The Nicene Creed (AD 325), expressly states that Jesus Christ "for our salvation came down from heaven" and that He "was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried and the third day He rose again, according to the scriptures." Here the structure and sequence of soteriological events are explicitly stated in creedal formulation, where Christ's crucifixion holds the strategic centre point, where Jesus not only dies, but dies for our salvation. The Cross is the emblematic sign of Christian authenticity, the kernel of the kerygma of faith and paradoxically the preferred mechanism that God uses for salvation. Indeed, St Paul proclaimed to the world in the first century: "We preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Even in the Gospels the apparent contradictory sign of the Messiah being nailed to a tree is highlighted, with taunts from onlookers and the last satanic tempatation, to "save yourself and come down from the Cross", is used to psychologically torment him in a last ditch attempt to abort the salvific enterprise; but salvation transparently can only come through the acceptance of the Cross. For as the great Spanish mystic and doctor of the Church St John of the Cross declares: "If you desire to possess Christ, never seek him without the Cross ... whoever seeks not the Cross of Christ, also seeks not the glory of Christ." Jesus indicates the magnetic pull of the Cross when He says in His own words: "and I, when I am lifted up from the Earth, will draw all men to myself", thus indicating the portal or ladder to heaven that the Cross symbolizes, where the divine glory shines diaphanously through the wood of the Cross. "It is as well to remember, however, that when we speak about the glory of God we are in fact speaking about the disclosure of his nature, which means that in his death, Jesus glorifies God and he himself is glorified; in other words, we see here the nature of God, and the nature of his Son. The glory of God is revealed." On Good Friday the centrality and instrumentality of the Cross is venerated, "behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the saviour of the world." The Cross is thus heavily laden with soteriological significance but we should never look at the Cross without being reminded of the resurrection, for the death and resurrection of Christ cannot be separated, since both are part of the mysterious purpose of God.

This thesis aims to set out parameters within which Christian ethical reappropriations of Old Testament Narratives can take place. Chapter One sets out the philosophical foundations for the project making special use of the work of Paul Ricoeur. It is argued that the notion of a narrative-self is crucial to understanding how it is that story can ethically shape its audience. Four specific ways in which it does this are set out. Chapter Two argues that story is far more important in OT ethics than has usually been appreciated. It moves' on to defend a hermeneutical model suggested by N. T. Wright for Christian interpretation of the OT. Having set forth the hermeneutical method in the first two chapters, Chapters Three to Five attempt to apply it to a case study. Chapter Three overviews the ethical use that has been made of Genesis 34 in the history of interpretation, whilst Chapter Four proposes an interpretation. Chapter Five is an attempt to interpret Genesis 34 within the context of the biblical metanarrative. It is argued that this sheds new light on appropriate and inappropriate Christian ethical uses of the chapter.

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.

To date, the single criterion of Family 13 constituency has been the relocation of the Pericope Adulterae from its traditional location in John 7:53. This dissertation demonstrates why this criterion is inadequate and proposes a new criteria. After an overview of the history of research, potential Family 13 witnesses are classified by means of a methodology originated by Dr. David Parker’s use of Text und Textwert. This process identifies 8 witnesses inappropriately nominated as Family 13 members, thus establishing GA 13, 69, 124, 346, 543, 788, 826, 828, 983, and 1689 as valid members. Each of these 10 witnesses is then described palaeographically as a discrete artefact. Phylogrammatic software, originally designed for DNA analysis, is then adapted to exhaustively study these Johannine Greek texts. The by-product of this novel process complements and validates the earlier Text und Textwert process. Also available as a result of this study are original witness transcriptions (available at http://www.iohannes.com/family13/), a Critical Apparatus of Family 13 in St. John’s Gospel, an exhaustive description of the contents of 18 potential witnesses, and a description of the computer analysis process used in the study.

This study assesses Augustine's worth as a witness to the text of the Bible and evaluates his evidence for the Gospel according to John. The full collection of citations is presented in the Appendix. In the analysis a distinction is proposed between primary citations, which Augustine makes with reference to a scriptural codex, for example when preaching, and secondary citations, for which this cannot be demonstrated. The latter constitute the majority and often correspond to his mental text , a consistent form of a verse showing characteristic alterations attributable to memory. In polemical works, Augustine displays a different form of text which he has normally adopted from his opponents. Such variations in the biblical text suggest that the citations have been transmitted accurately, without interference by copyists. Augustine's text of John demonstrates the continuity in the Latin Bible between Old Latin versions and Jerome's Vulgate. Most of the non- Vulgate renderings in Augustine's citations are paralleled in one or more Old Latin witnesses, which suggests that the Old Latin texts known today are a representative selection. Nonetheless, his primary affiliation is with the Vulgate, which even comes to permeate citations made from memory in later works.

Colossians 1:24 has throughout church history presented problems of interpretation. This thesis investigates the possibility that the author expresses a belief in vicarious suffering within the church, and begins with a thorough linguistic analysis of the text and vocabulary to produce a radical fresh translation which emphasises Paul’s ministry of suffering on the church’s behalf. Two chapters investigate the reception history of the passage, with particular emphasis on three periods: the Church Fathers, the Protestant Reformation, and the modern era. Following evaluation of the many interpretations, an excursus on attitudes to suffering in modern Western evangelical churches, and a discussion whether the passage applies only to Paul or is of universal Christian relevance, three key topics are investigated in depth: the 'woes of the Messiah' and related eschatological issues; attitudes to substitution in the ancient world; and the 'common life' or koinonia expressed in Pauline descriptions of the church. This study indicates the probability that the author and his first readers shared cultural and religious understandings which comfortably accommodated a belief in vicarious suffering. In conclusion, the theological implications of such a belief are discussed, and the consequent repercussions for pastoral care.

