Intertextual readings are common to Biblical interpretation. Usually, literature contemporary to the Biblical times is used to interpret the Scripture. In this paper the interpreter is trying to do a comparative critical reading on the friendship of the Disciples with Jesus in comparison to Aristotle concept of friendship. Comparative critical reading is an interpretative method which consciously compares literature with the Scripture so that the uniqueness and similarities of the Scripture are highlighted. For Aristotle the friendship is the greatest virtue and absolutely necessary in everyone's life (Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII, 143). Aristotle believes that there are three different kinds of friendship; friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure, and perfect friendship. To a certain extent these kinds of friendships are depicted in Jesus’ disciples even after they were called to be His perfect friends. Mathew portrays disciples’ friendship with Jesus was a kind of utility which was looking for some utility and pleasure. Some were aspiring to have a better position in the Kingdom of God through Him (Matt 20:21). Others were looking for a comfortable life through him. There was at least one who was expecting to have a financial enhancement (Matt 26:15). Aristotle argues about the highest form of friendship that is a perfect friendship or complete friendship. This type of friendship is based on a person who wishes for good in him without the mind of utility and pleasure. Jesus was the true friend who wished goodness in His disciples and shown the highest virtue of love.

The Israelite (northern) origin of Deuteronomy has already been advocated by several scholars. Likewise, the Israelite (northern) origin of Genesis, with Joseph (and not Judah) presented as its ultimate positive eponymous hero, is rather evident. The question of the tribal-political origin of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers is more complicated. This paper will demonstrate that the differing images of the tribes of Ephraim and Judah in their relationships to the worship of Yahweh, as they are presented in Exodus and Numbers, strongly favour the hypothesis of the Israelite (northern) origin of Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers as well.

This paper examines the biblical and historical roots of the theology of liberation in purposively selected Pentecostal Churches (Deliverance Ministries) in contemporary Nigeria. The origin, growth, and phenomenon of liberation theology are investigated while its impact on Nigerians is evaluated. The methodology adopted consists of the critical historical analysis as well as exegesis of Luke 4:18-19, using Reader Response hermeneutical principle to investigate the contextual understanding of the passage. In addition, the participant-observation method is used in gathering first-hand information about doctrinal emphases and practices. Questionnaires are administered to elicit information on six hundred and twenty-five Pentecostals who are members of deliverance churches, at one hundred and twenty five per church. In each church fifty male adults, fifty female adults and twenty-five youths are purposively selected. In the selected Churches, twenty five of the men and twenty five of the women are educated to allow for comparison, while all the youths are regular church attendants. Furthermore, four Pastors and leaders of each of the selected Pentecostal churches are interviewed. Secondary data is gathered from relevant books, church bulletin, magazines commentaries, dictionaries, learned journals and the internet. The data obtained are analysed, using hermeneutical theory. The result shows that the Old Testament focused on the political liberation of the Israeli nation, the New Testament is more interested in the liberation from sin. It reveals that the leaders of the selected Nigerian Pentecostal Churches had abandoned the holistic interpretation of the New Testament meaning of liberation in relation to the Old Testament messianic prophecies. The paper concludes that the leaders of the Nigerian Pentecostal Churches placed greater emphasis on the problems of their members more than biblical injunctions.

The Laws of Ur-Nammu, Laws of Eshnunna, Code of Hammurapi, Middle Assyrian Laws, and Hittite Laws all have some reference to the prohibition against adultery. These laws are generally casuistic and cover a wide range of socio-legal matters. Weinfeld has pointed out that the ‘negative confessions’ in chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Mesopotamian incantation “Šurpu” both include adultery (among murder, robbery, false oaths, talebearing, hypocrisy, wrongful acquisition, counterfeit weights and measures, boundary encroachment and failure to clothe the naked). The Hebrew Bible is no exception. This paper examines the prohibition against adultery in the prophets: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea over against the prohibitive or vetative negative commandment in the Decalogue. In Jer 29: 23, adultery is tied to political insurrection and marital infidelity. In Ezek 23:37 adultery is used as judgment against those who offered up their children and thus shed blood. Especially problematic is Hosea 3 (c.f. Jer 5:7-8) if the woman that Hosea is commissioned to go and love is a married woman (not Gomer). Hosea 4:2 echoes the phrase that blood shed or some form of sacrifice is affixed to adultery. Bosman, Philips, McKeating, and others have done careful studies but the prohibition goes beyond religious infidelity against Yahweh. A careful rereading and re-analysis suggest that in prophetic literature, there is often a coupling of adultery with some other infraction. Indeed in the Decalogue, the prohibition against adultery is set between murder and theft, suggesting that family law is of importance and value. But perhaps, even the ordering may suggest that adultery leads to other crimes like bloodshed, perhaps echoing David’s adultery, murder, and theft.

1 Kings 8:41-43 describes the nokrî as one who is “not of your people Israel”; “comes from a distant land” (cf. Josh 9:6,9); to “pray toward this house”. They are non-Israelites who travel occasionally or reside abroad. Many scholars have long suggested that this mentioning of nokrî is so unusual within Deuteronomistic literature that this passage may possibly be part of a later redaction during the post-exilic period. But how could this favourable view of non-Israelites sit comfortably within Deuteronomistic theology? I argue that the changing role of the temple in the post-exilic context may have been a factor in the inclusion of this nokrî text. I want to test the hypothesis that the association of King Solomon’s prayer and a temple open to “all” mirrors a strong political movement supporting the inclusion of “others” despite the Deuteronomistic History’s restricted boundaries. As a Samoan, I will conclude this paper with an interpretation of how the coming of Christianity as a foreign tradition to Samoa has over the years redefined the role of the matai (chief) system in Samoan society.

Visual perception is one of the main themes of Genesis, particularly in characterisations of the deity, divine messengers and humanity. The problematic nature of mediated, interpreted visual perception is illustrated by Genesis 18.16-19.38; the story of Abraham, Lot, Lot’s wife and her people of Sodom. The representation of others in this text can lead to interpretations which essentialize persons and landscapes. The pursuit of security through seeing and demand for knowledge is a feature of cultural ideology in the text which legitimises violence, much like Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV’s) use visual technology, particularly within West and Central Asia, controlled by human agency, to determine enemies or excuse ‘collateral damage’. In such texts of violence, how can the desire for security determine guilt and innocence, and the fate of the earth? Lot’s wife is the cipher which calls bible reading communities to stand in solidarity with suffering in the human and earth community caused by the fantasy of ultimate security. The remembrance of Abraham and hospitality causes the deity to express tumult and regret for the general pursuit of epistemological certainty at the cost of the earth and human life. The unspoken sin of Sodom and their outcry are invitations for the reader to wrestle with justice, empathy and the representation of others.

The ritual regulations for a wife suspected of adultery (Num 5:11-31) and the Hittite Instructions for Priests and Temple Officials (CTH 264) are notable in that both texts mention trial by ordeal as a means to resolve an “unknown” case involving an accused suspect. Regrettably, biblical scholarship since Milgrom’s treatise on the Hittite sacrilege has not paid much attention to the nature of the Hittite legal proceedings in CTH 264 in view of the priestly laws. In this paper, I argue that the ritual prescriptions in CTH 264 illuminate a significant aspect of the legal assumptions underlying the case of the Sotah in Numbers 5:11-31, the only full-fledged account of trial by ordeal in the OT. In both the biblical and the Hittite texts, the conceptual overlap of the stated conditions concerning the accuser and the suspect, of the notion of the concealment, and of the priestly mediation through a potion ordeal are noteworthy. On the other hand, the divergence between the Hittite and the biblical instructions may unveil something distinctive about the priestly legal outlook. In particular, I submit that in Numbers 5:31 the phrase “bearing one’s punishment” (tissa’ ’et-‘awônah) is a theologically/ideologically significant term that betrays the priestly legislator’s legal rationale. No mortal will be able to evade the legal liability under the jurisprudence of YHWH. In the Hittite case, by contrast, a suspect who deliberately concealed the case could technically emerge from the ordeal without injury. In the priestly perspective, such a legal outlet conceivable in the polytheistic world is inadmissible: YHWH, the only God, will assure that the culprit be accountable for having perpetrated the divine injunction. Finally, a comparison of the trial by ordeal in both traditions reveals a rather coherent ritual logic in the legal case which entails binary outcomes.

