bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Appropriation of Dynamics and Form for Tillich's God
Authors: Ford Lewis S.
Published: June 2011

In the official formulation of Tillich's theology, the ontological polarity of dynamics and form, together with the other polarities, provides the basic symbolic material for the description of the divine life. In that life dynamics and form are balanced, with the tensions and disruptions characteristic of finite life wholly overcome. “Being comprises becoming and rest, becoming as an implication of dynamics and rest as an implication of form. If we say that God is being-itself, this includes both rest and becoming, both the static and the dynamic elements” (ST I 247). At the same time, however, we find that Tillich identifies God or being-itself with the power of being (ST I 110, 180, 2O5f., 230, 236f., 272; ST II 10f.). Although he does not and perhaps would not identify dynamics with the power of being, we find that they have extremely similar characteristics. In fact we are driven to ask why the element of dynamics within the divine life is not identified with the power of being, and to speculate on the consequences of such an identification. It is our contention that the internal logic of Tillich's analysis of this polarity is such that he cannot finally avoid identifying divine dynamics with the creative power of being. This, in turn, entails that God is a being rather than beyond being, himself an instance of the power of being pervasively inherent in all beings. In the first section we shall consider the polarity of dynamics and form as it functions in finite beings. Then we shall examine its role in the divine life and its relationship to the power of being.
Who Inserted the Book of the Torah?
Authors: Levenson Jon D.
Published: June 2011

Over a decade ago, Hans Walter Wolff observed that there is a bracket around the Deuteronomic Corpus (Dtn) which includes parts of Deuteronomy 4 and Deuteronomy 28-30. The elements of the frame which he isolated and discussed in some detail are Deut 4:29-31 and Deut 30:1-10. He saw the former passage as a late addition to the Moses speech in Deut 4:25-28, regarding the change from plural to singular address as a decisive indication of authorial discontinuity. Several years later, Norbert Lohfink argued in detail for the unity of Deut 4:1-40 from a variety of viewpoints. The broadest in scope was that the passage in question follows the outlines of the covenant formulary in much the same way as do the succeeding chapters of Deuteronomy. For example, like Deuteronomy 5-11, Deut 4:1-24 offers an historical retrospect and a statement of the chief commandment, in this case, the prohibition on images. Deut 4:25-31 then constitutes the curses arid blessing, such as we shall see in Deuteronomy 27-28. Arguing in greater detail, Lohfink noted also a highly specific and integrated rhetorical structure which could hardly result from the linking of originally disparate pericopes. Thus, vv. 1-4 are a plea for attention, followed by a demand for observance of the laws (vv. 5-8), which narrows first into a discussion of the Decalogue in particular (vv. 9-14) and then of its central stipulation (vv. 15-22). As in the text of the Decalogue itself (Exod 20:5-6, Deut 5:9-10), this commandment is followed by a statement of YHWH's jealousy (vv. 23-24). Having laid the groundwork, the preacher begins to speak to the existential situation of his audience. The idolatry he has just stressed is the ground of the Exile (v. 25), which he then describes (vv. 26-28).
Commandment and Consciousness in Talmudic Thought
Authors: Goldenberg Robert
Published: June 2011

Legal historians have given considerable attention to the question of intention in rabbinic law. Solomon Zeitlin, in the early years of the present century, published a number of articles touching on this matter, in which his chief purpose was to show that the legal significance of intention was one of the central points of contention between the two great Tannaitic schools, the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. A little later, Michael Higger wrote a doctoral dissertation for Columbia University which he entitledIntention in Talmudic Law. Still more recently, Louis Finkelstein sought to push the dispute over intention back to the days of the Pharisees and Sadducees, attributing to the Sadducees the view that intention by itself has no legal consequence, and as usual explaining this view in terms of the Sadducees' social position.
The Cistercian Conception of Community: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality
Authors: Bynum Caroline Walker
Published: June 2011

In 1919, Cuthbert Butler, abbot of Downside abbey and one of the major figures in Roman Catholic intellectual life in England in the early years of this century, published an interpretation of Benedictine history which stressed the cenobitical spirit of the Benedictine Rule. Butler felt that Benedict avoided the excesses of physical asceticism and lonely competition found in earlier, more eremitical forms of monasticism and emphasized instead a life of obedience and stability within the monastic family. This interpretation has so dominated more recent scholarship on medieval monasticism that few students of the Benedictine Rule have noticed how little discussion of community it actually contains.
Can Conscience be Hypocritical? The Contrasting Analyses of Kant and Hegel
Authors: Despland Michel
Published: June 2011

Both Kant and Hegel focussed their attention on the problems of self-knowledge and self-scrutiny. Both elaborated a carefully considered view of conscience and sought to wrestle with the moral threat of self-deception. Both believed that a solution of the problems in this area was decisive for their understanding of the moral life and the task of ethics. In his analysis Hegel came to formulate what he considered to be decisive criticisms of Kant. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contrasting views of the two philosophers and provide a context in which the merits of each can be assessed.
A Scholastic Problem in Thomas More's Controversy with John Frith
Authors: Gordon Walter M.
Published: June 2011

