Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0117
Evert Jerome Van Kuiken
What contribution may the Apocalypse of John make to Spirit Christology? This article focuses on Rev 5:5–6, progressively unveiling these verses’ promise for the project of Spirit Christology through the examination of seven theses. The aim of this exercise is mutual enrichment: Spirit Christology gains an expanded biblical basis beyond its traditional concentration on the New Testament gospels, while the theological interpretation of the Apocalypse of John benefits from a Spirit-christological reading heretofore lacking in major works on the theological interpretation of Revelation.
{"title":"Lamb and Lion, Eyes and Horns: Spirit Christology in the Apocalypse of John","authors":"Evert Jerome Van Kuiken","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0117","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 What contribution may the Apocalypse of John make to Spirit Christology? This article focuses on Rev 5:5–6, progressively unveiling these verses’ promise for the project of Spirit Christology through the examination of seven theses. The aim of this exercise is mutual enrichment: Spirit Christology gains an expanded biblical basis beyond its traditional concentration on the New Testament gospels, while the theological interpretation of the Apocalypse of John benefits from a Spirit-christological reading heretofore lacking in major works on the theological interpretation of Revelation.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"5 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141230166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0097
Jon C. Laansma
Scholars have long debated whether 1 Corinthians is unified and, if so, whether the unity consists in an error on the side of the Corinthians and/or a theological or pastoral objective of Paul. The present argument is that the unifying thematic axis of 1 Corinthians as a letter consists in a Trinitarian knowledge of the God of Israel. This knowledge of God is given in Christ crucified and raised according to the Scriptures and through the Spirit, and this same knowledge addresses the twin concerns of idolatry and sexual immorality among the Corinthians. The epistle is accordingly an exercise in acknowledgment of God’s revelation of himself to Paul and the churches and in doxological discipleship. If so, it follows that the unity of 1 Corinthians emerges from something prior to Paul and over his own intention, something self-commending even as it finds expression in Paul’s written thought. God knows his people and is known in Christ through the Spirit by those whom he has raised with Christ to newness of life and filled with his Spirit. In this knowledge, they, the Israel of God, know where they have come from, who they are and must be, and where they are going. Everything Paul writes to them about all the gritty particulars of life derives from this reciprocal, lived knowledge.
{"title":"“Some Have No Knowledge of God”: The Resurrection and the Knowledge of God in 1 Corinthians","authors":"Jon C. Laansma","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0097","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Scholars have long debated whether 1 Corinthians is unified and, if so, whether the unity consists in an error on the side of the Corinthians and/or a theological or pastoral objective of Paul. The present argument is that the unifying thematic axis of 1 Corinthians as a letter consists in a Trinitarian knowledge of the God of Israel. This knowledge of God is given in Christ crucified and raised according to the Scriptures and through the Spirit, and this same knowledge addresses the twin concerns of idolatry and sexual immorality among the Corinthians. The epistle is accordingly an exercise in acknowledgment of God’s revelation of himself to Paul and the churches and in doxological discipleship. If so, it follows that the unity of 1 Corinthians emerges from something prior to Paul and over his own intention, something self-commending even as it finds expression in Paul’s written thought. God knows his people and is known in Christ through the Spirit by those whom he has raised with Christ to newness of life and filled with his Spirit. In this knowledge, they, the Israel of God, know where they have come from, who they are and must be, and where they are going. Everything Paul writes to them about all the gritty particulars of life derives from this reciprocal, lived knowledge.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"4 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141235055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0061
Thomas Breedlove, Alex Fogleman
Gregory of Nyssa’s interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer’s request for daily bread is difficult to place in the history of the petition’s exegesis. Early interpreters—among them Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augustine, and Peter Chrysologus—stressed what is often called, in Henri de Lubac’s phrase, a “spiritual interpretation” of the bread as knowledge, the Eucharist, or Christian doctrine. The majority of modern commentators, in contrast, understand the petition to ask for material food. Gregory, however, troubles simple contrasts between ancient and modern and spiritual and material interpretation. In his fourth homily on the dominical prayer, he draws upon Origen’s exegesis, interpretating the bread within a metaphysical framework distinguishing between the perceptible and intelligible, but Gregory understands the bread to be material bread and the necessity of eating to be central to the human creature’s imitation of the impassible and immaterial God. Even more unique than this departure from the spiritual interpretation of the bread is Gregory’s argument that luxury and excess—eating more than the minimum required by the body—are practices not only bad for the soul but harmful and unjust to one’s neighbors. This article takes both these dynamics in turn: first, putting Gregory’s interpretation in relief by comparing it not only to the spiritual interpretation of bread by Origen but also the materialist interpretations offered by Chrysostom and Theodore; and second, bringing to light Gregory’s remarkable deployment of a perceptible/intelligible ontology to argue for the purpose of material sustenance and its importance for a just society.
