scholarly journals Yahwistic incongruency and enigma: A challenge to relinquish violence?

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doniwen Pietersen

This article deals with the incongruency and enigma of violence on the part of Yahweh, in order to locate action or inaction against violence on a human level. The debate whether people should be actively involved in serving their countries in the military, if political leaders can wage war and take up arms against a corrupt, grossly oppressive and unjust regime, and if people should vote for and endorse parties with such policies, is contested. Furthermore, questions such as whether people can fight back when they are attacked on the street, whether they can own firearms and use them in self-defence when their families are under siege, and if they can physically harm a person who is in the process of sexually abusing their spouse, are indeed pertinent yet difficult questions to answer, especially in light of verses that say ‘Blessed are the meek… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the peacemakers… blessed are those who are persecuted…’ (Mt 5:3–10). The questions are foregrounded on the notion that appropriates the Christian use of violence to correct a wrong. For the purpose of this study, a historical and literary analysis was employed.Contribution: This article contributes to the theological discourse within the Old Testament, ethical studies, New Testament studies as well as practical theology as it explores the intersections between the theological theme of violence by means of historical-critical and inter-textual reading methods.

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert J. Steyn

The important contribution that the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) hold for New Testament studies is probably most evident in Ad Hebraeos. This contribution seeks to present an overview of relevant extant DSS fragments available for an investigation of the Old Testament explicit quotations and motifs in the book of Hebrews. A large number of the explicit quotations in Hebrews were already alluded to, or even quoted, in some of the DSS. The DSS are of great importance for the study of the explicit quotations in Ad Hebraeos in at least four areas, namely in terms of its text-critical value, the hermeneutical methods employed in both the DSS and Hebrews, theological themes and motifs that surface in both works, and the socio-religious background in which these quotations are embedded. After these four areas are briefly explored, this contribution concludes, among others, that one can cautiously imagine a similar Jewish sectarian matrix from which certain Christian converts might have come – such as the author of Hebrews himself.


The Septuagint is the term commonly used to refer to the corpus of early Greek versions of Hebrew Scriptures. The collection is of immense importance in the history of both Judaism and Christianity. The renderings of individual books attest to the religious interests of the substantial Jewish population of Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and to the development of the Greek language in its Koine phase. The narrative ascribing the Septuagint’s origins to the work of seventy translators in Alexandria attained legendary status among both Jews and Christians. The Septuagint was the version of Scripture most familiar to the writers of the New Testament, and became the authoritative Old Testament of the Greek and Latin Churches. In the early centuries of Christianity it was itself translated into several other languages, and it has had a continuing influence on the style and content of biblical translations. In the Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint leading experts in the field write on the history and manuscript transmission of the version, and explain the study of translation technique and textual criticism. They provide surveys of previous and current research on individual books of the Septuagint corpus, on alternative Jewish Greek versions, the Christian ‘daughter’ translations, and reception in early Jewish and Christian writers. The handbook also includes several ‘conversations’ with related fields of interest such as New Testament studies, liturgy, and art history.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vuyisile Qiki ◽  
Llewellyn Howes

The leaders of certain New Prophetic Pentecostal Churches (NPPCs) perform rituals that are very unusual when compared with traditional church rituals and practices. These practices include eating grass, rats or snakes, drinking petrol and spraying Doom on people so that they would be healed and be closer to God. The trend to perform these unusual rituals has spread throughout South Africa. Leaders from NPPCs often quote Mark 7:14–19 and Matthew 15:10–11, 16–18 to justify their actions. In this study, these parallel texts will be considered in their literary and socio-cultural contexts to determine whether or not they can be taken to condone the activities of these church leaders.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The study will find that Mark 7:14–19 and Matthew 15:10–11, 16–18 either condone or do not condone the unusual activities of NPPCs and their leaders. Either way, the findings will be relevant for New Testament studies, practical theology, religion studies and systematic theology.


2008 ◽  
Vol 101 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 311-322
Author(s):  
Helmut Koester

In order to answer the question of the involvement of Harvard Theological Review in the publication of essays relating to the New Testament, I have gone through all the published indices that were issued by the journal. The first index was published in 1938 and covered the journal's first thirty years; thereafter indices were published at ten-year intervals. The figures to which I shall refer in this paper are not necessarily exact, but they offer a reasonably good indication of the commitment of Harvard Theological Review to the field of New Testament studies. I did not limit the following survey to essays that deal with the New Testament proper, narrowly defined. There are numerous articles that contribute to New Testament studies indirectly, as they deal with the literature of postexilic Israel, the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, or rabbinic Judaism. Other areas of scholarly endeavor relating to the New Testament and early Christianity are the history of ancient Christianity, New Testament apocrypha including the writings from Nag Hammadi, the Apostolic Fathers, early Christian apologists, and ancient church history in general. Finally, many of these essays, often written by New Testament scholars, deal with material from the Greco-Roman world.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Zeichmann

The study of the military in the Roman provinces of Judaea is not the most accessible topic. Though the data upon which scholars rely is familiar (e.g., epigraphs, papyri, ancient historians), its study requires significant methodological deviations from biblical studies. This article summarizes key points relevant for scholars of both Jewish antiquity and early Christianity. First, it provides a summary of recent developments in the social history of the Roman army in the Near East, attending especially to the question of the role and function of soldiers in that region. Second, this article provides a brief social history for all military units in Judaea before it was renamed Syria Palaestina in 130 ce (four legions, 14 infantry cohortes, and five cavalry alae), based on the latest discoveries. Finally, the article concludes with a section discussing two issues specific to New Testament studies: the presence of an Italian cohort in Judaea (Acts 10) and the issue of the Augustan cohort in Judaea and Batanaea (Acts 27).


1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 656-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Moloney

A study of the use of the Old Testament in (by) the New should have a privileged place in our attempts to discover the hermeneutical processes which stood behind the growth of the New Testament as literature. Studies of this nature are not speculating upon the possible interior dispositions or mental processes of the communities and individuals who formed our New Testament books. These factors will always remain outside our scientific control. A study of the use of an Old Testament passage in the New gives us the raw material of the author's positive use of Israel's authoritative word of God to describe the event of Christ. The recent ‘prolegomena and response’ in New Testament Studies between Barnabas Lindars and Peder Borgen has shown that there is still a great deal to be learnt from such a discussion.


1992 ◽  
Vol 48 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Van Aarde

A S Geyser, lecturer in theology 1946-1961 In this article the academic role of Professor A S Geyser is briefly discussed. He lectured in New Testament Studies and Practical Theology at the University of Pretoria from 1946. He resigned in 1961, after a period of strife. His publications show a consistence in exegetical approach and theological description. His historical-critical investigation was aimed beyond the New Testament into the pretexts which evidenced the commencement of the universal apostolate at Antioch. Inferred from his exegetical results he propounded the unity of the church as an imperative for today. However, against the background of the South African political history from 1948 to 1961, the political and ecumenical implications of Geyser’s theological convictions were not acceptable to the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk.


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