In 1 and 2 Chronicles, commentators have long noted a pattern of retributive justice whereby kings who comply with Yahweh’s will are rewarded with long life and honourable burial, whereas those who do not are disgraced. However, another pattern significantly emerges from a group of kings whose careers display an unexpected reversal. No convincing consensus has emerged on the significance of this reversal pattern yet. By exploring and adopting the insights of narrative film theory, particularly of cognitive film semiotics, into the effects of macro-repetition, this thesis seeks to elucidate what the implications of these unexpected reversals may have been for the ancient audience’s comprehension of the Chronicler’s communicative intent. As the reversal pattern is interwoven with the retributive pattern, the narrative may emerge as a falsifying narration, provoking a deep scepticism as to the conventional view of retribution theology. Deleuzian film theory offers a crucial insight into how this falsifying narration works. Specifically, the destabilizing effects of the reversal pattern lead to the simplistic view on ‘seeking the Lord’, taking on a deeper existential implication, which can be related to the Chronicler’s wisdom of the theological tension in the life of faith and to his theo-anthropology. Moreover, this view of the Chronicler’s theology as distinct from Samuel-Kings is rendered more plausible when considered in the light of the canonical context of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible, where the book belongs to Ketuvim. The particular need for theological and ontological reorientation of the post-exilic Jewish community who likely formed the Chronicler’s intended audience is also a supporting factor. Thus, this study advances not only the understanding of the practical and theological effects of the Chronicler’s reversal pattern in the audience’s perception of the narrative, but also the interpretation of 1-2 Chronicles regarding its divergent theology from Samuel-Kings.

This thesis identifies and develops the discourse of darkness in the Gospel of John. It approaches the theme as both a textual motif, Johannine σκοτία, and a discussion of negative elements within the text, viewed from a feminist perspective. Scholars have long considered the aspect of light, φῶς, in the Gospel and Jesus’ characterisation as ‘the light.’ The motif of darkness, however, has been relatively underexplored and an association made between Jesus, his burial, and the theme of σκοτία, rarer still. This thesis considers Johannine σκοτία in terms of death, trauma, and abjection, and traces the descent of the motif through the passion account to its nadir in the burial scene. Historical enquiry is used to establish what might be considered expected first-century norms with regards to the crucified Jewish corpse in first-century Palestine and this thesis proposes a reading of the burial text which problematises positivistic interpretations of the burial ritual that Joseph and Nicodemus undertake. A study of the mother of Jesus in the Gospel reveals maternal abjection as a negative force within the text and identifies that when she fails to make the narrative journey from cross to grave, all is not well. Finally the thesis presents a detailed study of John 19:42b, the closing depiction of Jesus’ corpse laid out in the tomb. The painting of Hans Holbein the Younger The Dead Christ in the Tomb, the writing of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and the theory of Julia Kristeva, are drawn into a discussion of the image, or the ‘last look,’ at the corpse of Christ contained in this verse.

Biblical scholars have paid considerable attention to the reception history of the Bible in film, art and music. Advertising, however, remains a neglected area of research in biblical studies. Popular culture is a fertile ground for research into the cultural reception of biblical figures, and the biblical figure of Eve is the most frequently represented of them all. She is especially prominent in postfeminist advertising from 1990 onwards because she embodies the Zeitgeist of the postfeminist era. Eve functions as a postfeminist icon for female consumer power, advertising cosmetics, clothing and food, almost always to a targeted 1834 year-old female consumer. Despite the postfeminist pretensions of contemporary Eve advertising, the imagery of female sexual empowerment employed in popular culture, I argue, merely recycles old stereotypes of woman as temptress. This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the study of Bible in popular culture by analysing representations of Eve in advertising and film. It compares nineteenth-century representations of the femme fatale with contemporary postfeminist advertising images of Eve and 1960s filmic representations of Eve with contemporary Eve films to show that, even after two waves of the feminist movement, the image of Eve as sexual temptress has not changed but rather remained constant The thesis investigates the ongoing appeal of Eve as a Cultural symbol, and asks to what extent the predominant popular cultural image of Eve has its seeds in the biblical text, and what it is about the biblical text that lends itself to appropriation by those who wish to exploit Eve's cultural meanings.

