An Inpterpretative Discussion of Preformed Creedal Texts In The New Testament And Their Relevance To The Theology of The Earliest Church Through An Exegetical Case Study of The Pastoral Epistles

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan D. WETTLAUFER
Author(s):  
David Wheeler-Reed

This chapter maintains that two ideologies concerning marriage and sex pervade the New Testament writings. One ideology codifies a narrative that argues against marriage, and perhaps, sexual intercourse, and the other retains the basic cultural values of the upper classes of the Greco-Roman world. These two ideologies are termed “profamily” and “antifamily.” The chapter proceeds in a chronological fashion starting with 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, and Mark. It concludes by examining Matthew, Luke, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-45
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Sanchez

AbstractIn colloquial English the word ‘tradition’ tends to be understood as a noun referring to a more-or-less static set of propositions, often used to define the identity of the particular group that accepts them. This article seeks to challenge this convention by defending an older, more fluid sense oftraditiothat is not only found in but formative of a variety of major Christian theological sources. The argument draws especially on Jean Calvin, his preferred theological authority Augustine and briefly the New Testament itself, showing that each demonstrates a fundamental interest in Christian teaching as participation in divine pedagogy. Using the doctrine of election as a case study, I argue that this pedagogical framework evidences a dynamic conception oftraditioastradere, or a discourse on how human beings faithfully participate in what is properly a divine giving-and-receiving. This conception of tradition as pedagogy is commended for both its theological and its critical merit.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chak Yan Yeung ◽  
John Lee

Author(s):  
Vern Redekop

Within an overall framework of reconciliation as a transformation of mimetic structures of violence to mimetic structures of blessing, teachings of blessing are needed throughout the process. “Teachings” are considered as paradigmatic stories, principles, insights, and practical wisdom that are derived both from religious traditions and the human sciences. “Blessing” refers to that which contributes to sustained human well-being at the individual, collective and relational levels. A hermeneutics of blessing is a deliberate interpretive endeavour directed toward the generation of teachings of blessing. It can be used with any particular source and the insights can be both direct and inverse, identifying what is helpful and not helpful for reconciliation processes. John E. Toews, biblical scholar specializing on the book of Romans in the New Testament, is examined as someone practicing a hermeneutics of blessing. His paradigm of Romans shows how it can be viewed as a letter addressing an identity-based conflict involving Jews and Gentiles. A set of practical teachings of blessing is synthesized from Romans 12 to 15, using the Toews hermeneutical paradigm.


Author(s):  
Robert H. von Thaden

This chapter situates the rhetoric surrounding procreation, children, and family within the New Testament in its ancient context. Eschewing claims of uniqueness, it describes recent research into ancient understandings of family and children centered in the oikos, or household. It examines this rhetoric found in the Synoptic Gospels, Paul’s letters, and the Pastoral Epistles and the different ways that the communities that produced these texts participate in and reconfigure norms and expectations from surrounding Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish cultures. It notes the tension, also found in non-Christian ancient cultures, between positive portrayals of family and children (as in the Household Codes) and negative evaluations of the same (in texts expressing an apocalyptic eschatological hope). It concludes by noting that early Christ-believing communities did not radically alter the situation of children in antiquity, even as they did create theological rationales for avoiding practices such as exposure and infanticide.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 315-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Eyl

This essay addresses the problem of theologically-inflected English translation choices of the New Testament, and how those translations come to bear in theologically disinterested scholarship on Christian beginnings. As a case study I examine the ubiquitous rendering ofekklesiaas “church” in Paul’s letters. I argue that Paul was not referring to Christian churches, but to the “day of theekklesia” in the Septuagint, when God’s people gathered at Sinai/Horeb. Paul is not making Christians out of pagans; he is making quasi-Judeans out of gentiles. Renderingekklesiaas “church” inscribes Christian essentialism into Paul’s letters, and masks what Paul is actually doing with this word. The bridging of Greek-to-English semantic voids on the part of translators and New Testament scholars is a consistent problem that frustrates advancements in Pauline studies, and in studies of the religions of the Roman Empire more generally.


2004 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Norman Tanner

The ecumenical and general councils of the Church have produced arguably the most important documents of Christianity after the Bible. How this ‘book’ of the councils came to be composed is the subject of this paper. In the composition, Christians have had to confront three problems similar to those involved in establishing the book of the Bible. First, which councils are to be considered ecumenical or general, paralleling the question of which books are to be included in the Bible. Secondly, which decrees are to be considered the authentic decrees of a particular council, paralleling the question of which chapters and verses make up a particular book of the Bible. Thirdly, which manuscripts or editions form the best text of a given decree, paralleling the search for the best texts of Scripture. There are, too, the additional issues of establishing some hierarchy in the importance of the councils and their decrees – the great creeds and doctrinal statements outrank, surely, most decrees of a purely disciplinary nature, just as the Gospels have a certain priority within the New Testament or Romans and Galatians outrank in importance the Pastoral Epistles – and secondly the difficulties of translating the original texts into the vernacular languages, alike for the councils as for the Bible. Alongside these similarities between the book of the councils and that of the Bible was the tension between Scripture and Tradition. How far could Tradition, represented cumulatively and retrospectively by the councils, interpret or develop the teaching of Scripture? This tension was never far below the surface, and erupted especially in the Reformation controversies.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Moyise

In a previous article in this journal (2002:418-31), I offered a taxonomy of five ways that the term “intertextuality” is being used in biblical studies. In this article, I wish to clarify the relationship between intertextuality and historical approaches to the use of Scripture in the New  Testament. I take as a case study the use of Isaiah 8:12-13 in 1 Peter 3:14-15 and conclude that historical and literary approaches both have an important role to play in elucidating the meaning of this text. I also take the opportunity of responding to some of the arguments put forward by critics of intertextuality.


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