Storied Identity

In this paper, I explore two ways of understanding the moral and spiritual significance of stories, and in turn two ways of developing the notion of storied identity, and hence two ways of reading the Bible. I propose that these two approaches to the biblical text provide the basis for a fruitful interpretation of the Christian rite of the Eucharist, so that, to this extent, we can take the Eucharist to support these ways of drawing out the sense of the text. Accordingly, we can speak of reading the Bible eucharistically. The aim of the paper is not to substantially explain central features of the Eucharist as it has been understood in mainstream Christian teaching but, more modestly, to consider how these two ways of approaching the biblical text may help to bring some aspects of the rite, as depicted in Christian thought, into rather clearer focus, including its social dimension, and the relationship, on the Christian understanding, between the divine presence in the Incarnation and in the Eucharist.

Reading the Ark in Beth-shemesh and Perez-uzzah Politically

A monarchic date for the ark narratives suggests a political context where the temple in Jerusalem is endowed with an ark volatile with divine presence to rival the northern golden calves. The promise of a temple in 2 Sam 7, juxtaposed with the ark’s violence in 2 Sam 6:19, suggests that the volatile ark is safely ensconced in the temple in the city of the Davidic kings, endorsing the cultic centre. Reading the ark narratives in a later period of exile, Jer 3:14–18 suggests an interesting continuation of this logic, where there is no longer misalignment of God’s holy presence in a box, and all Jerusalem will become God’s throne.

The Ethics and Characterisation of God, and the Rejection of Saul

In dialogue with the thought of Martha Nussbaum, divine emotions point to God’s cherished projects and are relevant for the ethical evaluation of divine violence. There is complexity in analysing ancient concepts broadly labelled ‘emotions’ that hold emotive, cognitive, and physical dimensions, including regret and favour. Divine regret suggests that the divine violence against Saul is not a repayment of Saul’s guilt but a repayment of God’s own prior action in making Saul king. Divine regret is an emotion/cognition that is not based on an attempt to determine good and evil but on divine attachments and values, the need to remove Saul, and God’s favour for his neighbour. God’s characterisation is also described through the phrase ‘according to [God’s] own heart,’ and divine presence indicated the divine spirits upon Saul and David.

The Characterisation of God in the Stories of the Ark

The Divine Violence of the ark in 1 Sam 6:19 and 2 Sam 6:7 springs from the misalignment of the holy transcendent God being present in the ark. The conception of divine presence does not conform to JE, Priestly, Zion-Sabaoth, or Deuteronomistic theology precisely, but it contains elements found in all of these traditions, confirming that the transcendent God is understood as actually present in the ark in 1 Sam 6:19 and 2 Sam 6:7. God is characterised as holy in these narratives, but God also shows no privilege for God’s own people, treating them akin to the Philistines. God is angry in 2 Sam 6:7, and the concept of anger as an unleashed volatile rage is explored. The thought of Walter Benjamin is used to suggest that the Divine Violence of the ark is beyond ethics: it cannot be justified, but it also does not justify other acts of violence.

IBN ʿARABῙ: RETIRO Y RECUERDO

Resumen: El retiro se ha establecido durante mucho tiempo como un método de realización espiritual. Ibn ʿArabī escribe sobre el retiro, por un lado, como la práctica del aislamiento y, por otro, como un principio general de fuga en retorno hacia Dios, fuga desde la ignorancia hacia el conocimiento. Según Ibn ʿArabī, la dimensión interna del ser humano es la celda de su retiro. El recuerdo de Dios es una consciencia de la presencia divina y, cuando el corazón está vacío de preocupaciones mundanas, lo divino puede ser presenciado interna y externamente, en reclusión o en compañía. Abstract: Retreat has long been established as a method of spiritual realization. Ibn ‘Arabi writes of retreat both as the practice of seclusion and as a general principle of fleeing to God, and of fleeing from ignorance to knowledge. According to Ibn ‘Arabi, the human being’s inward dimension is the cell of their retreat. The remembrance of God is an awareness of the divine presence and when the heart is empty of worldly concerns, God’s presence may be witnessed inwardly and outwardly, in seclusion or in company.

‘He Saw Heaven Opened’: Heavenly Temple and Universal Mission in Luke-Acts

Numerous scholars have argued that in Luke-Acts the location of sacred space or divine presence passes from the Jerusalem temple to Jesus, Christian believers, or both; in Acts, this transfer is understood as integral to the universal mission. The present article argues that such studies overlook the important motif of heaven as temple, which plays a role in Jesus’ trial and crucifixion and the Stephen and Cornelius episodes. Using Edward Soja's spatial theory, previous studies’ binary categorisation of temple space is critiqued. The heavenly temple disrupts and reconstitutes understandings of sacred space, and thus undergirds the universal spread of the Way.

Reading for Resonance

This article offers a hermeneutic approach attentive to the tangled idiomatic and literary interconnections among biblical texts and other Second Temple literature. It focuses on the expressions of divine presence in the Temple Scroll and their prepositions; the divine presence is ‘upon’ the temple and ‘in the midst’ of the people. This prepositional rhetoric engages recurrences and interconnections within and beyond the Hebrew Bible. It thus evokes multiple interlocking resonances and offers a window onto concepts of temple presence across biblical texts and traditions.

Allegory and the Body as Icon: Evelyn Underhill and Barbara Brown Taylor

When faith traditions confront postmodern uncertainties regarding historical liturgical practices, political and cultural ideologies, the self and sacred space, the assurance of truth claims, allegorical readings and interpretations of sites where divine presence is found are equally questioned. Can allegorical interpretations offer a valuable strategy in postmodern understandings for identifying how Divine presence is embodied? One possibility is to discover how two Anglican women embody their faith community’s via media and in turn these women may be read as an “open icon.” To provide contrasting views, Orthodox Icons are particularly noted for their allegorical certainties that identify and point with sharp clarification to Tradition and the Church’s sacramental understandings. An allegorical frame “closes” the Orthodox icon. In a postmodern view, allegory “opens” said frame to a vast horizontal landscape that discovers spaces, places, and persons in which the Holy Spirit works mysteriously and unexpectedly. Both Evelyn Underhill and Barbara Brown Taylor writing almost a century apart and each encountering their respective historical reactions to “modernism,” trace the margins of their faith along the Anglican understanding of the via media. In doing so, both suggest the notion of “open” icon—the body itself.

Tokens of Presence: Second-Personal Presence and Baptistic Accounts of the Eucharist

This paper attempts to provide a bridge between the two predominant Baptistic accounts of divine presence in Eucharist, with the help of Eleonore Stump’s account of second-personal presence and theories of emergence. Predominantly understood in either Zwinglian (memorialist) or Reformed (instrumentalist) categories, a dividing wall is erected with baptistic theology over the question of whether or not communion is strictly an act of human remembrance or involves divine presence in some form or fashion. After identifying three key problems with the memorialist account, this paper attempts to provide a middle way between the two views, arguing that the Spirit appropriates the bread and wine as tokens through which he communicates the thoughts, intentions, desires, and second-personal presence of Christ to the gathered body in order to strengthen the church's union with Christ.