Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0042
S. Duby
This article will address some claims in recent biblical scholarship about God having a body. This will involve first considering what recent advocates of divine embodiment in the Bible are actually asserting. The following section will then examine the conception of a body that one finds in Aristotle and some Christian authors like Thomas Aquinas in order to discern whether or in what sense proponents of divine embodiment in the Bible in fact present something contrary to the doctrine of divine incorporeality. There, the article also offers a few thoughts on why one might want to retain the doctrine of divine incorporeality and contend that one can maintain divine incorporeality while still making sense of the Bible’s corporeal or anthropomorphic descriptions of God.
{"title":"Bodies of God in the Bible? Divine Incorporeality, Divine Presence, and Revelation","authors":"S. Duby","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0042","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article will address some claims in recent biblical scholarship about God having a body. This will involve first considering what recent advocates of divine embodiment in the Bible are actually asserting. The following section will then examine the conception of a body that one finds in Aristotle and some Christian authors like Thomas Aquinas in order to discern whether or in what sense proponents of divine embodiment in the Bible in fact present something contrary to the doctrine of divine incorporeality. There, the article also offers a few thoughts on why one might want to retain the doctrine of divine incorporeality and contend that one can maintain divine incorporeality while still making sense of the Bible’s corporeal or anthropomorphic descriptions of God.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46012121","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 : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0077
Suzanna R. Millar
The book of Job apparently ends happily ever after, with the restoration of the protagonist’s family and fortune (42:7–17). Juxtaposed with the rest of the book, however, this epilogue may appear incongruent and deeply problematic. In light of that, this article argues that a double reading is warranted. On the one hand, the epilogue may be read with a hermeneutic of suspicion, which resists superficial worldviews and protests against injustice. This reading will unmask troubling features in the representation of Job’s God, Job’s restoration, and Job’s speech. On the other hand, though—and drawing on Paul Ricœur—the text can be approached with “second naivety.” The audience is thereby welcomed to inhabit the symbolic wholeness of the textual world. The text invites both these readings and does not adjudicate between them. By holding them in dialectic tension, both hermeneutics and theology are enriched.
{"title":"Did Job Live “Happily Ever After”? Suspicion and Naivety in Job 42:7–17","authors":"Suzanna R. Millar","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0077","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The book of Job apparently ends happily ever after, with the restoration of the protagonist’s family and fortune (42:7–17). Juxtaposed with the rest of the book, however, this epilogue may appear incongruent and deeply problematic. In light of that, this article argues that a double reading is warranted. On the one hand, the epilogue may be read with a hermeneutic of suspicion, which resists superficial worldviews and protests against injustice. This reading will unmask troubling features in the representation of Job’s God, Job’s restoration, and Job’s speech. On the other hand, though—and drawing on Paul Ricœur—the text can be approached with “second naivety.” The audience is thereby welcomed to inhabit the symbolic wholeness of the textual world. The text invites both these readings and does not adjudicate between them. By holding them in dialectic tension, both hermeneutics and theology are enriched.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42827452","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 : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0109
James Alan Schetelich
This article offers an account of the development of Karl Barth’s interpretation of Phil 2:1–11, from his early commentary on Philippians to his mature reading in §59 of Church Dogmatics IV/1. Philippians 2:1–11 exists at the intersection of two significant loci in Barth studies: one seeking to examine the significance of exegesis in Barth’s theology, and another focusing on Barth’s explication of the command-obedience relationship between the Father and Son in §59 in order to offer insight into the relationship between Trinity and election in Barth. This article finds a major shift in Barth’s exegesis of Phil 2:1–11 in CD II/1. Here, Barth finds in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9) indication that the history of Jesus Christ, as narrated by this passage, reveals the essence of divinity. It is argued that when Barth claims in §59 that Christ’s economic obedience must be grounded in his eternal being as Son, he is employing the same interpretive strategy he uses in CD II/1, a strategy which finds its exegetical basis in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9).