In June of 1533, Thomas Cranmer wrote to Nicholas Hawkins, Archdeacon of Ely, and reported to him that a certain John Frith had been ordered by Henry VIII to undergo an examination for suspicion of heresy before a tribunal which included Cranmer himself and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The interrogators discovered that Frith “thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar.” Frith must have defended his own position in a winning manner, for both Cranmer and Gardiner were reluctant to see him persist in his heretical opinion. Cranmer, in this same letter, owns to having “sent for him three or four times to persuade him to leave… his imagination;” and we have it on Frith's testimony that, after his arrest, he visited Gardiner's residence in what was probably an effort on the Bishop of Winchester's part to win the young reformer back to Catholic belief.
Luke and Antiphon: The Theology of Acts 27-28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about Divine Retribution, Pollution, and Shipwreck
Authors: Miles Gary B. , Trompf Garry
Published: June 2011

The account of Paul's sea journey from Caesarea to Rome, and of the shipwreck off Malta, is probably the “dramatic center” of Acts. It is the moving bridge between the mysterious scene of Christian origins and the awesome power of the Roman forum, and it is an adventure recounted with much more than Luke's usual amount of detail. The task of commenting on the passages in question (27:1-28:16) presents certain difficulties, since it is hard to decide whether Luke is being more litterateur than historian, or whether he is virtually reproducing a document rather than relating the events in his own way. Some scholars contend that the journey narrative has all the ingredients of a Hellenistic romance, while others hold that both the realism and the presence of “we passages” confirm its essential historicity. To complicate matters, there remains the possibility that Luke appropriated a travel story which was originally not about Paul at all, but about someone else who voyaged in the same direction. While these difficulties have encouraged a swell of critical exegesis, however, another problem has had the quite opposite effect.
Nikolaus von Amsdorf on Vessels of Wrath and Vessels of Mercy: A Lutheran's Doctrine of Double Predestination
Authors: Kolb Robert
Published: June 2011

The classic debate between Erasmus and Luther over the role of the human will in conversion is only the most famous of several Reformation era disputes over several related soteriological and anthropological issues. As Reformation developed into Orthodoxy, Calvinists and Lutherans went to battle over the doctrines of double predestination and the perseverance of the saints. The debate over God's eternal decree remained a point of irritation between the two confessions throughout the early modern period even though within each confession differences on these doctrines surfaced during the course of the seventeenth century.
The So-Called Ointment Prayer in the Coptic Version of the Didache: A Re-evaluation
Authors: Gero Stephen
Published: June 2011

In the extant fragment (corresponding to 10:3-11:2 of the Greek text) of the Coptic translation of theDidache, after the prayer over the bread and the permission for “prophets” to improvise the benedictions if they so wish (10:7), there is a passage which has no parallel in the Greek. It has much potential importance for the early history of the liturgy; however, none of the several interpretations which have been offered to date is entirely satisfactory. The text and a provisional translation of the passage will be first presented, followed by our own analysis and interpretation.
Intermarriage and Impurity in Ancient Jewish Sources
Authors: Hayes Christine
Published: June 2011

Does a principle of Gentile ritual impurity motivate Israelite and late antique Jewish prohibitions of intermarriage? The answer to this question turns upon the answer to an even more basic question: is a principle of Gentile ritual impurity found in ancient Israelite and Jewish texts? Some suppose ritual impurity of Gentiles to be an ancient halakah dating perhaps to early biblical times (Schürer, Alon) and serving as the rationale for laws regulating or reducing Jewish and Gentile interactions of various kinds. Others suppose ritual impurity of Gentiles to be a legal reality only in the Second Temple or Tannaitic period (Büchler, Klawans). On such a view, Gentile ritual impurity did not serve as the rationale for older laws regulating or reducing various forms of Jewish-Gentile interaction, including intermarriage.
Writings and the Spirit: Authority and Politics in Ancient Christianity
Authors: Koester Helmut
Published: June 2011

“Spirit” in antiquity was seen as the uncontrollable, dynamic, and numinous presence of divine power. It had no relation to rationality, nor were human beings masters of this spirit. On the contrary, it was thoroughly irrational and entirely the agent of the gods. When the spirit was present in human beings, its manifestations were poetry, prophecy, visions, ecstasy, and speaking in tongues.
The Law in Luke–Acts
Authors: Jervell Jacob
Published: June 2011

In 1872 F. Overbeck wrote an essay on Justin Martyr and Luke's Acts of the Apostles, stating that the author of Acts was unprincipled when dealing with the law.1 On the one hand, Luke offers justification by faith without the law (i:8f.); on the other, the Jewish Christians are obliged to keep the law unabridged, while gentile Christians have modified freedom from the law. Like Justin, the author of Acts tolerates Jewish Christian adherence to the law, whereas he pretends to regard it as compulsory. Actually Luke merely toys with the problem; the question is of no concern to him.
The Puritan Natural Law Theory of William Ames
Authors: Gibbs Lee W.
Published: June 2011

