Showing papers on "Revelation published in 1983"

Models of Revelation

Abstract: In Models of Revelation Avery Dulles explores the doctrine at the very center of Christianity: that Christianity is based on the world of God as given to the church. Following the format of his earlier Models of the Church, Dulles derives five models of character of this much-neglected theme of revelation. He considers revelation as doctrine, as history, as inner experience, as dialectical presence, and as new awareness.

The Qur'anic justification for an Islamic revolution: the view of Sayyid Qutb

Abstract: In its historical development Islam has at different times addressed itself to a variety of historical, legal, political, philosophical, ideological and theological challenges with which it has come in contact. This is evident in its formative period in Mecca, as the early suras of the Qur'an were mainly concerned with proclaiming God's oneness and omnipotence while affirming human accountability on the Day of Resurrection. It was primarily aimed at the Meccan polytheists, condemning what was viewed as their exclusive commitment to materialistic pursuits, ignoring social and economic responsibility towards the poor, the widows and the orphans. When the early Muslims emigrated to Medina, the emphasis shifted from the nurture of the individual believer in the new faith to one focused on the formation of an Islamic community (umma). Consequently, the Qur'anic revelation dealt more extensively with social issues. These included the laws that were to govern the new Islamic society in its inter-communal relations (family, trade, crime, etc.) as well as its relations with people of other faiths. The challenge in Medina came from the People of the Book (primarily Jewish tribes) who questioned the authority of the teachings of the Qur'an. To this the revelation responded with an unequivocal affirmation that the source of the Qur'anic message was God and not the Prophet. This set the precedent for a continuous definition of Islam vis-a-vis other claims to truth, both in its doctrinal teachings as well as its social and political forms. A substantial part of the Qur'an is concerned with arguments and disputations against unbelievers as well as those who deviate from the essential message of God. In these passages the context is the defense of Islam-the refutation of all competing truths and an apologetic for the veracity and eternality of the Islamic message, as one providing a total and comprehensive world view

The other side of 1984 : questions for the churches

Abstract: This book is "an invitation to the church to be bold in offering to the men and women of our culture a way of understanding which is based unashamedly on the revelation of God made in Jesus Christ and attested in scripture and the Tradition of the church". And, because no church and no culture is an island, that invitation to adopt "an authentically missionary approach to modern culture" needs to be extended to all Christians everywhere.

The Heavenly Feast of Tabernacles: Revelation 7.1-17

Abstract: especially associated with the temple and with the theophany in the Jerusalem temple, an association strengthened by the Deuteronomic reform. It would be surprising if a feast which played such a major role in the lives of the Jewish people had left no trace on the literature of the early Church. C. Vitringa2 long ago suggested that the imagery of Revelation 7 was taken from the Feast of Tabernacles. His assertion was accepted by J.G. Eichhorn,3 and elaborated by E.W. Hengstenberg,4 though it did not meet with general approval.’ Although several modern critics have renewed Vitringa’s claim that the Feast of Tabernacles lies behind the description of Heavenly worship in Revelation 7, notably J. Comblin,l H. Kraft/ and J. Sweet,8 the background to this vision in Zechariah 14 does not seem to have been fully explored. Most scholars recognize the use the author makes of Ezekiel 9.4, but the chapter is much more deeply indebted to Zechariah 14, which has a long history of midrashic interpretation, and, according to bMeg. 31a, was also read in the lectionary cycle of the Feast of Tabernacles. This article aims to examine the way this text, especially as it was understood in later Jewish speculation, may have influenced the scene in Revelation 7. It is hoped that this will further clarify its

A Further Note on the Covenantal Form in the Book of Revelation

Abstract: In an earlier issue of AUSS my colleague, William H. Shea, provided an illuminating discussion of the covenant form in the book of Revelation, particularly in the letters to the seven churches in chaps. 2-3.' All the basic elements of the ancient Hittite suzerainty-treaty formulary appear in each of those letters: (1) the preamble identifying the suzerain (here, Christ under appropriate symbolisms); (2) the historical prologue indicative of past relationships (presupposed in the \"I know your works. . .\" statements); (3) the stipulations (the prescribed course of action for each congregation in view of its circumstances); (4) the call upon witnesses (here the repeated imperative to \"hear what the Spirit says to the churches\"); and (5) the blessing and curse (the promises to the overcomer and the warnings for unfaithfulness).2 I concur fully with Shea's analysis, and would simply call attention to some further perspectives that may merit consideration: 1 . It is likely that the ancient suzerainty-covenant formulary, in addition to its occurrence in conjunction with each of the individual letters to the seven churches, appears also in a broader, constitutive pattern for the entire book. In this broader pattern, the prologue in chap. I (especially vss. 5-6) furnishes the covenantal \"preamble\" and \"historical prologue,\" the epilogue in chap 22 (notably vss. 6, 7, 14, 16-20) furnishes the covenantal \"call upon

Radical Discontinuities: American Romanticism and Christian Consciousness

Abstract: Contrasting scripture and art, faith and imagination, revelation and vision, the author argues for the provocative thesis that the American Romantic and Puritan traditions are irreconcilably opposed, and that they represent the collision of mutually exclusive worldviews.