Direct references to baptism in First Corinthians should not be underestimated. Paul uses the word ßapt??? (baptizõ) eleven times alone in first Corinthians, which included references to the literal rite of baptism and its metaphorical uses (e.g., 1 Cor 6:11). Paul’s use of baptism reflects the importance of the rite among the first Christians in Corinth whose members include Jews and Greeks (also Romans), from different ethnic groups and various religious background, and also slaves and free (rich and poor) from different social levels. With this background, Apostle Paul radically instructs, “we were all baptized into one body.” Hence, this work first of all, attempts to explain why and how a right understanding of baptism was important among the first Christians in Corinth. To accomplish this, I will briefly trace the social significance of washing-initiations/baptism in the Greco-Roman world. Secondly, I will identify the similarities and divergences between washing-initiations/baptism and Christian baptism in Corinth, and briefly discuss baptism in selected passages from First Corinthians. Finally, I will explore the social significance of baptism in 1 Corinthians 12:13 in its first century CE context and today.

Myanmar is a multi-religious country and its citizens are wrestling for decades on religious conflict and rivalry across the nation. Different religions claim that they are “pure” and antipathize others. Religion-based social institutions generally target to look after the same religious person or who likely to convert. Yet, there are unending abuses and human rights violation among women (widows), children (orphans), handicapped and minorities (religions and ethnics). They are in need of care without partiality. Within the context of James 1:27, the first readers were living in religious, pluralistic, and multicultural society in the Mediterranean world. In this text, James encourages the diaspora Jewish Christians to maintain their identity as “pure” by looking after the marginalized in their society especially widows and orphans. Interestingly, James did not limit looking after these marginalized only to Christians; hence, they were responsible to look after insiders and outsiders in the context. He additionally warned not to be stained from the world. In this passage, orphans and widows are the most marginalized and vulnerable group in the society. In particular, the act of ?p?s??pt?µa? (to look upon in order to help or to benefit, have a care for, provide for) to the marginalized is considered as pure and undefiled piety. First, this work will serve to understand the act of looking after orphans and widows in the socio-religious context of the Mediterranean world. Secondly, I will explore ministering to the widows and orphans in the light of the diaspora Jewish context. Finally, I will deal with why James considers looking after the marginalized as an act of pure spirituality, precisely help interpret this text in context and apply this in Myanmar context. Especially, this paper will suggest when and how to minister to the marginalized in our multi-religious contexts.

When the Spaniards entered the so-called New World, they made use of the law collections of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Deuteronomic Code (Dt 12-26), the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20-23), and the Holiness Code (Lev 17-27). Interpreting these collections through a European lens, the Spanish conquistadores and colonizers employed them as a major source for the evaluation and extirpation of those indigenous customs they regarded as evil and the re-organization of post-conquest indigenous societies. In effect, these collections functioned as important tools for conquest and colonization. However, there were other Spaniards who assumed solidarity with the indigenous whom they regarded as oppressed by European conquest and colonization. Influenced by their commitment to the indigenous and by their exposure to pre-Columbian indigenous law (such as the oral and written law of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas) these Spaniards --- including the lawyer and bishop Vasco de Quiroga (1470? - 1565); the defender of the Indians, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566); the chronicler and ethnographer Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590); and others --- adopted a different view of the law collections of the Hebrew Scriptures. In our paper we will explain this different view and its implications for categorizing these laws into types, understanding the knowledge and observance of the laws by the ancient Jewish people, and above all their liberative potential.

In many cases, first names in the Bible appear with a theophoric suffix (Nehemiah and Ishmael, for instance). Biblical names with no theophoric suffix, such as Yaakov and Yitzhak, can be found in Mari (Tell Hariri) scripts, with a theophoric suffix (Yaakovel, Yitzhakel). We can assume that in the Bible they had the theophoric suffix at first, and throughout time the suffix has fallen. There are also names with a social meaning (such as Avraham – "the father of many peoples" ab hamon goyiim[according to the Bible itself], or Zebulun –"This time my husband will treat me with honor yizbeleni, because I have borne him six sons. So she named him Zebulun), and there are names that demonstrate the character of the person (such as Yaakov the Lier – Esau said, "Isn't he rightly named Jacob Ya'aqob? He has deceived me yaaqbeni these two times") or explain a certain act ("After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel eqeb so he was named Jacob Ya'aqob"). The Biblical names, which are often names that were common around the ancient east, went through changes and adaptations into a different culture and a different language in the New Testament and the Quran, but basically remained the same names. This lecture will explore the changes of the Biblical names in the Jewish society that lived under Islamic influences in the Middle-Ages, according to the Genizah Letters.

Digital guides and resources abound for manuscript studies, especially regarding the canonical texts. But this is far less the case with non-canonical texts. Regarding Christian or so-called New Testament apocrypha, a digital rebirth of Geerard’s Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamentum would go a long way to bring awareness to texts and traditions whose popularity in earlier generations has often faded into neglect in modern scholarship. This paper will describe the initial planning and prototyping of such a resource, an e-Clavis for Christian Apocrpha conceived and designed by Mark Bilby, Tony Burke, and Bradley Rice. This resource is now sponsored and hosted on the NASSCAL (North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature) website: http://www.nasscal.com/. The presentation will also explore and explain the structure and maintenance of the eClavis, and also invite session participants to sign up as contributors.

Recent fictional treatments of David reflect the desire (often manifest in scholarly David-biographies) to invoke the true King obscured by the biblical text. Two twentieth-century fictional David “autobiographies,” in particular, present themselves as revelatory tell-alls willing to move beyond the traditional account to present a new,‘real’ David. Yet though Carlo Coccioli’s Mémoires du Roi David (1976) and Joseph Heller’s God Knows (1984) rewrite the story from David’s highly idiosyncratic and blasphemous first-person perspective, they do not attempt to solve the puzzle by taking David out of his text, but rather by actively and productively reinscribing him in the biblical narrative. This paper will explore the ways these novels draw on the biblical material to produce a philological fictional style and to thematize David’s status as a figure caught in his text. Coccioli and Heller’s works balance updated treatments of David’s character (as a mémoirist like Coccioli himself searching for dialogue with his God, and as a parodic version of a post-war Jewish-American writer) with strange, unceasing attention to the ‘original’ text in its Masoretic and KJV manifestations. In both novels, David’s self-exploration is enacted through his own detailed attention to the canonical text that has constituted him: David rewrites David, but he does so with intense philological care. Here, David is at once a palimpsestic body marked by centuries of rewriting and a fraught participant in the activity of adaption. For these novelists, the biblical king and his text provide an opportunity to figure—in a single character--a tense juxtaposition of older models of authorial authority and historical unveiling with postmodern intertextual proliferation and pastiche.

How do we translate Ho Amnos tou Theou in a context where there is no concept of a sheep, lamb, or goat? How do we communicate the Christology of the Lamb of God? Is Christianity or christology translatable? If so, has it been translated according to the intention of the writer of the gospel of John? Decisions in translation related to the concept of the Lamb of God have impacted the christological understanding of the Gospel of John and the nature of Jesus over several decades of contextualization and translation in Indonesia. Indonesia is a nation of many people groups, many languages, and many cultures, some of which are very different from others. How the essence of the original Greek is translated demonstrates much about the missiological motives and principles of the translator as well as the christological assumptions understood in the Gospel of John, particularly John 1:29. Should the concept of the Lamb, and all the Old Testament background assumed with that identity, be lost in translation simply because there is no such animal as a lamb in the receiving context? This author thinks not, based on a proper understanding of the Yohannine conception of that term, and his conception of the identity of Jesus as the Ho Amnos tou Theou. Therefore translators must be wary of allowing the context dictate the translation to the detriment of the essential meaning while also seeking to properly contextualize so that the essential meaning is still communicated.

This paper will articulate the possibilities of Derridean deconstruction in relating Theology and Scripture. Christology as a case study will be used. This project is twofold. First, we will consider the affective and performative function of onto-theological messianic predictions and fulfillment announcements of scripture, looking for possibilities and gaps in the text where a (Kristevan) symbolic referentiality may no longer be useful. This involves looking at interpretations of messianisms from 'traditional' theologies and recent Narrative Theologies (Green, Rowe). Second, we will use Derrida's concept of a messianism-to-come to consider meaning production within narrative of Luke-Acts, as a microcosm of the New Testament. The main thrust of this project will show that the failure and absence of a messiah is the location for understanding Luke’s ‘Christ.’ As such, the failure of the Christ, part of the point of Luke-Acts, is to create a negative space where the kerygma can be preached. While this may be counter-intuitive, it is precisely this negative space that allows diaspora communities to continue to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as Christ.

Two strands are followed in this presentation: feminist interpretations, for instance by Nancy Lee, Mandolfo and Li Zhe; and a seminar session with graduate students at Tel Aviv University (2013-14). Feminist scholars have found a distinct female voice in Lamentations that is in dialogue with the narrator's voice. In our class, we found that the Scroll can be read as if it contained more than two voices and a silent god. The question that arises is, therefore, can speaking roles within it can be assigned to multiple speakers, reading it as a polyphony rather as a dialogue, or even as a cultic performance, much like some psalms? I believe this is a possibility at least for chapters 1-4, although this would present new problems for defining the place of chapter 5 in the Scroll.