This essay is an analysis of the natural law theory of one of the most important of the seventeenth-century Puritan philosophers and theologians, William Ames (1576-1633). Ames' theory of natural law has historical importance because of its contribution to the formulation of fundamental doctrines upon which modern democratic institutions were raised — such doctrines as the duties and inalienable rights of individual citizens, the social contract or government by consent of the people, and the right of resistance when a government exceeds the bounds of its authority. For although Ames spent his life in England and Holland, and although he died in the midst of his preparations to emigrate to America from Holland, his greatest impact and predominating influence were in the New World, He has justifiably been called ”the spiritual father of the New England churches,” ”the favorite theologian of early New England,” and ”the father of American theology.”
The River Ordeal in Israelite Literature
Authors: McCarter P. Kyle
Published: June 2011

In 1907, Édouard Dhorme first associated the term 'ēd in Gen. 2:6 with Sumerian id, “the cosmic river.” This identification accords well with the presumed Mesopotamian background to the Yahwistic creation account, and so has enjoyed wide acceptance. The term, as was quickly recognized, also occurs in Job 36:27 with similar force. That this name for the cosmic river was normally pronounced id in Akkadian as well as Sumerian is shown from syllabic spellings, so that the loan into Hebrew offers no linguistic difficulties. In the Mesopotamian materials, a primary function of id, the (divine) River, was, as is well known, to serve as judge in certain legal cases. Trial by river ordeal was a widespread phenomenon, in which the accused was plunged into the river, where his success in withstanding the rushing waters was supposed to determine his guilt or innocence.
The Development of a Jewish Exegetical Tradition Regarding Isaiah 53
Authors: Rembaum Joel E.
Published: June 2011

Isa 52:13–53:12 has long served Jews and Christians as a source for the resolution of questions resulting from seemingly inexplicable human suffering and death. The fact that such suffering affected the primary links between God and humankind, the people Israel for the Jew and Jesus of Nazareth for the Christian, proved to be an especially perplexing problem that could have undermined fundamental religious beliefs. From the patristic age Isaiah 53 was interpreted so as to provide a rationale for Jesus' suffering on the cross. Medieval and modern Jewish exegetes saw in this prophecy an explanation for the tragedies which the Jews experienced in the exile. Interestingly, in adapting the so-called Suffering Servant passage for their own purposes, Jewish interpreters, of both the medieval and the modern periods, incorporated certain Christian concepts into their exegesis. This study will trace the transference of elements of a Christian exegetical tradition regarding Isaiah 53 into medieval and modern Jewish biblical interpretation.
The World Council of Churches and Its Vancouver Theme: “Jesus Christ the Life of the World” in Historical Perspective
Authors: Williams George Huntston
Published: June 2011

In reference to triadological and christological inaccuracies of a nevertheless very important regional synod of Antioch of 268 that definitively condemned and dispossessed Antioch's bishop, Paul of Samosata, St. Athanasius wrote: “Yes, surely every council has a sufficient reason for its own language” (De synodis45). The Father of triadological orthodoxy indeed changed some of his own technical language in the course of many synods during the fourth century. The creed called liturgically that of Nicaea (325)—which, since the scholarship of the Lutheran Pietist Johann Benedickt Carpzov, Sr., has been called the Niceno-Contstantinopolitan Creed—was ascribed to Constantinople in 381, as a clarification of that at Nicaea, by two readers purportedly reciting the acts of these two councils at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. What is remarkable about Athanasius—referring in the middle third of the fourth century to a synod in the last third of the third century—and about the Fathers of 451—referring back to two earlier ecumenical councils—is that they purported to be expounding an unchanging truth revealed in the Septuagint and the New Testament, once for all delivered (Jude 3), that had simply been made clearer by generations of liturgical practice and theological scrutiny, privately and in synod.
“History as Revelation” in the Theology of the Social Gospel
Authors: King William McGuire
Published: June 2011

Historical studies of the American social gospel have concentrated on the social and economic viewpoint of the movement. Such a focus is understandable since the fundamental premise of the social gospel was the belief that social change should be controlled and directed through the rational application of religious ideals. Scholarly interest in the movement has thus naturally gravitated towards questions of practical import: how the social gospel galvanized the churches to social action; how it challenged dominant political assumptions; how it contributed to the success of the progressive movement; how it helped to promote cooperative social ideals and a limited type of Christian socialism; and how it struggled with the problem of finding a realistic political philosophy.
Religious Pluralism in the Context of an Emerging World Culture
Authors: Rupp George
Published: June 2011

Two at least apparently contrary developments form the context within which a contemporary interpretation of the fact of religious pluralism proceeds. The first is the incipient world culture emerging under the impetus of those processes of modernization which arose initially in the West. And the second is the continuation and intensification of diversity within the various religious traditions. Few observers would deny the existence of either tendency. Yet the combination of the two serves to complicate the problem of interpreting the fact of religious pluralism to a greater degree than is often recognized. Consequently I propose to explore the interrelated implications of both developments in some detail.
Who is the True Prophet?
Authors: Georgi Dieter
Published: June 2011

