Search Results (15)

Origen’s prosopological exegesis, derived from a technique developed for Homeric interpretation by the Alexandrian grammarians and applied by Christian interpreters to some texts of the Scriptures, has been already studied in its principal aspects by a few scholars in the 1980s, especially M.-J. Rondeau and B. Neuschäfer. However, the discovery of a corpus of 29 Greek homilies which have been attributed to Origen makes necessary a reexamination of the previous studies, in order to verify (and possibly correct) their results. This study aims to present such a comparison, analyzing some examples of prosopological exegesis in the new Homilies on the Psalms in the light of other examples in Origen’s remaining literary oeuvre; furthermore, it aims to show that Origen adopted (and adapted) an exegetical technique typical of the Alexandrian Homeric philology. Full article

St. Thomas Aquinas defines theology (sacra doctrina) as the communication of wisdom that comes from God and leads to Him. What is important here, according to Thomas, is to read the Bible as a whole and not as a cluster of random books. Revelation, and the testimony of it which is the Bible, cannot be reduced to a mere literal communication of divine truth. More fundamental than the biblical words (verba) themselves is the reality (res) to which they refer: the salvific truth communicated by God. The Thomistic approach to Scripture in theology is shaped by four complementary dimensions: auctoritas (power of authority), sensus (meaning), finis (purpose), and documentum (testimony). In this light, Scripture functions as the “alphabet” of theology—the foundational semantic structure through which revealed truth is expressed and transmitted. Full article

Since the beginning of the 21st century, studies on “cultural trauma” have pushed Hebrew Bible exegesis in new directions. Although its initial focus was on the period of the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), after 25 years of research, this novel framework has shown its fruitfulness when reading a range of literature: poetic and prophetic literature, as well as narratives of sexual violence. Trauma studies also engage an inspiring dialogue with other disciplines that are already well established in biblical exegesis, such as feminist scholarship. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand, we will introduce the concept of “cultural trauma” and the main features that characterise the narratives responding to cultural trauma. On the other hand, we will present the main contributions of this frame of reference to recent Hebrew Bible research and the concrete contributions to a text as disturbing as the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11:29–40. Full article

In the late classical period of the history of tafsīr, one of the rare commentators who utilized the Bible was Yūsuf b. Hilāl al-Ṣafadī (d. 696/1296). The question of how he utilized the Bible in his tafsīr is important for understanding both his position and the modes of interpretation within the classical tafsīr tradition. This study aims to identify al-Ṣafadī’s approach to the Bible, his interpretations based on biblical material, and his overall methodological framework. The context, frequency, type, and semantic scope of his quotations from the Bible are analyzed, and these references are evaluated through a comparative approach within the framework of the classical tafsīr tradition. Accordingly, the original and non-original aspects of al-Ṣafadī’s approach to the Bible have been identified. By establishing intertextual relationships, al-Ṣafadī interpreted the Qurʾān in the context of the Bible, and the Bible in the context of the Qurʾān. One of the distinctive aspects of al-Ṣafadī’s engagement with the Bible is his interpretation of it from the perspective of a Muslim exegete, ultimately contributing to the tradition of Biblical exegesis. The article aims to contribute to the scholarly literature on Qurʾān–Bible relations by identifying the nature and methodology of biblical references within the framework of Ṣafadī’s tafsīr. Full article

A major plank in the Evangelical apologetics platform (especially for the Jewish witness) has always been the predictive prophecy about Jesus in the Hebrew Bible. The number of these prophecies or “predictions” varies widely among Conservative–Evangelical sources. A brief survey of claims about the number of Christ-related Old Testament (OT) prophecies ranges from 50–400+. Regardless, the assertion of direct, intentional Old Testament prophetic pronouncement about Jesus has been a non-negotiable mainstay of Evangelical thought and theology since its beginning. However, today, those who align with the Evangelical movement in general, would disagree on technical grounds with the traditional way that Messianic prophecy has been explained hermeneutically or exegetically. Progressive Evangelicals, however, generally are concerned with the interpretation or exegesis of biblical passages in their grammatical–historical–cultural contexts. The focus is on texts rather than traditions. An irony is that traditional and untraditional Evangelicals who favor contextual exegesis in principle are still very divided when it comes to explaining how the NT used the OT, especially in relation to Messianic prophetic texts. This article describes the problem and illustrates it with examples of how some older and newer Evangelicals disagree when commenting on OT Messianic prophetic passages. Full article

Little work has been done to investigate Jonathan Edwards’ use of the Christian Scripture in his Freedom of the Will. This study looks to address this gap in the literature, arguing that Edwards’ exegesis of the Christian Scriptures plays an indispensable role in his overall argument in his Freedom of the Will, and provides a new avenue for understanding this critical text in his corpus and the nature of Edwards’ exegesis generally. Full article