Banquets are cross-culture social, ritualistic and religious events. In written and iconographic records of ancient Near East cultures, we find descriptions of banquets as feasting celebrations and religious ceremonies relating mainly to the male sphere. Women were typically excluded from these events. There are, however, descriptions of women participating in public events, such as victory celebrations and mourning ceremonies. There is only scarce evidence of banquets designated only for women, such as the ceremonies portrayed on metal belts from Urartu. The description of Vashti’s women’s banquet in the Book of Esther is a rare account of an organized women’s ceremonial activity. This is a solitary story in the Bible recounting an event intended only for, and celebrated by, women. During the course of Jewish history, no such women’s celebrations are noted with the exception of the “Henna engagement” ceremony celebrated in North African and Yemenite Jewish communities. Over past generations, Jewish women have looked for new ways to create for themselves ceremonies and rituals of religious nature in an answer to the orthodox tendency to exclude and segregate women from a large part of religious ceremonies. The purpose of this paper is to present a totally new contemporary phenomenon of the women’s banquet: the “dough offering ceremony.” This banquet, which has become very popular in recent years, includes communal dough preparation, praying, blessings, eating, singing and dancing. Although very little is known about Vashti’s banquet and other ancient Near Eastern women’s banquets, there are some parallel themes between these banquets and the newly come “dough offering ceremony.” This paper will include a comparative analysis examining these parallel themes.

Right in the middle of the intensive comic action of Ghostbusters (1984), we encounter a relaxed scene, which associate producer Joe Medjuck described as one that “didn’t have any big laughs in it but … offered a possible explanation as to why the city was suddenly plagued by ghosts.” Here, a theological discussion is provoked by Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore asking whether his fellow Ray Stantz believes in God. Zeddemore then proceeds and asks Stantz what the Bible says about the last days. Stantz replies with a rather convincing recitation of Revelation 6:12, but then tries to recap to his “scientist” position by noting that every religion has a myth about the end times. Zeddemore, notably offended by the word “myth,” retorts by asking Stantz “has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we‘ve been so busy lately is because the dead have been rising from the graves?” Later in the plot, when NYC mayor has to decide whether to trust the Ghostbusters, the latter quickly understand that they have the support of the New York Archbishop and continue warning the mayor from a catastrophe of “biblical proportion.” It then only takes a discreet nod from the archbishop for the mayor to order that Walter Peck, the hated Environmental Protection Agency’s representative, will be removed immediately from his office, and to offer his full support to the Ghostbusters. This paper will trace the ways the bible is used in this film to create an all too familiar – yet surprising in this context – alliance between the (Republican) private sector and the church vis a vis “big government,” especially when the latter is fueled by environmental concerns. On this reading, the Reaganite movie can be seen as partly prefiguring the climate change debate and its religious implications in 21st century U.S.A.

Natural disasters often visit the Philippines and their impact is staggering and traumatic. Disasters bring destruction, displacement, death, pain, and prolonged suffering. Like all other countries hit by disasters, Philippines groans and yet hopes for her deliverance. Reflecting from a socio-psychological perspective, V. Villaroman-Bautista writes, “like all other kinds of extreme human experiences, even disasters have their silver linings. While they bring suffering, they also become catalyst for marshaling the resources and altruistic instincts of Filipinos.” From the perspective of doing ‘everyday theology’, K. J. Vanhoozer rightly remarks that theology and understanding (a grasp of what is going on in ordinary situations and why) are short-circuited if we fail to discern “how our faith is affected by the world we live in” and “how we are to embody our faith in shapes of everyday life.” Indeed, a responsible theology is attained mainly when the Christian faith is interpreted in conscious relationship to the fundamental “groanings” of human life and the rest of creation. Hence, the theological and interpretive task in the Philippine setting lies in the direction of interpreting the human meaning (without ignoring the divine) and social content of the Christian faith. With the series of “groanings” in Romans 8 reconnecting earth, humanity, and the Spirit, Paul constructs a vision of hope that awaits the emergence of a liberator who would conquer the ultimate enemy. The significance of this account will be seen against the background of the Filipinos’ expectation of hope and deliverance which offers the need to embrace certain transcendence over the worst of circumstances. The message of hope is no less essential for communities than it is for individuals and the rest of creation, and it does not ignore the reality of pain and suffering, but confronts them in the light of the … [TRUNCATED]

Biblical and systematic theology stand in tension as fields of study that are constructively related in theory but strictly segregated in practice. In the first place, the nature of biblical theology seems to mandate that the concerns of systematic theology exert no conscious influence upon the work of biblical theologians. Furthermore, as a rule, biblical theologies—especially those firmly grounded in the Old Testament—only tangentially influence the work of systematicians. Thus endures a stubborn, seemingly intractable impasse in academic theology. Those who nonetheless seek a voice for biblical theology in the broader world of theological reflection have an unlikely ally in Paul van Imschoot, a nearly-forgotten pre-Vatican II Catholic biblical theologian. Van Imschoot's productive labors transgress received assumptions regarding the relationship of biblical and systematic theology and beckon present theologians to return to the grounding of Scripture for the formation of doctrine.

In the so-called appendices to the book of Judges (ch. 17–18; 19–21), the monarchic refrain (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) situates the two stories within the domain of the monarchy: "In those days, when there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes." With the addition of this refrain, the stories become stylized histories meant to illustrate to the audience the necessity of a king. I argue, however, that this refrain was not original, but rather an attempt on the part of an editor to reframe the appendices to serve as political propaganda. When we read the stories without the refrain, their primary purposes become clear: the first serves as a foundational story recounting the migration of the Danites, while the second depicts the success of the Israelite society to overcome social problems without the regulating influence of the king. Thus, the monarchic refrain changes both the function and meaning of the narratives, influencing how both lay-readers and scholars have interpreted these unique tales throughout the centuries.

This paper focuses on a theological significance of Paul’s ministry of remembering the poor in Jerusalem and how that is related to the pursuit of justice in the Torah. The first part of this paper traces how remembering the poor was at the center of Paul’s ministry from the beginning to the end of his career and highlights its theological significance as a means to foster the unity between his Gentile converts and Jewish Christians because the latter would consider remembering the poor as the best proof of the Gentile Christians’ covenant faithfulness. The rest of the paper traces the pursuit of justice in the Torah in its cultural, historical milieu and the importance of remembering the poor in the pursuit, and establishes how Paul’s ministry of remembering the poor functioned as the litmus test of covenant faithfulness of his Gentile converts. In so doing, how Deuteronomy’s theological and structural emphasis falls on the “poor tithe” or remembering the poor in Deuteronomy 26:12-15 as Moses’s last instruction and the litmus test of covenant faithfulness will be highlighted.

The session will introduce the aims and objectives of the British Academy funded project (2013-16) which explored the development of ethnographic techniques for researching the role of context for interpretation of the Bible by ordinary readers in various settings in India. Chalcraft (who was the Principal Investigator) will provide an introduction to the project, and also, at the close, draw some generalisations re method and substantive findings. Two members of the team (there were 5 case studies in all) will report on their experiences and findings. One case study concerns the role of the Bible for the identity of auto-rickshaw drivers in Chennai; the other case study reports on Dalit (Madiga) encounters with the Bible in a rural village in Andhra Pradesh, where there are low levels of literacy. The first is presented by Arren Bennet Lawrence (Chennai) and the second by Jeeva Kumar Ravela (UTC Bangalore), who are both members of SABS (and not SBL)

Violent clashes, or the so-called "Fishball Revolution", broke out between police and protestors on the streets of Mong Kok, the shopping heart of Hong Kong, at the start (i.e. Feb 8) of Chinese Lunar New Year 2016. Multitudinous young localists went to the wall for unlicensed food stalls, which sold fishballs on skewers. However, the Hong Kong government condemned the ferocious events that unfolded in Mong Kok as "riots" and thus those young activists were further marginalized. Afterwards, there are numerous debates on youth "violence" among Hongkongers. Many Hong Kong churches condemned youth violence uncritically. Was "violence" a taboo in the Urchristentum? This paper is to illuminate different social voices dialoguing with each other within the Apocalypse of John. The approach adopted is a postcolonial contextual interpretation.

