The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the meaning and function of an apparently paradoxical statement encountered in the first letter of John. The method chosen for this investigation is an exegetical study of two passages namely 1Jn 1:6-10 and 3:6-10, which are supposed to be in juxtaposition. The argument, reduced to its bare minimum, will move as follows. Firstly, the first chapter sets the context for this study by addressing the issue of sin and its parameters in contemporary Jewish literature. Jewish writers of the time were much occupied with such themes as sin, sinfulness and sinlessness, need of cleansing, forgiveness, the reward of the righteous and punishment of the wicked. The Jewish world of thought of the time provides us with the ideological framework in which John is to be better understood. We are to witness the coexistence of apparently contradictory modes of thought concerning eschatology and by extension anthropology; for instance, statements supporting the exercise of free will on man's part and God's predestination or references to the idea of demonic powers being accountable for sin and man's own responsibility for sin, 'like those of a railway, run side by side, crisscross, or overlap in various ways', even in the same piece of work. Bearing in mind the result of the study of this background, chapter two undertakes an examination of the history of the community whose products the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles were. According to our findings, the Johannine community never became a sect alienated from the rest of Christianity, in spite of the presence of sectarian traits such as perfectionist ideas and ethical rigorism, the exaggeration of which led finally to an inner schism. Next, chapter three investigates the identity of those in combat to 1John, the so-called opponents of John, concluding that having being former members of the Johannine community, they misinterpreted the Johannine tradition conveyed by the Fourth Gospel, drawing radical conclusions about their sinlessness/perfection from its realised eschatology.

This thesis critically investigates the relationship between the Jewish majority and the Gentile minority in the church which gave rise to Matthew’s Gospel. That is, the investigation is one of ethnic divisions in one specific church. The central interest in this research is to examine the community life of Matthew’s church in order to discover whether there was any racial discrimination, tension, and conflict between the two ethnic groups which was exacerbated by quite different cultural backgrounds. In order to examine social division, it was necessary to study the background of the author and his community in relation to ethnicity, the requirements for entry into the Matthean community, their new group identity markers, and to analyse the community rules and leadership of Matthew. The research is done principally from a study of the text of Matthew’s Gospel and viewed from an ethnic perspective in evaluating any element relating to ethnicity. As the result of this research project, this thesis argues that Matthew accepted non-Jews also into his Christian-Jewish community regardless of ethnic origins and formed a new kinsfolk of God, but his community rules did not provide any room to accommodate the culture of the Gentile minority. This cultural intolerance caused division, tension, conflict, and finally church schism in the aftermath of the Matthean leadership. It is therefore, advisable for the present and future leadership in both Christian mission and in political administration to learn from Matthew’s failure to understand the power of culture and his lack of concern for the minority’s interest. The final argument of this thesis is to choose the alternatives of giving equal rights and privileges to both minorities and majorities, or granting devolution; whichever is preferred, all our aim should be to heal our wounded world and keep the Church catholic healthy and alive to her mission.

Detailed analysis of a number of passages in 32-37 establishes: (1) that Elihu does not present a solution to the problem of the suffering of the innocent: his view of suffering as punishment for actual sin and intended to communicate to man the necessity of repentance, is not an enunciation of a distinctive conception of divine pedagogy or discipline, but represents essentially the same position as that of the three friends; (2) that neither his name nor his more extensive genealogy is significative of a spectral mediatorial role; it is probable that they merely fulfil the interpolator's purpose in symbolising the exalted spiritual status of Elihu and thereby legitimising the belated appearance of a hitherto unacknowledged participant in the debate; (3) that there is no basis for the conception of Elihu as a mediator between God and man; on the contrary, it is evident that he intervenes on behalf of God and against Job; his speeches are principally a polemic against the Divine speeches, to be understood, not as providing a transition to the theophany, but as rendering the appearance of God altogether unnecessary. In conclusion, it is suggested that a diachronic approach has continuing value in application not only to the book of Job, but to the Old Testament as a whole. A synchronic approach is in danger of assuming an intrinsic unity which in actuality does not exist. In its final form, Job is an amalgam that, far from possessing a theological or a literary, even a dramatic, unity, contains a multiplicity of voices and traditions, of which Elihu is one. To see the book otherwise is to neutralise the dynamic quality or message which has made it so enduring.