As a cancer patient and Old Testament scholar, I will offer my thoughts on how the Old Testament speaks theologically and practically to the human condition in relation to deadly disease. This essay follows (in broad strokes) my lifelong formative theological and ecclesiastical experiences with healing in Scripture and among believers. Episodes in my personal experience will be followed by theological exegesis related to perspectives and passages in the Old Testament that I find pertinent for the topic of cancer or any life-threatening illness or injury in the life of Christians whose faith is connected to the Bible as divine revelation. In particular, and mainly, texts related to wisdom in the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes to be exact) are considered. This is followed by reflections on passages that appear to offer guarantees of healing and then a conclusion that draws personal but also, hopefully, appropriate universal lessons about sickness and mortality from the Hebrew Bible. Full article

The experience of ontological and epistemological dominations made Africans lose their self-consciousness and become unfulfilled in life. Every human being has a life of integrity that must be lived. The Maccabees in the Bible were dominated by Antiochus IV, the King of Syria. He desecrated the Temple, changed their religion, politics, economy, and social life and above all made himself a god to be worshipped. He deprived the Jews of their identity and dominated them ontologically, but they had a life of integrity to live. Some of the Jews accepted the new way of life by Antiochus and helped to betray those few Jews who stood against this new system of Antiochus. Many of the pious Jews lost their lives, but with hope in Yahweh and persistent endurance they regained their identity and life of integrity. The plague of coloniality made Africans invariably lose their identity, and consequently their integrity as others determined their pace of life. The African story is like the Maccabean story; this article studies selected texts in Maccabees (1 Maccabees 2 and 3; 2 Maccabees 6 and 7) and suggests their regaining of identity and life of integrity to the African situation. The paper uses biblical exegesis and intercultural interpretations to unearth the buried African treasures for an integrity of life. Full article

Every society possesses systems for accessing, preserving, and transmitting its traditions. These are meant to ensure that privileged knowledge entrusted to reliable custodians is passed on unchanged between generations for the preservation of society. In Africa, scholars have advocated new hermeneutical approaches to the study of the Bible, arguing that the adoption of traditional methods of exegesis served as another instrument in the colonialists’ toolkit to undermine the reception and preservation of Africa’s sacred traditions. Using African Biblical Hermeneutics, this paper studies the processes for preserving Sacred Tradition in Psalm 40. Similar processes are found in African Indigenous Sacred Texts such as the mate masie of the Adinkra textual system. I argue, therefore, that a complementary reading of the texts of the two traditions could serve to de-link from the monocular vision of traditional exegesis and offer a much more fruitful approach to interpreting these texts and making them relevant to the contemporary African reader. Full article

The complex and urgent migration crisis demands a proper framework to formulate and drive the appropriate solutions. In this study, the author attempts to present a theological framework on the roles of Christians to migrants grounded in the theme of “shamar” (שָׁמַר; keep), tracing it through the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New. We argue that welcoming (keeping) strangers originated from man’s first mission by exegeting Genesis 2:15 and 4:9 (the primordial assignment in the creation narrative and the denial in the first murder). After the Fall, the task is passed to all descendants and is then explicitly included in the Law. In the New Testament, “shamar” and its meanings are further revealed through three characters: the Samaritan leper, the Samaritan woman, and the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans show us that one should see a migrant as not only a brother or sister but also as oneself and as a part of one’s mission. One should see with an open heart and be ready to be converted. A Samaritan may not be just one who comes from Samaria; instead, one who practices “shamar”—welcomes strangers unconditionally. Full article

Against the background of differing opinions about Gandhi’s views on the relationship between political action and religious inspiration, this paper examines his use of scriptures, if he made hermeneutical decisions and if so, what they were. The starting point is a letter from Gandhi in which he pleaded against reading the scriptures literally and named truth, ahiṃsā, and a living faith as criteria. Reason is most important, but with limitations; ahiṃsā, nonviolence, is never at stake, but the definition of what may be called hiṃsā, or ahiṃsā, is dependent on place, time, and situation. Faith-based truth as Faith = God enabled the use of religious language and definitively bridged the religious and the secular. For an understanding of Gandhi’s personal faith, his statements on Rama and Ramarajya as the Kingdom of God on earth are important. Gandhi found a leading principle in 2 Cor 3:6: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,” comparing it often with a literal vs. figurative reading. The connecting factor between Gandhi and Paul was their situation, which is more fully explained for Paul. Both tried from a different perspective to reformulate their religious heritages in a new way by claiming that their now-defended truth was already present in the scriptures. Both needed a hermeneutical key and found it in the killing letter and the life-giving Spirit. For Gandhi, it meant the right to expand the original meaning of texts to realise ahiṃsā hic et nunc. The last section of this paper offers examples of Gandhi’s use of this principle in changing contexts: the opening of the temples of Travancore, his approaches to the Gita, his exegesis of Galatians, and his readings of the Hebrew Bible. Full article