The concept of the ?erem, the total destruction described mostly in Deuteronomy, was never carried out, and this law seems to be a wishful thinking. It has been widely discussed among scholars focusing on the ethical aspect (Hoffman, 1999), on the historical development (Weinfeld, 1993), on 1 Kings 20:42 (Stern, 1990), or on the just war (Good, 1985). In Dtn 7:2, we find a typical ?erem command, “and when YHWH your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.” According to Hoffman, “the ?erem is a concept typical only of some passages in Deuteronomy and Joshua; it is not a presupposition of the entire Deuteronomistic work” (201). I would like to pursue the concept of the ?erem in the Book of Judges. Although it does not appear literally in Judges, the Dtr shows in Judges why Israel failed to accomplish the law of the ?erem. More precisely, Israel could not expel all the Canaanites from the land and she had to live with them in the land. This coexistence was the beginning of all the evildoing of Israel, that is, worshipping other gods and forsaking YHWH. The reason why Judges 1 records the Canaanites whom Israel did not expel from the land, is to indicate that those remained Canaanites caused Israel to follow other gods. The weakened ?erem command would be removing the people from the land. In my opinion, removing of the people from one place is removing of their gods from there. In other words, if there are some people in a city, there are gods. Getting rid of the indigenous people in Canaan was indispensable for worshipping YHWH alone. [TRUNCATED]

It is true that intercultural biblical exegesis has not received due recognition by traditional biblical scholarship, mainly because of its non-theoretical approach to biblical studies. The accusation of certain western scholars, that intercultural interpretations are “creative, but not scientific”, shows how ‘western’ New Testament scholarship, with all its newer approaches, is still reluctant to go beyond the historical-critical method. As a result, biblical hermeneutics remains till this day a domain of European and US-American biblical academy. This paper intends to spearhead the search for a theoretical basis for intercultural biblical hermeneutics in the field of reception history (Wirkungsgeschichte). In the first section, I seek to examine how postcolonial/postmodern thought has influenced studies on reception history. Here, I seek to conceptualize reception history by defining and determining its trajectories, taking into account, the works of relevant postmodern scientists, like, for instance, Derrida, Bhaba, Chakraborty and Spivak, and enquire whether or not their theoretical patterns entail intercultural biblical hermeneutics. Secondly, I wish to engage with a critical analysis of some of the known contextual approaches of the Bible, such as that of Ched Myers, Sugirtharajah, Rensberger, Bonino, Schreiter, etc. Here, I wish to evaluate how these authors perceived ‘western’ scholarship and what alternative hermeneutical models they proposed. Simultaneously, I wish to examine, why these attempts could not succeed in putting an end to “western” monopoly in the field of biblical hermeneutics. Is it because there are not sufficient alternative approaches? Or, are concrete local contexts different from what gets portrayed? Why does the general proclivity of contextual interpretations continue to serve to satisfy the intellectual appetite of the “western” audience? Finally, I wish to conceptualize de facto Asian hermeneutics along with contemporary “western” biblical scholarship. [TRUNCATED]

This paper summarizes my contribution to The Textual History of the Bible (eds. Emmanuel Tov, Matthias Henze, and Russell Fuller; 3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, in progress). As area editor for the section on the Prayer of Manasseh in vol. 2, Deutero-Canonical Scriptures (ed. Matthias Henze), I have assembled an international team of nine experts to compile and assess the manuscript witnesses for all extant versions of this ancient penitential psalm. In this paper I synthesize the results of this comprehensive assemblage of textual data. After surveying the current state of scholarly opinion on the origins and affinities of the Prayer, I report on the Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Armenian, Slavonic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Arabic textual traditions, with attention to the sources, character, and text-critical value of each. I conclude by identifying some lingering issues and avenues for further research on the Prayer of Manasseh.

*

Flavius Josephus records the speeches by four Jewish leaders given in the height of the Jewish revolt against Rome: Agrippa II, the Roman client king of Jewish descent, spoke before the agitated crowd in Jerusalem on the eve of the war (JW 2.345-401). His long speech contours around the theme of political theology, examining whether the Roman dominance should be taken to show the divine favor toward Rome and the Jewish resistance to it could amount to rebellion against God. The speech given by Ananus the High Priest (JW 4.162-92) is full of rhetorical drum-beating for standing up against “the impious” Romans. Josephus, now a translator for the Roman army, himself offers a word of counsel to his compatriots who were sieged for a long time (JW 5.362-419). Representing the Roman interests at the moment, Josephus plays the role of appeaser. The rebel leaders Eleazar put the final speech into the ears of the rebels at Masada (JW 7.323-881). Facing a complete loss and submission to the Romans, Eleazar advises the entire community of Jews to die free instead of living in slavery. These four speeches dramatize the various sentiments among Jews at a catastrophic demise of their nation. I will also touch on issue of political theology in the Korean church with a particular attention to the Christian reactions and responses to the incident of Ferry Sewol, a major disaster that ripped the hearts of Koreans in April 16, 2014. After analyzing and comparing both formal and thematic features of them, we will explore the issue of the literary convention of speech in the Hellenistic Jewish historiography.

This study deals with Pauline themes of ‘the strong’ and ‘the weak’ regarding the eating of food sacrificed to idols. The strong were those who insisted that they were free to eat idol-meat. The weak were those who were afraid of eating idol meat because they imagined that this food retained the harmful influence of pagan deities. The claim of the strong was, “We know that we all possess knowledge” (1 Cor 8:1). Paul’s counter-claim was, however, “but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons” (1 Cor 10:20). My project will argue that, contrary to most interpretations, Paul’s intention in 1 Cor 8-10 is for the strong and the weak not to participate in any kind of activities within an idolatrous temple and not to eat any food sacrificed to idols. Even more strikingly, I will also argue that this ‘idolatrous food’ behavior should be read against the backdrop of popular Greco-Roman practices of the cult of the dead. Surprisingly, while 1 Cor 8-10 have been much explored, virtually no one has yet to link the cult of the dead with the concept of pagan sacrifices in 1 Corinthians. By linking the interpretation of this passage to cutting edge research on the cult of the dead in Classics, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, this project will constitute an important step forward in our understanding of the social and religious locations of early Christianity.

The canonical shape of the Book of Job moves from abundant life to abundant life. Prose narratives of Job's blessed life frame the book at the beginning and the end. Death, however, and deep reflection on death occupy the poetic core of the book. Thus the structure of the Book of Job suggests that death somehow functions as a pathway to life. Figuring out exactly how, taking into account the other great binary of piety and sin, is one of the great interpretative challenges of Job. In this presentation, I will examine Job's dialectical relationship with death, focusing primarily on his first (chap. 3) and final (chap. 31) speeches in the poetic core, and argue that, while Job initially wants to have always already been dead, he ultimate articulates a willingness to die as a means of affirming his life—and the possibility of human integrity. He wills, wants to die at the beginning but at the end is willing to die (he places himself under a solemn curse in declaring his innocence) that he might, vindicated before God in a legal encounter, live more fully as a righteous man. In short, Job matures from a potential suicide to a ready martyr. The thesis of the presentation, therefore, disagrees with D. Mathewson's thorough and insightful treatment of "death" in Job (Death and Survival in the Book of Job, 2006), in which Mathewson argues that the movement from chaps. 1 to 31 is one of symbolic centering to decentering and back again. Job does not move toward death, then away, but through it toward life.

This paper describes and presents the findings of a Contextual Bible Study (CBS) conducted within a residential rehabilitation unit for American military veterans struggling with addiction. Participants of an existing resident-led bible study were invited to engage in a two-day Contextual Bible Study where they would interpret a biblical text without their usual help from devotional guides or commentaries. The primary purpose of this project was to develop a commentary on John 2:1-12 out of the life experiences and perspectives of recovering addicts, free from scholarly imposition. The resulting project both challenges and builds upon the theories and methods of Gerald O. West, as well as those conversant with West's framework for studying the bible with 'ordinary readers.' Particular attention is placed on how a shift towards a lectio divina form of reading (away from the traditional CBS mode of asking guiding questions and providing a text’s socio-historical background in order to assist the ‘untrained readers’) allowed the veterans to overcome an impasse in trying to understand the difficult passage. This paper not only unpacks the veterans’ readings of the Wedding at Cana, but it reflects on how the practice of lectio divina was able to serve as a useful tool for helping these ‘ordinary readers’ connect with the text, while still achieving West’s aim of empowering and giving voice to the marginalized.

This paper seeks to clarify the significance of Paul’s personal stories in 1:13-2:16. Following the rubrics in the rhetorical manuals of Quintilian, Han Dieter Betz identified in his monumental commentary this story section as a narratio in a forensic letter. But since the publication of his commentary, this theory has come under heavy attack from various quarters, and it is no longer tenable to see 1:13-2:15 as a narratio. But, setting aside Betz’s theory, there is currently no viable explanation why there is such a long biographical section in the letter. This paper locates the meaning of the biographical section in the inclusio of 1:12 and 2:16. In a narratio proper, 1:12 would have served as the causa for 1:13-2:15, a section that provides the necessary factual proofs for the claim. This paper argues that this approach does not tell the complete story. Forming an inclusio around the story section, Gal 1:12 and 2:16 provide clues on how to understand the stories. Accordingly, Gal 2:16 is not simply a propositio that identifies the causa for the probatio that follows. It serves as the conclusion to the story section, shedding light on its meaning. The intent of this paper is to re-examine 1:13-2:15 in the light of the inclusio of 1:12-2:16 and argue that the stories are illustrations from Paul’s personal experience that clarify the difficult phrases “by faith” and “by the works of the law.”