{"title":"Not a Nevertheless, but a Therefore: Following Philippians 2 with Karl Barth","authors":"James Alan Schetelich","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0109","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article offers an account of the development of Karl Barth’s interpretation of Phil 2:1–11, from his early commentary on Philippians to his mature reading in §59 of Church Dogmatics IV/1. Philippians 2:1–11 exists at the intersection of two significant loci in Barth studies: one seeking to examine the significance of exegesis in Barth’s theology, and another focusing on Barth’s explication of the command-obedience relationship between the Father and Son in §59 in order to offer insight into the relationship between Trinity and election in Barth. This article finds a major shift in Barth’s exegesis of Phil 2:1–11 in CD II/1. Here, Barth finds in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9) indication that the history of Jesus Christ, as narrated by this passage, reveals the essence of divinity. It is argued that when Barth claims in §59 that Christ’s economic obedience must be grounded in his eternal being as Son, he is employing the same interpretive strategy he uses in CD II/1, a strategy which finds its exegetical basis in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9).","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47634124","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 : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0001
J. Heath
This experimental article is methodologically Christian, in the sense that it is structured as a Christian mimesis of how a scriptural saint cited Scripture. However, the choice of subject matter commits it to engaging with the post-Enlightenment secular context, and principles of exegetical, historical, and theological analysis anchor it within wider scholarly debates. Concretely, the article takes the scriptural portrayal of Tobit’s recognition of his own emotion in Scripture as a paradigm or type for one way of encountering Scripture today. The first part examines a vignette of Tobit remembering a scriptural text about grief at a moment when he experiences intense grief. The second, longer part explores the transition to the post-Enlightenment context by performing and interrogating an act of recognizing in Scripture an emotion that has only been theorized since the eighteenth century, namely “disgust,” which is “recognized” in the scriptural narrative of Eve’s temptation in Gen 3. The purpose of the mimetic reception and the scholarly interrogation of it is not to replicate or critique Tobit’s example, but to allow it to be inhabited in a way that can remain meaningful from a Christian perspective without closing our eyes to the real challenges of modernity and, lest it be forgotten, of being human. This is offered simply as one exhibit in a potentially capacious gallery of attempts to learn from the Scriptures and the saints how to inhabit Scripture in the modern world.
{"title":"“I Remembered the Saying” (Tobit 2:6): Recognizing Emotions in Scripture with Tobit and Eve","authors":"J. Heath","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.17.1.0001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This experimental article is methodologically Christian, in the sense that it is structured as a Christian mimesis of how a scriptural saint cited Scripture. However, the choice of subject matter commits it to engaging with the post-Enlightenment secular context, and principles of exegetical, historical, and theological analysis anchor it within wider scholarly debates. Concretely, the article takes the scriptural portrayal of Tobit’s recognition of his own emotion in Scripture as a paradigm or type for one way of encountering Scripture today. The first part examines a vignette of Tobit remembering a scriptural text about grief at a moment when he experiences intense grief. The second, longer part explores the transition to the post-Enlightenment context by performing and interrogating an act of recognizing in Scripture an emotion that has only been theorized since the eighteenth century, namely “disgust,” which is “recognized” in the scriptural narrative of Eve’s temptation in Gen 3. The purpose of the mimetic reception and the scholarly interrogation of it is not to replicate or critique Tobit’s example, but to allow it to be inhabited in a way that can remain meaningful from a Christian perspective without closing our eyes to the real challenges of modernity and, lest it be forgotten, of being human. This is offered simply as one exhibit in a potentially capacious gallery of attempts to learn from the Scriptures and the saints how to inhabit Scripture in the modern world.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49288108","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0187
Euntaek D. Shin
This essay presents a theological reading of the Noah narrative to argue that humanity’s restful existence depends on their relation to the natural world. It first appropriates the theological and philosophical concept of place to show that restful existence depends on being placed in a fitting relation to the natural world. Second, in reading the story of Noah, it argues that being placed depends on God’s work of placing humans in proper relation to the natural world—as epitomized in the event of the ark. Third, analyzing the story of Noah in the light of classical theological categories of God’s providence, it argues that God’s continuing providential activity today should shape human place-building for restful living.
{"title":"Human Rest and the Natural World: A Theological Reading of Noah","authors":"Euntaek D. Shin","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0187","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay presents a theological reading of the Noah narrative to argue that humanity’s restful existence depends on their relation to the natural world. It first appropriates the theological and philosophical concept of place to show that restful existence depends on being placed in a fitting relation to the natural world. Second, in reading the story of Noah, it argues that being placed depends on God’s work of placing humans in proper relation to the natural world—as epitomized in the event of the ark. Third, analyzing the story of Noah in the light of classical theological categories of God’s providence, it argues that God’s continuing providential activity today should shape human place-building for restful living.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44527443","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0168
Benjamin J. Aich
This article investigates the narrative of Gen 6:1–4 through William P. Brown’s theological “method” in order to understand what the text says about YHWH, so that students, scholars, and clergy would think of this passage less in terms of defining its problem characters and more in terms of appreciating how it presents YHWH in his relationship to the world.