Like other religious traditions, Islam has accommodated notions of the divine logos. The actual elaboration of these notions has been heavily dependent on how the translation of God’s word and commandments to humans were understood as an object of intra-community debate, as well as in polemics with non-Muslims (inter-community debate). These two debates converged in the Muslim critique of the translation, transmission, and interpretation of the divine logos by Jews and Christians in their scriptures, although such convergence took different forms in different historical settings. The present contribution focuses on several examples of the engagement of Muslims with the Bible in the medieval Iberian Peninsula and in exile. The choice of authors and works ranges from the 11th-century Andalusī scholar Ibn Ḥazm to the exile Aḥmad al-Ḥanafī (d. 1049H/1650CE). It is nevertheless not intended as a comprehensive overview of Muslim approaches from the Western Mediterranean region. The objective is rather to discuss several aspects associated with the translation of the divine logos in polemics as a tool of identity that is intimately related to Muslim practices of exegesis and transmission of the Jewish and Christian writings. Particular attention is directed toward the broader issue of how notions of the translation of God’s word have been informed by language practices within contexts of inter-religious contact and competition (either between existing social bodies or as references to a relatively recent past). A preliminary look at Muslim modes of scriptural interpretation suggests that translation and exegesis, as well as the ways in which Muslims understood these practices as performed by non-Muslims, were part of a tradition that took final form and meaning, and that was subject to change when re-enacted in specific contexts. Any understanding of the subject must be read against the backdrop of Muslim configurations of knowledge within the local communities, as combined with tradition. Full article

The paper examines how the figure of the biblical Moses was philosophically interpreted in medieval Jewish and Christian writings. It highlights a turning point in a new concept of prophecy and scriptural authority and suggests that this transformation was made complicated for both Jewish and Christian intellectuals by the appearance of Moses Maimonides, who was most influential in promoting the Muslim model of philosophic interpretation of prophecy, and at the same time confusingly emerged as a living manifestation of semi-biblical authority. Against Jewish exclusivist interpretation of Mosaic law as the leading polemical argument to encounter competing revelations, the first part of my paper points out a mechanism of “Jewish successionism”, i.e., the re-interpretation of the biblical Moses as an instrument for rationalizing normative paradigmatic shift. The second, main part of the paper turns to the Latin translation of Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed, placing it in the midst of a crucial western Latin turn into a new phase of engagement with Old Testament concept of prophecy. A short comparison between some prominent twelfth century figures and later Scholastic thought demonstrates the central role of the new Arab Aristotelianism in general, and that of Maimonides in particular. Maimonides reception among the schoolman will culminate in the writings of Meister Eckhart, exposing the full potentiality of the double appearance of the Egyptian (Rabbi) Moses. Full article

This paper is an ethical exegesis of the biblical story of Gibeah, which concludes the Book of Judges (19–21), to show the catastrophic failure of the anti-political politics of the “community of virtue”, i.e., the rejection of power for the sake of moral society, such as proposed by libertarians, neo-liberals, anarchists and utopians. I consider Kant’s statement of the political problem: given humanity’s unsocial sociality, where each person is tempted to act as an exception to universal law, humans need rulers, but how to obtain rulers who are not themselves ruled by power, and become tyrannical, rather than being ruled by justice? The solution proposed by “the community of virtue” would reject power altogether and replace it with society regulated exclusively according to the moral virtue of its members. The Bible’s story of Gibeah shows graphically and conclusively the failure of any such attempt. Instead, as with normative political philosophy, the Bible endorses the rule of a king, i.e., the rule of the state, and a politics whereby power is disciplined to serve justice because it is rooted in Torah, i.e., a fundamental covenant, charter or constitution, aware and vigilant regarding the ambiguities and temptations of sovereignty, and therefore, ideally, always open to critique. As exemplified by biblical prophets, political protest against injustices perpetrated by the powerful against the least—widow, orphan, stranger—is at once religious obligation and true patriotism. Full article

This essay introduces the concept of “carceral hermeneutics,” the art of interpreting Scripture from within prisons as, or alongside, incarcerated persons. Reading the Bible in prison reframes the Bible as a whole, highlighting how the original sites of textual production were frequently sites of exile, prison, confinement, and control. Drawing on the work of Lauren F. Winner, the author explores the “characteristic damages” of reading the Bible without attention to the carceral and suggests that physically re-locating the task of biblical interpretation can unmask interpretative damage and reveal alternative, life-giving readings. The essay concludes with an extended example, showing how the idea of cruciformity is a characteristically damaged reading that extracts Jesus’ execution from its carceral context. Carceral hermeneutics surfaces a Gospel counter-narrative in which Jesus flees violence and opts for his own safety. Jesus as a refugee (Matt 2), a fugitive (Matt 4:12–17), and a victim escaping violence (Luke 4:14–30) stand alongside Jesus as an executed person to offer a wider range of options for a “christoformity” in which people can image God while fleeing from violence in order to preserve their own lives and freedom. Full article