Over the past several decades, there emerges an obvious gap in the field of biblical interpretation: entrenched in the legacy of Enlightenment and Rationalism, the hermeneutical enterprise in Euro-American biblical scholarship of historical criticism in particular has become over obsessed with such concepts as objectivity, neutrality, and universality, which results in an elusive discipline isolated from everyday life; on the other pole, under the influence of poststructuralism, postcolonialism and liberation theories, there arise new hermeneutical trends as vernacular criticism or marginal interpretation mainly from the formerly colonized in the Third World or the marginalized communities in the cosmopolis as resistant counterparts against traditional mainstream hegemonic agendas. The vernacular or marginal trends are largely context-specific, cultural-bound, identity-oriented, which emphasize the reclamation of subjectivity and self-determination. This paper attempts to clarify that contrapuntal reading can be an effective strategy and a first step for both sides in order to bridge the gap and build connections and create mutual enrichment. The first part describe the gap mainly created by historical criticism, liberation hermeneutics and vernacular hermeneutics;t he second part highlights R. S. Sugirtharajah’s contribution in introducing postcolonialism and contrapuntal reading from Said into biblical interpretation, which is followed by the third part with a very brief description of Said’s main points on this reading strategy and a very rough sketch of Sugirtharajah’s application of this new reading method to the birth stories of two religious founders,Siddhartha the Buddha, and Jesus Christ. The paper ends with further emphasis on the constructive traits of this creative hermeneutical approach.

This paper will read the story of the sinful woman in Luke 7:36–50 from a postcolonial feminist perspective showing the imperial and androcentric aspects embedded in previous interpretations of the story. On the basis of the two-source theory, we notice that the author of Luke used the story of the woman in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 14:3–9) for the purpose of Lukan Jesus’s soteriological lesson, without fully following the direction given by Jesus in Mark 14:9. Both the historical audience including the disciples and the Gospel writers delivered and used her story for their own purpose without deeply understanding her being and doing. Furthermore, the original purpose of her deeds has never been taken into the consideration of readers throughout the history of interpretation, consciously or unconsciously. The stories of the sinful woman in the Gospels commonly reflect the fact that she crossed borders, which challenges the imperial value given a woman. Her crossing borders made the woman nameless, and Luke named her a sinner. In comparison with the versions of Mark and John, the Lukan version more explicitly reflects the context that women were interpreted and remembered only from the androcentric perspective. Such a historical phenomenon also appeared in the globalized context such as Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, where many marriage migrants crossed borders but did not have their own voice. They were objectified, living in countries as a solution in support of government policies regarding population. While not attempting to understand their true identity and the meaning of their tears, we interpret marriage migrants from the perspective imposed by governments and androcentric interest. Marriage migrants need to function as subjects in order to do remembrance of themselves, by standing against every effort to objectify them.

My aim is to try to answer this basic question: in what way does Numbers 35:9-34 contribute to the law governing the “cities of refuge”, already present in the pentateuchal traditions of Exodus 21:12-14, Deuteronomy 19:1-13, and Joshua 20:1-9? Is it a mere repetition of the same legislation, perhaps an expansion and enhancement with new details, or rather, is it a reformulation of the previous legislative tradition, marking a real advancement in biblical law? I will try to approach these questions starting from the interpretation of one of the key terms of the pericope – "bishgagah" – and its specific function within the passage, in order to develop some hypotheses concerning the composition of the law in Numbers 35:9-34.

One day the LORD and two angels call with Abraham in the plains of Mamre. Who are the two angels? In the Old Testament Michael has a special responsibility for the nation of Israel (see Daniel 10. 21, Daniel 12. 1), while in the New Testament Gabriel is the angel who announces miraculous births (see Luke 1. 13, Luke 1. 35). Are the two angels of Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 Michael and Gabriel? Anyone who wants to answer that question in a scholarly manner will eschew pious presumption, and engage in the most meticulous possible study of the Hebrew text. If you mean to attend this presentation, please allow me to commit an outrage by setting you two pieces of homework in advance. First, consider the use of pronouns (rather than proper nouns) in Genesis 18. 1-15. Secondly, consider the rôle of the word resh-gimel-lamedh-yodh-kaph-mem ( = your feet) in Genesis 18. 4 and Genesis 19. 2. When the Hebrew alphabet is written out on a single line, and when the six letters resh, gimel, lamedh, yodh, kaph, and mem are highlighted, a palindromic 2-1-6-4-6-1-2 pattern emerges (two letters, GIMEL, six letters, YODH KAPH LAMEDH MEM, six letters, RESH, two letters). Does that pattern represent more than a mere accident? I’ll be very grateful if you help me to explicate the pertinent pieces of text in Seoul.

The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the problem of religious experience in ancient sources and examine the possibilities and challenges of studying them, with special attention to the use of cognitive science approaches and theories of embodiment. After a brief discussion of the phenomenology of subjective experience, I will introduce a model of religious experience in the context of cognitive, cultural, and social factors. The second part of the paper will deal with theories of embodied cognition and their potential to shed new light on religious expirences in ancient sources. In the final part of the paper, some aspects of such experiences will be addressed against the backdrop of neuroscientific evidence and embodied cognition.

This paper investigates the functions of "lego (say) melding" and "lego coordination" in the New Testament and concludes with a proposal concerning their possible historical contribution to the development of Greek verbs of communication. The introductory discussions establish the characteristics of lego melding and coordination and the licensing properties of New Testament verbs of communication. The discussion then resolves the various functions of lego melding and coordination in the New Testament. The concluding discussion uses comparisons to the Septuagint to propose the possible contributions of ???? melding and coordination to the development of Greek verbs of communication.

The Qur’an and the Book of Mormon are the foundational texts of Islam and Mormonism, respectively. Because they emerged in radically different contexts—the Qur’an in 7th century Arabia, the Book of Mormon in 19th century New England—it is no surprise that they are very different kinds of texts in terms of genre (one is narrative, the other is not), language, and theology. And yet beneath these very significant differences, I will argue, lies a deep commonality that warrants comparative examination. It is that both texts see themselves as extensions of and correctives to the Judeo-Christian tradition and are each self-consciously in dialogue with the Bible. It is this explicit tie that each makes for itself to the biblical tradition that allows us to discern categories that can anchor meaningful comparisons between them. In my paper, I will demonstrate how two such categories—eschatology and the nature and role of Jesus/Isa?— might be investigated comparatively with these two books of scripture. While proper framing is crucial, I will observe that identifying and deploying shared categories is not enough by itself to protect the comparison from becoming hegemonic on one side or the other. With care, however, it is possible to engage in some kinds of comparison that draw challenging and meaningful insights into both traditions without doing violence to either.

When Empire constructs roads into other countries to steal, by brute force if necessary, raw materials and cheap labor, why should we be surprised that natives take those same roads following everything that has been stolen from them. To prevent this migration, walls are built to keep them out. Some resist creating borders, calling for the biblical concept of hospitality instead. But hospitality ignores the causes of migration. This paper, using Central America as a case study, will explore how territorial conquest and the expansion of neoliberalism makes the biblical call for hospitality a misguiding approach to the current U.S. immigration crises.

Jesus may be desirable, but not all Jesuses are beneficial. This paper unapologetically rejects the Eurocentric biblical Jesus for the Hispanic Jesús constructed when the Bible is read with Latino/a eyes. The paper argues that there is no one true Jesus that can be objectively known; there only exists subjective biblical interpretations of Jesus. The social, cultural, political, and global economic power of Euroamericans allows them to impose their subjective interpretation of Jesus as the objective Truth (with a capital “T”) for everyone else, including Latino/as. What would happen if rather than denying that we do indeed create Jesus in our own image, we embrace this methodology? What if we radically employ a hermeneutical suspicion to Christology – not simply to debunk the normative Eurocentric understanding of Jesus, but to construct a new Jesús? All too often, remembering Jesus as articulated within traditional Eurocentric Christian institutions tend to justify, legitimize, and normalize oppression. Hispanics need to be careful about uncritically adopting a Eurocentric biblical understanding of Jesus that might be detrimental to their marginalized social location. For those in power to remain in power, a constructed Jesus is needed that either explicitly or implicitly maintains the status quo. Rejecting Jesus for Jesús requires rooting him within the Hispanic culture, specifically moving away from the concept of hope and embracing what I’m calling a theology of hopelessness. The paper argues hope is a middle-class privilege that prevents radical praxis that could lead toward a more just society. The paper will focus on a forsaken and betrayed Jesús who exists in solidarity with the disenfranchised who live in the midst of Holy Saturday, knowing only the brutality of Good Friday with faint anticipation of a resurrection Sunday. To stand in solidarity with the hopeless creates a critique of salvation history.