Krister Stendahl and the colleagues assembled around him at Harvard Divinity School have contributed to the fact that the history-of-religion approach has taken a sure foothold in NT studies in the United States. In the countries of its origin this approach is in sad decline, even in the homeland of the “History-of-Religion School.” A major part of the heritage of that school has been the refusal further to abuse biblical studies for apologetic reasons lest one make the biblical environment merely a negative foil to the claim of superiority for the experience and message of Jesus and the primitive church. The attack on Christian triumphalism in exegesis and the insistence on the integrity of the historically particular, indeed of the peculiar, has been one of Krister Stendahl's hermeneutical contributions to the exegetical pursuit.
On Reading Others' Letters
Authors: Hartman Lars
Published: June 2011

“My mother taught me that reading others' letters isn't nice.” Those, or something like them, were the words of Krister Stendahl when he once tried to open the eyes of his audience to some of the hermeneutical problems which pertain to the fact that Christians read Paul's letters as if they were addressed to themselves rather than to their original recipients. The following reflections deal with these problems, and they are meant as a humble tribute to my first teacher in New Testament exegesis. I begin by recalling a few facts that are intriguing once one puts them together. This will lead me to the suggestion that, when he wrote his letters, Paul had a wider usage in mind than we usually assume. Against such a background I shall discuss, in a rather unsophisticated way, some conditions that may apply to a rereading of the Pauline letters and some possible consequences for so-called historical exegesis.
Luke's Use of the Old Testament
Authors: Ringgren Helmer
Published: June 2011

In Luke 24:47 we are told that Jesus explained to the Emmaus disciples “Moses and all the prophets” and “interpreted in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” This statement reflects Luke's intense interest, both in his Gospel and in Acts, in the relationship between the ancient scriptures and the events of the life of Jesus and the activity of the apostles. In this paper I shall discuss briefly the variety of ways in which Luke quotes, paraphrases, and alludes to the scriptures.
Enabling Language in Paul
Authors: Sundberg Albert C.
Published: June 2011

Paul of Tarsus, first-century Diaspora-Jew-become-Christian, became, through Augustine and Luther, the canonical theologian for Protestant Christianity. Consequently, his theology has been of overwhelming interest, whether in research, teaching, or preaching. This dominating concern with his theology, however, has diverted interest from other significant deposits Paul left us in his letters. F. W. Beare, in a study on “St. Paul as Spiritual Director,” has shown that this itinerant preacher of primitive Christianity has left us a record of his pastoral concerns that can still serve as a useful model for the modern pastor. A growing number of scholarly articles on Paul and women shows that while Paul sometimes simply reflects a male-dominated social reality, he occasionally envisions freedom and equality for women. Disappointment in other aspects of Paul's social perspective is largely overcome when that perspective is sought within his teaching on the church which, in his apocalyptic orientation, would be the continuing social reality.
Early Christian Chiliasm, Jewish Messianism, and the Idea of the Holy Land
Authors: Wilken Robert L.
Published: June 2011

For most Christians Jerusalem is a heavenly city of solace and peace, a safe haven after the trials of life in this world. “Jerusalem whose towers touch the skies, I yearn to come to you. Your shining streets have drawn my longing eyes, my life long journey through …” It is a symbol of the soul's yearning to find rest in God. “Jerusalem my happy home, when shall I come to thee, when shall my sorrows have an end, thy joys when shall I see?” Yet Jerusalem is also an actual city set on a hill on the edge of a desert, a city where Christians live and have lived for centuries but whose population today is largely Muslim and Jewish. At one time, in the years prior to the Muslim invasion of Palestine in the seventh century, it was the chief city in a land ruled by Christians. More than five hundred churches and monasteries marked the landscape and thousands of monks inhabited the caves of the Judaean desert. Jerusalem's eloquent bishops and learned priests wielded power in the great capital of the Byzantine world, Constantinople on the Bosporus.
The Third World and the Problem of God-Talk
Authors: Edwards Herbert O.
Published: June 2011

The major thrust of this paper is that changing historical configurations are not without their effect on the attempts to articulate and interpret the faith principles of a religion which claims allegiance to the Lord of History. If one starts, not with God but with man and his predicament, as does John Macquarrie, how does one ignore some of the most significant changes that have occurred in recent history which have helped to contribute to the precariousness of “Western man”?
The Delos Synagogue Revisited Recent Fieldwork in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora
Authors: White L. Michael
Published: June 2011

