There can be no doubt that the Near-Death Experience (NDE) has become a highly influential factor shaping the contemporary Western spiritual perspective. However, it has yet to receive the serious theological attention such a phenomenon calls for. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the nature of this situation, based on a rigorous examination of the NDE research as well as a critical analysis of the interpretative context(s) which ground the existing theological treatments of the NDE. The work begins with a presentation of the predominant theological presupposition that the significance of the NDE, or lack there of, is to be located within eschatological, or pareschatological, boundaries exclusively. The philosophical prolegomena related to this presupposition are then established in anticipation of their use as criteria with which to investigate the actual NDE research data. Hence, the most extensive, reliable phenomenological research done to date is used to produced a detailed NDE typology based on both qualitative and quantitative NDE data. The NDE typology is then analyzed in reference to the philosophical criteria previously established. In the next stage of the work, again, the most relevant research-based information relating to the NDE's "context" is gather in order to gain a firm understanding of the NDE's after-effects as well as the etiologically significant points which the researchers' themselves and the "skeptics", or reductionists, have proposed. With the completion of this task it is asserted that not only is the predominant theological interpretative contextualisation of the NDE unjustified, but that, in the course of the investigation, one which is ontological has proven itself to be extremely convincing. Using a phenomenological method to re-interpret the NDE as an ontologically significant phenomena, the NDE reveals itself to be an "Imperative of Vitality" (IV), a phenomenon have to do, profoundly, with life and not death. Finally, the theological significance of the NDE as an IV is fruitfully explored within two different Christian Reformed contexts, manifesting striking ontological correlations and leading to highly informative, though, ultimately, negative theological conclusions. The work ends by calling for further explorations of the ontologically remarkable NDE within other spiritual/religious contexts.

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Concerning John's use of the OT in Revelation, recent scholarship has observed that in terms of closeness, the book of Ezekiel, among many other OT books, enjoys a particular status. For, not only have its many materials been adopted in Revelation, but the order of these materials appearing in the two books is, by and large, the same. These features, then, suggest that Revelation is literarily dependent on Ezekiel. Specifically, the four cases examined in this thesis are, (1) The comparison of Ezekiel's use of Eden tradition (Gen 1-3) in Ezekiel 28:11-19 with John's use of Ezekiel's oracle against the nation Tyre (Ezek 26-28) in Revelation 18; (2) The comparison of Ezekiel's use of the foe-from-the-north tradition in Ezekiel 38-39 with John's use of Gog oracle (Ezek 38-39) in Revelation 19-20. (3) The comparison of Ezekiel's use of the model of battle camp (Num 2-3) in Ezekiel 48: 30-35 with John's use of the prophet's restoration programme (Ezek 40-48) in Revelation 21; and (4) The comparison of Ezekiel's use of Eden tradition (Gen 2-3) in Ezekiel 47:1-12 with John's use of this river-of-life tradition (Ezek 47:1-12) in Revelation 22. These four case studies show that though various interpretative principles have been involved in Ezekiel's use of his sources, these principles have been followed by John in his use of Ezekielian materials. This observation then leads us to the following conclusions: John, as the follower and witness of Jesus Christ (Rev 1:2, 9), is, in terms of hermeneutics, a true heir of the prophet Ezekiel. As to the implications of the findings for the understanding of Revelation, the four case studies, in turn, argue for (1) the identification of the great harlot Babylon (Rev 18) as Rome, (2) the Amillennial view for Revelation 20:1-10, (3) the identification of the new Jerusalem (Rev 21) as the New Testament church, and (4) the view taking the river of life (Rev 22) as the symbol for salvation.

This is an exchange familiar to anyone working in the area of the relationship between history and theology. If the "Oh" is uttered by an historian then it may carry with it overtones of a suspicion that history is-being meddled with* On the other hand if the "Oh" is uttered by a theologian it often carries with it the unspoken largely impatient but slightly apprehensive remark "Isn't theology already complicated enought without bringing history into it? " This situation presumably account in part for the fact that from the historians side only Collingwood (now out of fashion alas) has anything of substance to say about this relationship and even this is confined to a few suggestive pages. From the theologians side the situation is hardly better. It is true that a considerable amount of attention has been given to the important task of forming a general Christian attitude to history or a doctrine of history. However surprisingly little attention has been given to the. at least equally important investigation of the problem of the complex relationship between Christian theology and historical inquiry we might say between Christian theology and history as the historians know it. The two books to appear so far which deal with this subject explicitly and sustainedly are Richard R Niobuhr "Resurrection and Historical Reason" (1957) and T. A Robert's History, and Christian Apologetic (1960) Both betray that this discussion is at an early stage*

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Chapter One focuses on the role of Jerome’s Vulgate at the intersection of interpretative practice and politics in humanist sixteenth- and seventeenth-century exegesis. Catholic and Protestant reactions to Jerome are represented by those of Donne and Quevedo. Chapter Two discusses the 1575 Tremellius Latin Bible and Martín Antonio Del Río’s 1608 <i>Commentarius litteralis in Threnos. </i>These were major sources respectively for Donne’s and Quevedo’s versions of <i>Lamentations </i>and are representative of the Calvinist mainstream in the English Church and of the Spanish-Jesuit slant in the Catholic Habsburg Empire. Chapter Three reads the implicit political dimension of Donne’s undated metrical paraphrase ‘The Lamentations of <i>Jeremy, </i>for the most part according to <i>Tremellius’, </i>in the context of the explicit political dimensions of his undated sermon on Lam 3.1 and his sermon on Lam 4.20 delivered on November 5^th 1622. Chapter Four shows how Quevedo applies essential features of the Old Testament text as lessons applicable to Philip Ill’s <i>Pax Hispanica, </i>and sets his verse and prose commentaries in the context of contemporary commentaries on Tacitus, making explicit the political dimension of the text. Quevedo’s self-appropriation of the prophet Jeremiah and his <i>Lamentations </i>is an admonitory <i>lamento patrius </i>in the tradition of <i>ubi sunt </i>and an urgent call against the enemies of Spain and contrasts in form and explicitness with the 1609 version of the Franciscan Andrés de Soto. Chapter Five compares Donne’s and Quevedo’s appropriations of Jeremiah and his <i>Lamentations, </i>emphasising their handling of Jeremiah in the context of the topos of tears and laughter, and their treatment of the historical and allegorical dimensions of Lam 4.20 regarding the figures of the Biblical kings Zedekiah and Josiah. The interpretative and formal flexibility of exegetical practice makes possible a consideration of the similar and diverse ways and ends in which Donne and Quevedo appropriate the Biblical text and reflect the complexities and preoccupations of their age.  The Conclusion shows that the task of establishing similarities and differences in exegetical practice is complex and sometimes paradoxical.

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