scholarly journals Die doodstraf: ’n teologiese standpunt

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan A Du Rand

The recent process of structural transformation on all levels of society in South Africa urges theological reflection to participate. In this instance the crucial issue of capital punishment is at stake. After a brief survey of viewpoints and arguments concerning the issue, prominent and mostly debated Biblical texts are analysed. Genesis 9:6 and Exodus 21:24, for example are read within their cultural frameworks and theological contexts. The same is done with Matthew 5:21-22; 15:4; 26:52; John 7:53-8:11 and Romans 13:1-7. The conclusion is that Old Testament references to capital punishment are to be understood contextually. A final theological decision rests on the meaning of  the incarnation of Jesus Christ which put man in a new relationship with God but also to each other . That does not mean that punishment has to be is abolished as such, but any punishment has to be executed through the new God given ethos of love, demonstrated in the meaning of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. 

Author(s):  
Peter Addai-Mensah

The concept of sin is a phenomenon that no one can gloss over. It is a reality. It permeates the whole of human existence. All the major religions in the world grapple with it as far as relationship with God is concerned. This article discusses the concept of sin. It looks at it from the point of view of Christianity. The article examines how various scholars have defined sin from their own perspectives. It looks at the types of sin, how sin originated and made its presence in the world and the consequences of sin. Finally, the article accounts for the theological implications of sin. It points out that among other things: sin destroys the relationship between God and the human person; separation from God because of sin leads to death and destruction; the concept of sin necessitated the coming of Jesus Christ to bring salvation and liberation to the world. The article does not use a case study. The author uses the literary approach and therefore uses library sources.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-38
Author(s):  
Jonathan Octavianus

As every epoch there are there a transition time, on Old Testament like Moses with Joshua, Joshua selected by God an supported fully by Moses, Conversely Moses have liberally to be changed. Like Elijah to Elisha too.Pattern on New Testament there are an examples of transition time too, like Jesus Christ to His Disciples, an transition from Paul to his successor Timothy. This is a heart and soul a big leader, and shall all leadership owners shepherd in church, Christian institution, etc.Which most be remembered in transition of leadership, that people of God leadership, about who will lead, who continue leadership, like a principle in biblical, hence a role of God, is determinant an anoint man which be selected the absolute God choice and constitute all other, but a succession router leader is which have been selected His own. An can be anointed in front of believers.


Author(s):  
Hanna Dewi Aritonang ◽  
Bestian Simangunsong ◽  
Adiani Hulu

This article addresses the issue of conflict between religious communities that cause enmity amid society. Hostilities must be overcome and resolved in accordance with the call of Christianity to live in love and peace. The study used the qualitative paradigm as the method of the research and the descriptive-analyses as the writing method by describing the research problems based on data collected from related publications.One of the powerful messages of Jesus's teaching is "Love your enemies." It’s one of the greatest challenges in life. Jesus Christ gave an important doctrine about loving the enemy because love is more powerful than evil, hurtful deeds. Loving the enemy means canceling hostilities and violence, but instead, it promises acceptance of each other. The title of this study is "love your enemies": A Christian Response to Embrace Others. As the title of this study is "love your enemies," the reason for the selection of this article is because the author sees that "loving the enemy is a commandment from God that must be obeyed. This research question emphasizes how to realize "loving the enemy" amid hostility. This paper argues that Jesus's command to love the enemy is a proper Christian lifestyle choice in the midst of hostility. We use CS Song thoughts, which elaborated with other scholars' views on theology, loving, and embracing others. The purpose of the research was to gain understanding and build a theological reflection on Jesus' commandment to love the enemy. In this article, we first briefly discuss the portrait of life among religious people in Indonesia. Secondly, we discuss the conflict between religious people in Indonesia. Finally, we apply the command of Jesus to love our enemy as a Christian lifestyle in the midst of hostility to construct harmony amid hostility. We propose the command of Jesus to ‘love your enemy’ as a response to establishing sustainable peace by embrace others. Finally, the Christians must become a loving community because God so loved us, and we also ought to love and embrace others.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Cas Wepener ◽  
Esias E. Meyer