尼萨的格列高里对《主祷文》中 "日用饮食 "请求的解释很难被归入该祷文的注释史中。早期的解释者--其中包括良（Tertullian）、塞浦路斯人（Cyprian）、奥利（Origen）、耶路撒冷的西里尔（Cyril of Jerusalem）、安布罗斯（Ambrose）、奥古斯丁（Augustine）和彼得-克利索洛格斯（Peter Chrysologus）--强调的通常是亨利-德-卢巴克（Henri de Lubac）所说的 "精神解释"，即面包是知识、圣餐或基督教教义。与此相反，大多数现代注释家都将这一请求理解为对物质食物的请求。然而，格里高利对古代与现代、精神与物质解释之间的简单对比提出了质疑。在关于主祷文的第四篇讲道中，他借鉴了奥利的注释，在区分可感知和可理解的形而上学框架内解释了面包，但格里高利将面包理解为物质面包，将进食的必要性理解为人类受造物模仿不可感知和非物质上帝的核心。与面包的灵性诠释相比，格里高利更独特的论点是，奢侈和过量--吃得超过身体所需的最低限度--不仅对灵魂有害，而且对邻居也是有害和不公正的。本文依次论述了这两种动态：首先，将格里高利的解释与奥利对面包的灵性解释以及金口和西奥多的唯物主义解释进行比较，从而将其置于轻松的氛围中；其次，揭示格里高利对可感知/可理解本体论的出色运用，以论证物质养料的目的及其对公正社会的重要性。
{"title":"Eating for Eternity: The Social Dimensions of Gregory of Nyssa’s Interpretation of the Petition for Daily Bread","authors":"Thomas Breedlove, Alex Fogleman","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0061","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Gregory of Nyssa’s interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer’s request for daily bread is difficult to place in the history of the petition’s exegesis. Early interpreters—among them Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augustine, and Peter Chrysologus—stressed what is often called, in Henri de Lubac’s phrase, a “spiritual interpretation” of the bread as knowledge, the Eucharist, or Christian doctrine. The majority of modern commentators, in contrast, understand the petition to ask for material food. Gregory, however, troubles simple contrasts between ancient and modern and spiritual and material interpretation. In his fourth homily on the dominical prayer, he draws upon Origen’s exegesis, interpretating the bread within a metaphysical framework distinguishing between the perceptible and intelligible, but Gregory understands the bread to be material bread and the necessity of eating to be central to the human creature’s imitation of the impassible and immaterial God. Even more unique than this departure from the spiritual interpretation of the bread is Gregory’s argument that luxury and excess—eating more than the minimum required by the body—are practices not only bad for the soul but harmful and unjust to one’s neighbors. This article takes both these dynamics in turn: first, putting Gregory’s interpretation in relief by comparing it not only to the spiritual interpretation of bread by Origen but also the materialist interpretations offered by Chrysostom and Theodore; and second, bringing to light Gregory’s remarkable deployment of a perceptible/intelligible ontology to argue for the purpose of material sustenance and its importance for a just society.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"54 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141234774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0131
Dylan Parker
Theological interpretation of Scripture and public theology have so far said very little to one another. To a certain extent, this is understandable, as the two are involved in separate projects with differing priorities and questions. However, a mutually beneficial dialogue is possible. Public theology has yet to devote significant attention to the role of Scripture in public engagement and theological interpretation provides a framework better suited than historical criticism for allowing the Bible to speak to current situations. In return, public theology can help theological interpretation to clarify the public nature of the ecclesial community through the development of a public ecclesiology in order to better hear the voice of God in Scripture through a more holistic theological reading, one with a thicker defense against ecclesial tendencies toward authoritarianism and privatism. In establishing the possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship, this article provides a rationale for the relationship between public theology and theological interpretation to begin outright.
