener, F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, makes a significant contribution to this discussion with the publication of his book, Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in the Light of Pentecost. Giving a priority to contextually sensitive, socio-historical methodologies, Keener attempts to define hermeneutics broadly in order to include most confessional perspectives. Indeed, he writes that Spirit Hermeneutics is Christian Hermeneutics. While such an inclusive move is admirable, it begs the question about the existence and viability of a distinctive hermeneutic for Pentecostals and Charismatics. This article reviews Keener’s argument and makes a case for a more distinctive hermeneutical theory.

scholarly journals New Testament Anthropology: Conscience as an Anthropological Phenomenon in the Context of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
Priest Aleksiy (Razdorov) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Historical Epoch ◽  
Human Awareness

This article examines the New Testament teaching about man in the authentic epistles of Paul the Apostle. In particular, it studies the anthropological phenomenon of conscience as one of the important ethical terms in Christian worldview. In spite of the fact that this topic has been thoroughly investigated by Western biblical science, Russian theological environment has not been paying it sufficient attention. Therefore, from the position of theological and philological research within the framework of the historical and cultural approach, the article dwells on conscience expressed by Paul the Apostle through the term συνείδησις in the epistles to the Corinthians and the Romans, whose authorship as St. Paul’s is unquestioned by modern biblical studies. The research shows that Paul the Apostle used the term συνείδησις in a sense related to human awareness, without any explicit emphasis on morality as in the works by Stoic philosophers. For St. Paul, the term συνείδησις in a general sense means an autonomous anthropological instance of a person’s judgеment/assessment of his/her own behaviour in relation to the norms, laws and rules adopted by him/her. However, depending on the historical circumstances in the life of Christian communities, Paul the Apostle gave this term his own semantic connotations. According to this research, in the text of the Pauline epistles συνείδησις appears not only as a general anthropological phenomenon, but also as an independent (autonomous) personified witness to the truth, as an instance that checks the correspondence between the declared value norms in the mind and the person’s own behaviour. This instance reflects the mental activity of a conscious human as a person in any cultural and historical epoch regardless of his/her religious preferences.

Bauer, Bruno (1809–82)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Stepelevich
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Radical Atheism ◽  
Bruno Bauer

The career of the Hegelian theologian Bruno Bauer is marked by his sudden turn from a reasoned defender of Christianity into one of its most extreme critics. His radical interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy, which he first used to defend orthodox biblical hermeneutics, ultimately led him to become, as one of his admirers said, the ‘Robespierre of theology’. As the leader of the so-called ‘Young Hegelian’ school, Bauer was one of Hegel’s most gifted students. However, his condemnation of theology in general and his thesis that the New Testament was merely the fictional product of an unknown author contributed to the general distrust of Hegelianism among religious thinkers. Although his many theological and historical writings now remain largely unread, his ‘Critical Philosophy’ and his radical atheism exerted a strong influence upon Marx, who was his student and friend, and is still evident in such contemporaries as Jürgen Habermas.

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