The phrase “itching ears” occurs in the great majority of modern translations of 2 Tim 4:3 and dates back at least as far as the Vulgate. According to this interpretation of the Greek text, (Pseudo-)Paul claims that “the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears (?????µe??? t?? ?????), will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires” (NRSV). In its article on ?????, the lexicon BDAG mentions that another possible translation is “to have one’s ear tickled,” but offers no grounds to adjudicate between these two possible translations. In the same article, BDAG claims that the Greek phrase is a “fig[ure] of curiosity,” a suggestion repeated by many commentators. The present paper demonstrates that “tickling the ears” is an idiom that occurs quite frequently in first- and second-century literature (Seneca, Plutarch, Lucian, etc.). These authors’ use of the idiom suggests, first, that the translation “to have one’s ear tickled” is to be preferred in the case of 2 Tim 4:3, and, second, that the idiom primarily refers to the experience of pleasure rather than curiosity. The paper concludes by arguing that this translation and understanding of ?????µe??? t?? ????? fits the context of Second Timothy better than the alternatives commonly proposed in commentaries and lexicons.

Major dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew (BDB, HALOT, Qaddari) use the book of Ben Sira as supporting evidence for their interpretations of the two verbs mistolel (Exod. 9:17) and terassedun (Ps. 68:17), and of the form leshikhno (Deut. 12:5). In my paper, I shall reexamine the evidence cited from Ben Sira, in order to determine whether or not the book of Ben Sira it does indeed support the interpretation offered for those biblical words. As for the first verb, mistolel, which appears twice in Ben Sira (39:24; 40:28), the meaning of this verb in Ben Sira does indeed support the suggested meaning of this verb in Biblical Hebrew. This comparison also teaches that the diverse nuances of Heb. s-l-l apparently derive from homonymy rather than polysemy as asserted in most dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew. As for the second verb, terassedun, which appears once in Ben Sira (14:22), it seems that the meaning of this verb in Ben Sira does not support the suggested meaning of the word in Biblical Hebrew. Concerning the third form, leshikhno, which the dictionaries analyze either as an infinitive construct of the Qal conjugation with a third person masculine singular pronominal suffix, or as a segholate noun – shekhen it is, maybe, possible to find supporting evidence in Ben Sira for the second suggestion. Indeed, the noun sheken appears once in Ben Sira.

Reading the Book of Judges the role of Dalila seems to be clear as an astute seductress. Samson’s fall by a weak woman always provoked debates about its causes. Her role and even her cunnings had been discussed by Church fathers and Rabbis. As there seems to be no discussion about her negative character in the Bible, different hermeneutic methods present a diverse image of her. As to Gottfried of Admont (12th century), abbot in the monastery of Admont, Austria, the sensus allegoricus and moralis allow to apply a different concept of Dalila. Other amazing views of Dalila can be found in profane German Literature, presenting a Dalila that arouses sympathy and understanding as shown in the short-novel-like story in the chronicle of Jans Enikel (or Jans of Wien) in the 13th century. The paper focuses on Latin, High German and Early New High German literature and will explore different conceptions of Dalila by presenting reflections of this discussion in bible or chronicle illuminations of medieval and early modern times.

Among ancient Christian writers, perhaps no figure was as prolific, or as influential, as Evagrius of Pontus on the topic of the inner struggle of the Christian against sinful thoughts. While earlier Christians had already written of the demonic sources of lust, gluttony, greed, and other sinful thoughts, Evagrius both expanded and elaborated this account, describing the dangers of listlessness, anger, and even grief – all of which he linked to demonic forces. Evagrius was deeply concerned with how the Christian, especially the monk, could combat these forces by employing a psychological approach that at once externalized the sources of evil thoughts and used Scripture as a tool to combat them. This paper focuses on Evagrius’ description of grief and its remedies. I read Evagrius’ advice regarding the treatment of grief alongside modern theories of clinical psychology, especially in the area of narrative therapy pioneered by Michael White and David Epston. I argue that Evagrius’ techniques, which help the Christian overcome grief by situating him or her within triumphal biblical narratives, function as a specifically Christian application of narrative therapy, and as such are still valuable today as a way to find healing in biblical texts.

Building on my previous work concerning Paul’s witness to formative early Christian instruction in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Romans (in my Paul’s Witness to Formative Early Christian Instruction [WUNT II/365]), in this paper I examine Galatians for the information it yields about Paul’s initial instruction among the Galatian believers. Methodologically, the investigation proceeds by attending to three types of appeal to presumed knowledge among his readers: (1) Explicit reminders about his teaching, (2) direct appeals to knowledge, and (3) implicit appeals to knowledge. This typology provides a firm framework with explicit references that can be then filled out by the other appeals to knowledge, constituting a reconstruction of Paul’s teaching (insofar as the information of Galatians permits it) which can be correlated with my previous work. It includes information on the identity of God and his relation to other gods, the person of Jesus, the activity of the Spirit, angels and a concern for moral transformation (among other things). Moreover, the analysis of Galatians pushes beyond reconstructing Paul’s initial teaching and engages the question of how his teaching related to that of other early Christian missionaries.

A study on Daniel 7 - 10, I Enoch 37-71, the Synoptics in the light of John, 11Q13Mel, and Qur'an 2:97-8 and 66:4. J. J. Collins telescopes into each other Michael and the Son of Man in Daniel. John’s Gospel critiques the Synoptics as wrong about the Son of Man, and the Qur’anic memory has an innovative perspective. The DSS do not name the Son of Man but allude to a Virtual Son of Man. This concept has a long and crucial role in the Judaism, culminating in Messianic ideations in Second Temple Judaism. Thus, as is true of so many other aspects of the Hebrew Bible narrative, it echoes in Qur’an. This paper intends to demonstrate the unity and diversity of the concept, and its role in the three traditions.

The story in 1 Kings 13 tells us about a man of God who criticises King Jeroboam I but is later punished himself with death for disobeying God’s orders on instigation of a lying prophet. This lying prophet is the only person, beside the man of God, who’s grave is not desecrated much later by the pious king Josiah, as we are told in the report of that king’s cultic reform in 2 Kings 23,15-17. When I study these two chapters with my students they are stupefied: how can such a story be part of the Bible, a story that rewards lying, that goes so far that it even causes death to a very respected man of God? This paper will explore the dynamics in these chapters focusing on who has authority and who has not, and who looses his authority as the story develops, and why that is (necessary) so? Finally, the paper will try to identify who the true leader (if any) there is in the story of 1 Kings 13; 2 Kings 23,15-17.

Luke’s dependency on 1 Samuel 1-3 for its opening annunciation episodes has long been observed. Noted, too, is the gospel’s general thrust to portray the early Christian movement as divinely initiated and driven and as compatible with the values of the Roman Empire. What is the affect/effect, however, when the story of women and men overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit is patterned upon a story of determined human initiative and revolutionary political vision? How is meaning produced when readers and listeners (ancient and modern) are called upon to hold two stories in their heads simultaneously—a dominant narrative in which characters are caught up in events beyond their control and an underlying “sub-version” in which human agency and defiant insight are paramount? How does such double-scoped narrative function to form, bolster, protect, question, and open up the social identity of the listening community?

Bryson was a Neopythagorean philosopher who wrote a work in Greek on household management titled Oikonomikos Logos (Management of the Estate). Stobaeus preserves two extracts of this treatise, which was used by Musonius Rufus and probably also by both Dio Chrysostom and Clement of Alexandria. Although H. Thesleff dated Bryson to the early Hellenistic period (third century BCE), S. Swain has argued convincingly that Bryson was much more likely active in the mid first century CE. The treatise remains almost entirely unknown to both classicists and New Testament scholars because it survives chiefly in an Arabic translation, though there are also a Hebrew version and a Latin epitome. The work, which focuses on the economy and the family, has four main parts: property, slaves, the wife, and children. Attention in the paper will be given to all four parts, but especially to the first part (property and its preservation). (For Project 1: The Ancient Economy)

Earliest pieces of the Aramaic part of the book of Daniel (chs. 2, 4, and 5) as well as Qumran Enochic writings – Aramaic fragments of the Ethiopic book of Enoch (1 Enoch) and further Aramaic fragments containing traditions related with this book - reflect a familiarity of the authors with Mesopotamian lore, religious beliefs, literary themes, and scientific methods. However, hermeneutics of these texts are different from their Mesopotamian examples, and reflect a deep thought of Mesopotamian culture. The paper aims at presenting selected examples of motifs with a Mesopotamian background (e.g. the figures of the Watchers, revelatory forms and techniques), and scrutinizing the means of cultural transfer, and the role of Aramaic as a vehicle of transmission.