This inquiry combines consideration of the Context Group’s emphases regarding the honour and shame culture of first-century Palestine with careful analysis of ten narrative parables of Luke’s Jesus in order to allow the proposed cultural setting to form an appropriate background for reading and understanding the stories and, in turn, to use the parables as material for assessing the adequacy or inadequacy of the Context Group’s models. In this way the cultural context is in dialogue with the literary text, the cultural context facilitating a non-anachronistic and non-ethnocentric approach to Luke’s narratives, and the literary text serving as a means to evaluate the stereotypical models often taken as a given starting point for hermeneutical reflection. This exploration demonstrates that the emphasis of each particular Context Group model is often too limited in its scope and frequently at odds with the cultural orientation of the parables, thereby highlighting the value of using the literary text to refine the cultural models in question and to restrict the chances of misleading readings. This study shows how dialogue between social-scientific modelling and careful textual interpretation has the potential to enhance both the understanding of the cultural map and the significance of the written word.

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 work examines the important question of why there is deadlock in current Anglican discussions of fresh expressions of church. The study outlines the different perspectives represented by Mission-shaped Church and For the Parish, and how the discussions up to this point, in focusing on ecclesiology as a methodological approach, have not provided a way of bringing people together. This study will argue that a liturgical methodological approach provides a more appropriate model for discussion of mission in an Anglican context, and that a liturgical paradigm of continuity, adaptation and innovation presents a positive approach that can bring both sides of the current debate together. Up to this point, there has been a lack of thorough biblical research in this debate, and therefore the paradigm of continuity, adaptation and innovation will be based on a liturgical reading of Deuteronomy. This text is particularly appropriate given the way in which the narrative context shows the community responding to the change from a nomadic to agrarian lifestyle. The work undertakes a detailed liturgical reading of Deuteronomy 6 and 26, providing a more rigorous definition of the term liturgical and applying it to demonstrate the presence of continuity of community practices alongside adaptation of those practices and innovation in introducing new practices. It is these three strands of continuity, adaptation and innovation that are used in providing a paradigm of community change and transition that responds to the initial question and provides a means of holding together a variety of perspectives and seeking a way forwards.

When we take a step back from the imposing figure of physical violence, it becomes possible to examine other structurally violent forces that constantly shape our cultural and political landscapes. One of the driving interests in the “turn to Paul” in recent continental philosophy stems from wrestling with questions about the real nature of contemporary violence. Paul is positioned as a thinker whose messianic experience began to cut through the violent masquerade of the existing order. The crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah (a slave and a God co-existing in one body) exposed the empty grounding upon which power resided. The Christ-event signifies a moment of violent interruption in the existing order which Paul enjoins the Gentiles to participate in through a dedication of love for the neighbour. This divine violence aims to reveal and subvert the “powers,” epitomised in the Roman Empire, in order to fulfil the labour of the Messianic now-time which had arrived. The impetus behind this research comes from a typically enigmatic and provocative section of text by the Slovene philosopher, cultural critic, and Christian atheist Slavoj Žižek. He claims that 'the notion of love should be given here all its Paulinian weight: the domain of pure violence… is the domain of love' (2008a, 173). In this move he links Paul’s idea of love to that of Walter Benjamin’s divine violence; the sublime and the cataclysmic come together in this seemingly perverse notion. At stake here is the way in which uncovering violent forces in the “zero-level” of our narrative worldviews aids the diagnosis of contemporary political and ethical issues. It is not enough to imagine Paul’s encounter with the Christ-event as non-violent. This Jewish apocalyptic movement was engaged in a violent struggle within an existing order that God’s wrath will soon dismantle. Paul’s weak violence, inspired by his fidelity to the Christ-event, places all responsibility over creation in the role of the individual within the collective body. The centre piece of this re-imagined construction of the Pauline narrative comes in Romans 13: the violent dedication to love understood in the radical nature of the now-time. 3 This research examines the role that narratives play in the creation and diagnosis of these violent forces. In order to construct a new genealogy of violence in Christianity it is crucial to understand the role of the slave of Christ (the revolutionary messianic subject). This turn in the Symbolic is examined through creating a literary structure in which we can approach a radical Nietzschean shift in Pauline thought. The claim here, a claim which is also central to Paul’s letters, is that when the symbolic violence which manipulates our worldviews is undone by a divine violence, if even for a moment, new possibilities are created in the opening for a transvaluation of values. Through this we uncover the nature of original sin: the consequences of the interconnected reality of our actions. The role of literature is vital in the construction of this narrative; starting with Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and continuing through works such as Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, this thesis draws upon the power of literature in the shaping of our narrative worlds. Typical of the continental philosophy at the heart of this work, a diverse range of illustrations and inspirations from fiction is pulled into its narrative to reflect the symbolic universe that this work was forged through. What this work attempts to do is give this theory a greater grounding in Paul’s letters by demonstrating this radical kenotic power at the heart of the Christ-event. Romans 13 reveals, in a way that has not yet been picked up by Critchley, Žižek, and others, that Paul opposed the biopolitical power of the Roman Empire through the weak violence of love that is the labour of the slaves of Christ on the “now-time” that had arrived.