Recent studies and archaeological work have focused attention once again on an old problem—the origins and development of the synagogue—by bringing two sides of the issue to light. On the one hand, some studies have reconsidered theories of synagogue origins in the Babylonian, Persian, or Hellenistic periods. The result is that several traditional assumptions typified in the works of Julian Morgenstern, Solomon Zeitlin, George Foot Moore, and Louis Finkelstein have been questioned. The question of origins has come to rest on the Palestinian setting and on the nature of the “synagogue” not as institution in the later Talmudic sense, but as “assembly.” There is no clear archaeological evidence for synagogue buildings from Second Temple Palestine. Only after 70 CE and the destruction of the Temple, did it emerge as the central institution of Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism.
An Anti-Sadducee Polemic in the Palestinian Targum Tradition
Authors: Isenberg Sheldon
Published: June 2011

The literature of the rabbis in its many volumes stands before the student of the rabbinic period as a resource of enlightenment and a source of frustration. A vast treasure of haggadic materials which would be invaluable to the historian of the period is too often rendered inaccessible by difficulties in dating and localizing traditions. Even when traditions are associated with particular rabbis, multiple attributions and major variants engender extreme caution if not despair in the literary critic and historian. When traditions are unattributed in a literature which has developed over centuries as is the case with the Targums, the problems are magnified.
The Law of Nature in Philo and Cicero
Authors: Horsley Richard A.
Published: June 2011

“Christian Natural Law is the acceptance and reinterpretation according to Christian and ecclesiastical principles of Stoic Natural Law. …” Thus runs Troeltsch's classic and influential formulation of the view that Stoicism forms the “preparation of the gospel” with regard to the law of nature in Christian theology and ethics. Historians of political theory similarly assume that it was the Stoic doctrine of natural law that decisively influenced both the rationalization and universalization of Roman law and medieval political theory.
Dionysos's Revenge and the Validation of the Hellenic World-View
Authors: McGinty Park
Published: June 2011

Stories of mortals offending the gods and being punished for their impudence occupy a prominent position in Greek religious tradition. Almost all of the major deities receive some affront, and the manner in which they avenge themselves is a significant, though usually minor, component in defining their nature. In the case of Dionysos, however, the pattern of affront and vengeance occurs too often to be a mere episode in the god's history and instead forms one of the central mythical features by which he is characterized.
The Form of the Sermon in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity
Authors: Wills Lawrence
Published: June 2011

Form criticism has enjoyed great success in providing tangible insights into the social life and liturgical practices of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, but until now there has not been forthcoming a clear idea of what Jewish and Christian preaching was like before the middle of the second century CE Scholars are generally agreed that we have little, if any, direct evidence of sermons from this period. The sermons in Acts would seem to be excellent sources, but as Alexander Mac-Donald has pointed out, these are almost all missionary sermons or speeches to outsiders, and are therefore of little use in determining the nature of sermons addressed to coreligionists in the synagogue or church. Morton Smith attempted to isolate sermons in the synoptic gospels, but there he admits that the passages adduced—largely collections of sayings—may not constitute the actual form of oral preaching, but instead reflect a consistent pattern of literary sermon reports. As for Jewish sermons, the midrashic collections were edited later than the period in question, and it is generally unwise to extrapolate backward from these texts. Recent attempts to compare rabbinic homiletical forms with NT texts have been strongly criticized.
The Functions of Faith in Primitive Pentecostalism
Authors: Wacker Grant
Published: June 2011

On a foggy evening in the spring of 1906, nine days before the San Francisco earthquake, several black saints gathered in a small house in Los Angeles to seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Before the night was over, a frightened child ran from the house to tell a neighbor that the people inside were singing and shouting in strange languages.Several days later the group moved to an abandoned warehouse on Azusa Street in a run-down section of the city. Soon they were discovered by a Los AngelesTimesreporter. The “night is made hideous … by the howlings of the worshippers,” he wrote. “The devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement.”
Theodicy, Tragedy, and Soteriology: The Legacy of Schleiermacher
Authors: Williams Robert R.
Published: June 2011

Despite the dilution of contemporary ethical substance by the triumph of the therapeutic, the problem of evil continues to bite. A postwar optimism that saw in technology a potential solution for every problem has been overtaken and eclipsed by a pessimism which now perceives the same technology as threatening the existence and survival of human life. The current mood has a tragic strain manifesting itself in some secular negative theodicies that see “life as unfair” and the universe run by a malevolent creator. Theology and philosophy of religion have not been entirely insulated from such perceptions. There has been considerable discussion of, and dissatisfaction with, traditional theologies and theodocies, which have prompted further investigation and search for alternatives. Two popular and widely read texts manifest the contemporary theological mood. John Hick and Paul Ricoeur discuss and criticize the classical Augustinian scheme as a theodicy. When the classical scheme is taken critically as an account of evil, it is seen to contain serious antinomies. Hence both Hick and Ricoeur seek an alternative account of evil.
Torah and Dogma: A Comment
Authors: Davies W. D.
Published: June 2011