In this paper, I will look into the meaning of “nafs” (self) linguistically comparing its usage between the Bible and the Qur’an. I will also look at the meaning of death and life in Sufi exegesis of the Qur’an. I argue that a Sufi interpretation does not necessarily reflect a symbolic or metaphoric understanding of death and life, but can also be understood literally, if the “nafs” is understood as a soul and not necessarily as a joined single entity of soul and body. When discussing death, the Qur’an specifically states that every “nafs” (soul) tastes death. Nonetheless, the term “nafs” is sometimes understood physically. This is not unique to the Qur’an, as the same term “nephesh” is also used in the Hebrew Bible. James Barr, in The Semantics of Biblical Language, compares the difference of the Greek usage of diverse words for person, body, and soul, while Hebrew uses a single word to describe them all as “nephesh.” Barr suggests that the Hebrews did not always consider “nephesh” as a soul separate from the body, but as both together acting as a joined living being. The Qur’an sometimes refers to a metaphoric understanding of spiritual death (e.g. Q. 16:21, 35:22). In Q. 35:22, the Qur’an refers to those who do not accept its message as dead in their graves. The interpretation of Q. 16:21 is disputed as whether the Qur’an is describing idols as dead and would be resurrected, or the unbelievers are “spiritually” dead and would be resurrected. The Qur’an refers to martyrs as living (Q. 2:154, 3:169), though obviously cannot be bodily alive. Hence, one must infer that the “life” the Qur’an is describing is spiritual in nature, and perhaps also death is, therefore, understood spiritually.

Jerome cultivated a complex relationship with the Septuagint. He strove to move the Church away from the LXX, attacking the traditional arguments establishing the authority of the Greek text, such as its use by the apostles. Jerome insisted that the apostles rather used the Hebrew text. However, Jerome continued to make use of the LXX until the end of his life, citing it even in his very last biblical commentaries and sometimes siding with its text against the Hebrew. Though he insisted that his translation iuxta Hebraeos revealed the Christian sense of the Old Testament better than did the LXX, because, unlike the Seventy, he lived after Christ and thus saw the fulfillment of the prophecies, nevertheless he often based his spiritual interpretation of the Hebrew prophets on the Greek translation. He also frequently equivocated on his contention that the apostles did not use the LXX. Scholars have often been concerned with understanding Jerome’s magnification of the Hebraica veritas and the uniqueness of this position within the fourth-century church. The present paper turns the tables, seeking to understand how the LXX features in Jerome’s developing thoughts about the best text of the Old Testament. We will find that Jerome argued forcefully for the primacy of the Hebrew text for Christians, but he allowed the LXX an important role in God’s economy of salvation and sometimes found in it a preferable text.

This paper provides a synthetic overview of the main conclusions of my current research project on giants in ancient Jewish literature. I am preparing to write the final chapter of a book on this topic. Writing this paper will help me do that. The paper will examine the problem of defining a giant and it will identify major motifs of the giants tradition, such as antediluvian violence, exegesis of Genesis 6, and the destruction of the giants in the flood. The essay will also explore the diversity of accounts regarding the giants. Some texts, for example, assert that at least some giants survived the flood (e.g., Pseudo-Eupolemus). The Qumran Book of Giants, a text that remains relatively unexplored, offers an account of the giants that develops that of the Book of the Watchers while being nevertheless quite different from it. The Book of Giants, for example, focuses much more on the giants’ receiving visions than their violent activities in comparison to Watchers. The paper will also speculate on reasons for the popularity of stories involving the giants in the late Second Temple period. This is a complex issue that involves topics such as an increased interest in primordial history during the Hellenistic age, the ability of the giants to serve as a historical example of God’s punishment of the wicked, and the cross-cultural ability of ‘monsters’ to help establish cultural norms by providing shocking portraits of creatures who transgress these boundaries. I have not submitted this proposal to any other group.

This paper takes a new look at 4Q339, the “List of False Prophets”, as an example of a compilation list: a list created by gathering information from various places in scripture on a specific subject. The “List of False Prophets” will serve as a starting point for re-examining the issue of compilation by lists and the function of compilation as a form of Biblical exegesis. Building upon studies of lists and anthologies of Biblical scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g. Shaye J.D. Cohen [2000; 2001], Armin Lange [2010] and Shani Tzoref [2012]), this paper will compare and contrast examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with other selected texts contemporary to them. Thus 4Q339 will be investigated and placed within its immediate context and the larger literary world of Jewish writing of the Hellenistic era.

The major challenge that the world encounters today is the increasing amount of refugees. As per the recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, released in 2014 there are almost 60 million refugees around the globe. That is to say one in every 122 people has become a refugee in one way or the other (www.theatlantic.com). Nations across the globe have witnessed a sudden increase in the number of refugees – some are welcomed while some are despised, some are forced to move out while some move away with the hope of better opportunities, safety and security. The increase in the number of refugees in recent times has been an area of huge debate that requires serious consideration and deliberation. A search for biblical context and perspective on the issue of refugees points out to the prominence it secured in the entirety of the Old and New Testaments as the journey of refugees appears to be a never ending phenomena. The Deuteronomic creed is one such example in which the Israelites affirmed their identity as aliens, elaborately illustrating the harsh, demanding and depriving experiences that were an integral part of refugees. A. P. Nirmal while explaining the Deuteronomic Creed from dalit perspectives elucidates a parallel to the Dalits where a people who were “no people” were called out and made “God’s people.” This essay deals with a comparative study that attempts to point out to the similarities that are innate in the biblical context and the contemporary refugee crisis surging across the nations. A contextual interpretation will be brought in which the Dalit interpretative method has added great significance and relevance to the study. This is a reader response method in which the meaning emerges in the process of a dialogue between the text and the reader. TRUNCATED

Funerary rituals were incredibly significant to various well-defined cultures and religions. They are very important to Pre-Islamic Arabians, to Christians, as well as to the Muslims. Related to this, Egyptian Christian/Muslim (ECM) burial rituals are notably unique. The questions need to be asked: What are the beliefs regarding death and burial can be traced from these societies, (Pre-Islamic Arabia, the Qur?anic time, and ECM)? To what extent has the burial ceremony of the Pre-Islamic period impacted that of the Qur?anic eon? Also, to what level has the Qur?an especially the Life of Muhammad or to the period instantaneously after his death have had a great significant on the ECM burial rituals? Do contemporary Egyptian burial rites trace its roots to ancient Egyptian and Pre-Islamic burial customs or to Qur’anic and Hadithic sources?

Angel Gabriel (Jibril) is a highly significant figure in Islam. He is mentioned three times in the Qur’an, and is identified in the tradition as the agent through whom the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad. Gabriel is also mentioned as taking an active role in other events in the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the emerging Muslim community, such as the opening of Muhammad’s breast, the first revelation, the night journey and ascent to heaven, and the battle of Badr. He is also mentioned as interacting with other prophetic figures, such as Eve and Adam; and also as defeating Satan on a number of occasions. It is thus interesting to note the form of interaction that Gabriel has with prophetic figures, according to the Muslim tradition, is some times rather similar to his interactions with Satan. He is often described as being quite violent (e.g., kicking Muhammad or shaking him to point of suffocation). Thus, while being God’s emissary to humans, and prophets in particular, Gabriel is also portrayed as a figure to be afraid of — not just by God’s enemy, but also by God’s chosen ones. This paper will examine Gabriel’s interactions with humans and spiritual beings, and will ponder upon the reasoning of his portrayal in such a complex manner.

Psalms 93-100 (as well as Ps 47) represent a web of ritual texts announcing Yhwh’s universal kingship. These psalms expatiate on two themes that seem contradictory, the commemoration of key events of Israel’s past (in both “mythic” and “real” time) as touchstones for future events, and the expectation of universal human praise of Yhwh’s wondrous deeds. That is, both the particulars of Israel’s culture of memory and the attitudes of those outside that culture concern the psalmists as they construct a liturgical world in which Yhwh’s kingship is enacted. This essay moves from a philological analysis of the psalms to interaction with Paul Ricoeur’s discussion of memory and forgetting as habits. Divine kingship is a performative act on the part of both Yhwh and Yhwh’s human and nonhuman subjects. The simultaneous cultivation of memory and imagination (fueled by “forgetting” counter-narratives of the nations’ hostility) in these liturgical texts contributes to their meaning in a liturgical setting and in the literary one of the Psalter itself.

