Showing papers on "Exegesis published in 1992"

The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity

Abstract: The Song of Songs, eight chapters of love lyrics found in the collection of wisdom literature attributed to Solomon, is the most enigmatic book of the Bible. For thousands of years Jews and Christians alike have preserved it in the canon of scripture and used it in liturgy. Exegetes saw it as a central text for allegorical interpretations, and so the Song of Songs has exerted an enormous influence on spirituality and mysticism in the Western tradition. In the Voice of My Beloved, E. Ann Matter focuses on the most fertile moment of Song of Songs interpretation: the Middle Ages. At least eighty Latin commentaries on the text survive from the period. In tracing the evolution of these commentaries, Matter reveals them to be a vehicle for expressing changing medieval ideas about the church, the relationship between body and soul, and human and divine love. She shows that the commentaries constitute a well-defined genre of medieval Latin literature. And in discussing the exegesis of the Song of Songs, she takes into account the modern exegesis of the book and feminist critiques of the theology embodied in the text.

The Pastoral Epistles : a commentary on the Greek text

Abstract: Knight's study on the Pastoral Epistles is part of The New International Greek Testament Commentary, a series based on the UBS Greek New Testament, which seeks to provide thorough exegesis of the text that is sensitive to theological themes as well as to the details of the historical, linguistic, and textual context.

Origen on the Jews

Abstract: This present study is a note added to what has already become an extensive bibliography concerning Origen’s doctrinal relation to Judaism in general, and the extent and significance of his awareness of Jewish exegetical procedures in particular. Among that list of previous studies on the theme, special reference ought to be made to the seminal work Origen and the Jews, by Professor Nicholas de Lange, which demonstrated Origen’s knowledge of rabbinic traditions in his exegeses. This present study will offer, firstly, a general contextual discussion of the question of Origen’s dependence on Jewish tradition, and, secondly, a small test-case analysis of his attitude to the Jewish question from observing his New Testament exegesis of those passages directly concerning the issue. From the latter some interesting biases will emerge that throw some light on his personal attitudes.

The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art and Literature

Abstract: What is typology or figuralism? Northrop Frye and the rediscovery of typology. Part 1 The hermeneutical context - language, meaning, reading: language - from figure to fulfilment meaning - from seed to plant reading - eating the book. Part 2 Reading scripture: the unity of scripture typology in the Old Testament typology in the New Testament the lion and the lamb. Part 3 Reading pictures: visual exegesis - pictura quasi scriptura reading medieval typological programmes the Klosterneuburg Altar the Biblia Pauperum the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. Part 4 Reading literature: from prefiguration to postfiguration: dramatic hermeneutics in the "Abraham and Isaac" play of the Chester-cycle (Pagina IV) figuration and metadrama in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" fulfilment of the "Eternal Design" in T.S.Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral".

Psalterium Scholastocorum: Peter Lombard and the Emergence of Scholastic Psalms Exegesis

Abstract: The Book of Psalms was unquestionably the book of the Old Testament most beloved by patristic and medieval exegetes. Seen as a guide to the Christian life and as a prophecy of Christ and his church, the Psalms received extended attention from Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine, and Cassiodorus and from their Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon successors. After the ninth century, monastic writers continued to display a sustained interest in the text. As had always been the case, so in the twelfth century the goal of monastic commentators was to inspire unction and compunction in their monastic audience. And, as before, their address to the Psalms reflected the assumption that this audience knew the Psalter by heart. Their exegesis could draw on the meditative and homiletic techniques embedded in monastic lectio divina, and they could present the exegesis of the Psalms as an adjunct to the devout chanting of the Psalter in the monastic liturgy. When they appealed to past authorities, the monastic exegetes simply chose readings they found illuminating and, without identifying the source, wove them seamlessly into their own exposition. These aspects of Psalms exegesis are quite traditional. They are found over and over again in the monastic writers of the twelfth century. What is new in the Psalms exegesis of that century is the emergence, for the first time, of scholastic exegesis. The masters of theology in the cathedral schools of the first half of the century, and their pupils, created a demand for a different approach to the biblical text, one geared to the training of professional theologians. The kind of Psalms exegesis that this new audience wanted was analytical, detached, critical, and applicable to the demands of doctrinal debate and the formulation of systematic theology. For the scholastics of the twelfth century no less than for the monks, the Book of Psalms remained the most frequently studied part of the Old Testament, although for different reasons. The scholastics found in the Psalms not only a rich source of Christian ethics but also a source of dogmatic teachings. Moreover, it was a complex and composite section of the Bible. The understanding of its component parts, the relation of the parts to the whole, the order and authorship of its composition, all called for investigation. The resources on which the scholastic exegetes drew in their work, both the older authorities in the Christian tradition and those in the disciplines of the liberal arts,