{"title":"(Un)likely Allies: Public Theology and Theological Interpretation in Conversation","authors":"Dylan Parker","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0131","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Theological interpretation of Scripture and public theology have so far said very little to one another. To a certain extent, this is understandable, as the two are involved in separate projects with differing priorities and questions. However, a mutually beneficial dialogue is possible. Public theology has yet to devote significant attention to the role of Scripture in public engagement and theological interpretation provides a framework better suited than historical criticism for allowing the Bible to speak to current situations. In return, public theology can help theological interpretation to clarify the public nature of the ecclesial community through the development of a public ecclesiology in order to better hear the voice of God in Scripture through a more holistic theological reading, one with a thicker defense against ecclesial tendencies toward authoritarianism and privatism. In establishing the possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship, this article provides a rationale for the relationship between public theology and theological interpretation to begin outright.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"46 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141232801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0003
Josef Sykora
A theological approach to reading Scripture advocates that biblical interpretation should not only shape our theological commitments but also be shaped by them. From within this hermeneutical framework, I wish to address Jer 17:5–10, a section where one can find two contrasting images. On the one hand, vv. 5–8 speak about blessed and cursed persons; their differing fates arise from the way these individuals orient their hearts. On the other hand, vv. 9–10 stress that the human heart is devious, and only God knows it. However, how can the human heart be both decisive for one’s destiny and at the same time deceitful and unknowable? While diachronic and synchronic approaches present their own solutions to this interpretative crux, I hope to contribute to the ongoing discussion by evoking the work of Karl Rahner, whose understanding of grace and truth deeply resonates with both polarities of Jeremiah’s passage. The resulting theological reading then not only amplifies the subject matter of Jeremiah’s perplexing oracles but also offers a construal of faith that honestly engages the complexities inherent in our pluralistic culture.
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Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0022
Jeb Ralston
This comparative study will examine the ways Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther understood the literal sense of Scripture in their expositions of Ps 2. Building off of G. Sujin Pak’s book, The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms, this study seeks to incorporate Erasmus and compare his exegesis and hermeneutic to the early Luther’s expositions of Ps 2. The article aims to demonstrate how these two exegetes converged (and diverged) in their understanding of the literal sense and to explore what part the literal sense played in their interpretation of Scripture. Further, it will consider the relationship these exegetes have to their antecedent exegetical tradition as well as the role history and philology played in their exegesis and how Christ was related to the literal sense of Scripture. The final section of this study ends with a recommendation for contemporary biblical scholars and theologians in the task of biblical interpretation today.
本比较研究将探讨德西德留-伊拉斯谟（Desiderius Erasmus）和马丁-路德（Martin Luther）在阐释诗篇 2 时对圣经字面意义的理解方式。以 G. Sujin Pak 的著作《犹太化的加尔文：十六世纪关于弥赛亚诗篇的争论》为基础，本研究试图将伊拉斯谟纳入其中，并将他的注释和诠释法与早期路德对诗篇 2 的阐释进行比较。文章旨在说明这两位训诂学家对字面意义的理解是如何趋同（和分歧）的，并探讨字面意义在他们对经文的解释中所起的作用。此外，本研究还将考虑这些训诂学家与其先前的训诂学传统之间的关系，以及历史和文字学在他们的训诂学中所扮演的角色，以及基督与圣经字面意义之间的关系。本研究的最后一部分是对当代圣经学者和神学家在当今圣经诠释任务中的建议。
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Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0077
Alexander James Reedrow
How might we read the canonical Gospel of John as anything other than anti-Jewish, a scholarly point of view that in recent years has received renewed support? The accusation is absolute and raises serious problems for the gospel’s ongoing reception as Christian Scripture. The appropriate response to this challenge of such high stakes is to return to the gospel and offer close readings of the relevant passages. This article participates in the ongoing debate regarding the status of the gospel by examining how John characterizes Nicodemus, the first “Jew” with whom Jesus engages in extended dialogue. Through a reading of his three appearances (John 3:1–21; 7:45–52; 19:38–42), this article argues for a positive characterization of Nicodemus. It contends that he progresses toward a fuller understanding of Jesus’s true identity, which culminates in reverently burying Jesus, this act representing an embodied confession commensurate with Johannine faith. Becoming a disciple, Nicodemus nevertheless remains a “Jew.” Thus, he is a case in point for how the gospel, while striking in its marked dualistic contrasts and exclusivist in its claim for Jesus as the only Way, permits movement across the very boundaries it establishes, thereby challenging the appropriateness of labeling John an anti-Jewish gospel. Part of the theological challenge of John’s Gospel is for all readers to recognize themselves in the story of Nicodemus.