To tell a story well, storytellers in the ancient Mediterranean employed rhetorical features to enhance its oral performance and its impact upon the intended audience. Those who wrote stories often structured the written form of the narrative so that it could be delivered orally more effectively. As Joanna Dewey has put it, ancient rhetors “wrote for the ears”. If it is accurate to say that many stories were composed during this period for an oral performance, did the author of Luke’s Gospel adopt this strategy when he wrote parables? It is frequently recognized that speeches attributed to Peter, Stephen, and Paul in Luke-Acts are presented as rhetorically sophisticated. But are Jesus’s parables in Luke’s Gospel employing common rhetorical devices which Luke intended to assist in their effective oral delivery within the church? In other words, do Lukan parables show that the author was attuned to the potential for Jesus’ stories to be heard, remembered, and repeated as an effective oral experience? Several recent works on Jesus’s parables have challenged readers to hear Jesus’s parables as a first century audience would have, but few commentaries address whether these parables contain rhetorical patterning or features that would have directed their subsequent oral performance. This paper will argue that parables in Luke do have commonly expected rhetorical patterns and show the effect Christian rhetors would have had while performing those parables for ancient ears.

1 Clement repeatedly associates the Spirit with the “scriptures,” which are true and holy, since they are given through the Holy Spirit (13.4; 45.2; 56.3). Nevertheless, in 1 Clement, the Spirit’s confluence with sacred texts is more variegated than simply the divine origination of the Hebrew Scriptures. First, the Spirit’s association extends beyond the point of writing, since he continues to speak and work through “that which is written” (13.1; 22.1; 42.3). Second, the Spirit’s ministry is also associated with texts beyond the Hebrew Scriptures, as similar language and formulae are used of 1 Corinthians, unknown texts, and 1 Clement itself (47.1-3; 59.1; 63.2; cf. 42.4-5). Third, the Spirit’s ministry is associated with nascent trinitarian language that contextually leads into an elevation of "the words of our Lord Jesus" (46.6-8; 58.2; cf. 22.1). The proper responses to the words of God include diligent study, remembrance, and obedience (13.1; 19.1; 45.2; 46.7; 53.1; 62.3). These relevant data provide a new framework for gleaning exegetical and theological insights from 1 Clement 13.1-14.1, which merges together “this commandment” from the Hebrew Scriptures with “these precepts” remembered from the Lord Jesus, describing them all as “holy words” to be followed in “obedience to God.” This functional equivalence is important for investigations of early Christian theology, particularly for understanding the trajectories of authoritative texts.

What does the celebration of “toil/labor” entail for people under occupation? and for people facing climate injustice? This presentation offers a reading of Eccl. 3:9-13 in response to Genesis 3 and in the interest of West Papua, located at the meeting point of the Asia-Pasifika.

Among various stories narrated in the book of Acts, hekatontarchas appears most in the story of the voyage in Acts 27 (vv.1, 6, 11, 31, 43). It characterizes the identity of Julius the Augustan Cohort. In this paper, I will argue that Luke intends to delineate the changes of the identity of hekatontarchas throughout the voyage. The changes of the space and time in each incident whenever hekatontarchas is mentioned will be thoroughly studied, with the comparison of the changes of the identity hekatontarchas in relation to Paul and the whole people group in the crew. As a result, it is shown that space, place and character change simultaneously so that the social identity of the hekatontarchas moves from outsiders of “we” towards this group in the narrative. In addition to the consideration of the social network and values of the first readers of the book of Acts, it is argued that Luke intends to teach the readers, who are properly social superiors, how to witness Christ to the Roman officials. This is not a story telling the end of the world has been reached by the gospel. On the contrary, it is a demonstration which teaches the first readers to take up the baton of being Christ’s witness and continue this mission. While the ending of the Gospel of Luke is Jesus’ commission to the disciples, the voyage is Luke’s commission of preaching the gospel to the first readers.

Jeremiah is a troubling figure for Koreans. His call for submission to Babylon, regardless of its theological orientation, reminds a strikingly familiar rhetoric in the time of Japanese colonial era. Several Christian leaders found their ways to take the side of the empire. Frequently featuring in pro-Japanese propaganda, they seduced people in the name of God, and one of the dominant rhetoric was that to submit to Japan is the will of God. Against this backdrop, a distressing question is inevitable: was Jeremiah among traitors? The pro-Japanese collaborators, or traitors, posed a major internal obstacle to Korean resistance against Japanese colonialism, and the failure to purge them in the post-colonial era left serious grudge in Korean people. Many of the pro-Japanese collaborators are believed to return to power or retain their status and possession. The trauma continues even today, as Koreans take extremely emotional stance to the suspected pro-Japanese collaborators and their descendants. To be accused as such borders a societal death sentence. Biblical scholars have frequently noted Jeremiah’s “pro-Babylonian” attitudes. However, they failed to reckon with the serious implications such notion may entail. What does it really mean for God’s prophet to be bear such a stigma? How did Jeremiah overcome it? This paper attempts to clarify the complex nature of Jeremiah’s mission by rereading it in the context of Korean colonial experience. It will also discuss broader issues of how to read a religious text when it conflicts with national interests.

The widespread misuse of the term intertextuality in “the banal sense of ‘study of sources’” has led Julia Kristeva to disfavor the very term she had coined. Given the overwhelming misuse of it in biblical studies despite the repeated cautions and criticisms since the 1990s (Semeia 69/70; Philips; Snyman; Hatina), another plea to stop the misuse is required. This study’s criticisms highlight, first, the violent grafting of the postmodern concept of intertextuality onto the modern conception of exegesis (cf. Moore and Sherwood); second, the mistreatment of intertextuality as a prescriptive concept rather than descriptive; and third, the limited conception of text as written material. This paper further critiques the attempts to appropriate the concept of intertextuality by modernizing it (Moyise; Alkier; Gheorghita). The present study then explores the benefits of employing Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality: it expands the scope of intertextual inquiry; it facilitates a more nuanced and holistic approach to a term within a work and between works; by extension, it enables to map out a term’s non-linear history in relation to other terms, overcoming the binary conception of texts as either connected or disconnected to one another. As a test case, the title “the King of the Jews” in the Gospel of Mark and its transpositions in other Gospels and modern scholarly commentaries are examined. Although there is no exact “intertext” of that title in the pre-Markan Jewish writings, Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality bids us consider history and society as part of the title’s intertextuality. It is precisely its socio-political context that constitutes the unique semantic space of the title in Mark. The transpositions of the title in other Gospels are clearly observable. For example, the Fourth Gospel’s infamous condemnation of “the Jews” can affect the semantic space of the title in this Gospel.

In order to discern the development of the reception history of ideas about the apostle Peter in the Eastern Mediterranean world, this paper examines several Syriac, Arabic, Georgian, and Armenian apocryphal texts as well as apocryphal traditions embedded in manuscripts that support canonical and more traditional ecclesial interests. While some of the material has been edited, but is accessible only with difficulty, other parts of the dossier that is being assembled for this study consist of heretofore unedited texts in ancient manuscripts. In these witnesses, the head of Jesus’ apostles emerges as having been endowed with ascetic and priestly authority, the power to lead, as well as superior spiritual power in the service of society and family life.

Since a long time theologians have interpreted the maternity law from a viewpoint of discriminatory against women. The purpose of my paper is to change this point of view. Lev. 12:1-8 is the maternity law about woman's bleeding after childbirth. I will interpret this law from a feminist perspective. In the maternity law, we can find the love of God to protect a woman in childbirth. Lev. 12:2-5: 2 "A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding. In Lev. 12:1-8, despite using the term "unclean", the "maternity law" has consideration for a woman in childbirth to recover her condition from childbirth so that she can return to everyday life with a healthy body. The fact that a woman giving birth to a daughter is designated as unclean for a longer time 80 days than 40 days after giving birth to a son does not come from a discriminatory viewpoint, but from God"s love to give her longer time to recover her health. Because a woman giving birth to a daughter in a patriarchal society has more stress than giving birth to a son and needs more time to recover her health as v.5 says.

Philippians is one of the important Pauline letters that reveal Paul’s understanding of and practices for Christian formation. In this letter Paul presents God as the one who initiates and continues to work for the Christian formation process of Christ-believers in Philippi (1:6; 2:13) and Jesus Christ as the paradigm of their Christian formation (2:6-11; cf. also 3:10, 20-21). Paul mentions the Spirit three times in the letter (1:19; 2:1; 3:3). It is, however, not so clear what the Spirit does for Christian formation. This paper will examine Paul’s references to the Spirit in Philippians and attempt to explicate the role of the Spirit in the Christian formation process as Paul understands.