PERSECUTION AND COSMIC CONFLICT IN GALATIANS Joshua Caleb Hutchens, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2018 Chair: Dr. Thomas R. Schreiner This dissertation argues that persecution in Galatians manifests the cosmic conflict between God and the present evil age. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the topic of persecution in Galatians and the history of research. Chapter 2 demonstrates that Paul uses the theme of cosmic conflict to place the crisis in Galatia within a broader context of a conflict between God who has inaugurated the new creation within the present time and this present evil age. Chapters 3–4 examine Paul’s theological context. Chapter 3 investigates a theme of cosmic conflict in Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, and Habakkuk. Chapter 4 examines the theme in other early Jewish texts (Daniel; 1 Enoch; 4 Ezra; 2 Baruch; Jubilees; 1 Maccabees; 2 Maccabees; 4 Maccabees; 1QS; CD; 1QM). This survey reveals that Paul’s iteration of the theme possesses continuity and discontinuity with other authors. Chapter 5 offers a historical reconstruction of the instances of persecution mentioned in Galatians. Four instances of persecution in Galatians are examined: (1) Paul the Persecutor (1:13, 23). (2) Paul the Persecuted (3:1; 4:13, 19; 5:11; 6:17) (3) The Opponents as Potential Targets (6:12) (4) The Persecution of the Galatians (3:4; 4:17–18, 29). Paul uses the theme of persecution to reshape the perception of the Galatian believers and to reveal the danger of the false gospel preached by his opponents. Chapter 6 identifies persecution as a specific manifestation of the cosmic conflict between God and this present evil age. Galatians 4:29 directly connects the phenomenon of persecution with the broader cosmic conflict. Paul does so by identifying typology in Genesis 21:9. In light of this understanding of Paul’s use of Genesis, other significant passages on persecution in Galatians are reexamined to see how they fit within a cosmic conflict reading: 1:13, 23; 3:4; 5:11; 6:12, 17. In conclusion, chapter 7 offers three possible results of Paul’s understanding of persecution as cosmic conflict. It then examines the significance of the thesis for global Christianity today.