1 Corinthians 9.9–11: A Literal Interpretation of ‘Do not Muzzle the Ox’

Abstract: When Paul interprets ‘Do not muzzle the ox while threshing’ as ‘do not neglect to pay Christian ministers’, commentators have quite naturally assumed that his exegesis was allegorical. However, comparisons with contemporary rabbinic exegesis suggest that this would have been regarded as a literal interpretation of the plain meaning of the text.

"This was a Woman that taught": Feminist Scriptural Exegesis in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract: the feminist implications of women's claim to religious authority as interpreters of Scripture. It seems to me that contemporary scholarship, operating as it does in a secular culture, is not sufficiently aware of the revolutionary nature of a woman's claim to religious authority. I would like to correct this misapprehension by discussing two women writers of the late seventeenth century who attempted a feminist critique of Scripture, Margaret Fell, in Womens Speaking Justified (1667), and Mary

An Exegesis of Isaiah 38.21

Abstract: This exegesis of Isa. 38.21 challenges the traditionally held view that the verse is misplaced or even extraneous to the text. The investigation first studies healing stories in the Hebrew Bible to determine whether the larger narrative of Hezekiah’s illness fits into a genre of such accounts or deviates in significant ways. The role of the prophet in these stories is carefully considered. Then, taking into account the poetic nature of the book, a metaphoric reading of the verse is proposed by considering its graphics along with other imageries of wounds and sores, and with motifs of sickness and healing that occur at several places in Isaiah. After locating the verse historically, its content is examined for careful interpretation of terminology, and the verse is reconsidered by reading it in its immediate literary context. The findings are then looked at to test their meaning when set against the similar account of Hezekiah’s illness in 2 Kgs 20. The conclusion is that Isa. 38.21 has an important function in the chapter and in the book of Isaiah as a whole.

Liberal democracy and the Bible

Abstract: This bold and innovative series of essays addresses the encounter between the biblical exegesis and liberal democratic thought. Explores how early modern liberal democratic thinkers such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Kant employ the Bible in the development of their political theories. The introductory essay focuses on the tension between Reason, Revelation, and liberal democracy, and a concluding essay proposes a substantive method for serious reflection about the issues.

The Canon and the Truth: Brevard Childs and James Barr on the Canon and the Historical-Critical Method I

Abstract: Brevard Childs recently proposed that 'the canon of the church is the most appropriate context from which to do biblical theology,' and has fleshed this proposal out in greater detail in his canonical introductions to the Old and New Testaments In both, he underscores the hermeneutic priority of the canonical form of the text of scripture for exegesis serving the corporate life of the church, over against attempts to interpret scripture by either historicizing the text or by decontextualizing aspects of it (Le, by locating the hermeneutic key to the text in a history behind or in an experience in front of it) The 'canonical approach' is thus a hermeneutic proposal designating the final canonical form of the biblical text as the starting point for exegesis aimed at serving the communal life of the church To appreciate the constraints under which Childs articulates this proposal it will be useful to observe, in the first place, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historical-critical consensus on the

The Development of a Course in Biblical Theology Based on a Book-by-book Approach to the Bible

Abstract: Date of Award 1992 Document Type Project Report Degree Name Doctor of Ministry College Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Program Doctor of Ministry DMin First Advisor Richard M. Davidson Second Advisor C. Raymond Holmes Third Advisor Atilio R. Dupertuis Abstract The purpose of this project was to develop and undergraduate college course in Biblical Theology. Part One establishes a theoretical background by exploring the biblical and theological foundations.