scholarly journals Two ancient theologians’ interpretations of the withered fig tree (Mt 21:18–22)

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hennie F. Stander
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
Fig Tree

This article is an investigation on how two theologians from the Early Church interpreted the withered fig tree, as narrated by the evangelist Matthew (Mt 21:18–22). The two theologians referred to are Origen of Alexandria, who belongs to the pre-Nicene era and represents the Alexandrian School, and Ps.-Chrysostom who belongs to the post-Nicene era, and represents the School of Antioch. Origen believed that when the fig tree withered, it referred to Israel’s withering. This interpretation of the narrative surrounding the withered fig tree was very common in the Early Church. Ps.-Chrysostom makes it very clear that he cannot agree with this interpretation, which was quite common in the Early Church. He stated that it is wrong to liken the fig tree to the synagogue of the Jews. He argues that Jesus could not curse the synagogue, because he said that ‘The Son of Man did not come to destroy, but to seek and save the lost’ (cf. Lk 9:56). Moreover, if the synagogue withered, fruitful branches such as Paul, Stephen, Aquila and Priscilla could not have sprouted from the roots. These names are proof that God did not entirely reject the Jewish people. Ps.-Chrysostom then offers a different explanation to the question why the fig tree withered: He points out that Adam used the leaves of a fig tree to cover his nakedness. When Jesus caused the fig tree to wither, he wanted to show that he can give Adam a new garment of water and spirit that glistens like snow. Christ gave back to Adam what the serpent had robbed him of, namely ‘the angel-like life, the luxuriance of paradise, the garment of incorruptibility’ (PC. cp. 4).Contribution: The primary goal of this article is to explore the exegetical practices of two ancient theologians who came from two different schools and from two different eras. This study shows how they interpreted the account of the withered fig tree (Mt 21:18–22), based on their respective theological perspectives.

scholarly journals “Son of man” and exegetical myths

2003 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of

This article aims to show that some of the New Testament interpretations of the "son of man" phrase appear to be, according to B Lindars “a myth, created, not by the thinkers of the New Testament times, but by modern critical scholarship.” This view is substantiated in two ways: the first deals with an exegesis of the expression "son of man", while the second highlights some exegetical myths about "son of man". The first part includes sections on the linguistic origin of "son of man", "son of man" in the history of religions, and "son of man" as a historical figure according to Mark and Q. The second part comprises the sections dealing with the understanding of myth, and the myth of the "son of man" as a messianic title adopted by Jesus and by the early Church.

A Law-Observant Mission to Gentiles: The Background of Galatians

1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Martyn
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Law ◽  
Jewish Christians

That the early church was intensely and passionately evangelistic is clear to every reader of the documents that make up the New Testament. Equally clear, or so it would seem, is the scholarly consensus that when Christian evangelists took the step of reaching beyond the borders of the Jewish people, they did so without requiring observance of the Jewish law. The work of these evangelists, in turn, is said to have sparked a reaction on the part of firmly observant Jewish Christians, who, seeing the growth of the Gentile mission, sought to require observance of the Law by its converts. Struggles ensued, and the outcome, to put the matter briefly, was victory for the mission to the Gentiles, for the Law-free theology characteristic of that mission, and for the churches produced by it.

St. Mark 13

1954 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. B. Cranfield
Keyword(s):  
Son Of Man ◽  
Fig Tree

To these last ten verses of the chapter we may give the general title, Watch therefore! The section falls naturally into three parts (w. 28 f, 30–32, 33–37), marked off by ‘learn’, ‘Verily I say unto you’ and ‘Take ye heed’.The first of these contains the parable of the Fig Tree and its application. Strictly speaking, the word (‘these things’) in v. 29 should refer to the coming of the Son of Man mentioned in the previous section; but, as the sense would then be,‘When you see the Son of Man coming, know that He is at hand’, which would be pointless, we take it rather to refer to the signs of the End described in vv. 5–23 It is unnecessary, however, to conclude that vv. 28 f or vv. 24–27 are out of their original context; for such looseness of structure as is involved, if we understand ‘these things’ to refer to thesigns of vv. 5–23 in spite of vv. 24–27 being in between, is natural enough, and we actually need something like v. 26 here to provide a subject for the verb ‘is’ in v. 29. We take vv. 28 f then to mean that, when the disciples see the various things coming to pass that have been described in vv. 5–23, they are to know that the Son of Man is at hand, His Parousia imminent.