The present study has revolved around three apocalyptic texts believed to come from the context of 8th to 9th century more or less belligerent contexts. These are: The Apocalypse of Zerubbabel the Apocalypse of Samuel of Qalamun and the Fourteenth Vision of Daniel. It is a parallel study, which aims at probing the underlying influence of the iconographic evolution in the three monotheistic religions. In all three apocalypses cited above, indications are that they did react to the erection of the Islamic Dome of the Rock that was completed at around AD 695. The Dome of the Rock was for the Muslims an exercise of iconographic display in favour of their universal religion, a monumental statement for the claim to the last revelation of God, henceforth that the religion of Islam held sway in the ranking of faithfulness to the primeval religion of Abraham. Accordingly, these three apocalypses expressed therein their contention of the hegemony of Islam, using various eschatological topoi, a number of circumstantial artifices, and a zest of imagination, to spearhead their peculiar ideology. The iconography (visual, oral, literal) of the three communities undergoes some subtle but significant changes in the process. This can be seen in the way each text handles the image of the enemy, reshaping it where they saw fit, but also how each one's iconographic identity is reshaped from the eschatological perspective. The main actors of the apocalyptic scenarios may undergo a change of stature, or one's own orthodoxy is stated in parodying the others' cultic tradition, or still, draw an oblique portrait of the competition from within. As a result, the iconography of the opponent becomes a source of positive eschatological speculations, through the re-enactment of Biblical themes so as to exorcise the visual fact of the reality of the enemy. However, these features are inherent to the context of confrontational atmosphere, whenever the prospects of geo-political transformations permit. The benefit of analysing these three apocalypses together side-by-side is that, in the context of protracted confrontations with Islam, it yields unexpected insights into the literary response, which those religious groups could afford to construct in the face of the hegemony of Islam. The praise of Jerusalem, the summons to strive for its recovery, and the theodicy of the interlude predicament their respective audiences were in, are all but alluded to in convoluted ways. To that aim, the apocalyptic genre allowed for the flexibility of circumstantial rhetoric while revisiting afresh the old traditional topoi.

This thesis explores a series of linked issues. These include, but are not limited to, • The historical significance of early modern vernacular Bibles. • The difficulty of translating the Koine Greek phrase οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ὰρσενοκοῖται (outay malakoi outay arsenokoitai) in 1 Corinthians 6:9. • The influence of culture and location on the translation of οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ὰρσενοκοῖται in early modern vernacular Bibles. • The implications of local considerations upon the interpretation of Biblical passages within sixteenth and seventeenth century Germany, France, England, and Italy.

This thesis examines some of the ways in which a particular theory of language known as Speech Act theory has been used as a hermeneutic tool, in particular in relation to Biblical hermeneutics. It begins by outlining the context in which the theory was conceived, and gives a brief description of Speech Act theory and some of its problems. Thereafter, some specific problems relating to the theory’s use as a Biblical hermeneutical tool are explored. These are, firstly, the fact that Speech Act theory relates explicitly to spoken language, but is being proposed as a textual tool; secondly that the nature of the relationship assumed in the theory, between intention and meaning, is compromised within the theory, and that the assumption of a ‘sender view of meaning’ often made by its advocates undercuts the most interesting implications of the theory; and thirdly that the concept of uptake, integral to the theory, is an inadequate substitute for the concept of understanding. All of these problems are identified as fundamental flaws in Speech Act theory, that compromise its usefulness as a hermeneutic tool, particularly given that the theory is being used to buttress ideas of authorial revelation. This thesis also examines the relationship between meaning and significance proposed in the work of E D Hirsch and adopted as a supplement to Speech Act theory, and finds in this distinction also similar weaknesses. However, this does not mean that the concept of revelation is untenable, and the thesis proposes an alternative view of revelation and authorial meaning, using the linguistic theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Volosinov, and based on co-operation between author and community. This proposal is claimed to be more hermeneutically appropriate and it is asserted that it also gives a far better theological account of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit.

