This thesis concentrates on clarifying the significance of the clothing imagery in the Pauline corpus. This imagery occurs in six Pauline epistles (clothing with Christ in Gal 3:27 & Rom 13:14; clothing with the new man in Col 3:9-10 & Eph 4:22-24; and clothing with the resurrection body in 1 Cor 15:49, 50-54 & 2 Cor 5:1-4). The imagery constitutes a significant aspect of Pauline theology. For the background to the Pauline clothing-metaphor, Part I looks into clothing imagery in the OT, 1 & 2 Enoch, Apocalypse of Moses, Philo, rabbinic literature, Joseph and Aseneth, The Hymn of the Pearl, Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the Roman custom of clothing, and the baptismal praxis of the ancient church. In the Old Testament, significant background is found in the concept of God's clothing Adam and Eve with garments of skins in Gen 3 :21, in various rituals of the priest being clothed with priestly garments (Ex 29:4-9; Lev 16:3-4, 10-11, 23-24; Ezek 42:13-14; 44:19; cf. Zech 3:3-5), in traditions about God's Spirit's clothing himself with a specific human being (Jdg 6:34; 1 Ch 12:18; 2 Ch 24:20), and the analogy between an eschatological transformation of the cosmos and a change of clothing (Ps 102:26). Later Jewish literature adds other emphases: the analogy between the resurrection transfiguration and the replacement of an earthly garment with a heavenly one (1 Enoch 65:15-16; 2 Enoch 22:8-10), the concept of Adam and Eve's prefall clothing (ApoM 20-21), Philo's notions of the people being clothed with either virtue or vice and of the high priest's becoming superior to others when dressed in sacred priestly garments, the idea of Adam's being clothed with splendour before the Fall in rabbinic writings, and symbolic scenes of Aseneth's attire in Joseph and Aseneth. Also important are the prince's change of garments in The Hymn of the Pearl, various scenes of Lucius' symbolic attire in his initiation to Isis in Metamorphoses, the Roman custom of exchanging the toga praetexta with the toga virilis, and the practice of putting off and putting on clothes at baptism in the earliest church. Bearing in mind the result of a study of these background documents, Part 2 undertakes an examination of the Pauline clothing metaphor. In the clothing-with-a-person passages (Gal 3:27; Rom 13:14; Col 3:9-10; Eph 4:22-24), baptismal themes and the Adam-Christ typology predominate, while in the clothing-with-the-resurrection passages (1 Cor 15:49, 50-54; 2 Cor 5:1-4), the Adam-Christ contrast is presupposed. The former passages describe a radical change in a believer's nature at baptism, when he/she is united with Christ as the second Adam, while the latter passages depict the eschatological change in the believer's mode of existence at the parousia. In brief, the Pauline clothing-metaphor suggests that the life and glory in the image of God lost in Adam has been restored in baptism in Christ, and will be consummated at the parousia.

The exegesis of four verses enables us to discuss whether the author uses existing material and to discern whether the teaching is in harmony with Ephesians as a whole and with Pauline teaching, especially on reconciliation. Ephesians 2:14-17 speaks of the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile through the reconciliation of both to God. This passage is not hymnic in origin, although it does reveal hymnic characteristics. These are partly due to the style of Ephesians, but mainly appear through the use of Is. 57:19 and Col. 1:20-22. Evidence of a gnostic background, to the passage is insufficient. We have an example of inclusio, where the words ()and () (v.13) are elaborated upon and then cited again (v.l7). The word peace in Is. 57:19 prompts the writer to show how Christ is our peace. The meaning of the term "middle wall" is problematical, but no suggestion is better than that of the temple barrier in Jerusalem about which the readers would know something from the Old Testament. The middle wall illustrates the divisive aspect of the law. The punctuation of vv. 15, 16 with a comma after () is to be preferred. The negative statements of breaking down and abolishing are followed by the positive of the creating of a new man and the reconciliation of both Jew and Gentile into one body () is used generally and does not refer specifically to the literal body of Christ. Christ preached this message of peace through the apostles and prophets, who were the foundation members of the church. The passage is an example of the author's love of Isaiah, whose message the Christ event has fulfilled in a fuller sense than the prophet envisaged. Not only have the Jews of the Dispersion been brought near, but also the Gentiles. This concept is in harmony with the general theme of Ephesians and Pauline teaching on reconciliation. The evidence is insufficient to support the non-Pauline authorship of Ephesians.