The Son of Man in the First Gospel

1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-129
Author(s):  
Margaret Pamment
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
The Church

Perhaps it is foolhardy at present to attempt to understand what the first evangelist means when he uses the term Ό υίòς το άνωρώπου. Scholars are divided about the significance of the term both in Jewish eschatological speculation and as an Aramaic idiom. They are divided over the contribution of Jesus and of the early church to the Son of man sayings in the synoptics. Did Jesus preach about a future Son of man who would play a role in the eschatological drama and the church identify Jesus with that figure? Did Jesus use an Aramaic idiom which was misunderstood by a church interpreting their experience of the resurrection in the light of Daniel 7? Is ‘the Son of man’ a title, and is it a Christological title or a symbol for the saints? It is not surprising that articles are appearing with titles like: Can the Son of man problem be solved?

scholarly journals Rebuilding the community and the church post-COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Verster
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The People ◽  
Fig Tree ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church

The catastrophic destructions of the Temple in Jewish history led to different reactions. Although they left a serious mark on all of Israel’s future endeavours and the prophets warned the people of the coming disasters, they also proclaimed hope, even after the destruction. Some Jews reacted to it by forming close-knit communities and their commitment to the Torah. It remained a serious challenge to their faith and community life. They carefully studied the prophets to understand the implications of the destructions of the temples. Christians explained that Jesus had to be honoured as Lord after the destruction of the Temple. In the Gospels, Jesus foretold the terrible situation of the demise of the Temple and that his body would be the new Temple. New life is possible in Him and in the coming of the Kingdom. Some exegetes link the cursing of the fig tree by Jesus to the destruction of the temple, but others see it as a general warning to the Jewish people to honour God. It is also very important that the resurrection of Jesus is regarded as the rebuilding of the new temple in his body. After the COVID-19 pandemic, believers as servants of the Lord have to build up the church and empower the community again. This should be done in respect of Jesus the crucified and resurrected Lord. The church has a huge task in this regard, not only by proclaiming Jesus as our only comfort in life and death, but also in the commitment to the building up of the community post-Covid-19. This should be accomplished by humbling and fully following Jesus.

Ἰουδαϊσμός – ἰουδαΐζειν – ἰουδαϊκῶς Sprachliche und semantische Überlegungen im Blick auf Gal 1,13 f. und 2,14

2017 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Sänger
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Semantic Data ◽  
Constitutive Requirements ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Radical Revision

Abstract:Since late antiquity there has been diversity in the particulars of the interpretation of the Greek term Ἰουδαϊσμός in Galatians 1,13–14, but the prevailing notion in most cases is that Ἰουδαϊσμός signifies “Judaism”, the religion of the Jewish people. On the contrary, in a provocative article Steve Mason proposed a radical revision of this reading of Ἰουδαϊσμός and its cognates (cf. Gal 2,13–15; 3,28). According to him (and other scholars) there was no category of “Judaism” in the Graeco-Roman World, no “religion” too, and that the Ἰουδαῖοι were understood as an ethnic group comparable to other ethnic groups. Consequently Mason claims that the substantive adjective Ἰουδαῖος has always the ethnic-regional sense “Judean”, never the religious sense “Jew”. To my opinion this view is partly right and partly wrong. Starting from the grammatical and semantic data provided by 2 and 4 Maccabees and attested in the epigraphic record this essay aims at two points: It is argued, first, that due to the fact that Ἰουδαϊσμός and its cognates obviously denote also a religious dimension it seems very unlikely to hold the view of a purely ethnic centered conception of Jewish identity. Further, that the Galatian controversy and the incident at Antioch, described in Gal 2,11–14, reflect a quarrel within the early church about the crucial question concerning the constitutive requirements in regard to the construction, formation, and performance of Christian identity.

