|
|
Biblical Theology BulletinInternational Quarterly Journal of Biblical Theology |
|
| Index of Issues | Subscriptions | Permissions to Reprint | Editors | Notes for Authors |
|
|
Spring 1999 (29:1) Spring 1999 (29:1)Presenting the Issue:
Ask Me What to Tell Your Children Matthew 18:15-17: Conflict, Confrontation, and Conflict
Resolution Abstract. The aim of this study is to establish a plausible scenario for Matthean conflict resolution and to further clarify the stage of group formation of the Matthean group. It defends the thesis that the Matthean author modified, and thereby intentionally obscures, a more sharply developed disciplinary process that existed in the Matthean fictive kin association. Matthew 18:15-17 reveals the tip of a developing organizational iceberg. Funerals and Baptism, Ordinary and Otherwise: Ritual
Criticism Abstract. The emerging field of ritual studies gives Second Testament scholars innovative ways of approaching the rites of the Jesus movement and thus enables them better to re-create the community life reflected in the language of the Second Testament. This study sets the Corinthian extension of baptism to the dead alongside funerals conducted for the living and imaginary or honorary funerals, with the aim of characterizing the creative modification rites could undergo in the Greco-Roman world. As a result, a ritual critical approach provides a way of integrating baptism on behalf of the dead into the baptismal practices of the Corinthians, and it suggests how rites marking entry into and exit from their community were related. Intertextuality and Dialogue Abstract. The Bible, both Jewish and Christian, is a dialogical literature. It is a compilation of many different human expressions of and responses to divine revelations over fifteen hundred years from the Bronze Age to the Greco-Roman. The Bible is also intertextual; it is full of itself. From he earliest literary forms to the latest, earlier traditions and texts, national and international, are interwoven developing new meanings out of old ideas. Critically trained rabbis and pastors in all the major seminaries know these things about the Bible but do not always share them with their parishioners. Intense interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls has brought such critical issues out into the open, even as serious study of the Scrolls has confirmed critical readings of the Bible. How can the Scriptures of Early Judaism give rise to two such distinct religions as Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity? The Bible, one testament or two, in effect mandates dialogue between the two similar but disparate faiths if either is interested in a valid, postmodern search for truth. BTB Book Reviews DeBlois & Van der Spek, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
ANCIENT WORLD Vledder, CONFLICT IN THE MIRACLE STORIES: A
SOCIO-EXEGETICAL STUDY OF MATTHEW 8 AND 9 Pilch, THE CULTURAL WORLD OF JESUS SUNDAY BY SUNDAY Wallace and Williams, THE THREE WORLDS OF PAUL OF
TARSUS McKenzie & Graham, eds. THE HEBREW BIBLE TODAY: AN
INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL ISSUES Stuhlmueller, ed, THE COLLEGEVILLE PASTORAL DICTIONARY
OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Summer 1999 (29:2)
Contested Claims: Roman Imperial Theology and Matthew's
Gospel Abstract. Much recent Matthean scholarship has concentrated on the relationship between Matthew's audience and the synagogue "down the street." Without challenging this focus, this article explores a further, largely neglected Imperial theology, a cluster of themes explicating the power relationship between ruler and ruled, asserts that the Flavian emperors were elected by the Gods to maifest their rule, presence, and blessing among humans. Matthew's Gospel contests these claims by aserting God's sovereignty ove the world and huma existence. Jesus is God's agent, manifesting God's rule and presence among humans, and securing a quite different form of societal well being. Undermining Ancient Patriarchy: The Apostle Paul's
Vision of Abstract. The closest family tie in ancient Mediterranean society was experienced among siblings. Paul of Tarsus followed the historical Jesus in his attempts 1) to undermine the authority and social cohesiveness of the blood kin group and patriarchal family, 2) to offer an alternative family structure made up of surrogate "brothers" and "sisters," and 3) to make viable a first-century Mediterranean person's choosing to live in such an alternative, trust-based form of social relations by means of a profound redefining of the competitive honor code into which all males has been socialized. Paul's goal was not the creation of an egalitarian community in the political sense, but a well-functioning family in the kinship sense, a family without fathers in which the "strong" would use their strength not for themselves but to empower the "weak." Certainty within the Fellowship: Dialectical Discourse
in 1 John Abstract. While biblical scholars have experienced considerable difficulty tracing any consecutive argument throughout the First Epistle of John, they have noted its extensive use of dualistic and antithetical language. This study combines the insights from three paradigms to suggest a more coherent understanding of the structure of 1 John as dialectical discourse. BTB Book Reviews Watson, TEXT AND TRUTH: REDEFINING BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Davies, SCRIBES AND SCHOOLS: THE CANONIZATION McKenzie & Graham, eds., THE HEBREW BIBLE TODAY: AN
INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL ISSUES Derret, LAW AND MORALITY Hanson & Oakman, PALESTINE IN THE TIME OF JESUS:
SOCIAL STRUCTURES AND SOCIAL CONFLICTS Fall 1999 (29:3)Presenting the Issue:
The Secular Mind The Hope of Heaven . . . on Earth Abstract. This article asks about the substance and practice of hope in First Testament faith. The paper was prepared for a conference on the Christian "hope of heaven" In such a context, it is evident that hope in the First Testament is principally a this-worldly act. It is suggested in the article that 1) Israel's memory of God's miracles permits Israel to expect miracles in the future, 2) Israel's speech practice in complaints is an act of hope, as the complaints characteristically moved to affirmation, and 3) the fissure of the exile is the matrix of Israel's hope. Out of these affirmations, Israel can hope for a new community of shalom, a new creation of well-being, and eventually a new personal destiny as a gift of God. Every dimension of hope is hope in the God who is able to do a new thing. The Testament(s): Continuities and Discontinuities Abstract. This article, based on a reserach report given at the 1999 Catholic Biblical Association annual meeting at Notre Dame University, approaches the topic from the point of view of the impact of the Israelite world view on the data of biblical theology: Sheol and immortality; the heavenly court and angelology; the levels of interpretation of the Song of Songs; and, finally, discontinuity within the wisdom literature. The Politics of Exorcism: Jesus' Reaction to Negative
Labels Abstract. Jesus was accused of being possessed by Beelzebul because of the exorcisms he practiced. This view is characteristic of the first-century Mediterranean interpretation of deviant behavior. The purpose of this article is to determine the historical causes of this accusation and the purpose of the reaction of Jesus against it. To accomplish this we apply some models developed in the study of deviant behavior to the Beelzebul controversy. The first step is a source- and tradition-critical study of the sayings contained in it to determine which of them can be assigned to the historical Jesus. Then the accusation of being possessed by Beelzebul is considered in the framework of societal reactions to deviant behavior. Finally, the responses of Jesus are placed in the scenario of the Mediterranean challenge and riposte game and in the context of other possible reactions to negative labeling. BTB Book Reviews Hayes & Mandell, THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY: FROM ALEXANDER TO BAR KOCHBA (T.W. Eddinger) Brueggemann, A COMMENTARY ON JEREMIAH: EXILE AND
HOMECOMING (J.F. Craghan) Winter 1999 (29:4)Presenting the Issue:
Spheres of Awareness Textual Indeterminancy and Determinacy: Klaus Berger's
History-of-Effect Hermeneutic Abstract. This article analyzes the Lucan discipleship text (Luke 9:57-62) using Klaus Berger's history-of-effect (wirkunsgeschhtliche) hermeneutic. After reviewing the text's reception history and Berger's rhetorical approach, it argues that Berger's history-of-effect hermeneutic explains both why and how Luke 9:57-62 has had a consistent impact within Christian reading communities. The consistent reception is attributed to the teleological orientation of the text's rhetorical strategy as well as to the location of the meaning-center between text and reader. The resulting effect is both indeterminate and determinate. This dual character explains why the text can be experienced in flexible uniformity with its formative situation. Satan Talk in Corinth: The Rhetoric of Conflict Abstract. The purpose of this essay is to take seriously Paul's references to Satan in their contexts. This language has generally been appropriated by scholars who posit that merely by the mention of Satan Paul's cosmology is radically dualistic, despite the fact that these references to Satan are neither consistent with that portrait of Satan as the antithesis of God, nor did they appear in cosmological discourses. Furthermore, Paul rarely mentions Satan outside of the Corinthian correspondence, where, in each instance, the rhetoric is invoked in light of the disobedience or disloyalty of the community. Witchcraft language is similarly appropriated in various cultural situations, leading to the conclusion that Paul's Satan talk is a phenomenon arising out of social conflict over Paul's authority in Corinth, rather than a reflection of Paul's cosmology. The Jesus Movement and Social Network Analysis. Part I:
The Spatial Network Abstract. This study is Part I of a "thought experiment" that reconfigures Theissen's "itinerant charismatics" and "comunnity sympathizers" in terms of social network analysis. It briefly describes social network analysis and then, building on Graph Theory, Central Place Theory, and Urbanology about population centers, it summarizes literary and settlement archaeological information about Galilean towns mentioned in the Gospels, emphasizing the central places around the Sea of Galilee. The study also briefly describes nearby harbors and roads and constructs imaginative lake lanes and road routes that connect these places. It proposes that villages around the Dead Sea found in the Babatha archive offer an analogy for those around the Sea of Galilee. Without abandoning the inland villages, it shifts attention to Capernaum-base lake towns as a major spatial context for Jesus' social network to be studied in Part II. |
|
|
|
Copyright
© 2008 by