The suggestion has often been made recently that the relationship between Judaism and Christianity can be adequately described in terms of a “schism.” This suggestion is worthy of serious consideration. It has much to commend it. It promises new possibilities (badly needed in view of past history), because “schism” can be healed. But its mere attractiveness and beneficial potential should not blind us to the problems involved. Because the term “schism” presupposes an underlying unity, its use to describe the relation between the two faiths preserves an emphasis which, in our given situation, where the dependence of the Church on the Synagogue is not sufficiently recognized, is too easily lost. And yet, without very careful definition, the term “schism” may be misleading. Who are to be called schismatics? Is it Christians for leaving Judaism or Jews for rejecting the Christian Messiah and his people? As will become apparent in the following pages, there are two extreme positions to be avoided. On the one hand, that which regards the relationship between Judaism and Christianity at the present time as so close that that relationship is merely schismatic, and, on the other hand, that which regards that relationship as one of unrelieved antithesis.
Isaac Watts's Education for The Dissenting Ministry: A New Document
Authors: Stephenson William E.
Published: June 2011

Dr. Williams' Library in London has a copy of Bishop John Wilkins's Ecclesiastes, interleaved with pages on which the divine and hymn-writer Isaac Watts made hundreds of notes — concerning the books he studied at Thomas Rowe's Dissenting academy in London, the comments of leading figures in London's nonconformist circles, and his own maturing opinions and judgments. Dates on various notes range from 1690 to 1709. The document should be of interest to all students of English religious nonconformity in the seventeenth century; it is in effect a manuscript record of an education for the Dissenting ministry, written by one of the foremost ministers of the age, which further reveals the influence of that education on his thinking and his pastoral activities in the most active years of his public leadership. Through a combination of circumstances, Watts' copy of Wilkins has remained obscure, unidentified and virtually untouched in the Dr. Williams archives for well over a century. Now that it has come to light again,2 and has been identified as Watts's,3 perhaps it can gain the attention it merits
The Works of Abraham James 2: 14–26
Authors: Ward Roy Bowen
Published: June 2011

IT is customary to divide the second chapter of the Epistle of James into two sections, verses 1–13 and 14–26. The question whether these two sections have any connection with each other was answered negatively by Martin Dibelius. Dibelius argued his case, first of all, by denying that the parable in 2: 15, 16 — with its contrast between speaking and doing (cf. 2: 12) — represents the point of 2: 14–26. Along with other commentators, Dibelius understood this section to treat faith and works and the connection between the two in the light of the Pauline theological treatment of them. Thus, e.g., he argued that the author of James employed the Abraham example in the manner of Jewish tradition, but whereas in the Jewish tradition the faith of Abraham is itself a “work,” it is not so in James: Dibelius found his solution by assuming that this discussion presupposes Paul's treatment of πίστιϛ and ἔργα. But ἔργα for Paul means “works of the law” (e.g., circumcision), which is not the meaning for James. Therefore, James must presuppose a misunderstood Paulinism. When James 2: 14–26 is approached in this way, the parable in 2: 15, 16 appears as only an example, somewhat incidental to the main thrust of the section. Thus, the connection of 2: 14–26 with the foregoing verses cannot be affirmed, even though it appears that the parable in 2: 15, 16 is similar to 2: 12, 13.
Athenagoras the Christian, Pausanias the Travel Guide, and a Mysterious Corinthian Girl
Authors: Ruprecht Louis A.
Published: June 2011

I say, then, that it was Orpheus and Homer and Hesiod who gave the genealogies and the names to those who are called gods. … And as for statuary (εἰκόνες), it did not exist until the plastic arts and painting and sculpture were invented, nor had it even been conceived.

These arts came in later with Saurias the Samian, Krato the Sikyonian, Kleanthes the Corinthian, and a Corinthian girl. Line drawing (σκιαγραφία) was discovered by Saurias, who sketched a horse in the sun; and painting (γραφική) by Krato, who traced the outline (σκιά) of a man and a woman in oils on a white background. Relief sculpture (κοροπλαθική) was discovered by the girl (she traced the outline [σκιά] of her lover on a wall while he was asleep). Her father was so delighted by the resemblance that, since he worked in ceramics, he engraved the impression and fleshed it out with clay. That figure (τύπος) is still preserved in Corinth. After them Daidalos, Theodoros, and Smilis invented sculpture and the plastic arts.
The Interest in Life of Jesus Theology as a Paradigm for the Social History of Biblical Criticism
Authors: Georgi Dieter
Published: June 2011

Historians, including biblical critics, are not known for exposing themselves to the same kind of historical criticism that they apply to everything and everyone else. The historical situation of contemporary exegetes and their social conditions usually remain uninvestigated and thus—from a historical-critical and socio-historical perspective—unquestioned. The various hermeneutical inquiries that different forms of liberation theology have recently developed provide a beginning for such a necessary self-study. They need, however, to be expanded.
Horses, Pigeons, and the Therapy of Conversion: A Psychological Reading of Jonathan Edwards's Theology
Authors: Williams David R.
Published: June 2011

Jonathan Edwards expected his inquiry on the Freedom of the Will to be the definitive work on that subject, establishing for all time the truth of predestination on the twin pillars of reason and revelation. He answered every objection of the Arminians with irrefutable scriptural texts, biting satire, and devastating logic. He brought the revolutionary insights of Locke and Newton to the defense of Reformed doctrine, restructuring ancient truths on the foundations of the latest science.