Abstract This article offers the results of research in which two theological fields cooperated in order to investigate one specific repertoire of liturgical rituals. From the perspective of both Liturgical Studies, and its focus on the functioning of ritual within its cultural context, and Old Testament Studies, and a focus on how biblical critics understand certain rituals described in the Priestly texts in the Pentateuch, ritual burning and slaughtering in an AIC was studied. Ritual Studies is beginning to play a much more prominent role in the engagement with books such as Leviticus and Numbers and also in Liturgical Studies, and this article is an example of how these two disciplines can fruitfully cooperate in the study of liturgical rituals in an AIC in South Africa.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Robin Orton

The argument in the 380s between Gregory and Apolinarius, as set out Gregory’s Antirrheticus adversus Apolinarium, can be seen as a significant step in the development of the Church’s Christological teaching. Apolinarius’s no­tion that the eternal Logos took the place of Jesus Christ’s human mind is de­signed to establish the unity of his person, by providing a basis for the ontic con­tinuity between the Second Person of the Trinity and Christ in his two natures. Commendably, he wants to counter any suggestion of separation between the hu­man and divine natures (“two Christs”), which he sees as inevitably leading to an “adoptionist” view of Christ as a “God-filled man”; that would put Christ on the same level as the Old Testament prophets and could not form the basis of an adequate soteriology. Gregory argues convincingly however that Apolinarius’s “enfleshed mind” Christology would mean that Jesus Christ was not fully hu­man and could not therefore save humankind. But in the face of Apolinarius’s challenge he cannot give an adequate account of Christ’s unity during his earthly career. He remains open to Apolinarius’s charge of a “divisive” Christology by in effect postponing the complete unity until after Christ’s glorification, when his divinity overwhelmed his humanity and removed all his human characteristics, in the same way as the water of the sea overwhelms a drop of vinegar dropped into it. On this basis he has, anachronistically but not unreasonably, been accused of taking a Nestorian view of Christ before his glorification and a monophysite one after it. Both Apolinarius’s stress on the unity of Christ and Gregory’s on the no­tion that ‘what is not assumed is not healed’ (Nazianzen’s phrase) were essential elements in what emerged seventy years later in the Chalcedonian definition.


2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Dariusz Kasprzak

Neither the Apostles nor any Christian minister is admitted to use the priest’s title in the text of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in the New Testament we can perceive the development of the doctrine of the priest ministry in the early Church. Albert Vanhoye maintains that the lack of the term “priest” in the New Testament suggests the way of understanding of the Christian ministry, different from this in the Old Testament. It can’t be considered as a continuation of Jewish priesthood, which was concentrated mainly on ritual action and ceremonies. In the first century the Church developed the Christology of priesthood (Hbr) and ecclesiology of priesthood (1 P). Early Christians focused first on the redemptive event of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant. Only then the religious communities adopted the priest’s title for their ministry.In the early years of the Church, all the ministries were regarded as a charismatic service among the Christian communities. In their services the early Christians followed Jesus Christ sent by God to serve. The Holy Spirit sent by God in the name of Jesus bestowed the spiritual gifts upon the Church (1 Kor 12–13). Consequently the disciples of Jesus and their successors could continue his mission. The Twelve Apostles’ ministry was the very first and most important Christian ministry. It was closely connected to the service of Jesus Christ himself. The Apostles were sent by the authority of Jesus Christ to continue his mission upon earth and they preached the Good News of the risen Christ. The Apostolicity was the fundamental base for every Church ministry established in different Christian communities. Successive ministries were established in order to transmit the teaching of Jesus Christ and to lead the community. For the early Christians the priesthood was not an individual privilege. It had rather the community character.