Persecution and Cosmic Conflict in Galatians

Kultbilder von Gottheiten waren im Vorderen Orient einschlieslich Palastina verbreitet, doch begegnet ihnen das Alte Testament nur mit Verachtung und Polemik. Die Wirkungsgeschichte dieser Bilderfeindlichkeit und des Bilderverbots last die Frage nach den Ursachen, Umstanden und Argumentationsstrukturen der biblischen Position entstehen. Die Polemik setzt Bilder und deren Verehrung voraus. Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschaftigt sich deshalb im ersten Teil mit den theologischen Konzeptionen, die der mesopotamischen "Idololatrie" zugrunde lagen, im zweiten Teil mit ihrer Rezeption im Alten Testament. 
Hinter dem Kult der Gotterbilder im Mesopotamien des 1. Jt.s standen komplizierte theologische Vorstellungen, die aus den unterschiedlichsten Texten rekonstruiert werden konnten. Dabei ergab sich, das die Herstellung der Kultstatuen als ubernaturlicher Vorgang verstanden wurde, der durch die Zusammenarbeit von Gottern und Menschen charakterisiert war. Die wunderbare Entstehung der Statue und ihre wesenhafte Verbundenheit mit der in ihr prasenten Gottheit wurde zusatzlich durch das Mundwaschungs- und Mundoffnungsritual (mīs pi und pīt pi) konsolidiert, das die Statue von Verunreinigungen und der menschlichen Seite ihrer Herkunft befreite. Als lebendiger, irdischer und sichtbarer Korper einer unsichtbar, personal und anthropomorph vorgestellten Gottheit besas dieses Reprasentationsbild alle Lebensfunktionen, um im Kult in das praktische Handlungsfeld religioser Kommunikation eintreten zu konnen. 
Kult- und Votivbilder aus dem eisenzeitlichen Palastina zeigen, das man auch in Israel und Juda wirkmachtige "Reprasentationsbilder" kannte. Das Alte Testament, das sich in einer Reihe von polemischen Passagen mit den Statuen und der mit ihnen verbundenen "Theologie der Bilder" auseinandersetzt, setzt haufig bei deren Herstellung an: Im Konsens mit Vertretern der "Theologie der Bilder" knupften die Bildergegner an der Gultigkeit des Konzeptes an, der Charakter der Herstellung bestimme die Qualitat des Hergestellten. Indem sie die Entstehung des Bildes als vollig profanen Vorgang darstellten, verwendeten sie das Konzept jedoch gegen das Bild. 
Die dtr Darstellung schreibt die Fertigung der Kalber fur Bethel und Dan oder der Aschera fur Samaria oder Jerusalem der fehlgeleiteten Eigeninitiative von Konigen zu. Fehlende gottliche Autorisierung pragt auch die paradigmatische Erzahlung von Ex 32, die in der Grundschicht den Priester Aaron, in der dtr Fortschreibung das Volk fur das "Goldene Kalb" verantwortlich macht. Bei altorientalischen Reinheitsvorstellungen setzt die drastische Verkundigung Ezechiels an, der Gotterbilder mit Unreinheit verbindet (Ez 22:3f). Ausgehend von der sog. Gotzenbilderschicht in Dtjes, die ein redaktionell uberlegtes, folgerichtig aufgebautes und handwerklich kompetentes Traktat darstellt, das die altorientalischen Vorstellungen kannte und Punkt fur Punkt widerlegt, fuhren auch Jer 10:1-16*, Ps 115, Ps 135 und Hab 2:18f Handwerker vor, die "idealtypisch" in einem ganzlich profanen Prozes nur Abbilder irdischer Geschopfe zustande bringen. Sie zeigen, das Bildergegner bis weit in die nachexilische Zeit hinein gezwungen waren, die "Theologie der Kultbilder" zu widerlegen und Bilderfreunde von ihrer alternativen "Theologie der Bildlosigkeit" zu uberzeugen.

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Die Theologie der Bilder: Herstellung und Einweihung von Kultbildern in Mesopotamien und die alttestamentliche Bilderpolemik

The present dissertation seeks to ascertain the function of the heavenly sanctuary/temple and its relationship to earthly counterparts, as reflected in forty-three passages of Hebrew Bible. Thus, following an introductory chapter, the second chapter of this dissertation is devoted to a survey of the heavenly sanctuary temple motif in the ANE literature as represented by Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, and Egyptian texts. The investigation of these texts reveals that the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif was part of the worldview of the ANE, where the heavenly sanctuary was not only assumed as existing in heaven, but also as functioning in close relationship to the earthly counterparts. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are devoted to the exegesis of heavenly sanctuary/temple passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, according to thecanonical divisions of the Hebrew Bible (namely Torah, Prophets, and Writings). This investigation reveals the pervasive presence of the that the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the Hebrew Bible and provides a broad delineation of its function and relationship to earthly counterparts. It has been found that the heavenly sanctuary temple functions as a place of divine activities where YHWH supervises the cosmos, performs acts of judgment (sometimes conceived as a two-stage activity in which the execution of the sentence was preceded by an investigative phase), hears the prayers of the needy, and bestows atonement and forgiveness upon the sinners. The perceptions also emerged of the heavenly sanctuary/temple as a place of worship, a meeting place for the heavenly council, and an object of attack by anti-YHWH forces, thus playing a pivotal role in the cosmic battle between good and evil. In terms of its relationship to the earthly counterpart, it has become apparent that the heavenly sanctuary/temple was understood to operate in structural and functional correspondence to the earthly counterparts. Some texts display a dynamic interaction inasmuch as the heavenly and earthly sanctuaries/temples are conceived of as working in close connection so that the activities being performed in one would reverberate in the other. Chapter 6 presents theological synthesis of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif based on the previous chapters. Thus, some consideration was given to the similarities and differences between the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif as found in the Hebrew Bible and in its ANE background. Next, attention is devoted to some theological implications of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif for the notions of judgment, the great controversy between good and evil. To conclude, the notion emerges that the Hebrew Bible conceives of the heavenly sanctuary/temple in functional and structural correspondence with its earthly counterpart with both sanctuaries/temples operating dynamic interaction.