{"title":"Genesis 6:1–4: A Theological Interpretation","authors":"Benjamin J. Aich","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0168","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article investigates the narrative of Gen 6:1–4 through William P. Brown’s theological “method” in order to understand what the text says about YHWH, so that students, scholars, and clergy would think of this passage less in terms of defining its problem characters and more in terms of appreciating how it presents YHWH in his relationship to the world.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44899816","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0234
A. Stevenson
Since the fourth century, Mark 13:32/Matt 24:36 have regularly been taken in hand as evidence of Jesus’s ignorance and used to advance subordinationist, kenotic, or Ebionite christological agendas. Meanwhile, modern biblical scholars regularly use patristic commentary on this passage as evidence that the classical Christian tradition advanced ahistorical, docetic eisegesis. In this essay, I consider patristic commentary on this pericope to show that these criticisms are unwarranted. The church fathers did not consider Jesus’s humanity to be an abstract, philosophical conundrum. Rather, their approach was driven by intertextual concerns set within a theistic metaphysical framework. They did not resolve a competition between Jesus’s humanity and divinity in favor of his divinity but upheld the confession that he was fully God and fully man in the face of a variety of approaches that threatened to corrupt or relinquish his humanity. I suggest that certain philosophical developments in the thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) allow us to make distinctions that both uphold the patristic exegetical tradition and extend it in ways that do greater justice to the passage.
{"title":"“Concerning That Day and Hour”: In Defense of Patristic Exegesis","authors":"A. Stevenson","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0234","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Since the fourth century, Mark 13:32/Matt 24:36 have regularly been taken in hand as evidence of Jesus’s ignorance and used to advance subordinationist, kenotic, or Ebionite christological agendas. Meanwhile, modern biblical scholars regularly use patristic commentary on this passage as evidence that the classical Christian tradition advanced ahistorical, docetic eisegesis. In this essay, I consider patristic commentary on this pericope to show that these criticisms are unwarranted. The church fathers did not consider Jesus’s humanity to be an abstract, philosophical conundrum. Rather, their approach was driven by intertextual concerns set within a theistic metaphysical framework. They did not resolve a competition between Jesus’s humanity and divinity in favor of his divinity but upheld the confession that he was fully God and fully man in the face of a variety of approaches that threatened to corrupt or relinquish his humanity. I suggest that certain philosophical developments in the thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) allow us to make distinctions that both uphold the patristic exegetical tradition and extend it in ways that do greater justice to the passage.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46584629","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0255
Joshua Madden
The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most widely circulated early Christian texts. Contemporary estimations of the text, however, are far from praiseworthy, and many regard the Shepherd to be so imprecise and poorly written as to lend itself to heterodox interpretation, especially in regard to its Christology and the infamous parable of “The Servant and the Vineyard.” This essay will argue that this negative evaluation of the Shepherd is misguided, and that not only does this specific parable avoid heterodox implications, but that it displays a thoroughly biblical understanding of Christ as the servant-messiah sent into the world by the Father to redeem the world, as witnessed by the apostolic preaching and the authors of the New Testament. This essay will demonstrate that the Shepherd presents the reader with a coherent narrative with which to understand the basic themes of the Christ event by weaving together a creative and original parable rooted firmly in the scriptural and interpretive tradition of both the Old and New Testaments.
{"title":"The Servant and the Vineyard: Christology and the Reception of Scripture in the Shepherd of Hermas","authors":"Joshua Madden","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0255","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most widely circulated early Christian texts. Contemporary estimations of the text, however, are far from praiseworthy, and many regard the Shepherd to be so imprecise and poorly written as to lend itself to heterodox interpretation, especially in regard to its Christology and the infamous parable of “The Servant and the Vineyard.” This essay will argue that this negative evaluation of the Shepherd is misguided, and that not only does this specific parable avoid heterodox implications, but that it displays a thoroughly biblical understanding of Christ as the servant-messiah sent into the world by the Father to redeem the world, as witnessed by the apostolic preaching and the authors of the New Testament. This essay will demonstrate that the Shepherd presents the reader with a coherent narrative with which to understand the basic themes of the Christ event by weaving together a creative and original parable rooted firmly in the scriptural and interpretive tradition of both the Old and New Testaments.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45668402","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0275
Chris Tilling
{"title":"Down with This Sort of Thing: Seth Heringer and the End of the Historical-Critical Method","authors":"Chris Tilling","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0275","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45584591","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0201
David J. H. Beldman
This essay explores the question of the role and character of God in the book of Ecclesiastes. The essay identifies the places in Ecclesiastes (especially in Qoheleth’s discourse) where God appears as a topic of discussion, attempts to classify these passages, and analyzes them in light of the whole. The essay also explores and evaluates the surprising absence of God in Qoheleth’s discourse.
{"title":"Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, and the Question of God","authors":"David J. H. Beldman","doi":"10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jtheointe.16.2.0201","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay explores the question of the role and character of God in the book of Ecclesiastes. The essay identifies the places in Ecclesiastes (especially in Qoheleth’s discourse) where God appears as a topic of discussion, attempts to classify these passages, and analyzes them in light of the whole. The essay also explores and evaluates the surprising absence of God in Qoheleth’s discourse.","PeriodicalId":53190,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theological Interpretation","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48217461","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}
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