The effort was immediately successful. For sixteen years no one dared to publish a rebuttal. Then, in 1770, with Edwards safely dead, James Dana of Wallingford, Connecticut, published An Examination of the Late President Edwards's Enquiry on Freedom of Will.
The Early Church: Internal Jewish Migration or New Religion?
Authors: Georgi Dieter
Published: June 2011

This paper discusses the issue of “Christian” identity customarily defined by its distinctiveness. I wish to start with a biographical observation: The classics school that I entered in April 1939 in Frankfurt am Main was under the same roof as the Jewish high school. This struck me as very peculiar given the propaganda and political activity of the late thirties in Nazi Germany. The Jewish high school was named after Samson Rafael Hirsch, the famous Jewish scholar and rabbi of nineteenth-century Frankfurt. On our side of the building there was nobody who would answer my questions about the school, and before long the object of my boyish inquisitiveness ceased to exist. As part of the German war machine, a military censorship complex took over the Jewish part of the building and closed the Jewish high school. The Jewish students and their teachers disappeared. We, the students of the non-Jewish part of the building, wondered during study breaks where they and the many Jews in the neighborhood of our school had gone. As the yellow star on the clothes of Jewish fellow citizens appeared, it became very obvious to us youngsters that there were fewer and fewer Jewish people around. As the Nazis established a store “for Jews only” at the trolley stop near our school, the pain and hunger of the people with the Star of David showed more and more on their faces. Their number visibly dwindled.
A Note on the Text of Gospel of Thomas 37
Authors: Riley Gregory J.
Published: June 2011

In the opening of Gos. Thom. 37, the followers of Jesus ask, “When will we see you?” Jesus answers, “When you strip without being ashamed and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then.…” At this point the manuscript is damaged and the published reading is problematic. An examination of photographs of the manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas at logion 37 supports a continuation of “then you will come to,” not “then you will see,” which is printed in the published versions of Guillaumont, Layton, and Meyer.
The Logos of Heraclitus: Updating the Report
Authors: Miller Ed. L.
Published: June 2011

In 1952 there appeared a short article inTheological Studiesentitled “Heraclitus' Alleged Logos Doctrine.” As one may guess from the title, the author, T. F. Glasson, reported to his largely theological audience that the conception of Heraclitus' Logos as a cosmicmetaphysical principle, far from being a possible source for the Logos of the Fourth Gospel, rests upon a gigantic mistake. The truth is, rather, that Glasson's report rests upon a gigantic mistake, as well as several lesser ones. At the very least it does not do justice to a quite different interpretation, an interpretation which, indeed, has become in the meantime the “accepted” one. Our task, also intended primarily for theologians and nonspecialists in pre-Socratic philosophy, is to provide a corrected and updated report, and to make a few observations of our own.
The Historical Career of Bishop Reginald Pecock, D.D.: The Poore Scoleris Myrrour or a Case Study In Famous Obscurity
Authors: Brockwell Charles W.
Published: June 2011

Reginald Pecock, D.D., thirty-second bishop of Chichester (1450–1458/59), had a meteoric career as a historic personage. He made a bright, unexpected appearance out of an obscure background. He shone brightly, first as a curiosity in his world and then as a seeming threat to it. Colliding with the power realities of his time, his career was shattered and his reputation permanently blackened by the Paul's Cross bonfire that reduced some fourteen of his books to powdery ash. This once proud figure (the obvious pun on his name was apt and widely used by his enemies) was now quite pathetic. He was required to suffer the humiliation of standing before 20,000 people to confess his errors and to assist in piling upon the fire the material expressions of his lifetime of thinking and of defending the Church. When those flames subsided, Reginald Pecock returned to the obscurity from which he had emerged, and there he died. Thus, for this the most famous lord spiritual of the Lancastrian regime; author of the most ambitious theological program of the fifteenth century in England; the first bishop of the English Church to be formally convicted of heresy–for this man we have no certain knowledge of the date of his birth or the date of his death, the place of his origin or the site of his burial.
Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Justification
Authors: Gibbs Lee W.
Published: June 2011

The “judicious” Richard Hooker (1554–1600) gave classic expression to the via media position of Elizabethan Anglicanism. He attempted to steer a middle course, appropriating what he considered to be the truths and avoiding what he considered to be the errors and excesses, between Roman Catholicism and the Magisterial Reformation (Lutheranism and especially Calvinism). It has often been pointed out by scholars that Hooker sometimes inclines more in one direction than the other on certain key doctrines. For example, it has been said many times that his view of the relation of God and the world, of grace and nature, of faith and reason, is characterized by continuity rather than discontinuity, and that in this he was true to the medieval Catholic thought of Thomas Aquinas. But his view of justification has been said to be nearer to that of the Magisterial Reformation than to that of Rome.
Paul's Epistle to Philemon: Toward an Alternative Argumentum
Authors: Callahan Allen Dwight
Published: June 2011