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The heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the Hebrew bible: function and relationship to earthly counterparts

FROM MODES OF PRODUCTION TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY: A LABOR THEORY OF REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECTIVITY & RELIGIOUS IDEAS Ben Suriano Marquette University, 2016 In this dissertation I attempt two needed tasks within historical materialism: first, to reestablish the standpoint of labor as the normative basis for critical theory beyond irrational bourgeois categories, and second, to show that labor’s own self-mediating rationalization, if it is to move beyond these contradictory categories, necessarily requires a certain religious-utopian consciousness. The dominant Weberian and Marxist paradigms for understanding labor and its relation to the religious variously perpetuated irrational bourgeois conceptions of labor as a bare efficient cause, with religion paternalistically positioned as an inherently idealist or mystifying external form. I argue, however, that the concrete rationality of labor’s revolutionary nature necessarily hinges on a ratio to emergent final causes for which consciousness of such is itself the rational kernel of the religious. Thus I retain the historical materialist primacy of the modes of production as an organizing concept but with a more comprehensive account of its selftranscending movement. Herein the religious arises internally as a non-reductive function of labor’s self-understanding as more than a disposable instrument. I claim any materialist critique of alienated labor implies this religious-utopian consciousness, and therefore any critique of religion must presuppose the normative form of the religious as revolutionary rather than reactionary, reflecting ideal trajectories generated from the productive forces in their basic revolutionizing transformation of nature. More specifically, I argue that theoretically the one religious-utopian ideal transcendentally necessary for grasping the normative standpoint of the laboring body as its own emergent final cause, without external mediation, is the resurrection of the body. I then substantiate this historically. The comprehensive rationality of the modes of production demands that the Marxist distinction between historical periods of formal and real subsumptions yield new assessments of pre-capitalist religious ideology as positively integral to labor’s self-mediating history. I then genealogically trace a Hebraic discourse on bodily resurrection whose revolutionarily demythologized form emerged directly from and for social consciousness of its communal mode of production. I further demonstrate historically that prior to capitalism the laboring body became intelligible to itself as constitutively active without idealist inversions under this certain Judeo-Christian articulation of the resurrection of the body.

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From modes of production to the resurrection of the body: A labor theory of revolutionary subjectivity & religious ideas

(1) Contexts: Books, Stories, Versions (2) Approaches: Synchronic, Diachronic, Textual-Exegetical (3) Analysis of 2 Samuel 6.1-5 and 1 Chronicles 13.5-8 (4) Analysis of 2 Samuel 6.6-10 and 1 Chronicles 13.9-13 (5) Analysis of 2 Samuel 6.11-15, 17-20a and 1 Chronicles 13.14 15.25-28 16.1-3, 43 (6) Analysis of 2 Samuel 6.16, 20b-23 and 1 Chronicles 15.29.

Source and Revision in the Narratives of David's Transfer of the Ark: Text, Language, and Story in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13, 15-16

Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament

Das Buch Jesaja. Komposition und Endgestalt

The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form

Jesaja 1-12

Some twenty years ago Prof. Magne Saebo published an article for the 80th anniversary of Claus Westermann entitled: Vom Individuellen zum Kollektiven. Zur Frage einiger innerbiblischen Interpretationen.2 Long before and continuously after that publication the question of the individual or/ and collective interpretation of the so-called Servant Songs in Is 40-55 triggered Old Testament scholars. There is no space/ time or need to give an account of the history of interpretation of this exegetical and theological crux—the aim of my lecture is far more modest: I would like to present some developments of the last few years in order to see the whole question in a somewhat new light.

Ulrich Berges

Papers

Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament

Das Buch Jesaja. Komposition und Endgestalt

The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form

Jesaja 1-12

The Literary Construction of the Servant in Isaiah 40-55: A discussion about individual and collective identities