Paul and the Birth of Self-Consciousness

Abstract: Not until the time of Philo and Paul did the Hebraic tradition make a decisive impact beyond the community of Israel, and it is of overwhelming importance that to this day it is in Paul and in Paul alone that the worlds of sacred history and individual interiority appear and stand forth together in their own integral and distinct identities, which is to say that it is only in the letters of Paul that biblical language is manifest and real as biblical language even while being spoken and resaid in the language of a full and active self-consciousness. True, a parallel coincidence appears in Dante's Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost, but the very unity of the language of these poems fully harmonizes and integrates the worlds of revelation and self-consciousness, so that neither self-consciousness nor revelation stands isolated and apart, whereas Pauline language commonly and almost continually embodies a dichotomy between "I" language and revelatory language, between the language of revelation and the language of self-consciousness. A full and actual language of self-consciousness first historically appears in Paul's letters, and here it is a negative language, indeed, a self-negating language, as the "I" of self-consciousness knows itself as a sinful and guilty conscience and consciousness, a carnal or fleshly "I" that is wholly and totally imprisoned by sin (Romans 7:14-20). For the first time in history a full and total impotence of the will is now manifest and actual at the center of consciousness, and that impotence is the site of the dawning voice of self-consciousness, a lacerated and self-lacerating voice which can speak only by speaking against itself. Nothing is more controversial either in the interpretation of Paul or in the problematics of Christian anthropology itself than the identity of the deeper or the inner man. A classical text here is Romans 7:22, where Paul declares that he delights in the Law of God, kata ton eso anthropon, in my inner man or my inmost self or my inner depths. These depths can be and have been identified with the Law of my nous (7:23),

The Living and active word of God : studies in honor of Samuel J. Schultz

Abstract: Preface List of Contributors Personal Portrait Erwin P. Rudolph LEAD ARTICLE Proposals for New Approaches in Teaching Old Testament Overview Samuel Schultz SECTION I: How God `Spoke Long Ago to the Fathers' The Bible and the Environment F. F. Bruce The Abrahamic Covenant: Conditional or Unconditional? Ronald Youngblood Gathered to His People: A Study of a Dothan Family Tomb Robert Cooley Questions From the Prophets Merold Westphal Right Questions About Isaiah 7:14 J. Barton Payne (permission to publish posthumously granted by his wife) Jesus and Moses: Rabbinic Backgrounds and Exegetical Concerns in Matthew 5 Alan Johnson The Promise of God and the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit Walter Kaiser SECTION II: How God `Has Spoken to Us in His Son' Hebrew Thought in the Life of the Church Marvin Wilson Apostolic Eyewitnesses and Proleptically Historical Revelation Stanley Obitts Manifestation of the Spirit Morris Inch Authority for a Going and Sending Ministry in the Christian Mission of World Evangelism Robert Culver Textual Variants of the `Apostolic Decree' and Their Setting in the Early Church Julius Scott The Theism of the Apocalypse Merrill Tenney SECTION III: How God's Word Abides With Us Immanence, Transcendence, and the Doctrine of Scripture Millard Erickson The Inspiration of Scripture Among the Seventeenth-Century Reformed Theologians Bong Ro The Concept of Truth in the Contemporary Inerrancy Debate Norman Geisler The Clarity of Scripture Robert Sandin Italics in English Bible Translation Jack Lewis The Bible the Foundation for a World and Life View Harold Lindsell Symbolism, Modeling and Theology William Dyrness The Bible in an Age of Revolution Harold Kuhn The Use of the Bible in World Evangelization Arthur Johnston General Index Scripture Index Author Index

Holy ones, sons of God, and the transcendent future of the righeous in 1 Enoch and the New Testament

Abstract: In 1 Enoch, or at least in chapters 37-71 and 92-105, God is expected to vindicate his suffering children on the day of judgement. The righteous will be raised to an immortal life, like that of the angels, or will even become angels. The righteous are the wise, to whom God's mysteries have been revealed and who believe in their hidden future. Within this apocalyptic perspective the divine sonship of the righteous is understood in a new way. In 1 Enoch (62:11; 101:1) divine sonship is associated with 1. knowledge of the heavenly mysteries, 2. suffering, 3. vindication beyond death. The Wisdom of Solomon (2:12-20; 5:5) has developed this by associating sonship explicitly 1. with the immortality of the righteous; 2. with the divine sonship of the angels. A similar apocalyptic transformation can be seen in the New Testament. There Son of God is often associated with 1. revelation, 2. knowledge, 3. resurrection/incorruptibility, 4. suffering. This apocalyptic model of divine sonship in the New Testament should be situated in the context of contemporary Judaism, where a similar transformation of the Old Testament understanding of the divine sonship of the chosen people was taking place. We have 10 ask whether the title 'son of God' was not first applied to Jesus in this apocalyptic sense. Through the experience of the resurrection he could have been understood as the Son of God, as the already vindicated head and representative of the community of the wise and righteous sons of God.

Revelation, Salvation, the Uniqueness of Christ and Other Religions

Abstract: Karl Barth is the foremost modern exponent of the view that Jesus Christ is the decisive, unrepeatable and unsurpassable ‘locus’ of divine revelation, and that consequently it is only by following the way of Christ that we can possibly hope for the ultimate salvation of mankind. This view of Barth's finds expression in the following passage:

The rabbinic attempt to democratize salvation and revelation

Abstract: H. W. Basser is Assistant Professor in Religion at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. It is the nature of mystic movements to claim a privileged understanding of the natural and the supernatural. In the world of antiquity the inhabitants of the Roman and Persian Empires used divine names, incantations, and mystic rituals to conquer foes and to receive revelations.’ Hebrew books have been found showing that Jews too participated in such movements.2 2