The strange stories of Hagar, Dinah, and Tamar unsettle the ancestral narrative in Genesis. Whereas the ancestral narrative revolves around the interests of the ancestral family, these stories deviate from the main plot and draw attention to the interests of non- ancestral characters. Interpretation traditionally domesticates the strange stories by focusing on how they may serve the purposes of the embedding ancestral narrative. This thesis, however, revives the question of their strangeness and proposes an original response: the strange stories are interludes that ironize ancestral identity. The concepts of interlude and irony lay the methodological groundwork for this thesis. Because scholarship commonly identifies the strange stories as “interludes,” this study innovates a poetics of the interlude. This poetics, which derives from the model of certain musical interludes, suggests that the interlude’s function is to develop primary thematic content. While scholarship conventionally allows the primary narrative to determine the significance of the interlude, this poetics illumines how the interlude may determine aspects of the primary narrative. A hermeneutics of irony, in turn, offers a persuasive account of how an interlude may develop primary thematic material. This study bases its hermeneutics on the idea that irony consists in quoting a prior proposition and implying a negative judgment toward it. When the interludes invoke central ancestral motifs, they may mean something different—even contrary—to what was meant before. A poetics of the interlude and a hermeneutics of irony drive this study’s close readings of the strange stories. The close readings demonstrate how the interludes ironize key themes of ancestral identity: the ancestral-divine relationship, ancestral relations to the land and its inhabitants, and ancestral self-identity. Each interlude subverts the conventionally exclusive formulation of an ancestral theme and shows that, while ancestral identity may be contained in the ancestral family, it is not contained by it.

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This thesis focuses on the binary opposition between Yahwistic prophecy and shamanistic practices and the coexistence of various religious professionals in the Bible - prophets, magicians and diviners - who continually challenge theological distinctions set by the central religious hierarchy. My research explores Korean shamanism: from its basic worldview to the characteristics of shamanic practitioners and rituals, and to its syncretism with other religions, in which compatibility with the Korean authentic spirituality is the key to the successful settlement of missionary religions. Various shamanic models are proposed to find resources for the parallel study between the biblical faiths and practices and Korean shamanism, such as: the spiritual calling of prophetic figures in the Bible and of Korean shamanic neophytes; the paradox of prophetic condemnation against magic and divination employed by ‘others’, when similar techniques are used by the Old Testament prophets as a sign of divine connection; and the rite of passage of prophetic and shamanic practitioners, as a bridge between the secular and the sacred. Through a close reading of the prophetic narratives, this thesis resists what appears to be the dominant voice in the interpretative tradition of the Bible in the Korean church - a polarity between a central or Christian religion and a popular or shamanic spirituality - and points out that the Bible itself is a rich depository of competing religious systems and models, with which Bible readers from various religious and cultural backgrounds can identify or compare in their own environments.

The extreme complexity of Sirach’s text at times makes it almost impossible to come to one clear conclusion as regards certain issues. There are numerous differences between various translations of this deuterocanonical text. In addition, the Armenian translation, being a textual witness to not one but multiple parent texts, has its own complications. This research provides a sustained theological reading of the Armenian text of Sirach on the basis of Yakob Nalean’s commentary written in the 18th century. At the same time it places a great emphasis on the textual evaluation of the various versions of Sirach in Armenian. In this respect an attempt has been made to display the unique features of the Armenian Sirach within the wider scope of the scholarship of this biblical text. Through a comprehensive linguistic and theological analysis of some major parts of Sirach in Armenian, this study assesses the extent to which this book was in use amongst Armenians throughout the centuries. In particular, the numerous references to Sirach in both Armenian and non-Armenian patristic literature are examined, with the aim of dating the first translations into Armenian and tracing the development of the text in the Armenian medieval schools.