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Pub Date : 2024-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0043
Gregory Goswell
A number of key Old Testament texts cited in the New Testament are surveyed to determine whether they are amenable to prosopological exegesis (e.g., Dan 7; Ps 45; Ps 110), but in none of these texts is more than one divine figure present, nor do they depict one divine person speaking to or about another divine person. The Christian reader is not required to find the three persons of the Trinity differentiated and assigned different speaking roles in Old Testament texts. However, another mode of Trinitarian reading is credible. The follower of Jesus is not to equate the God of the Old Testament simply with the Father; rather the God of the Old Testament is the triune God, which means that many more Old Testament texts than often thought directly connect to Jesus.
{"title":"Trinitarian Exegesis of the Old Testament","authors":"Gregory Goswell","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.18.1.0043","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 A number of key Old Testament texts cited in the New Testament are surveyed to determine whether they are amenable to prosopological exegesis (e.g., Dan 7; Ps 45; Ps 110), but in none of these texts is more than one divine figure present, nor do they depict one divine person speaking to or about another divine person. The Christian reader is not required to find the three persons of the Trinity differentiated and assigned different speaking roles in Old Testament texts. However, another mode of Trinitarian reading is credible. The follower of Jesus is not to equate the God of the Old Testament simply with the Father; rather the God of the Old Testament is the triune God, which means that many more Old Testament texts than often thought directly connect to Jesus.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"21 20","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141233227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.2.0166
Bradley S. Cameron
Biblical scholars of the Old Testament have long upheld that YHWH is a “hidden God.” In fact, the hiddenness of God finds robust expression in the book of Ecclesiastes, where the concept seems to frame the very idea of God. Yet Karl Barth famously opposed Luther’s Deus absconditus, whose existence suggested a God “behind the back” of Jesus. If Barth is right that YHWH is no Deus absconditus, what then of Qohelet’s claim that divine hiddenness is an essential theological affirmation? The goal of this article is to examine how Barth’s discomfort with the Deus absconditus can be reconciled with the fact that divine hiddenness seems to frame Qoheleth’s theological perspective. On the side of systematics, we must determine what Barth says about hiddenness and the Deus absconditus: why, how, and to what degree he challenges the notion. As I shall argue, Barth’s complex theology of revelation exhibits a tension, both affirming a certain notion of God’s “hiddenness” and denying the Deus absconditus. On the biblical side, we must determine the nature and content of Qohelet’s God-talk. I will argue that many descriptions of the God-talk of Ecclesiastes are exaggerated and insensitive to Qohelet’s larger theological perspective. In the end, a more nuanced reading of both Barth and Qoheleth can bring these giants into conversation with one another and perhaps even clarify what is left ambiguous in Ecclesiastes’s theological assertions.
{"title":"The Hidden God? Karl Barth and Qoheleth on the Deus Absconditus","authors":"Bradley S. Cameron","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.17.2.0166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.17.2.0166","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Biblical scholars of the Old Testament have long upheld that YHWH is a “hidden God.” In fact, the hiddenness of God finds robust expression in the book of Ecclesiastes, where the concept seems to frame the very idea of God. Yet Karl Barth famously opposed Luther’s Deus absconditus, whose existence suggested a God “behind the back” of Jesus. If Barth is right that YHWH is no Deus absconditus, what then of Qohelet’s claim that divine hiddenness is an essential theological affirmation? The goal of this article is to examine how Barth’s discomfort with the Deus absconditus can be reconciled with the fact that divine hiddenness seems to frame Qoheleth’s theological perspective. On the side of systematics, we must determine what Barth says about hiddenness and the Deus absconditus: why, how, and to what degree he challenges the notion. As I shall argue, Barth’s complex theology of revelation exhibits a tension, both affirming a certain notion of God’s “hiddenness” and denying the Deus absconditus. On the biblical side, we must determine the nature and content of Qohelet’s God-talk. I will argue that many descriptions of the God-talk of Ecclesiastes are exaggerated and insensitive to Qohelet’s larger theological perspective. In the end, a more nuanced reading of both Barth and Qoheleth can bring these giants into conversation with one another and perhaps even clarify what is left ambiguous in Ecclesiastes’s theological assertions.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" 15","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138614408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.2.0255
Brandon D. Smith
Interpreting the book of Revelation requires careful exegesis on its own, but exegetical issues multiply when one attempts to draw out its pneumatology. Through theological interpretation and pro-Nicene categories, this article will demonstrate one way to understand the book of Revelation’s contribution to an articulation of the Holy Spirit’s eternal procession.
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