In 1964, the Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus, which until that time had listed together works treating Colossians and Philemon, provided Colossians with its own heading and introduced a new rubric: “Philemon; Slavery in the NT.” So firmly established is the interpretation of the epistle as a “cover letter” addressed to the master of a repentant runaway slave that any discussion of slavery in the New Testament invariably alludes to Paul's Epistle to Philemon; all recent commentators on the epistle include in their treatments at least a brief disquisition or excursus on ancient slavery. Even in his methodologically sophisticated study of the “narrative world” of Philemon, Norman Petersen began his summary of the “story” behind the letter as follows: “Once upon a time there was a runaway slave named Onesimus.…” Furthermore, the epistle is universally construed as a delicate and canny intervention on the part of the apostle Paul into the problematic of Christian relations under the Roman slave regime, despite the concession on the part of modern exegetes that Philemon fails to elucidate Paul's attitudes toward either slaves in particular or the institution of slavery in general.
“Ex Oriente Lux”: Thoreau's Ecstasies and the Hindu Texts
Authors: Hodder Alan D.
Published: June 2011

From the standpoint of marketing and sales, Henry David Thoreau's first major publishing venture,A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, was something of a fiasco, a fact hardly mitigated by his famously stoic, as well as humorous, avowals of failure. When, four years after its first appearance, he finally acquiesced to his publisher's petitions to accept the seven hundred and six unsold copies piled in the warehouse, he noted wryly in his journal, “I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.” Besides the commercial disappointment, Thoreau must have found the book's critical reception somewhat disheartening also.
The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem
Authors: Sagi Avi
Published: June 2011

The story of Amalek's deed occurs twice in the Bible: in Exod 17:8–16 and in Deut 25:17–19. The account in Exodus is quite succinct: “Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Refidim” (Exod 17:8); in contrast, the description in Deuteronomy paints a broader and more detailed picture: “Remember what Amalek did to thee by the way, when you were come out of Egypt: how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all that were feeble in thy rear, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God” (Deut 25:17–18). The Exodus version, although sparing in its description of the particulars, offers the more dramatic account of the war between Israel and Amalek.
Paradise Revisited (2 Cor 12:1–12): The Jewish Mystical Background of Paul's Apostolate Part 1: The Jewish Sources
Authors: Morray-Jones C. R. A.
Published: June 2011

The theory that the background of Paul's rapture into paradise (2 Corinthians 12) is indicated by the rabbinic story of four men who entered a garden, park, or orchard (pardes), which is found in collections of traditions associated with “merkabah mysticism,” is by no means new. First proposed by Wilhelm Bousset, the theory was developed by Hans Windisch and Hans Bietenhard, but has come to be associated with Gershom G. Scholem. Although a few scholars have subsequently referred to Jewish mysticism in their interpretations of Paul, the subject on the whole has figured only at the periphery of the map of Pauline studies as a puzzling and little exploredterra incognitaof marginal or, at best, uncertain relevance to the whole. Growing recognition of the importance of apocalyptic for our understanding of Paul now makes it imperative that this unknown territory be explored. Following the publication of Alan F. Segal's recent book, it is clear that Jewish mysticism must occupy a more central place than has previously been the case in any reconstruction of the matrices of Paul's experience and thought.
Theos Epiphanes: Crisis and Response
Authors: Hazzard R. A.
Published: June 2011

Burton Y. Berry gave a unique silver tetradrachm to the American Numismatic Society in 1959. The obverse of the coin bears the diademed and draped bust of a Ptolemaic king wearing sideburns, and, in the left field behind the king's portrait, a six-pointed star or comet (*). The reverse bears an eagle facing left on a thunderbolt, an inscription ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟϒ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ (“of Ptolemy the king”), a six-pointed star or comet in the right field, and a monogram (ΠΑ) in the left field in front of the eagle. Dawson Kiang first published the tetradrachm in 1962. Dating it to the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 BCE), Kiang supposed that the portrait was an effigy of that monarch. In this article, I shall identify the portrait with Ptolemy V Epiphanes and submit a new hypothesis about the origin of his surname in 199/8 BCE.
What Shall We Say that Abraham Found? The Controversy behind Romans 4
Authors: Tobin Thomas H.
Published: June 2011

In Romans 4 Paul appealed to the precedent of the patriarch Abraham to argue three points on the basis of the Jewish scriptures. First, righteousness was reckoned to Abraham because of his faith and not because of his observance of the law (Rom 4:1–8); second, righteousness was reckoned to Abraham before Abraham's circumcision (4:9–12); and third, God's promise to Abraham and his “seed” came through faith, not through the Mosaic Law (4:13–17a). All three points are based on Paul's interpretation of Gen 15:6 and closely related texts. Paul appealed to Abraham in order to show that Abraham was meant to be the father not only of the circumcised but also of the uncircumcised (Rom 4:11–12,16–17). Paul also insisted that what was written about Abraham was meant not only for Abraham but also for those who believe that God raised Jesus from the dead (4:23–25).