Myanmar has undergone a political upheaval since colonial times. The country suffers in every aspects of life due to the political situation. Religious teachings, social and cultural traditions prolong these difficulties. Therefore words such as authority, power and submission have gained important in Myanmar. Those in power employ these to reinforce their rule and control people. In this context, a question that arises is what is the role of Christianity in Myanmar? Therefore the specific question for Christianity is to address how the teachings of the New Testament contribute or hinder the pursuit of freedom by the powerless and how we apply the concepts of authority, power and submission focused in some New Testament letters. This work looks at some New Testament texts which demand the authority, power and submission in people’s social, political and religious life. The postcolonial feminist uses imperial studies, decolonising, depatriarchalising, decoding, and de-moding as tools to analyse how these texts came into being with the influences of Greaco-Roman patriarchal, colonial and imperial systems. It also looks at how these texts were exegeted by mainstream scholarship, missionaries, Asian liberation theologians and Feminists and specifically by Myanmar Christians. This is in order to scrutinise if these interpretations reinforce or resist the authority and power. The postcolonial feminist resistant reading examines the texts from a Myanmar Buddhist context. It challenges all the colonial/imperial and patriarchal mentalities not only in the texts but also in parallel Buddhist teachings and Myanmar cultural traditions and tries to find out the unheard voices and hidden resistant materials respectively. This reading focuses on balancing power and submission. This work is a weapon to challenge the power, a voice to represent and a remedy for empowering ‘the others’ or the marginalised.

The focus of this study is the portrayal of the Strange Woman and the unnamed mothers and wives of Proverbs arguing for a realistic portrayal of these women within the book. Informed by a feminist approach it considers the impact of male-oriented reading strategies upon existing interpretation and attends to the way in which poetic parallelism and variant repetition create proverbial clusters which offer an alternative context for the interpretation of proverbs. The findings show, firstly, that current interpretations of women in Proverbs are unduly influenced by the portrayal of Wisdom, the Strange Woman and the Woman of Worth in the framework of chapters 1-9 and 31, rather than by the text itself. Secondly, women’s voices provide a possible source for material in the lectures of Proverbs 1-9 (along with the father), the poems of Proverbs 31, and as the narrator of the encounter with the Strange Woman in Proverbs 7. Thirdly, where mothers and wives are in focus, alternative interpretations can be offered which do not assess the character or behaviour of the woman, but rather focus on the son’s character and behaviour and its subsequent impact upon relationships with his parents, his wife and his own offspring.

This dissertation suggests that, while the book of Proverbs is sometimes difficult to interpret and its redaction history is clearly complex, it has much to say on the important area of leadership. To test this hypothesis, it applies four steps as its theoretical framework, and these later become part of the contributions of this study. First, its exploration of leadership in the Ancient Near East (ANE) shows that the ANE offers a good background to leadership in ancient Israel. Second, its survey of the scholarly debates on leadership in Proverbs reveals that the question of how Proverbs fosters leadership has been hugely neglected. The previous discussion has centred on the settings that produced the proverbs and the impact of ANE materials on Proverbs. Third, this enquiry maintains that poetics is an important tool for biblical exegesis and that it can help us to understand the possible meanings of the text. Its contribution lies with the use of exegetical analysis to demonstrate how Proverbs fosters aspects of leadership through the close analysis of poetic devices such as parallelisms, metaphors and imagery. The thesis conducts a detailed exploration of some verses that are judged to contain sayings that are relevant to the theme of leadership in Proverbs, demonstrating their complexity. It proposes a reading strategy of classifying the leadership texts in Proverbs into themes relating to the status, code of conduct, personality, skills and actions of leaders and the community’s response to leaders. Fourth, it critically summarises the results of my exegetical findings in Proverbs and their implications for the biblical scholars surveyed, as well as for contemporary leadership scholars. The thesis concludes with the application of my exegetical findings to one aspect of leadership in Proverbs to Christian leadership in Nigeria.