This thesis sets out to investigate current reconstruction of forms of African theology that is taking place in parts of Africa. The specific interest is to identify emerging biblical interpretative modes from these theologies and seek to suggest ways of making them effective for the benefit of African communities of readers and the biblical academia as a whole. After a brief consideration of the contribution of historical critical interpretation, this thesis then focused specifically on the development of African scholarly readings. The specific interest in these African readings is ·to provide the necessary criteria which will ensure that critical scholarly readings can both be differentiated and derived from popular readings. My interest in popular readings is because of the major role they play in the provision of contextual components or the missing links that can only be obtained from ordinary readers, that the scholarly reader needs in his/her reconstruction of· African self-understanding. I have therefore looked at the attempts to structure the relationship between ordinary readers and scholarly readers and out of that has come the contribution to the theologies of reconstruction in Africa. In summary, to respond to the quest for acceptable critical models of reading the Bible using African cultural texts and world view, it has become necessary to provide recommendations for African hermeneuts which would enhance their readings in order to make their contributions to scholarly biblical interpretation to the global community more effective. This is exactly what this thesis aims at achieving.

The Gospel of Mark is a moving story especially when one looks at the way Mark recounts Jesus’ struggle with evil, the extent of the power and the fate of Satan and demons and the type of life the followers of Jesus are to lead: whether a demon-free life or a life of struggle with demons; and how scholars interpret Mark’s views today. This thesis begins with a review of a debate between J.M. Robinson and E. Best who hold divergent views on Jesus’ struggle with evil and the extent and the fate of Satan’s power and demons in Mark. This is followed by a critical analysis of Mark’s views on the baptism and the temptation narratives and Jesus’ inauguration of the Kingdom in a world dominated by Satan and its implications. The review of Mark 3: 22-27 serves as a background to the section that examines Spirit Possession cases and the ways Jesus exorcises these demons in Mark, bringing to light Mark’s views and the views of Western scholars. This is followed by categorising diseases into those caused by demons and those caused naturally and how Jesus exorcises and heals these diseases, demonstrating his power over evil. The section on Evil in African Traditional Religion focuses on the sources of evil and how evil is eradicated from the traditional African society. This is followed by a report of field research, which took the form of Bible Studies among Africans with the focus on Ghanaian Christians from twenty one churches in London. The purpose is to find out how these Christians whose world-view approximates that of Mark, read and interpret some texts in Mark. We were interested in what Ghanaian Christians would make of these texts because they might help us to see them as Mark’s readers would have seen them, and to discover the issues and questions which they would have brought to the texts. The final section of the thesis brings together the views of Mark, Western scholars and Ghanaian Christians showing how these views complement each other.

he aim of the thesis is to investigate the rhetorical dimensions of selected Markan controversy dialogues (2.15-17, 18-22, 23-28; 3.22-30; 7.1-23; 11.27-33) in light of their redaction, form, and transmission histories. Specifically, I shall evaluate scholarly claims that these dialogues are examples of the Hellenistic literary form called the chreia. Consequently, the thesis is a formal analysis, though certain historical conclusions will emerge. I shall structure the thesis in three main sections and twelve chapters. The first section will present an overview of the history of the investigation of the controversy dialogues from Dibelius to the present day and will conclude that the specific type of rhetorical criticism which I shall evaluate and traditional historical criticism can be mutually beneficial when used together. The second section will describe rhetoric as understood in antiquity and outline the definitions, classifications, and elaborations of the chreia given in the ancient handbooks known as the Progymnasmata. The final section will bring together the insights of historical criticism and rhetorical analysis in the study of the six Markan pericopes. The most important conclusion which I propose is that the primitive form of these dialogues was modelled after the chreia form. This suggests that they emerged not from some anonymous collectivity but were consciously formed by individuals with some education and knowledge of a pagan literary form. They were conceived in a unitary fashion. I further argue that the rhetorical situation from which the dialogues emerged was the synagogue where the followers of Jesus were arguing for a less strict religious observance and were being opposed by a more rigorist, Pharisaic party. During the process of transmission the form decayed as more material was added, and there is no evidence that either the tradition or Mark himself knew the form or moulded the materials in imitation of the form. Although these pericopes do show an intensification of polemic, they do not reveal any laws of transmission, at least from the rhetorical point of view. Finally, the arguments used in the original dialogues are based on human wisdom and common values, and do not refer to the Jewish law or the traditions. Jesus is depicted as a teacher of wisdom who, like a Greek philosopher- teacher, calls pupils to himself.

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