Christian Writers on Judaism

1921 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Foot Moore
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
The People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles

Christian interest in Jewish literature has always been apologetic or polemic rather than historical. The writers of the New Testament set themselves to demonstrate from the Scriptures that Jesus was the expected Messiah by showing that his nativity, his teaching and miracles, the rejection of him by his people, his death, resurrection, and ascension, were minutely foretold in prophecy, the exact fulfilment of which in so many particulars was conclusive proof of the truth of his claims, and left no room to doubt that his own prediction would be fulfilled in the speedy coming of the Son of Man to judgment, as Daniel had seen him in his vision. In the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews and in the Gospel according to John the aim is not so much to prove that Jesus was the Messiah of Jewish expectation as that the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom Christians believed that they had salvation from their sins and the assurance of a blessed immortality, was a divine being, the Son of God, the Word of God incarnate; and this higher faith also sought its evidence in the Scriptures. The apologetic of the following centuries, especially that which addresses itself to Jewish objections, has the same chief topics: Jesus was the Christ (Messiah), and Christ is a divine being. Others, which also have their antecedents in the New Testament, are accessory to these, particularly the emancipation of Christians from the Mosaic law, or the annulment of the dispensation of law altogether, or the substitution of the new law of Christ; the repudiation of the Jewish people by God for their rejection of Christ, and the succession of the church, the true Israel, the people of God, to all the prerogatives and promises once given to the Jews.

The Epistemological Significance of ‘Ομοοσον in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance

1992 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kang Phee Seng
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
History Of

Central to the whole of Thomas Forsyth Torrance's theology is the μοοΣιον between the incarnate Logos and the eternal God, or the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. The immense significance of this Nicene μοοΣιον is best understood against the background of the axiomatic χωριΣμΣ which lies at the heart of Hellenism, Gnosticism and Arianism. Once such a radical separation between τ νοητ and τ αἰΣθητ is posited, there arise the inevitable questions: (a) How do we regard the biblical statements of the eternal God within the history of the Jewish people in the realm of τ αἰΣθητ (b) On which side of the demarcation does the Logos of the eternal God belong? For the dualist thinkers, the dilemma is — How can the eternal God who is impassible and changeless be thought of as actually entering the spatiotemporal history of this changing and decaying world, and alas, even living within our creaturely and contingent order? To be sure, the biblical notion of a Creator who actively and creatively interacts with his creation is incompatible with the prevailing Hellenic thought-form and secular culture of the early Church. It was as unthinkable and unintelligible to them as it is to Bultmann and the myth-of-God-incarnate theologians of our day.

scholarly journals The wisdom and apocalyptic layers of the Sayings Gospel Q: What is their significance?

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Hartin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Past ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Sayings Of Jesus ◽  
Sayings Gospel Q

New Testament scholarship over the past three decades has shown a growing interest in the Sayings Gospel Q. Vielhauer’s thesis on the secondary nature of the future Son of man sayings led to the conclusion that the apocalyptic element within the Sayings Gospel Q was also secondary. This paper follows the work of Kloppenborg and examines the wisdom and apocalyptic layers of the Sayings Gospel Q. The examination argues that the proclamation of Jesus was directed first of all to the proclamation of a kingdom that was present. The apocalyptic understanding of a future, immediate end of the world was a later appropriation within a deuteronomistic framework that developed from sayings of Jesus that were interpreted in this way by the early church.

scholarly journals CONCEPT OF PRACTICES OF JEWISH AND EARLY CHRISTIAN MEDICINE

2020 ◽  
pp. 129-138
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Main Attention ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Sick People ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
The Church

The article examines the theological and philosophical origins of Jewish and early Christian medicine. We have shown that the basis of the medical practice of the ancient Jews and early Christians were the books of the Old Testament. The principles of nutrition, sanitation and hygiene have been considered in detail in the context of the topic. We also have analyzed the rules of care for sick people and the means used by the Jewish people in the treatment of infectious diseases. It has been shown that in order to prevent the spread of an infectious disease, Jews isolated an infected person from close contact with other people, thus avoiding the spread of various diseases and epidemics. Some Jewish works of the post-biblical period contain a description of the development of philosophy and ethics in medicine; the main ones are the Midrash, the Mishnah and the Talmud. In the article we also have analyzed conceptual medical foundations set forth in the Pentateuch of the Moses and the Talmud. It has been shown that the main attention of Jewish treatment practitioners was focused on disease prevention, as they attached great importance to the principles of ritual purity, which in turn was directly related to public hygiene. We also have studied a number of works of the early church fathers, who initiated the practice of caring for the physically ill. As a result, it was found that in the writings of the church fathers there are many mentions of surgery and treatment of mental illness.

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