2019 ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Daniel Dzikiewicz

This study is devoted to the issue of the influence of the pericope Mk 16,9-20 on the semantic meaning of the noun ἀρχή in Mk 1,1. The starting thesis is: after the joining of the so-called canoni- cal ending Mk 16,9-20 to the Gospel of Mark, the first word of this work ἀρχὴ, lost the meaning of the beginning and assumed the value of the summary in the sense of a collection of basic kerygma- tic information about the Event of Jesus Christ. In order to demonstrate the validity of the put forward hypothesis, the current study has been divided into two parts. The first part discusses the issue of the phenomenon of combining biblical texts and its influence on the semantic meaning of particular words or pericope. The second part, however, gives arguments for the proposed solution. The semantic argument shows that the word ἀρχή may have the meaning of summary. The translational argument cites some examples of bi- blical translations of the word ἀρχή as a certain summary. The scriptural argument shows that canonical gospels are a literary summary of the words and works of Jesus Christ. And the exegetical argument justifies the summary character of the entire first verse Mk 1,1. In the light of the quoted evidence, the following conclusion is to be drawn: the addition of the pericope Mk 16,9-20 to the Gospel of Mark made the latter a closed literary composition, and this in turn also influenced the meaning of the word ἀρχή in Mk 1,1, which lost the sense of the beginningand took the character of a summary.


MELINTAS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Staniselaus Eko Riyadi

Violence is a crime condemned by religions, but religions in the world are apparently involved in some kind of violence. It has been considered problematic that some scriptural texts are showing violent acts that seem to be ‘authorised’ by God, even ‘allowed’ by God, or celebrated by the people. How should we understand such problematic texts? Is there any violence authorised by God? Christianity has been dealing with the interpretation of violent acts in biblical texts from the Old Testament as well as from the New Testament. This article suggests that violence in the biblical texts must be understood within the context of defining religious identity of Israel among the other nations that have their own gods. Scriptures do not promote violence, but has recorded the historical experiences of Israel in their confrontation with other nations. Therefore, violence in the biblical texts cannot be referred to as a sort of justification for any violent acts by religions in our multireligious and multiethnic society.


2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
H.F. Van Rooy

In South Africa the debate on Human Rights gained new impetus after the implementation of the interim constitution in 1994, followed by the new constitution in 1996, containing a charter of fundamental Human Rights. The question to be answered by this paper is whether Ezekiel 18 can contribute to this debate. This paper firstly discusses the question whether the Old Testament can be used in the debate on Human Rights. This is followed by a discussion of Ezekiel 18, with emphasis on the transgressions listed in this chapter in their Israelite context. Many of these injunctions are related to the laws of Deuteronomy, the Book of the Covenant and the Holiness Code. These injunctions are studied against the background of Israelite law in general and the three codes mentioned above in particular. Finally, the implications of Ezekiel 18 for the issue of Human Rights are discussed. The violation of rights of people guaranteed by divine law is seen as one of the major causes of divine punishment. God's law was meant to create a society found on justice. An unjust society is in contradiction to the will of God, according to Ezekiel 18. The implications of this view for the debate on Human Rights in South Africa need to be taken into consideration.


2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim J.C. Weren

The use of violence in punishing adultery in Biblical texts (Deuteronomy 22:13-29 and John 7:53-8:11) In this article, the focus is on the extent to which in biblical texts violence is deemed acceptable in punishing adultery. Jesus’ attitude to this severe punishment is discussed. Jesus concurs with the sanction imposed by Moses but the effect of his requirement that each individual in the group of executioners be without sin, is in fact that the punishment cannot be carried out. The way in which Jesus intervenes is in line of discussions in the Old Testament and in early Judaism that are aimed at imposing restraints of the use of violence in punishing sexual offences. The article concludes with an evaluation of the topical relevance or irrelevance of the two biblical pasages discussed here.


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